Honestly, I'd think the notebook would be better for Talents and Abilities, with gear, Armor and Weapons on Receipts.

Honestly, I'd think the notebook would be better for Talents and Abilities, with gear, Armor and Weapons on Receipts.

I totally agree... and I'll probably make that change in the future. But since the game starts in an hour, I don't have time to change it now. Ah well. I totally cheesed out the Talents and just made it a dot-matrix print out.

_{I really like the whole range/power > black/white pip idea for a more 'standard' magic system. And I agree that characters in that case will need access to more dice, but I found that adding ways to buff the starting 'force' dice (arcane dice?) is relatively easy. Add Trappings of power - magic items, ways of limiting the types of magic the character can access in exchange for more power in what they have, whatever works in your world. Sure you can only cast Fire Magic, but here's an extra Arcane Die. You want to be able to cast everything? no prob, but it's going to take you longer to get more powerful spells...}

_{If anything, scalability becomes more of an issue than anything else... those dice add up fast. We had to put in some in-game brakes to keep characters from going over 4 dice without real repercussions.}

_{I really like the whole range/power > black/white pip idea for a more 'standard' magic system. And I agree that characters in that case will need access to more dice, but I found that adding ways to buff the starting 'force' dice (arcane dice?) is relatively easy. Add Trappings of power - magic items, ways of limiting the types of magic the character can access in exchange for more power in what they have, whatever works in your world. Sure you can only cast Fire Magic, but here's an extra Arcane Die. You want to be able to cast everything? no prob, but it's going to take you longer to get more powerful spells...}

_{If anything, scalability becomes more of an issue than anything else... those dice add up fast. We had to put in some in-game brakes to keep characters from going over 4 dice without real repercussions.}

Interesting

What if casters started with a set pool of dice, depending on the power of the casting archetype...say 1, 2, or 3 dice, and didn't advance those dice at all except through the use of expensive consumables or, as you said, powerful trappings. Getting a staff that added a die would be pretty important at that point.

Some class abilities could be focused on exchanging power for range, or the reverse, or adding static pips of a given type if <condition> has been met.

Wow so I really started something here. Ok. So we will call white pips control and black pips power. Each spell has a base set of information and then a number of ways you can spend either control or power to improve it. Power is used to improve damage or area of effect, control is used to increase ranges, duration, or possibly add additional effects. Because there is already a base spell we can limit the number of dice you get without it being too detrimental since you don't technically need the dice to cast the spell at all. Now we create different classes of magic user.

Wizard:
Wizards are straight up magic users. They get more "mana dice" than the other classes but have no combat capabilities or armor. They spend experience to learn new spells.

Arrowcaster:
Arrowcasters are combination magic users and archers. They have less mana dice but have the ability to cast specialized spells with their arrows and have an ability to convert a number of power into control. By spending experience they gain new spells and can increase the amount of power they can convert to control.

Spellblade:
Spellblades are combination magic users and warriors. They imbue their sword with magic and have the ability to convert a number of control into power. By spending experience they gain new spells to imbue their sword and armor with and can increase the amount of control they can convert to power.

Sorry for double post but I just thought of some more ideas for this system.

We could have different elements of magic as well: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth. (The standard go to.) Then certain equipment or specializations would improve your abilities to use spells of a particular element. The Staff of Embers for instance allows you to gain 2 additional Power every time you cast a Fire spell.

We would need to populate the world with races and since we are clearly going with a more fantasy world here we will want to look in that direction. Not the usual elf, dwarf, orc stuff though because, let's be honest, it's getting a bit overdone. Something slightly different: Siren, Minotaur, Treefolk, Humans. Still clearly fantasy, but not too derivative. They each have different starting characteristics, skills, and experience just like normal but in addition, we can alter there use of Magic too.

Siren:
Sirens gain an extra dice whenever they are casting Water based spells and have the ability to save Control for use on a later spell.

Minotaur:
Minotaur are powerful casters and gain an extra Power to spend on every spell they cast. Additionally they may convert control into power whenever casting Fire based spells.

Treefolk:
Treefolk are ancient creatures and have learned many of the secrets of magic. Treefolk always have an extra dice when casting spells. However, they lose 3 total Power and Control whenever casting Fire based spells.

Humans:
Humans are dull and boring but they are extremely versatile. Whenever they cast a spell they gain a free Power or Control for that spell whichever they like.

Rebuilding the magic system from the ground up.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DcMvdanF0Og6uxXOgckHXmhwGPDcSs146VLLp-QD4Ls/edit?usp=sharing

Still have the power trees and specializations to do.

Rebuilding the magic system from the ground up.

I like the pattern system with natural objects being easiest to cast spells on and synthetic objects being harder. Personally I still feel like overall you have a huge amount of complexity with your system but if your game revolves entirely around magic then I suppose a bit more complexity makes sense. Have you considered making any of those various factors something that is innately part of the spell that you have to upgrade the spell to improve? For instance, your sympathetic magic distance system thing. You could have spells have a set target limit imposed on it like sensory. Then you could spend exp to upgrade the spell to be able to cast it on Intimate targets, etc...

Rebuilding the magic system from the ground up.

