Post originally by CapnZapp at 2005-05-05 13:58:54
Converted from Phorums BB System

"All in all, the concept of how magic should work in version two was very interesting. The way that it was actually worked out, however, could have been much better."

"Better", ok. "Much better", that's overreacting. I agree there are some snags, but condemning the whole game because of these minor inconveniences is to react far too strongly, IMHO.

Let's talk about your first point: concerning the risks of magic. I agree that the inclusion of the "all-ones" rule sabotage the general mechanism.

But its a good mechanism, and we shouldn't abandon it.

The easiest solution is always to roll all dice (=number equal to your Magic stat), but you may designate some (or none) of these dice (before you roll, of course) to be "safety dice" that don't add to your Casting Roll but must be considered when checking for "all-ones" fumbling.*

This way, the risk for all-ones Insanity goes down from 10% to 1% to 0.1% to 0.01%. This restores the attractiveness of using as few dice as you think you can still cast the spell with.

A house-rule, sure, but still, you shouldn't condemn the entire system for one basic oversight. (Or if you do, please be fair and add the above solution into your upcoming review as a foot-note).

*) Safety dice should simply be seen as special ten-sided dice, with nine blank faces and one face with a "1". Yes, this means Tzeentch still gets his revenge when you have Magic 4, elect to use only one die, but roll four ones anyway... (Wizard Lords seldom botch simple spells, but you don't want to be around when they do)