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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post

    To PhoenixPhyre: Of all the attempts to rescue D&D magic I have seen, yours is probably the best. But there are two pieces missing before I would call it a success. First, a detailed description of what each caster is actually doing during casting (and preparation as appropriate) and how this relates to the underlying theory. Not in a lot of detail, but more than "the wizard uses a spell book to implant spells in their mind", which is kind of like saying the construction worker uses tools to build a house. It is true yet I have no idea what is happening. But that is just a matter of work.

    The second is the kicker: Spells do only what they say. I know how much spells say they do and it is unacceptably little*. Half the fire spells don't set things on fire, ice spells don't cool things down. And you talked about this, gave long roundabout explanations that come out to (to my ears, even if you didn't mean it this way) "shut up and don't do anything creative". Even worse you can't do anything creative to keep them in check. I mean I don't expect people to understand conductivity, but could I stand in a waterfall/dive into water to survive a fireball? No, because it will not interact with that as effectively as the air. So why bother?
    1. This will vary from setting to setting and person to person. There isn't one true way of "learning" spells. Each wizard will do it differently, each druid, etc. The patterns for any given spell have the same key points, but how you get those into you will vary.

    2. That's the whole point. When you shoot a lightning bolt, you're not creating a set of alternate charges. It doesn't and can't work that way. You're imposing an area of a particular "lightning aspect" on the reality there, with appropriate results. And in a world like this, that has fixed effects. Why? That's not known (or possibly even knowable). My home setting has those effects as being chosen by the current God of Magic, who was "promoted" to that position after he broke the world and inadvertently caused the deaths-by-self-sacrifice of all the previous gods. Literally, those effects are fiat. Now in-universe, it's not that spells have these nice crisp edges. But for game purposes, the effects must be clear-cut. Going any further results in madness (because it's an endless rabbit-hole) or fights over who remembers their physics the best (or can convince everyone else that they do). It's also drastically unbalancing for the game, at least in a D&D context. It lets magic-users (and only magic-users) be creative with their effects, letting them do even more of everything than they could before. And that's not fun for anyone except the power-mongers.

    A fireball doesn't heat the air by exothermic reactions. It imposes a fire aspect over the entire area. So hiding underwater doesn't work because the water gets the same fire aspect as the air did. Not all ice aspects are freezing aspects--only things that are "tagged" as such have those aspects. And there isn't (by choice) a binding theory that connects and lets you alter these effects. All the casters know is that if you do this pattern, you get a fireball, with such and such parameters. Alter even one little bit, and you get a fizzle except as trained by esoteric studies, such as by arcane schools of thought. Sorcerers (by virtue of their bloodlines) can tweak things more than most, but still only a limited amount.

    Edit: You're fundamentally asking for a grand unified theory of magic. And that's just not feasible or playable. None of the worlds can be rich enough to accommodate that, and it requires basically warping the entire ruleset around a single setting. Which is something I fundamentally oppose. Single-setting rules are, to me, a total waste of space, because I want to world-build and world-break. And I can't do any of that when I'm stuck in someone else's world. I want rules that get out of my way and let me tweak a lot of the underlying "physical laws" while still maintaining consistency and ability to use them. This necessitates a lack of expressed theory. Because otherwise you're nailing down all the interesting things for me to mess with, and making breakage that much more likely.
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  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    And that is why, I still don't like D&D magic. And some other things, like the wizard always feels too general (but there are specialized classes that feel better in that regard) and the fact it overwhelms so many other things in the system. But those are different topics for a different thread.
    The point of a wizard is to be a generalist; its entire raison d'être is going around plundering ancient ruins for forgotten magic and ending up with a spellbook holding a handful of fire spells from that one Kossuthite temple in Thay, a bunch of fiend-summoning spells from that demoncyst in Nar, a dozen lightning- and wind-based spells from the tomb of Kaeran Stormblood in southern Halruaa, some disgusting insect-themed spells from that one time Kyuss almost got summoned....

