White Mage, Black Mage.

[AMFV]

A recent discussion on the general Roleplaying forum regarding warriors got me thinking. All of the warrior classes could effectively be fluffed as very similar (the classes don't necessarily exist as in-game constructs). Which is a pretty sharp difference to most of the casting classes. I'm wondering how people would think of a system that refluffed all casters as "casters" meaning that a cleric is casting the same sort of magic as a mage, or a Psion. Basically they're all casters with different technique. Clerics are effectively White Mages, Wizards are Black Mages, that sort of thing. I think this would actually fix a lot of in-setting problems although I'm not completely sure, what do you folks think?

[heavyfuel]

One of two thinks would happen, based entirely on the implications this would have on the wording of some feats and PrCs:

• Interpretation 1: Everyone can cast the same spells, therefore Clerics and Psions can qualify for things like Uncanny Forethought and Incantatrix;
• Interpretations 2: Because of lack of proper magic differentiation, no one would qualify for things like Uncanny Forethought and Incantatrix;
• Interpretation 3: You're just messing with fluff, and everything remains the same.

If interpretation 1 is correct, you just made the most powerful classes in the game even more powerful... Not good.

For #2, this will make them weaker, but not considerably so. Mostly unchanged, but gives players less options, which is also bad.

Finally, number 3 leaves things as they are, so no real difference besides aforementioned fluff.


As far as "in-setting" problems go, I think you'll have to be more specific, or maybe this ties with #3.

[AMFV]

One of two thinks would happen, based entirely on the implications this would have on the wording of some feats and PrCs:

• Interpretation 1: Everyone can cast the same spells, therefore Clerics and Psions can qualify for things like Uncanny Forethought and Incantatrix;
• Interpretations 2: Because of lack of proper magic differentiation, no one would qualify for things like Uncanny Forethought and Incantatrix;
• Interpretation 3: You're just messing with fluff, and everything remains the same.

If interpretation 1 is correct, you just made the most powerful classes in the game even more powerful... Not good.

For #2, this will make them weaker, but not considerably so. Mostly unchanged, but gives players less options, which is also bad.

Finally, number 3 leaves things as they are, so no real difference besides aforementioned fluff.


As far as "in-setting" problems go, I think you'll have to be more specific, or maybe this ties with #3.

It was mostly aiming for #3. However as far as #1 goes, I'm not sure if allowing clerics to qualify for Incantatrix will make them that much more powerful, they're already tier 1. And they already have all of those options (except Uncanny Forethought which will make them much more MAD since it requires 17 INT), persisting things is easy for them.

In any case the goal here was mostly the fluff aspect, it would certainly alter things quite a bit.

[heavyfuel]

It was mostly aiming for #3. However as far as #1 goes, I'm not sure if allowing clerics to qualify for Incantatrix will make them that much more powerful, they're already tier 1. And they already have all of those options (except Uncanny Forethought which will make them much more MAD since it requires 17 INT), persisting things is easy for them.

In any case the goal here was mostly the fluff aspect, it would certainly alter things quite a bit.

Incantatrix is just one of the many examples of possible PrCs, surely there are others combos that would be incredibly broken. Anyway, this shan't turn into a Tier 1 pissing contest!

As for the fluff deal, I'd say it's fine, especially if you're already playing with Psionic-Magic transparency.

[AMFV]

Incantatrix is just one of the many examples of possible PrCs, surely there are others combos that would be incredibly broken. Anyway, this shan't turn into a Tier 1 pissing contest!

As for the fluff deal, I'd say it's fine, especially if you're already playing with Psionic-Magic transparency.

Eh, you can already do that with Southern Magician anyways.

[jiriku]

I'm not seeing how changing the fluff on clerics and psions fixes any problems. Which problems exactly are you thinking about?

[AMFV]

I'm not seeing how changing the fluff on clerics and psions fixes any problems. Which problems exactly are you thinking about?

