Sneak Peak: Magic Rules

So my house rules are taking longer than planned, mostly because I got free tickets for concert on Monday and went to see John Carter last night.  I still have to nail down the details of the combat system.  While I'm working on that, I'd thought I'd give a quick preview of how I am handling magic.  I still want to add some rules for divine magic, mostly focused around turning.  But here's what I have so far.

Magical Items

As the PCs are not spell casters, the use of magical items becomes of vital importance. These rules contain no information on spells or magical items, so the GM will have to reference a copy of some existing “old school” rules.

Class restricted items: The PCs able to freely use all magical items that are normally restricted to warrior and rogue type classes in other games, as well as those items that have no class restrictions, such as potions. This means that no checks are required to use these items. For items that are restricted to use by other classes (normally wizard and priestly classes) a magic item use check must be made.  The player must roll a 5 or better on a d6, modified by the following:

Magic Item Use Check Modifiers
Per level of the spell effect*	-2
Per level of the PC	+1
Intelligence	-3 to +3
Character is an Elf	+2
Character is a Dwarf*	-2
No armor worn	0
Light Armor	-1
Medium Armor	-2
Heavy Armor	-3

Notes: The level of the spell effect is the level of the spell that is being cast.  This does not take into account any sort of “caster level”  A wand of magic missiles is thus a -2, as magic missile is a level 1 spell, no matter how many missiles are fired. For items with effects that do not have a direct correlation with a spell, the modifier is left up to the GM! Remember that Dwarves can ignore the -2 to their check if the item is Dwarven made.

Bad Mojo: If the result of a magic item use check is a 2 or less, and the player rolled a natural 1, then the spell has a negative effect!  This exact result is up to the GM.

Quick Magic item rules: If you want to speed things up and avoid dice rolls you can use the following rules. Humans in no armor can use Wizard items, and humans in up to light armor can use Priest items. Elves up to light armor can use Wizard items. Dwarves and Halflings can’t use class restricted items (unless they are specifically made for Dwarves or Halflings!)