    It's entirely possible to make a Wizard class that doesn't overwhelm everything else without compromising its eclectic nature, but that's a subject for a different thread.

    * Not always, I would actually accept it in some of the in the shadow of a once great empire settings, where magic is more recovered than learned and too precious to waste on experimentation. But how many D&D settings is that now?
    Literally all of them except Eberron.

    Dark Sun? Arcane magic screwed up the world and practicing it is forbidden on pain of death. Forgotten Realms? There are more fallen empires than existing ones, and Realms-Shaking Events change the magical landscape every few human generations. Greyhawk? The main magical empires had a magical nuke exchange, kingdoms and empires are fragmented, and magic is fading. Dragonlance? The way arcane magic works swings between High Sorcery and Wild Sorcery based on the age, and more is forgotten about magic than learned because the Orders of High Sorcery keep secrets like a Medieval guild. Birthright? The powerful magic-users all use bloodline magic and arcane research languishes. Ravenloft? The Dark Powers actively screw with those trying to use magic to escape or better their situation. And so on and so forth.

    The one exception, Eberron, has active magical research and a Magitech Revolution going on...but modern magic still pales in comparison to the magic of ages gone by, with Dhakaani and ancient Gatekeeper and Giantish and Quori artifacts littering the hidden corners of the world, and the world as of 998 YK is one big powder keg delayed blast fireball about to go off and kick off another round of empires falling.

    The fact that D&D magic is as well-understood and systematized in-setting as it is given the post-apocalyptic (or inter-apocalyptic, really) nature of every setting is a testament to the skill, intellect, and tenacity of arcane researchers. They just need a nice solid century without the world ending (again) or the laws of magic changing out from under them to get a handle on things, and the likelihood of that happening is lower than the chances of--er, welp, looks like the demons are invading the Prime again, good luck with that.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Edit: You're fundamentally asking for a grand unified theory of magic. And that's just not feasible or playable. None of the worlds can be rich enough to accommodate that, and it requires basically warping the entire ruleset around a single setting.
    There's no reason you couldn't have a Grand Unified Theory that encompassed all settings; Planescape and Spelljammer are meta-settings that accommodate plenty of variations in local physical and magical laws, after all. And those settings provide a good comparison, because they're based around a set of inter-planar/-sphere/-world mechanics that are not only versatile enough to encompass many different settings, but they're versatile enough to encompass settings specifically designed as isolated settings with their own cosmologies (Dark Sun and Eberron being the main examples) within that same overarching Planescape and/or Spelljammer cosmology, without having to special-case those settings.

    Now, that doesn't mean that White Robe Joe on Krynn is going to know the Grand Unified Theory, because he only knows the magical theory of the White Order of High Sorcery, which is one fraction of one subsection of one form of magic on one single Prime world out of hundreds of magical traditions in thousands of worlds on one plane of hundreds. But you can certainly come up with a Grand Unified Theory that can explain White Robe Joe's magic and Zulkir Bob's magic on Toril and Defiler Steve's magic on Athas and so forth with the same underlying system, and in such a way that if Joe, Bob, and Steve got together and compared notes they'd have a good chance of figuring out at least a part of that theory.
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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Edit: You're fundamentally asking for a grand unified theory of magic. And that's just not feasible or playable. None of the worlds can be rich enough to accommodate that, and it requires basically warping the entire ruleset around a single setting. Which is something I fundamentally oppose. Single-setting rules are, to me, a total waste of space, because I want to world-build and world-break. And I can't do any of that when I'm stuck in someone else's world. I want rules that get out of my way and let me tweak a lot of the underlying "physical laws" while still maintaining consistency and ability to use them. This necessitates a lack of expressed theory. Because otherwise you're nailing down all the interesting things for me to mess with, and making breakage that much more likely.
    So you would really really hate systems like Ars Magica ?

