Magic the Gathering fans?

[Lindel he/him]

I'm planning to start a D&D 5e campaign set on Zendikar, and I thought it might be fun to implement mana more directly into the game, but I'm not sure how I'd go about that. Plane Shift: Zendikar doesn't offer any suggestions, beyond simply saying that, flavor-wise, a druid would draw on Green mana, a cleric on White, a wizard on Blue, etc. Any ideas for adding mana costs and mana color to D&D's spells in a way that makes them feel interesting and relevant, not just tacked on? I couldn't find a D&D thread, so I thought I'd check here. 

[Dunkum he/him]

I'm planning to start a D&D 5e campaign set on Zendikar, and I thought it might be fun to implement mana more directly into the game, but I'm not sure how I'd go about that. Plane Shift: Zendikar doesn't offer any suggestions, beyond simply saying that, flavor-wise, a druid would draw on Green mana, a cleric on White, a wizard on Blue, etc. Any ideas for adding mana costs and mana color to D&D's spells in a way that makes them feel interesting and relevant, not just tacked on? I couldn't find a D&D thread, so I thought I'd check here. 

i'm not sure.  I've not played d&d, so while I am familiar with some of the ideas, i have no experience with it in practice.  that said, the first thoughts that came to me:

 

1. assuming you have sorted the various spells (and maybe spell-like abilities) into colors, a pretty big undertaking in itself, you might have the various land types give bonuses to spells of related color.  ex: a d&d cleric casting a healing spell might get some kind of circumstance bonus for doing so on a plain.  this parallels the idea of tapping a land for mana, but I think the implementation would come out clunky.

 

2. have the colors work similar to a wizard's barred school: a spellcaster character can focus on one or more colors, giving bonuses for the colors of their choice, but for each color they focus on, there must also be one they are penalized for, or possibly cannot cast at all.

[Lindel he/him]

Those ideas have some potential, I think. The second suggestion would probably work more smoothly, but doesn't parallel MtG quite as well. 

[Wyrmhero he/him]

Honestly, I think the best way to do it is to just treat it as flavour. If people understand it's a Magic-themed game, I'm, pretty sure they'd be willing to follow the colour pie themselves with little policing. Get people to choose colours and weave that into the game as a form of setting rather than any hard ruling. Particularly since most characters won't be spellcasters anyway. To be honest, I think the only rules change you really need to turn D&D into Magic is to give everyone Planeshift 1/Day, assuming your characters are Planeswalkers. Otherwise, pile on the flavour and let that carry the MtG aspect rather than forcing the rules into awkward shapes because D&D wasn't built in that way.

 

Speaking of forcing the rules to fit the game, has anyone here played Heroes of Might and Magic IV? Just been replaying it recently, and I always find it hilarious how they attempted to follow MtG's spell system and then ignored it. HOMMIV has five schools of magic: Nature, Life, Order, Death and Chaos. Sound familiar? They should, that's the colour wheel at its most basic. Unfortunately, due to balancing issues, you end up with stuff like Blue getting direct damage spells... Ah well . 

Edited May 2, 2016 by Wyrmhero

[Lindel he/him]

You're probably right, now that I think about it. Any way I can think to really build the colors into the rules would turn out weird and clunky. I may still divide up the spells by color. Probably with a lot of the spells accessible by a couple different colors, so it's not too limited. Or I may just leave it be and tweak the flavor if necessary, we'll see.

[The Sovereign]

I'm planning to start a D&D 5e campaign set on Zendikar, and I thought it might be fun to implement mana more directly into the game, but I'm not sure how I'd go about that. Plane Shift: Zendikar doesn't offer any suggestions, beyond simply saying that, flavor-wise, a druid would draw on Green mana, a cleric on White, a wizard on Blue, etc. Any ideas for adding mana costs and mana color to D&D's spells in a way that makes them feel interesting and relevant, not just tacked on? I couldn't find a D&D thread, so I thought I'd check here. 

 

I would recommend doing a variation on a Wizard's spells per day. Give different spells an assigned mana costs and rather than having a certain # of spells per day you give the players a certain amount of mana per day.

[Wyrmhero he/him]

You're probably right, now that I think about it. Any way I can think to really build the colors into the rules would turn out weird and clunky. I may still divide up the spells by color. Probably with a lot of the spells accessible by a couple different colors, so it's not too limited. Or I may just leave it be and tweak the flavor if necessary, we'll see.

 

I have no idea how 5th Edition spells work, but certainly there are effects in previous editions which could be considered multicoloured or hybrid spells (just remember what each means! - Multicoloured means the spell can't be monocolour alone, hybrid means it can be either colour). I think it's as much as how the players flavour the spell as what the effect does. Fox' Cunning from 3rd edition, for example, increases your Intelligence score. This is a very Blue effect, even though stat boosts are mechanically Green. One could argue for it being UG multicoloured, but in this case, I think it's probably just closer to Divination than a Blue Giant Growth.

