As mages get older, their minds start failing them due natural

>>52449435
You could have just googled symptoms of dementia.

>>52449447
but what about fantasy-murderhobo dementia?

>just as casting magic affects the natural world around them, so does it affect the minds of those who cast it. Although symptoms remain dormant for years at a time, and may never present themselves, anomalies develop in the brain of the caster with potentially dire changes to his personality. Throbbing headaches continue if he fails to cast any spells for a continued period. His mood becomes hostile and angry towards even his friends. If left unchecked for too long it takes over his physical form to lose his personality as well as any semblance of his old form. These beings, although rare, are often mistaken for ghosts, but are far more dangerous as they maintain their ability to cast any spells they knew in life and have nothing but an insatiable desire to cast them

>>52449596
what is this from?

The word is signs, OP.

Signs.

>>52449852
oh shit, my mistake

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>>52449706
a greentext from a thread on /tg/ about wizards

>>52449435
>As mages get older, their minds start failing them due natural aging and wear caused by years of casting spells
no

>>52449596
>just as casting magic affects the natural world around them, so does it affect the minds of those who cast it. Although symptoms remain dormant for years at a time, and may never present themselves, anomalies develop in the brain of the caster with potentially dire changes to his personality. Throbbing headaches continue if he fails to cast any spells for a continued period. His mood becomes hostile and angry towards even his friends. If left unchecked for too long it takes over his physical form to lose his personality as well as any semblance of his old form. These beings, although rare, are often mistaken for ghosts, but are far more dangerous as they maintain their ability to cast any spells they knew in life and have nothing but an insatiable desire to cast them
no

>>52450058
I feel like it could add a cool element to the game. Maybe all wizards need to get their magic cancer removed periodically. Or maybe the party gets sent on a quest to help a wild sorcerer who doesn't know this sort of thing exists, but is suffering from it really bad

>>52449435
>Implying the Divine faculties and the Praemium are diminished so significantly purely by the passing of time
I'll bet you thing the supra-Lunar spheres are made of Earthly matter, too.

>>52450058
>>52450189
I guess a really old wizard may use their shit stained adult diapers as material component for fireball then

>>52449435
You know it's happened when he builds a tower.

>>52449435
As wizards study and practise, their magic gradually changes their bodies, often in fantastical ways. They develop fur, or their fingernails become claws, or they sprout extra arms, or their blood becomes acidic, and so on. Ignorant folk like to claim that a wizard's transformation reflects their inner soul, but every good wizard knows the process to be entirely random, with no rhyme or reason.

As they near old age, wizards often undergo developments in the mind, gaining new senses, and insight into worlds beyond mundane reckoning. Such wizards frequently lose touch with "reality" for extended periods. In the end, all wizards eventually lose themselves to those greater worlds, abandoning their material bodies for an endless sojourn into ultimate space.

>>52450530
and let the world deal with their monstruos bodies? pricks

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>>52450594
If wizards had any sense of right or wrong, they wouldn't be wizards.

>>52449435

>>52450383
This is great, explains why wizard towers are so hostile places for players a lot better than 'oh, he's just evil and likes traps'

>>52450530
>>>/qa/1191620

We could use bright lights like you.

A topic that's been getting a lot of discussion in OSR general lately is The Goblin Laws of Gaming wizards:
>http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-glog-wizards.html
>https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/03/osr-wizard-schools-stolen-from-goblin.html
>https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/03/osr-wizard-schools-stolen-from-goblin_7.html

Overuse of magic Dooms the wizard to retirement, in some form or another.
The exact Doom is dependent on their denomination of magic.

They vary from complete loss of long term memory, to having your spells (which are living, thinking things in GLOG) turn against you, to turning into an illusion.

>>52449435
Could someone help me chalk up some ideas?

In my setting, psionic powers are achievable by utilizing a certain drug that "Awakens" the mind. It's very powerful, but I want there to be drawbacks to using the drugs. Anyone have any ideas? the oness I have so far are

>Frailty (HP penalty)
>Instability (more susceptible to stress)
>Surge (chance to spend more psionic energy on a spell than intended)
>Deterioration (decreased physical abilities)

Was looking for 6 to 8 different kinds of debilitations.

>>52458721
Perhaps having to use another stat in place of the one you need?

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>>52455303
I-Is /qa/ being raided...? Or is it always /a/ at it's worst?

>>52458721
Over using psychic powers makes you extremely suggestible,
not using psychic powers gives gives you insomnia,
using but not depleting psychic powers gives you a nasty case of exploding head.
Going cold turkey on the drug causes your brain to bleed out your 7 facial orifices.

Also, I get that Gygax basically killed that word in it's original sense,
but unless your psychics have wires running into their brain you should just call them psychics.


Good on you for describing psychics that are (proper) Manfred Clynes-ian cyborgs though.
Since you're doing mind stuff, maybe read up on his work with Sentics and emotional patterns?

>>52458837
>>52458858
They utilize cybernetics or electronic equipment to help harness the powers so they're mostly proper Psions

I like some of these ideas. Some dont translate well into the system but serve as a good foundation for other ideas

And I'll take a look at them. Might help me flesh out the entirety of the setting's psionics more

Most wizards in fiction don't lessen with age.

It's usually the exact opposite.