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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    To PhoenixPhyre: Read my post closely and you will notice something: I said all of that. Except for the bit where it can't work and other way I really don't think that is true. But I understand why you went with it. Given the set of trade-offs, I think you have done a really good job. When I said that adding the caster mechanics was just a matter of work, I meant that this would be a good base to start off of. The explanations for magic are consistent and complete enough (and true completeness is unreasonable). So good job. If I find myself running a D&D campaign again I might even use it.

    But in the end that doesn't fix deeper issues with the system. Which I believe I have gone on enough about.

    To PairO'Dice Lost: So Dark Sun, Greyhawk & Ravenloft. Birthright I don't know enough about, but I have read lots of lore for Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance (and Dark Sun) and let me tell you magic is not that rare in them. Actually I might give a partial pass to Dragonlance depending on when you set the game in its timeline. On the other hand I read a Forgotten Realms book where an orphan girl had a belt that let her cast blink at will.

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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    So you would really really hate systems like Ars Magica ?
    Not hate, just not find useful or all that fun beyond a one-shot. Even with D&D I prefer to be the DM.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To PhoenixPhyre: Read my post closely and you will notice something: I said all of that. Except for the bit where it can't work and other way I really don't think that is true. But I understand why you went with it. Given the set of trade-offs, I think you have done a really good job. When I said that adding the caster mechanics was just a matter of work, I meant that this would be a good base to start off of. The explanations for magic are consistent and complete enough (and true completeness is unreasonable). So good job. If I find myself running a D&D campaign again I might even use it.

    But in the end that doesn't fix deeper issues with the system. Which I believe I have gone on enough about.
    I don't see the deeper problems, but that's a YMMV situation, so we can agree to disagree.

    Spoiler: Fleshing out the types of magic
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    Going back to fleshing out the individual casters, here are my basic thoughts, specific to my setting. The general ideas, I think, works more broadly but the specifics are setting-specific. I'll put things like that in green text.

    Spells, as energy-manipulating, harmonic-causing mental patterns, have certain key elements. Exactly which elements are key differs from spell to spell, but without these key elements the spell cannot take form. These are codified for game purposes as the components of the spell (VSM) I believe that individuals use different specific components in many cases, with verbal being the most variable and material being the least. Lots of different casters use obfuscation (or don't really know the actual key components), so a spell that requires a single key word might actually use a short chant in practice.

    There are, IMO, 4 basic types of spell-casting out there, which I will give descriptive names.

    The Harmonies are what are most commonly associated with Bards. They use rhythm, music, and movement to create their patterns. They're the most variable of the casters, gathering their information from what they see, hear, and feel. They're intuitive, rather than studied. They do it because it feels right, not because that's what some theory says. As a result of this, the easiest things for them to affect are minds (because they do a lot of the work "for free").

    The Harmonies are the oldest type of magic, dating back before anything else. Most tribal shamans and oral historians use primitive forms of the Harmonies. There are Temple Dancers who use very similar arts. Different practitioners are very varied in how they present their magic.

    The Arcane Arts (usually called wizardry) are used by sorcerers, wizards, and warlocks. They rely on careful, precise manipulation of patterns of words, motions, and the energy of material components to evoke their effects. They're also the most codified of the arts. Every wizard, however, has to figure out what the actual keys are for themselves and "rephrase" the spell into their own internal system. Sorcerers come with the patterns/knowledge built in, but must unlock them through practice and growth. Warlocks learn them from a patron, having them "burned in" to their brains, so to speak. Since they're limited by mortal understanding, they're not so good at gracefully repairing living things. They can puppet them by seizing control of the inputs, but they can't build them or repair them very well at all (no healing unless granted by a Patron).

    There are different schools, and they differ greatly in how they teach and build spells. A Council-trained wizard might describe things in precise, almost geometric notation. A Dynastic hobgoblin wizard might be quick and dirty, focusing on the bare minimum. A Stone Throne wizard may use lots of writhing, wriggly motions and sibilant words, as they revere snakes in that area. Same effects, different colorations.