 

Now, for a less obvious result, what about Vampiric Touch? Obviously it's a Black spell in flavour, the concept is draining life from your opponent and adding it to yourself, as the spell has a form of Lifelink. However, Lifelink is primary in White and Black, so you could say it's W/B hybrid. But there are very few White Vampires (off-topic, I definitely think such a thing can work), and the flavour is rather sinister for White. The best option for this might be to reflavour it rather than break flavour or restrict it to one colour - Call it Vampiric Touch for Black spell-casters, and an appropriate White name for White spell-casters. Same spell, same mechanics, different name and flavour.

The other thing I think you need to be careful of is that you don't alienate your non-spellcasters. There's no point doing this if it only affects the flavour of two of five players, and the rest never touch on  it. You could have a party of spell-casters, but that just leads to disaster (again, in earlier editions). This shouldn't be too hard though; All Planeswalkers in MtG are magical in power-source, even those who don't outwardly appear to use spells (Gideon/Kythereon, for example, who is supernaturally tough but doesn't cast traditional spells). Let all the characters experience and feel mana, and use it as flavour for the source their feats, I would say. Of course, this is assuming your characters are all Planeswalkers. If not, you can be closer to normal D&D, mechanically speaking.

 

Fun fact which is slightly amusing and possibly even useful in this context - Only Planeswalkers and a few others know of the 'colours' of mana. Most spellcasters in MtG who are not Planeswalkers think spellcasting follows different systems - Possibly in this case, they could believe it follows the D&D version. For example, the mages of Bant knew of wind magic, but not of fire magic because Bant had no Red mana, but they could twist Blue and/or White mana into wind-style spells.

 

I would recommend doing a variation on a Wizard's spells per day. Give different spells an assigned mana costs and rather than having a certain # of spells per day you give the players a certain amount of mana per day.

Part of the difficulty with this is that you're no longer a Wizard; you're a Sorcerer. Not only that, but being able to trade low-level spells for higher ones is extremely powerful. You'd also have to come up with a mana cost system for spell based on their perceived power or their level. But then do you also consider coloured mana with that too? I guess that'd stop people mucking around with five colour characters... there's merit to it, but I think at this point it's no longer D&D's magic system but an entirely new spellcasting system. Probably better to pick another RPG system than to homebrew to that extent.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Wyrmhero

[Lindel he/him]

I'm probably sticking with the group being native Zendikari, and not let them be Planeswalkers, for now, as I don't want to worry about keeping track of more than one world for the moment. And since it's mostly only Planeswalkers that know about the color pie, I might not even have to worry about it at all. 

[The Sovereign]

Part of the difficulty with this is that you're no longer a Wizard; you're a Sorcerer. Not only that, but being able to trade low-level spells for higher ones is extremely powerful. You'd also have to come up with a mana cost system for spell based on their perceived power or their level. But then do you also consider coloured mana with that too? I guess that'd stop people mucking around with five colour characters... there's merit to it, but I think at this point it's no longer D&D's magic system but an entirely new spellcasting system. Probably better to pick another RPG system than to homebrew to that extent.

 

You are correct, my writing Wizard was a slip, I had meant Sorcerer (and Cleric I suppose).

 

With that said, your criticism is well merited. I'm not sure how else you would implement a mana based system similar to MtG other than overhauling the enitre spellcasting system.

[AliasSheep]

Yo all.  I've played a fair bit of magic, but nothing in a while, mainly due to having no one to play with.

[Lindel he/him]

I haven't played much in the past few months, mainly cause playing casual with my friends with the same decks all the time gets stale after a while. My friends all hate my Commander deck, so they don't really want to play EDH with me either. I need to get a Commander deck that is fun for me, but doesn't consistently screw everyone else over right off the bat...

 

Also, any suggestions to help make casual games with my friends fun again? None of us have enough money to keep up with Standard or do drafts all the time, but we all know each other's decks so well that it gets rather predictable.  

[AliasSheep]

I haven't played much in the past few months, mainly cause playing casual with my friends with the same decks all the time gets stale after a while. My friends all hate my Commander deck, so they don't really want to play EDH with me either. I need to get a Commander deck that is fun for me, but doesn't consistently screw everyone else over right off the bat...

 

Also, any suggestions to help make casual games with my friends fun again? None of us have enough money to keep up with Standard or do drafts all the time, but we all know each other's decks so well that it gets rather predictable.  

Have you tried playing with each others' decks?  When I play with friends we're usually all using my decks, so we always switch around who's using which deck so we can all try the different playstyles.

 

Also, does anyone here play online, either MtG:O or elsewise?

[Dunkum he/him]

my friends like drafting, and there are a couple who actually pretty much won't play any other way.  you may look into that, or doing a cube draft, where you essentially set up a draft from your own cards.

[Lindel he/him]

We do drafts once in a while, but we're all poor, so it doesn't happen too often. We did a makeshift Cube draft once as well, using a friend's collection, and it was pretty fun, so we might look into throwing together a makeshift Cube this summer, or maybe putting together a prebuilt Pauper Cube, like Adam Styborski's or Ruben's. 