Well mostly the problem that I'm seeing is that Fighters are separated from their class fluff-wise, fighter as a class is not necessarily and in-game construct, while Wizard is. This sort of repairs that particular breach.

[Thiyr]

The biggest thing for me it feels a bit more weird that spell failure only affects some guys but not others. The arcane/divine divide at least can have "Well, the gods don't care how well you breakdance, only that you do so in their name". While saying "They taught me how to do it X way" kinda works, what about spells on both class lists, especially if someone goes red mage i mean mystic theurge? Why can't they start applying the lessons of one side to the other so that I can cast fireballs in full plate, etc. Similarly, why would certain abilities only work with certain types of spell? (If its all the same, why doesn't divine metamagic work on tenser's transformation? Why do I need to cast spells that make people fall down if I want to be an Abjurant Champion instead of being healy and tanky, etc) Same with psionc displays vs other things. It seems like the sort of thing even basic apprentices would seek to figure out, how to make the restrictions of one type of casting lighten up like the other types, and even moreso for the old wise master-y types.

That said, I do like the idea as something that frees up a player's options. Be a nature mage instead of a tree hugging hippie! Study really hard to be the absolute best at magically punching people in the face instead of praying for it! Pray instead for the fireballs to smite your enemies! Think SUPER HARD about how your singing is gonna be the most inspiring thing ever instead of wavin' your hands in the air like you just don't care!

[Xerlith]

That said, I do like the idea as something that frees up a player's options. Be a nature mage instead of a tree hugging hippie! Study really hard to be the absolute best at magically punching people in the face instead of praying for it! Pray instead for the fireballs to smite your enemies! Think SUPER HARD about how your singing is gonna be the most inspiring thing ever instead of wavin' your hands in the air like you just don't care!

So, basically, generic spellcaster.

[Red Fel]

Well mostly the problem that I'm seeing is that Fighters are separated from their class fluff-wise, fighter as a class is not necessarily and in-game construct, while Wizard is. This sort of repairs that particular breach.

Fighters are separated from their class fluff-wise, because Fighters have no class features to speak of. They have feats. Anyone can have a feat.

Wizards have spellcasting, an actual feature. They get spellbooks. Clerics have spellcasting of a different stripe, and Turn Undead. Casters have actual class features, some of which can be advanced by PrCs. What can a PrC advance of a Fighter?

A better comparison would be, for example, Barbarians and Warblades. These are classes with actual class features, and as such you can make some actual fluff around them; they can become in-game constructs.

There is actually a setting that gives you White Mage, Black Mage, etc. In Dragonlance, the various Wizards wear robes commensurate with their tower affiliations. (Appropriately, you can also find Red Wizards in Thay. But that's a different issue.)

I get that this is a refluffing exercise... I just don't get what it's designed to address. I feel like I'm missing it.

[AMFV]

Fighters are separated from their class fluff-wise, because Fighters have no class features to speak of. They have feats. Anyone can have a feat.

Wizards have spellcasting, an actual feature. They get spellbooks. Clerics have spellcasting of a different stripe, and Turn Undead. Casters have actual class features, some of which can be advanced by PrCs. What can a PrC advance of a Fighter?

A better comparison would be, for example, Barbarians and Warblades. These are classes with actual class features, and as such you can make some actual fluff around them; they can become in-game constructs.

There is actually a setting that gives you White Mage, Black Mage, etc. In Dragonlance, the various Wizards wear robes commensurate with their tower affiliations. (Appropriately, you can also find Red Wizards in Thay. But that's a different issue.)

I get that this is a refluffing exercise... I just don't get what it's designed to address. I feel like I'm missing it.

WelL Barbarians and Warblades could both be the same character if I build a Conan character in 3.5 it could very well be either class without stretching that much. And they have very distinctly different styles of operation. What I'm trying to do is see if we can stretch that same separation to the casting classes, rather than bringing classes as an in-game construct, I'm trying to remove them as such entirely.