    Spirit-talking is the nature magic of druids and rangers. This is accomplished by making deals with the omnipresent nature spirits--the spirits of rocks, trees, bushes, etc. These deals are basically quid pro quo--the caster feeds them energy, in exchange for the spirit channeling the spell through the caster. This requires being in tune with the spirits, and spirits are most at home with manipulating nature itself.

    A bunch of shamans and others use these arts in addition to druids and rangers. Byssia specializes in spirit-talking, replacing almost all clerics. To someone watching, a druid casting a spell may speak with a different voice, possibly as an overlay on his regular voice. Circles may systematize things a bit, but beyond that each druid is an individual.

    Divine Empowerment is used by clerics. This, like Spirit-talking, involves an outside entity granting the spell-pattern temporarily to the caster. It's less direct, in that they receive the patterns as revelation during meditation rather than in-the-moment. The divine entity can act through the caster directly, but that's less common and more ad hoc. Because the spells are not bounded by mortal understanding, they're good at healing and aiding allies or affecting life itself. Because of the indirection, most are worse (than the Arcane Arts) at directly manipulating the elements.

    Different clerics end up casting very differently (outside the key elements). A Temple-trained cleric and a lares priest won't use the same prayers. They'll contain similar elements, but it would require someone trained in both to see the exact similarities. Clerics are the most likely to cloak things in mysticism or obfuscation and among the least analytical in their approach.

    Paladins are a special case. They don't fit neatly into any of the four major categories. One theory is that they're somehow granted similar access to a cleric, except without divine intermediary. Belief has power, and they believe in their Oath more than anything. That does sharply limit the effects they can produce to those that their unconscious mind considers "apt" for their Oath.
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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    And i discussed why you can't use antimagic field or dispel/detect magic on such abilities--since they're not coherent resonances, there's nothing to disrupt unless you can literally remove the aether from the person entirely. And that would kill them.
    My mind goes straight to Ennervation. The spell could be stripping the victim of their aether.

    Which raises to my mind the question of how Aether is related to positive and negative energy. They're traditionally treated as "just another form of cosmic energy," but in this theoretical framework, their relationship to aether may be deeper than other cosmic energies are.
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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Pleh View Post
    My mind goes straight to Ennervation. The spell could be stripping the victim of their aether.

    Which raises to my mind the question of how Aether is related to positive and negative energy. They're traditionally treated as "just another form of cosmic energy," but in this theoretical framework, their relationship to aether may be deeper than other cosmic energies are.
    I'm working from a 5e standpoint, where positive and negative energies are the fundamental building blocks out of which everything else gets built. They're not even planes or energies as much as just polarities, like the polarities of charges. I like that better than the whole "there's this thing called negative/positive energy" 3e model. Can't articulate why, but I like it better.

    I see "positive energy damage" (5e's Radiant damage) as shoving just pure aether into the target until they start to crack at the seams. Effective against constructs too--it breaks down the condensed "matter" aether that they're made of and disrupts the delicate control spells. "Negative energy damage" (Necrotic damage) sucks the aether out of them or corrupts it by imposing anti-life aspects on it.

    Spoiler: Setting Specifics
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    In my setting, Aether (there called anima) gets its start on the Mortal plane from the hopes, dreams, successes, failures, growth, and death of mortal beings.

    It then gets sucked up through Shadow (which replaces the Ethereal as the liminal transitive plane) into the Astral, where the Great Mechanism pumps it around and distributes it where it needs to go. So the Astral is full of tides of energy, to the point that material beings have a hard time there and the life there needs anchors (provided by faith, by mortals, or by the Great Mechanism depending on who you are) to not get destroyed.

    From there it gets dumped into the Elemental planes, to be used as the building blocks of the physical world. Condensed into matter and "energy", it gets taken back through Shadow into the Mortal plane. This way, the mortal world never runs out of matter. There is no "water cycle" or "photosynthetic oxygen/CO2 cycle"--there is only the balance of the elements from those planes. Elemental beings are tasked (under the watchful eye of the angels) with replenishing the Mortal world's supply of the appropriate forms of matter.