I like the pattern system with natural objects being easiest to cast spells on and synthetic objects being harder. Personally I still feel like overall you have a huge amount of complexity with your system but if your game revolves entirely around magic then I suppose a bit more complexity makes sense. Have you considered making any of those various factors something that is innately part of the spell that you have to upgrade the spell to improve? For instance, your sympathetic magic distance system thing. You could have spells have a set target limit imposed on it like sensory. Then you could spend exp to upgrade the spell to be able to cast it on Intimate targets, etc...

My initial thought was that this was the system to build spells, with rote's halving the upgrades and setbacks. The system as written is more for immediate spells. It balances the simplicity of buying the Arcana, which I'm in the middle of doing right now.

The rough draft of the arcana and a few examples.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pfPNALpBlY438RhWj39ywYr2glLo24K6lp6zvOLrayI/edit?usp=sharing

The rough draft of the arcana and a few examples.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pfPNALpBlY438RhWj39ywYr2glLo24K6lp6zvOLrayI/edit?usp=sharing

I guess it would help a bit more if I had a clear description of what everything is and means. Like some of the words you use, I don't know exactly what it is meant to be so the bare bones rough draft explanation is difficult to interpret. I find myself reading and thinking, is this like a spell type? Is this for different situations? Is this some sort of resource?

Just another idea: You could stick with a system closer to FFG but treat the black dots as 2 points and the white dots as 1. That would let you get some higher point counts without having to muck with the system much.

I have been working on a pseudo-fantasy conversion for the system, and I've met some considerable success, as I found a lot of the talents are neutrally worded enough that I can use them without tampering. The most I've had to do was change a small handful; only either the name or rearrange the wording to omit the sci-fi elements. Only 1 talent have I had to change significantly, and I wasn't a particularly complex change. Altogether, I was able to create 6 careers with 3 specs a piece by copying it pretty much whole cloth from the books. Zilvar's Edge of Tamriel helped a lot as far as skills went, as well.

now if there would only be a gaming world for the magic system, it would be better. Does the magic system use magic as skills or the force system, because I was wondering if you use the skill system for magic, you could use the advantages as ways of increasing the spells abilities.

In my original design there are two skills, Spellcasting and Knowledge Occult. I had played with the idea of each arcana being a seperate skill but that got complecated really quick.

now if there would only be a gaming world for the magic system, it would be better. Does the magic system use magic as skills or the force system, because I was wondering if you use the skill system for magic, you could use the advantages as ways of increasing the spells abilities.

That's what I'd done with my groups Tamriel conversion. Advantages and successes work to increase the effect. We were divided on whether the cost should increase with each use (1,3,6,10) or just be static (2,4,6,8). I think we'd decided that a static rating was better.

People ITT: has anyone found a good utility for making Talent Trees?

I just use Google Docs slides for mine. I wouldn't call that good, though. At first I tried to make them look like the ones in the book, but soon gave up on the idea due to constantly having to resize the text boxes. Here's a link to the talent sheets I've made in case it is of use to you.

You can make them in Oggdude's character generator, but it takes a while if you are inventing talents because you have to add those first, then string them together.

Ah, thanks- I was hoping to match the presentation (or at least, have a similar format so they could be printed out). I'll have to check out Oggdude's creator then.

Just to give everyone a heads up, over on the GENESYS forums since originally it was going to be a GENESYS conversion but after a long thought process, it now more of an Edge conversion called DRAGONSTAR. Two different Forums have been started one with Races and there is a lot of them, the second I have started is mainly about magic, as equipment will not need to be converted, just use the same equipment in Edge, Age and Force for this conversion.

I am always looking for additional insight and help with the conversion and look forward to others opinions on how they would handle certain situations, so come and follow as I convert FFG Dragonstar over to the Edge system...

I know it ha been a while since I have been on this forum as I was lurking over on the Genesys Forum and have been doing some converting a Game system. So right now I am in the middle of a Decision and alot of you would say they are the same system with minor modifications. My problem that I have was that I am thinking of Converting an Old FFG title Called Dragonstar to the either Edge or to the Genesys system. So throw me your best Pros and Cons of both Systems. I love both of them and could do either system.

I have decided after the long weekend for me to decide to adapt "Dragonstar" to the Empire and have decided to call it "Edge of the Dragonstar". I am more familiar with Edge over Genesys and do like more of the Mechanics from Edge over Genesys and since there is more figured out game mechanics for the Edge. Maybe somewhere down the road maybe adapt it to Genesys.

37 minutes ago, gilbur said:

I have decided after the long weekend for me to decide to adapt "Dragonstar" to the Empire and have decided to call it "Edge of the Dragonstar". I am more familiar with Edge over Genesys and do like more of the Mechanics from Edge over Genesys and since there is more figured out game mechanics for the Edge. Maybe somewhere down the road maybe adapt it to Genesys.

They're not different. If you can play EotE, you can play Genesys. One is simply written for a variety of settings, and the other is for Star Wars. The only changes are minor tweaks to a few things, some of which have already been added to the errata.

17 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

They're not different. If you can play EotE, you can play Genesys. One is simply written for a variety of settings, and the other is for Star Wars. The only changes are minor tweaks to a few things, some of which have already been added to the errata.

I know they for the most part are the same but is different in ways, like magic (Force) is not open ended like in Genesys. Talents is not as free formed in the Edge like in Genesys and the thing that like better in the Edge over Genesys is the Classes have Specializations as well and have their own Talent trees. Spells are powers not a list and then I can use the Force Dice since I have alot of Star wars Dice and no Genesys Dice.