(A quasi-sequel to
You Are WIZARD! This is still a suggestion game.)
You awaken, as usual, at what appears to be a room in the town of Flom. Of course, it is not; that was just an impressive illusion converted to fit whoever lived in the room. You're at the Academis Primus, in Quarlx, center of of the Zionic lands. Only two kinds of students end up here: The great mages-in-training, the too-talented students of everywhere else of importance (Reyk Figarans excluded), and those who had caused...impropriety in magic, to be polite.
More directly, they'd been caught being unacceptably rogue (or something else that drew too much bad attention) and were here to be knocked upside the head (figuratively) before being allowed to continue anything. Only way to tell them apart really was asking specific questions to specific psionics students, otherwise they acted more or less alike.
A few years ago they said you could tell them apart easily: you either had a ridiculously pointy hat, or you didn't. But the reason for that changing, aside from the official answer ("It is simply just a consequence related to the reason Reyk Figarans are disallowed, feel free to wear whatever headgear you wish as long as it does not involve enraged cauterized decapitation of fellow students. If a second case of that EVER happens here again, you will be disintegrated with extreme prejudice, and your parents/guardians notified of your de-existence.") was hidden, and hopefully you are part of the former group and not the latter. Being stuck near the experimental rooms as someone with not much interest in that area was problematic to your thoughts in general, and your memory specifically. Sometimes you'd wake up and not remember what your name was but could narrate the entirety of the most recent play to have been performed nearby.
...damnit. Today was one of those days. But it was at least a play you'd heard of before this time.
Pick two magic schools from below, and then the following for our character (magics will be by majority):
Name:
General appearance:
Name of the play (optional):
Other (optional):
Magics:
There might be more kinds of magic, but they don't mention them around here.
Pyromancy, That which Explodes Much.
Cryomancy, That which is Chilled Out.
Psionics, That which is Quiet.
Magitechnica, That which Creates Things.
Metamage, The Wizard who did it. (No, you can't pick this as a start point)
Also Alchemy, though thats usually not counted as a kind of wizard as much as it is just general magery.
Most likely not final. But they're pretty solid as far as I'd think, for general use here.
(Borrowed and adapted from GreatWyrmGold's A Beginner's Guide game)
<1: Epic Failure
1-5: Critical Failure
6-9: Near Miss
10-19: Success
20: Critical Success
>20: Masterful Success
I have a d20, and I want to use it. Thus the scale shifted accordingly.
The higher your skill level is, the less you need dice rolls. Thats the basic concept I've been thinking of, mechanicswise. If I need to detail it further, I'll get to that when necessary. Like the original WIZARD though, if its cool enough Rule of Cool might override mechanics. If that happens there will probably be alttext if I remember to roll for them anyway.
Skills come in the following levels:
Untrained: You have no idea what you're doing and are highly likely to just blow your self up if you screw up too much (You get a -5 penalty). You become Initiate after a successful skill roll, or Novice by training.
Initiate: You've managed to pull off the skill in question once or twice. You get a -4 penalty and advance by actually getting trained in someway. (This can include succeeding enough that someone hails you as that kind of mage even if you haven't had any 'proper' training)
Novice: You have enough knowledge to be called a mage, but luck notwithstanding, you aren't going to be particularly impressive, and theres still a chance of (unintentional) explosive backfires (You get a -3 penalty). There are four ranks of novices (I, II, III, IV, the last rank having no penalty on smallish uses of the skill but oherwise the same as previous rank with a -1). To advance further you must beat a Wizard in either a duel or in a debate. They get to pick the debate.
Wizard: You are what they call a 'practical mage', and can do almost anything within reason as long as its within your chosen art. The problem is getting the elemental components to cooperate with you on major works, and that is less a problem of skill and more of argumentation or luck. This level of skill does not exist for Metamagery outside of the very few exceptions given prior to these ranks being implemented over the older system, but holds no inherent penalty either.
Archmage: This seems to automatically cause a reroll, since you are such a skilled master of your area that it rarely does not do what you want. Legendary are the tales of reaching this kind of level, few are the ones who succeed. Presumably you need to do something epic with the skill in question. (Unlike Wizard level, this level does exist for Metamages.)
Enchantments are based off of one of two things:
1. The most relevant magic skill (So you could make a welding ring via pyromancy, yes)
2. Metamagery (for things that don't fit any skills we know. This is the more difficult way.)
For once, I've actually made a notable amount of notes before starting a game. Since I tended to start games, have no idea where to go after a few turns (or end up describing myself into a corner occasionally), or jsut didn't describe enough things to actually do much, A lo of things I've started kinda went...blah. Which, while it does give me less to do, that not why I started them. :\
This one should not, since I'm better prepared for it this time.
Also, While the original You Are WIZARD is totally canon (except for altered mechanics) as far as this goes, the previous you are wizard [II] does not count for anything since I'm rather embarrased how much of it was just referenses to anything I felt like referencing at the time. However, the main character from there might show up at some point (since they weren't as referencey), and the two towns Pot and Riin are staying, since more places to go is rather good.