    The Abyss is a sucking wound in reality, a pit into which anima drains on contact. At the core is a living black hole, the Oblivion Gate. Demons live in the Abyss, because the rest of the universe rejects them for feeding directly on souls.
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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To PairO'Dice Lost: So Dark Sun, Greyhawk & Ravenloft. Birthright I don't know enough about, but I have read lots of lore for Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance (and Dark Sun) and let me tell you magic is not that rare in them. Actually I might give a partial pass to Dragonlance depending on when you set the game in its timeline. On the other hand I read a Forgotten Realms book where an orphan girl had a belt that let her cast blink at will.
    Magic isn't rare there at all, but it is "more recovered than learned," as you put it. In the Realms, the ancient empires (Imaskar, Netheril, Raumathar, etc.) were at the forefront of magical research and casually doing all sorts of incredible things, but that's not the case in the modern era. The "current" set of common spells as of the 1380s were all invented by Netherese spellcasters, all of the highly-magical nations with special magical traditions are merely successor states (Halruaa deriving from Netheril and Thay deriving from Raumathar being the major ones) relying on inherited power rather than doing anything particularly novel, any new spells and items are hoarded by the caster or at most by the caster's organization rather than distributed widely (the entire premise of the Magic Books of Faerûn series on the WotC site is that if you want to find new and useful spells you have to look at a specific wizard's research instead of the War Wizards of Cormyr or whatever), and every single time the laws of magic change (which Mystra has done at least once as a specific "screw you, you can't be trusted with real power" to mortals in the wake of the Fall of Netheril) everyone scrambles to rediscover all of the old spells rather than start from scratch--which, granted, is an easier and more practical approach, but it does mean that the progress of magical research is regularly set back on a global scale.

    Similar with Dragonlance. The laws of magic constantly change, the Orders of High Sorcery jealously hoard their magical secrets and self-limit to only learning about a third of possible magical theory, "arcane" magic is in fact dependent on the moon gods so while Solinari/Lunitari/Nuitari aren't portrayed as being as meddlesome as Mystra it's entirely possible that they're holding things back or limiting mortals, experienced wizards put apprentices through grueling tests (and potentially curse them) to limit magic to only a select few who have proven their power and loyalty, High Sorcery fluctuates wildly in power (and whether it works at all) based on the Age, and the great Raistlin Majere didn't achieve his incredible power by developing anything new but rather by absorbing the existing power and knowledge of Fistandantilus.

    Same refrain on Athas: Forbidden magic that isn't widely disseminated, few practitioners survive to pass on their knowledge, new research is nonexistent in favor of digging up secrets of the past.

    So magic in general may be common in those settings, and powerful casters and items very powerful, but that doesn't mean they actually understand the workings of magic, merely that they are adept at using the "black box" magic dug up from fallen empires, handed down from gods of magic, and so forth.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pleh View Post
    Which raises to my mind the question of how Aether is related to positive and negative energy. They're traditionally treated as "just another form of cosmic energy," but in this theoretical framework, their relationship to aether may be deeper than other cosmic energies are.
    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre
    I'm working from a 5e standpoint, where positive and negative energies are the fundamental building blocks out of which everything else gets built. They're not even planes or energies as much as just polarities, like the polarities of charges. I like that better than the whole "there's this thing called negative/positive energy" 3e model. Can't articulate why, but I like it better.
    Positive and negative energy have always been fundamental building blocks of the cosmos, on the same level as the four elements; the Material Plane and (un)life in general couldn't exist without them any more than they could exist without air or water.

    Positive energy is the ultimate creative and motive force, negative energy the ultimate destructive and entropic force, and you can look at the two of them like a big battery with energy flowing from Positive to Negative that powers the multiverse. The Plane of Shadow arose from the interactions between the two Energy Planes in the same way that Paraelemental Planes arise from interactions between Elemental Planes, its nature as a constantly changing warped reflection of the Prime deriving from the constant interplay between the creation and destruction of its parent planes.