The White Mage, Black Mage thing was less of an actual statement and more of a joke, to be honest. It was a reference to final fantasy, where you have White Mages who mimic divine casting and Black Mages who mimic blasting and they ostensibly use the same sort of energy.

[Red Fel]

WelL Barbarians and Warblades could both be the same character if I build a Conan character in 3.5 it could very well be either class without stretching that much. And they have very distinctly different styles of operation. What I'm trying to do is see if we can stretch that same separation to the casting classes, rather than bringing classes as an in-game construct, I'm trying to remove them as such entirely.

The White Mage, Black Mage thing was less of an actual statement and more of a joke, to be honest. It was a reference to final fantasy, where you have White Mages who mimic divine casting and Black Mages who mimic blasting and they ostensibly use the same sort of energy.

I think I see. So the goal is to effectively treat all casters, arcane or divine, as "casters," in a more generic sense - at least fluff-wise. I think I get it now.

I come back to class features, though, as they are a mechanical distinction between those classes. It wouldn't be hard for me to say that divine casting, for example, is simply a different form of casting from arcane casting, much like illusion is a different kind of spell from conjuration, but that both are fundamentally the same. That's easy to swallow. The challenge for me is the other class features - why is it that Clerics can Turn Undead, that Druids can turn into bears, and that Wizards get a helpful little ferret to follow them around? How do you refluff that part?

I'm not saying this to be antagonistic. I think this is a really interesting exercise, and I'd like to see how it would work.

[AMFV]

I think I see. So the goal is to effectively treat all casters, arcane or divine, as "casters," in a more generic sense - at least fluff-wise. I think I get it now.

I come back to class features, though, as they are a mechanical distinction between those classes. It wouldn't be hard for me to say that divine casting, for example, is simply a different form of casting from arcane casting, much like illusion is a different kind of spell from conjuration, but that both are fundamentally the same. That's easy to swallow. The challenge for me is the other class features - why is it that Clerics can Turn Undead, that Druids can turn into bears, and that Wizards get a helpful little ferret to follow them around? How do you refluff that part?

I'm not saying this to be antagonistic. I think this is a really interesting exercise, and I'd like to see how it would work.

Well we could certainly fix it mechanically by restricting classes to tighter ability schemes, although I think that defeats the point of the exercise. Well to be frank Wizards can turn into bears (Polymorph), and Clerics already have power over the undead, as do Wizards (Command Undead for example). I think we'd have to fluff it as difference in instruction or technique though. The same way that a Warblade might be different as compared to a barbarian. For example Wizards can learn (through various classes) to ignore ACF, and we'd just assume that the clerics studied that specific talent.

Mechanically I'd almost consider tying everybody to the same mental stat for this, but I'm not sure if that's the best way to go about it.

[VoxRationis]

I'm with Xerlith here; why are you reinventing the wheel? Unearthed Arcana already had a generic spellcaster.

[AMFV]

I'm with Xerlith here; why are you reinventing the wheel? Unearthed Arcana already had a generic spellcaster.

Because the generic classes don't work with standard classes. I'm reinventing the wheel as far as fluff goes in any case, I'm trying to avoid massive crunch shift.

[The Insanity]

I don't see what problems there are to fix.

[Zaq]

In a lot of ways, arcane magic and divine magic are already treated as being the same thing. You use the same skill (Spellcraft) to ID both of them. Both of them can make magic items. Both of them are affected by Dispel Magic, AMF, and the like. You can disrupt them in the same way (an axe to the face forces a Concentration check no matter what kind of caster you are, and Mage Slayer doesn't care whether you're arcane or divine or what). When they both have access to the same spell, the spell works the same way, is resisted (or not resisted) in the same way, and feels the same to the bloke on the receiving end of it.

