Five Distinct Magical Options

Many gaming systems explore the idea of having more than one kind of magic with most allowing for at least a divine and arcane flavor of magic. Most also explore different schools of magic or approaches to its practice in their lore. However, many systems fail to mechanically differentiate their different magic systems in any meaningful way. This stems from valid concerns over multiplying rules systems and causing confusion due to complexity.

Well, Five Magiks is willing to accept this increased complexity to have different magic systems which each have their own distinct rules systems. This means that when your local power gamer builds a character and wants to be as powerful as possible, the rules themselves dictate that their wizard will be different than their psion or their sorcerer, etc. This also means that the different types of magics have different strengths and weaknesses although it is fair to point out that there are some similarities due to the fact that all of the magic of Five Magiks still fit into a D20 system. Let’s take a moment to review in the broadest possible terms what each magic type is particularly good at.

Sorcery, often the favorite of old and new players alike, is the school of magic for making big booms. Sorcery makes big explosions in all the elements of the rainbow. On the other hand, sorcery doesn’t naturally have any duration. Sorcerers have a hard time creating effects that last more than a single round. This means that buffing, debuffing, and utility effects tend to be active actions for the sorcerer, although sorcery has no healing effects. Sorcerers also have limited means of stacking sorcerous magic effectively. Still, for sheer boom and general utility, sorcery works really well. Their only major drawback is that a sorcerer who has recently blasted is placed on cooldown and can’t act again for a few rounds. Outside of combat, this is a minor disadvantage. During combat, it can leave the sorcerer nigh helpless and reliant on their lacking martial skills or their allies.

Psionics can be said to be similar to sorcery in that it also lacks duration, but psions have many skills that allow them to maintain effects through concentration and have some capacity to maintain multiple small effects at any given time. Psions also never suffer cooldown. Instead, a psion who pushes their psionic abilities will suffer fatigue which in the M5 world means a little damage and some penalties. Fatigue penalties are stacking, but a skilled psion learns to cope with it, or uses their psionics to heal or transfer the fatigue. As recompense, psions have the ability to cause a much larger number of save or die effects. Whether with traditional charm or domination styles of powers, disabling emotional manipulation through fear or sadness, or the offensive use of teleportation, failing a save against a psionic power is more often the end of a battle than failing to dodge sorcerous fireball.

Ritualism and rituals are the topic of study for wizards and they have little in common with the prior two magics. Rituals inherently have impressive duration, often lasting hours. This allows wizards to stack a variety of buffing effects onto themselves or allies. Additionally, wizards deal most of their damage over time. Damage Over Time effects (DoTs) for wizards often affect a wide radius or include control effects for single targets. In fact, Wizards excel at controlling the battlefield with many rituals that alter the terrain or result in area denial effects. Where wizards suffer in comparison is in their ability to deal direct instantaneous damage and the speed with which they can cause their magical effects. Wizards have a limited ability to cast quickly during combat. Along with this is the need for a specific ritual for any given task, which tends to make low level wizards hyper specialized to a greater degree than sorcerers or psions.

Pact Magic is the domain of beastmasters and contractors. The most common use of pact magic is as a means of empowering both members of a contracted pair. Typically, this involves a beastmaster and their faithful companion creature, but it can apply to any two creatures. Hidden away in the more esoteric knowledge of this school of magic are ways to pact with almost anything. Pacts used to borrow the supernatural powers of magical creatures are common and the primary focus of contractors. A skilled contractor with a good selection of pacts may look superficially the same as a wizard as they leverage their pacts to cause various magical effects or breathe dragon fire. There are even pacts made to bring out the latent potential of inanimate objects or ground itself! 

Finally, Null Magic exists as the ultimate counter to all other magic types. Null magic is the magic of the void beyond the outer planes as it manifests in those with a latent connection to it. Many null magic abilities cause small scaling buffs which are continuously active. However, offensive uses of null magic require the wielder to channel this corrosive magic which painfully eats away at their physical being. Null users can easily cause disintegration effects to break down and destroy matter, but they truly feared for their ability to destroy the soul with their powerful devouring magics.

I could say a lot more about the various magics, but for now let me ask the audience, which magic interests you the most? What concerns do you have about them that I could address? Is there a character archetype that you feel epitomizes one of these kinds of magic?

Next time, we’ll talk about metamagics and ambient magic a little more and discuss how even the least magical creatures of the M5 world have access to abilities most would consider supernatural.