    Not only that, positive and negative energy have been integral to spellcasting since 1e:

    Quote Originally Posted by 1e DMG, p.40
    All magic and cleric spells are similar in that the word sounds, when combined into whatever patterns are applicable, are charged with energy from the Positive or Negative Material Plane. When uttered, these sounds cause the release of this energy, which in turn triggers a set reaction.
    [...]
    The triggering action draws power from some plane of the multiverse. Whether the spell is an abjuration conjuration, alteration, enchantment, or whatever, there is a flow of energy - first from the spell caster, then from some plane to the area magicked or enspelled by the caster. [...] This power then taps the desired plane (whether or not the spell user has any idea of what or where it is) to cause the spell to function. It is much like plugging in a heater; the electrical outlet does not hold all of the electrical energy to cause the heater to function, but the wires leading from it, ultimately to the power station, bring the electricity to the desired location.
    So associating positive and negative energy with the ambient power of magic isn't new at all, to 5e or to this theory, it's merely a rephrasing of canon.
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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Positive and negative energy have always been fundamental building blocks of the cosmos, on the same level as the four elements; the Material Plane and (un)life in general couldn't exist without them any more than they could exist without air or water.
    In 5e, I see positive and negative energy as being more fundamental than the elements. They're the bits out of which the elements themselves (and that energy) is made of. I see them as the source and sink of the energy cycle, just like positive charges are the source of the electric field and negative charges act as sinks.
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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    In 5e, I see positive and negative energy as being more fundamental than the elements. They're the bits out of which the elements themselves (and that energy) is made of. I see them as the source and sink of the energy cycle, just like positive charges are the source of the electric field and negative charges act as sinks.
    Personally, I think pulling the Positive and Negative Energy planes out of the Inner Planes, making them a sort of shell around the Wheel, and positioning them as more important than the rest--or as the DMG puts it, they "enfold the rest of the cosmology, providing the raw forces of life and death that underlie the rest of existence in the multiverse"--was a big mistake, because (A) it associates them with the Outer Planes and radiant/necrotic damage with divine casting, which perpetuates the irritating "Positive Energy = Good, Negative Energy = Evil" misconception, (B) it totally undercuts the other Inner Planes conceptually--the Ethereal Plane, not the Energy Planes, is where protomatter gives rise to demiplanes that can eventually become full planes, and the Elemental Planes are elemental, not merely instantiations of something else--and (C) having all of the Inner Planes work together as a sort of Great Mechanism, as you term it in your homebrew, is more dynamic and interesting than having a single source and a single sink and everything else is just an intermediate step.

    Having one plane encompassing everything else worked (and works) for the Astral Plane because it's explicitly a plane in the gaps between the others, not some sort of higher plane. It's a place for traveling souls, for portal conduits, for lost thoughts, for dead gods, and other things that are just passing through or don't have anywhere else to be; it's a background player in the grand cycle of the cosmos, not a fundamental component where important stuff happens. And of course in the original Planescape incarnation the Astral Plane didn't encompass everything, just the Material and Outer Planes, further emphasizing its lack of centrality.

    On the subject of positive and negative energy being like charges, you should read through this article if you haven't already. While it's only fanon extrapolation from canon, it gives a nice explanation of how elemental physics "really" work and I think it makes a good case for how viewing positive and negative energy as being fundamentals on the same level as the elements works better than having them being remote cosmic forces.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post

    Spoiler: Fleshing out the types of magic
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    Going back to fleshing out the individual casters, here are my basic thoughts, specific to my setting. The general ideas, I think, works more broadly but the specifics are setting-specific. I'll put things like that in green text.

    Spells, as energy-manipulating, harmonic-causing mental patterns, have certain key elements. Exactly which elements are key differs from spell to spell, but without these key elements the spell cannot take form. These are codified for game purposes as the components of the spell (VSM) I believe that individuals use different specific components in many cases, with verbal being the most variable and material being the least. Lots of different casters use obfuscation (or don't really know the actual key components), so a spell that requires a single key word might actually use a short chant in practice.

    There are, IMO, 4 basic types of spell-casting out there, which I will give descriptive names.

