Upping the Magic level of the game

Upping the Magic level of the game 

HackMaster is unashamedly a relatively low magic game with a lot of rather gritty reality worked into it and to be honest this is one of the things I like about it and which makes the setting plausible so why would I want to think about upping it.

Well there are at least two other worlds in my game elsewhere and the world where Zildor originates. Both of these have different levels of magic and higher ones than on Telene. This is especially the case for Elsewhere which is very loosely based on the Pathfinder world and whilst not having quite that level of magic it has to be a lot higher than Telene to support the story line which after all includes a major world threatening Demonic invasion, which was only held at by powerful magic.

Given this is the case how does it change? magic using characters get more powerful. This varies depending on the source of the magic, but spells become less risky to cast, lower volatility reduction in the tier at which a spell mishaps starts or at which it is capped and Magicians can memorize more than one spell per level and have more magic points with which to cast them and can learn more spells so increasing their flexibility considerably.  

Clerics get more spells in general and can if they have high enough wisdoms gain one spell per level through it rather than one from a pair of levels.  Clerics get to trade chosen spells for either healing or harming spells depending on their alignment and many clerics get the ability to channel either positive or negative energies but become prone to something that resembles Arcane Spell mishaps if they do especially if wounded whilst doing so.  Clerics often get a second and some times a third granted power form their deity

Spontaneous spell casters arise first for Arcane magic and latter for Clerical magic, either type may increase their abilities by making pacts with powerful beings of the order below the gods, demon lord’s greater devils, fey spirits dragons and the like.  More or less any one can gain spell like abilities by means of a Spell like ability talent bought with build points whose cost depends on the local magic level and be able to do apprentice to first level power effects with a limited number of times per day. Magic items of all kinds become more common especially the weaker ones and to some extent replace the higher levels of master crafted weapons and armour, there are more magic items which can be used by non spell casters.

Alchemy becomes a form of magic in its own right capable of mimicking some effects of both divine and arcane magic as well as producing some unique to itself, and healing becomes much more common with minor magic’s capable of mimicking cure trifling wound being common place.

To counter this more monsters get magical abilities mimicking the spell like abilities mentioned before but able to reach much higher levels and there are more monsters that need magical weapons or magic to injure at all and monster damage reductions generally increase, most especially those of the more powerful sort.

As ever these are just suggestion but ones I will develop further should the company ever visit Elsewhere, Zildor’s world or the depths of the Abyss