Even the whole "casting in armor" thing is more tightly tied to your class than to your branch of magic. Even in Core, the Wizard can't cast in armor, but the Bard can, even when the Bard is casting the same spell as the Wizard. Later books add more arcane casters who can cast in armor (Hexblade, Duskblade, Warmage), so there's not a hard-and-fast rule that "arcane has ASF, and divine doesn't." There's a general rule in that way, but it's got so many exceptions that it's barely a rule at all. Also, the Druid may be able to cast in leather or hide armor, but slip a chain shirt on them, and they've got less magical oomph than a similarly-dressed Wizard. It's not specifically ASF, but from an in-universe perspective, it flies in the face of any general rule about divine magic being A-OK with armor.

So yeah. They're already basically the same. What specifically do you feel needs changing to make them even more the same?

[AMFV]

I don't see what problems there are to fix.

As I've said it's issue where some classes have fluff that is more mutable and less present in world and others have less. Wizard is both a profession in world and a class, fighter is both, but somebody that is a fighter may not be part of the fighter class.

In a lot of ways, arcane magic and divine magic are already treated as being the same thing. You use the same skill (Spellcraft) to ID both of them. Both of them can make magic items. Both of them are affected by Dispel Magic, AMF, and the like. You can disrupt them in the same way (an axe to the face forces a Concentration check no matter what kind of caster you are, and Mage Slayer doesn't care whether you're arcane or divine or what). When they both have access to the same spell, the spell works the same way, is resisted (or not resisted) in the same way, and feels the same to the bloke on the receiving end of it.

Even the whole "casting in armor" thing is more tightly tied to your class than to your branch of magic. Even in Core, the Wizard can't cast in armor, but the Bard can, even when the Bard is casting the same spell as the Wizard. Later books add more arcane casters who can cast in armor (Hexblade, Duskblade, Warmage), so there's not a hard-and-fast rule that "arcane has ASF, and divine doesn't." There's a general rule in that way, but it's got so many exceptions that it's barely a rule at all. Also, the Druid may be able to cast in leather or hide armor, but slip a chain shirt on them, and they've got less magical oomph than a similarly-dressed Wizard. It's not specifically ASF, but from an in-universe perspective, it flies in the face of any general rule about divine magic being A-OK with armor.

So yeah. They're already basically the same. What specifically do you feel needs changing to make them even more the same?

Well, I'm not completely sure, it's more along the lines of a fluff thing over anything else. The idea being to put all of the magic-users into one large box, so that way a Wizard could mean a lot more than it does in the same way that a warrior does now. The idea being to have more equivalency across the board in terms of class-fluff relationship.

[The Insanity]

As I've said it's issue where some classes have fluff that is more mutable and less present in world and others have less.

And as I've said, I don't really see the issue.

Wizard is both a profession in world and a class

Wizard is a profession if you make it to be a profession. Otherwise it's just a class that can be whatever you like in-game.

[AMFV]

Not really. At least not to me.


Wizard is a profession if you make it to be a profession. Otherwise it's just a class that can be whatever you like in-game.

Well it doesn't really work that way in practice, at least not as compared to say "Soldier", at least that's been my experience. I'm mostly interested in the effects that bringing the relationship between crunch and fluff more to par with both of them

[Pan151]

Well it doesn't really work that way in practice, at least not as compared to say "Soldier", at least that's been my experience. I'm mostly interested in the effects that bringing the relationship between crunch and fluff more to par with both of them

There are about as many flavours of "magician" as there are of "soldier".

Wizard, Sorcerer, Wu Jen, Warmage, Warlock, Shadowcaster, Adept, Cloistered Cleric, etc

as opposed to Fighter, Marshal, Warrior, Warblade, Crusader, Barbarian etc.


As for the differences between Arcane and Divine magic: they are basically the same exact thing, with the difference being that in the latter your god does most of the job for you and you just have to activate the trigger, while practitioners of the former have no such luxury and thus need ideal conditions to pull the whole thing off. Thus why arcane spell failure exists for spells with somatic components.