    The Harmonies are what are most commonly associated with Bards. They use rhythm, music, and movement to create their patterns. They're the most variable of the casters, gathering their information from what they see, hear, and feel. They're intuitive, rather than studied. They do it because it feels right, not because that's what some theory says. As a result of this, the easiest things for them to affect are minds (because they do a lot of the work "for free").

    The Harmonies are the oldest type of magic, dating back before anything else. Most tribal shamans and oral historians use primitive forms of the Harmonies. There are Temple Dancers who use very similar arts. Different practitioners are very varied in how they present their magic.

    The Arcane Arts (usually called wizardry) are used by sorcerers, wizards, and warlocks. They rely on careful, precise manipulation of patterns of words, motions, and the energy of material components to evoke their effects. They're also the most codified of the arts. Every wizard, however, has to figure out what the actual keys are for themselves and "rephrase" the spell into their own internal system. Sorcerers come with the patterns/knowledge built in, but must unlock them through practice and growth. Warlocks learn them from a patron, having them "burned in" to their brains, so to speak. Since they're limited by mortal understanding, they're not so good at gracefully repairing living things. They can puppet them by seizing control of the inputs, but they can't build them or repair them very well at all (no healing unless granted by a Patron).

    There are different schools, and they differ greatly in how they teach and build spells. A Council-trained wizard might describe things in precise, almost geometric notation. A Dynastic hobgoblin wizard might be quick and dirty, focusing on the bare minimum. A Stone Throne wizard may use lots of writhing, wriggly motions and sibilant words, as they revere snakes in that area. Same effects, different colorations.

    Spirit-talking is the nature magic of druids and rangers. This is accomplished by making deals with the omnipresent nature spirits--the spirits of rocks, trees, bushes, etc. These deals are basically quid pro quo--the caster feeds them energy, in exchange for the spirit channeling the spell through the caster. This requires being in tune with the spirits, and spirits are most at home with manipulating nature itself.

    A bunch of shamans and others use these arts in addition to druids and rangers. Byssia specializes in spirit-talking, replacing almost all clerics. To someone watching, a druid casting a spell may speak with a different voice, possibly as an overlay on his regular voice. Circles may systematize things a bit, but beyond that each druid is an individual.

    Divine Empowerment is used by clerics. This, like Spirit-talking, involves an outside entity granting the spell-pattern temporarily to the caster. It's less direct, in that they receive the patterns as revelation during meditation rather than in-the-moment. The divine entity can act through the caster directly, but that's less common and more ad hoc. Because the spells are not bounded by mortal understanding, they're good at healing and aiding allies or affecting life itself. Because of the indirection, most are worse (than the Arcane Arts) at directly manipulating the elements.

    Different clerics end up casting very differently (outside the key elements). A Temple-trained cleric and a lares priest won't use the same prayers. They'll contain similar elements, but it would require someone trained in both to see the exact similarities. Clerics are the most likely to cloak things in mysticism or obfuscation and among the least analytical in their approach.

    Paladins are a special case. They don't fit neatly into any of the four major categories. One theory is that they're somehow granted similar access to a cleric, except without divine intermediary. Belief has power, and they believe in their Oath more than anything. That does sharply limit the effects they can produce to those that their unconscious mind considers "apt" for their Oath.
    Not too dissimilar from what I said, earlier. I like it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Personally, I think pulling the Positive and Negative Energy planes out of the Inner Planes, making them a sort of shell around the Wheel, and positioning them as more important than the rest--or as the DMG puts it, they "enfold the rest of the cosmology, providing the raw forces of life and death that underlie the rest of existence in the multiverse"--was a big mistake, because (A) it associates them with the Outer Planes and radiant/necrotic damage with divine casting, which perpetuates the irritating "Positive Energy = Good, Negative Energy = Evil" misconception, (B) it totally undercuts the other Inner Planes conceptually--the Ethereal Plane, not the Energy Planes, is where protomatter gives rise to demiplanes that can eventually become full planes, and the Elemental Planes are elemental, not merely instantiations of something else--and (C) having all of the Inner Planes work together as a sort of Great Mechanism, as you term it in your homebrew, is more dynamic and interesting than having a single source and a single sink and everything else is just an intermediate step.
    See, I don't see the connection. They're beyond the outer planes. They're not associated with them at all--positive/negative is orthogonal to upper/lower. Positive isn't good, Negative isn't bad. They're just...there.