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Kaladesh has been announced as the autumn set! Thoughts/predictions/hopes?

[Dunkum he/him]

looks interesting at first glance, though until we get some more solid info it is hard to judge.  right now I'm more interested in seeing what they do with Eldritch Moon.  I like the Innistrad setting, but wasn't enthusiastic about the last set.

[Master Elodin]

Kaladesh has been announced as the autumn set! Thoughts/predictions/hopes?

Hope for better character design and lore.. I dream big.

[Nashan’Elin he/him]

Kaladesh has been announced as the autumn set! Thoughts/predictions/hopes?

Kaladesh sounds like an SA ship

[The Sovereign]

Kaladesh has been announced as the autumn set! Thoughts/predictions/hopes?

 

I'm just hoping they print some Legacy playable cards, SOI was horrible. The only good card in the whole set for Legacy was Invasive Surgery.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Iron Eyes

[Wyrmhero he/him]

 I'm just hoping they print some Legacy playable cards, SOI was horrible. The only good card in the whole set for Legacy was Invasive Surgery.

 

Why are you surprised by this? They are on record for saying that Modern reprints (and by assumption, any Modern-viable card) is a mistake in Standard. We can see that the most recent effects on Modern that Standard has had are all in error (Eldrazi and Delve). And you're asking for Legacy-viable? That's quite a tall order...

 

Though Nahiri's meant to be rather good in Modern Miracles and playable in Legacy as well (not sure how good she is in there). Gitrog Monster is heavily played in EDH, and Anguished Unmaking is also an EDH staple. Sure, it might not have shaken up older formats as much as you'd like, but when you have almost literally all of Magic, anything that strong is automatically concerning. 

[The Sovereign]

Why are you surprised by this? They are on record for saying that Modern reprints (and by assumption, any Modern-viable card) is a mistake in Standard. We can see that the most recent effects on Modern that Standard has had are all in error (Eldrazi and Delve). And you're asking for Legacy-viable? That's quite a tall order...

 

Though Nahiri's meant to be rather good in Modern Miracles and playable in Legacy as well (not sure how good she is in there). Gitrog Monster is heavily played in EDH, and Anguished Unmaking is also an EDH staple. Sure, it might not have shaken up older formats as much as you'd like, but when you have almost literally all of Magic, anything that strong is automatically concerning. 

 

I'm not surprised at all. But, a man can dream. And it is perfectly possible for a card that is relevant to Legacy to be printed that just isn't good in Standard. Past In Flames, Young Pyromancer, and Omniscience both come to mind as cards that meet these criteria in the not to distant past. Miracle as a mechanic is another that was certainly viable in Standard but not over the top broken that basically reshaped Legacy by making what is plain and simply the best control deck and when competently piloted perhaps just the best deck in Legacy.

 

As for Nahiri, she isn't objectively bad, but in Legacy Miracles she would be fighting for the same slot as Jace The Mind Sculptor so obviously she loses...

[Dunkum he/him]

starting to see spoilers for Eldritch Moon and so far: not liking it.  there are only about 6 cards revealed so far but one of them manages to combine 2 of my least favorite things from recent years: Eldrazi and the "control target player's turn" mechanic.  to be fair the rest of the cards aren't too bad (though I still don't like werewolves very much, so that hurts another one of them some), but when the first thing I see is a card that might as well have been designed to annoy me, it doesn't leave me feeling very good about the set

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

Eldrazi are annoying and so are Processors. 

[Wyrmhero he/him]

Have to admit that I remain unimpressed so far. The town-Eldrazi's hilarious and cool, and the implication that we will have things turn into Eldrazi is a nice and different way for them to happen, but I am disappointed by Ulrich and Thalia. The former isn't really a Werewolf Lord (you're still better off with Ruric Thar as your Commander), and the latter seems a little to expensive for its oppression effect, considering we got it on an Enchantment with Extort for 1W. The body is nice, sure, but I feel it could have been a bear at 1W quite nicely.

 

Emrakul itself I am ambivalent about. I think the fact it gives the player another turn is a good way to compensate the effect. It makes sense thematically, and the Delirium-alike effect is a nice touch. However, as it's a creature, it becomes almost as easy to break as Mindslaver. That is bad. I also will not be seeking one out for my Eldrazi deck, as it doesn't really do anything great for it. I wonder if/when it will be banned in EDH...

Edited June 25, 2016 by Wyrmhero

[Dunkum he/him]

The most annoying thing for me is that I liked the original Innistrad block.  the whole gothic horror theme they had going on worked for me (plus I managed to get Avacyn, Craterhoof Behemoth and Gisela in random boosters,  that set was good to me). but I was unimpressed with the last set and this one isn't shaping up much better.  maybe if they hadn't soured me on Eldrazi when they first came out (annhilator is up there with infect on my list of mechanics I absolutely hate) I could get behind them. the lovecraft-esque idea of creatures turning into eldrazi is kind of cool, but only if you already like eldrazi.