I want the world of the Isle and the struggle of the Skaran people to be high fantasy, but still have a very different feel from the normal dungeons and dragons worlds. The idea of the Skaran race with book toting, scroll wielding wizards just did not seem right to me.
I wanted the magic users of the Skaran people to be something much more primal and unique in feel (if not in design), and to just provoke a very different reaction in the minds of my players.
I originally thought about designing a whole new character class for the concept (since I was effectively doing that with the races), but I quickly realised this would both create a lot of work making enough powers for it to feel like a worthwhile character choice, and would also run the risk of affecting game balance as I would not have the time to test it except for in regular play.
First the concept: Well for primal; I wanted a magical force that would echo back to that ancient feel, blood magic would be the obvious choice. I played with the idea of using sacrifices and drawing magic out of beings, but decided it would be difficult to use, and might lead to some darker play than I wanted. The solution came from a series of books known as The Banned and the Banished (by James Clemens).
The main character Elena has a wonderful type of blood magic I decided would work very well, it was primal, different and still something that I felt would work without dragging the game to a too dark side. I combined this idea with the Vilichi from the Dark Sun campaign world (as laid out in Simon Hawkes Wander trilogy), and a few other little things from here and there.
Now I had an idea for the concept, the question was how to build the character class. My first reaction was to create a whole new character class. There were several problems with this, for starters the time involved in the creation of the class. The second was making the class balance with the rest of the classes, and the final was making sure there were enough powers designed to make the class a valid choice for any who wished to play it, without making them all cookie cutter.
The solution I came up with was based on several ideas, the most important was actually an article from an old dragon magazine by Dan Joyce called the Colour of Magic, (Dragon 200). The article deals with how to use magical spells to new effect just by changing a few keywords and descriptive elements without changing the actual rule effects.
I would use a similar technique to modify the existing Sorcerer class to create my new Mana Scarred. I would allow anyone to create a Mana-Scarred using the existing rules, but add a few tweaks to the rules to make them fit in with the concepts of the setting better.
The upshot of all of this has allowed me to make a character that feels totally unique, yet still fits in with the rules, allows expansion and allowed me to concentrate more on creating story over making up loads of rules.
To see the finished article a PDF of the creation rules is available to download from the (new) Classes section of the website.
I wanted the magic users of the Skaran people to be something much more primal and unique in feel (if not in design), and to just provoke a very different reaction in the minds of my players.
I originally thought about designing a whole new character class for the concept (since I was effectively doing that with the races), but I quickly realised this would both create a lot of work making enough powers for it to feel like a worthwhile character choice, and would also run the risk of affecting game balance as I would not have the time to test it except for in regular play.
First the concept: Well for primal; I wanted a magical force that would echo back to that ancient feel, blood magic would be the obvious choice. I played with the idea of using sacrifices and drawing magic out of beings, but decided it would be difficult to use, and might lead to some darker play than I wanted. The solution came from a series of books known as The Banned and the Banished (by James Clemens).
The main character Elena has a wonderful type of blood magic I decided would work very well, it was primal, different and still something that I felt would work without dragging the game to a too dark side. I combined this idea with the Vilichi from the Dark Sun campaign world (as laid out in Simon Hawkes Wander trilogy), and a few other little things from here and there.
Now I had an idea for the concept, the question was how to build the character class. My first reaction was to create a whole new character class. There were several problems with this, for starters the time involved in the creation of the class. The second was making the class balance with the rest of the classes, and the final was making sure there were enough powers designed to make the class a valid choice for any who wished to play it, without making them all cookie cutter.
The solution I came up with was based on several ideas, the most important was actually an article from an old dragon magazine by Dan Joyce called the Colour of Magic, (Dragon 200). The article deals with how to use magical spells to new effect just by changing a few keywords and descriptive elements without changing the actual rule effects.
I would use a similar technique to modify the existing Sorcerer class to create my new Mana Scarred. I would allow anyone to create a Mana-Scarred using the existing rules, but add a few tweaks to the rules to make them fit in with the concepts of the setting better.
The upshot of all of this has allowed me to make a character that feels totally unique, yet still fits in with the rules, allows expansion and allowed me to concentrate more on creating story over making up loads of rules.
To see the finished article a PDF of the creation rules is available to download from the (new) Classes section of the website.