So I played Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre this weekend. It's my kind of game. Lowbrow comedy, epic enscorcellment, and groady card art. It kind of reminds me of a Korgoth the Barbarian card game. The above link tells you most of what you need to know, and you can read the brief (and entertaining) rulebook there. There's a fair bit of potty humor, so exercise whatever you consider to be appropriate browser caution.
The thing that sticks with me is the spell combo system. It feels like it would make a good base upon which an alternate spellcasting system. I'm not suggesting a card-based system so much as a bunch of spell classes + modifyers + somethingorothers. There's already a format for this in Ye Olde Gamebooks: Bigby's Crushing Fist, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Edvard's Black Tentacles and all that magical malarky.
For instance, let's look at that hoary standby of n00b mystics everywhere: the Magic Missile. Traditionally your low level wizardbro gets one and then he's gotta take a nap or something. His fighter buddy is always rubbing this in his face. But what if the wizard is studying the spellbook of a fallen foe (no doubt laid low by his fighting man comrade who is just being SO ANNOYING about it OMG) and therein he discovers a piece of magical formulae that fits into the eldritch algebra that powers his Magic Missile. Let's say the wizard he got it from was named M'gurk and he was a third level mage.
So now maybe our wizard can choose to cast M'gurk's Magic Missile instead of a garden variety magic missile. Maybe it has some kind of additional effect, or maybe there's just another d3 worth of damage or whatever. Adding the modifier might require a second spell slot.
Hang on, someone's asking me a question.
Oops, they were talking to someone else. This meeting sucks. Anyway, maybe down the road he also gains access to another spell modifying formula, like Armor-corroding, or Viscera-Annihilating, or Ball-crushing, or Anti-Anti-Magic, or something. Now our guy can spend three spell slots to cast M'gurk's Anti-Anti-Magic Missile at a Beholder without the DM screwjob.
This probably doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm mostly trying to just avoid this meeting.
Epic Spell Wars is a pretty fun pick up game. Check it out.
