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View Full Version : Consolidation of Spell Lists 3.P



rollforeigninit
2013-04-30, 04:12 PM
So my little brother and I decided to brew up a new campaign world for him to DM in. He and I got together and we decided on the basics. Since I have a fair amount of system mastery, I got the wonderful task of reworking magic with the following goals in mind.

1: All magic stems from an other-planar origin. No longer can you just say the right words and "poof" stuff happens. You can make pacts, worship deities, be defended from something off plane, etc. We are open to ideas as far as that goes.
2: Spell lists need to become more thematic but not static. That is, not all spellcasters get access to all the same spells (with narrow exceptions). I'm not sure how far I'm willing to go down this road. It seems like a LOT of work to repurpose all the spells in the various books.
3: Prepared casters are out. Period. Deal with it. You have to cope with just breaking the universe a few ways now. Wizards are probably gone altogether. Clerics, Druids, Paladins and Rangers are probably headed to something more spontaneous.
4: Psionics out as well despite my love for them. They don't fit the extra planar origins theme.
5: Spontaneous casters with preset lists are probably out. We do want to reintroduce some of their class abilities back in some way as options for Sorcerers, Clerics, or Oracles.
6: Spell lists are getting a major rework with yet another major rule change. No longer will any spellcaster have access to their entire plethora of spells via wands, scrolls etc without any investment. Spell completion and trigger items will no longer exist. I'm not sure what to replace that with though. Command word is possible but not really appealing.
7: We are doing away with arcane and divine magic divisions. They will be consolidated under different descriptors and availability will be restricted in an as of yet to be determined way.

This project is in its infancy. I would like any insights you all have however.

Shyftir
2013-04-30, 06:39 PM
I'd love to stay updated on this because I'm working on a campaign world that could really use some of these concepts. (It's low arcane high-mysticism based magic.)

rollforeigninit
2013-04-30, 08:55 PM
I intend to get the majority of our feedback here. I Posted that at lunch as kind of a sketch. I will start moving towards the World-Building side of things once I get some of the crunch decided.

We hope to help some of the balance issues inherent in the system by restricting spell access and removing the prepared casters who profit from massive spell bloat with every book. UMD will become more powerful but I'd rather that than the current problems in the system.

I'm toying with spell access being determined by descriptor. Some spells should be accessible to all (Meta spells like Detect, Dispel Magic, things like that.) Beyond that, we'd need to determine which descriptors which patrons grant. The main advantage I can see is that many spells already have Descriptors which makes it easier to figure out what Patron would have what.

We do think that Pact Magic will play a part. Not sure about Shadow Magic. I like a lot of the mysteries though. they may get to be reinterpreted as spells. Truenaming is OUT. Truenames are probably not though.

Incarnum is out too, probably. It might have a place eventually as it is at least semi-extra-planar but not right at 1st.

I did toy with making all magic into Words of Power but that seems too....... much. There's a lot of cool spells that I just can't say NO to.

JKTrickster
2013-05-02, 10:58 AM
I'm interested - why does magic have to have an "outer plane origin"? What do you gain by restricting "inner power" or "inner magic"?

How does magic that depend on Nature/Spirits/etc fare? Are they ruled out as Psionics are?

rollforeigninit
2013-05-02, 06:08 PM
I'm interested - why does magic have to have an "outer plane origin"? What do you gain by restricting "inner power" or "inner magic"?

How does magic that depend on Nature/Spirits/etc fare? Are they ruled out as Psionics are?

Good questions. The answer to the first one is twofold. The short answer is "flavor". We wanted a setting where supernatural powers come with a bit more of a price. The answer to that was to give magic a source that can come into play. It can be ancestry, spirits, gods, or anything in that vein. It is not, however, an ethereal Force or philosophy or the like. We know that is kj da restrictive but we don't much like the "I'm a wizard that knows arcane stuff so I own everything with my learning and am answerable to no one." kind of archetype. So spirits are fine as they should in our cosmology have extraplanar connections if they are not,in fact , extraplanar themselves. Nature worship is more tricky. We will certainly have a Nature deity who will answer to multiple names and in many guises. Most PC's use worshipping an ideal or the like is an excuse to min max without any behavioral restrictions at all. We are trying to encourage standards.