u/Loremaster1032 — reddlx

RPG class/archetype plot based on Hp, stamina, and mana.

I came up with this triangular plot for classifying RPG classes or playstyles based on how much they lean on health (Hp), stamina (Sp), or mana (Mp). This doesn’t take into account flavors of magic or stats like strength, dexterity, etc. so it’s not perfect but I tried using some generic names that are still related to RPG classes.

I highlighted 10 specific points, based on whether a build is mostly based on one of the 3 stats, or an even mix of two or all 3 stats.

Triangular plots are a bit hard to read, I like to think about this as related to a levelling system akin to the one seen in the game Elder scrolls V: Skyrim, where every time you level up you get a leveling point you can use to upgrade your total amount of health, stamina, or mana.

The 3 points sitting in the middle of the edges of the bigger triangle (raider, supporter, rogue) represent a 50-50 split of leveling points allocated between two stats, and none to the third. The 3 points sitting inside the smaller inner triangle (survivor, adventurer, and spellsword) are more easily viewed as close to a balanced class starting point, but specialized a little bit but not a lot towards one of the 3 main stats. And of course the 3 points of the bigger triangle represent putting all levelling points exclusively into one of the 3 main stats.

What do you think about this plot? How would you change or improve upon it?

Rogue and spellsword are the weakest ones I think, I welcome any alternative suggestions. Trickster seems like a better fit than rogue based on comments.

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PS: Based on suggestions I posted an updated plot in the comments.

PSS: This works particularly well for the Color Arcana framework I recently published into the public domain that you can check out here, based on color-magic.

Since in this framework vitality (hp), stamina, and mana stats are related to magical energy, with arcanum being the main currency for increasing one’s magical energy, and being able to allocate it across these 3 type of stats/modalities, mechanically similar to how skyrim works, with the caveat that at any given time players can change the proportion of arcanum, aka magical energy allocated across these 3 stats.

u/Loremaster1032 — 21 hours ago

▲ 4 r/magicbuilding

Spellcasting equation. Any recommended resources for calculating mana cost of spells?

I’m interested in breaking down how to calculate the damage a spell can do and its mana cost, in a predictable “scientific/mathematical” way. For the time being I’m only interested into offensive projectile-like spells. I have some idea on how to go about this but would love to hear of any useful resources out there that might be of help, or if you’ve heard of someone else who’s tried something similar before.

My current approach is to have a tradeoff between damage and mana (for a fixed amount of mana), where there are “mana burdens” that incur an additional cost to mana compared to other spells that spend the same total amount but don’t have this burden (think of mana as fuel), and where damage is determined by all the mana that is left at the time of impact, after a fixed time, etc.

For the case of projectiles (assuming just a single one for simplicity), we can imagine the different types of paths as having different “path burdens”. So for example a spell with longer range eats up more mana (higher mana burden) and therefore does less damage than a shorter ranger one. The same happens if it has a more complicated trajectory, homing capabilities, higher speed etc.

We can for example take a standard spell to be a projectile going in a straight line at a constant velocity for example as our baseline, and add mana burdens for any modifications we want for the trajectory of this spell. More complicated spells eat more mana for moving and incur less damage upon impact.

Ideally I would like to come with a single equation to calculate the mana and damage for any spell, or a small handful of equations (one per each type of spell). But the first step would be to determine what are the relevant parameters/variables of such equation.

So far I think potential variables could be:

• Curvature (deviation from a straight line, constant or changing acceleration, jerk...)

• Periodicity (might decrease rather than increase mana, for example circular motion)

• Range

• Lifetime (how long before the spell disappears if it doesn’t hit anything)

• Travel Speed

• Dimension (assuming projectiles are 0 dimensional, there can be 1D projectiles like a slice, 2D like a plane or wall, 3D... Higher dimension having a higher cost.

Any recommendations on additional variables or way to simplify the sought after equation are welcomed.

The purpose of this equation would potentially to use it in something like a videogame. I understand this approach is unnecessarily complicated for any practical purposes, but I’d like to have a satisfying answer anyways.

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u/Loremaster1032 — 3 days ago

▲ 13 r/worldbuilding

I recently introduced the new framework I’ve been working on: “Color Arcana: a universal theory of magic”, released fully into the public domain and that you can check out here.

The simplest way to describe it would be to say it’s a mostly elemental magic system, based on color-magic and color. But in addition to that there’s also a barebones RPG and leveling system also based on the same concepts of color and color-magic.

RPG mechanics in fantasy worlds are often not meant to be explained explicitly where they come from in terms of “in-universe lore”, they’re just part of a game that players accept as artificial and external to the world albeit necessary for any functioning game, but I still find this a bit immersion-breaking and I believe it’s worth trying to incorporate them more naturally into our fantasy settings. So I tried explaining all the RPG mechanics in terms of lore by tying them to color-magic, as everything else in this universe.

The color-matrix in particular is the main primitive controlling most of this, and is a reflection of how powerful/skilled any player can become on any of the given 10 color-magics defining this universe. Immunities to magic-types, status and environmental effects, the power of enchantments, skills, spell potency and complexity, all tie back to this one RPG primitive.

The result is quite interesting and I wanted to share this part of the Color Arcana that’s not as straightforward as the overall magic system that defines it. The Color Arcana was originally conceived as a magic-system for an interoperable Metaverse (whenever that comes 😅), and hence I thought it was also important to incorporate traditional RPG mechanics into the mix and how they relate to the overall rule of all the magical and even non-magical aspects of this universe (including prototypical RPG mechanics) to color as a unifying principle and design philosophy.

It’s still a work in progress and there’s more stuff not released yet, but the main idea is what you see here.

Worldbuilding context: My opinion is that using color for worldbuilding purposes is just cool, and sometimes even useful, so if you disagree you can kindly f*** off.

u/Loremaster1032 — 18 days ago