    And having 6 types of "things" plus souls is just really busy. I'd rather simplify it down to just 1 fundamental type of thing with a bunch of aspects.

    But then again I'm really not fond of the whole Great Wheel as a thing--it seems full of pointless box-checking symmetry-for-the-sake-of-symmetry and forces alignment into everything (which I hate). It's also super rigid.

    Having one plane encompassing everything else worked (and works) for the Astral Plane because it's explicitly a plane in the gaps between the others, not some sort of higher plane. It's a place for traveling souls, for portal conduits, for lost thoughts, for dead gods, and other things that are just passing through or don't have anywhere else to be; it's a background player in the grand cycle of the cosmos, not a fundamental component where important stuff happens. And of course in the original Planescape incarnation the Astral Plane didn't encompass everything, just the Material and Outer Planes, further emphasizing its lack of centrality.
    I ended up discarding the original purpose of the Astral plane, smashing it and the Ethereal plane into the Shadows, along with 5e's Feywild and Shadowfell. Because you don't need 2 liminal planes (Astral and Ethereal) as well as a bunch of semi-orthogonal planes.

    My home cosmology is more like a very limited (the size of the inner solar system) version of the World Axis from 4e with heavy modifications. I've gone back to having quasi-separate elemental planes, but they're fixed in space (and give rise to the seasons as the planet orbits through their areas of maximum influence). The Shadows is the liminal plane, with layers similar to the Feywild and Shadowfell, except flavored more like Oblivion's Shivering Isles. There are no longer any permanent afterlives.

    On the subject of positive and negative energy being like charges, you should read through this article if you haven't already. While it's only fanon extrapolation from canon, it gives a nice explanation of how elemental physics "really" work and I think it makes a good case for how viewing positive and negative energy as being fundamentals on the same level as the elements works better than having them being remote cosmic forces.
    In my personal cosmology, I've discarded positive and negative energy entirely. You either have too much raw aether (radiant damage) or are being drained of aether (necrotic damage). Undead feed on ambient aether; demons feed on souls. Devils contractually take tithes of aether or consume the aether of living beings they're licensed to kill. The gods and angels are supplied with aether from the Great Mechanism (which is the body of the Dreamer who created this universe) as payment for maintaining the universe.

    As a side note: aether is not conserved. Usually, the world goes through cycles. Aether builds up, leading to a golden age of magitech and glorious empires. At some critical point, an artifact called the Cosmic Forge activates, taking the existence of a willing person of power as the catalyst to consume much of that built-up aether to write a new law of existence. As the world is often very magic-dependent at that point, this usually presages some form of catastrophe, physical or cultural. As the world recovers, now along a different path due to the new Law, aether begins to build up again and the cycle repeats. Conveniently for game purposes, this lets me have many fallen empires with powerful magic. My current games are set at the start of a new upswing--hence the name "Dreams of Hope".
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    As a side note: aether is not conserved. Usually, the world goes through cycles. Aether builds up, leading to a golden age of magitech and glorious empires. At some critical point, an artifact called the Cosmic Forge activates, taking the existence of a willing person of power as the catalyst to consume much of that built-up aether to write a new law of existence. As the world is often very magic-dependent at that point, this usually presages some form of catastrophe, physical or cultural. As the world recovers, now along a different path due to the new Law, aether begins to build up again and the cycle repeats. Conveniently for game purposes, this lets me have many fallen empires with powerful magic. My current games are set at the start of a new upswing--hence the name "Dreams of Hope".
    Could a new Law establish a steady-date medium-aether universe?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Could a new Law establish a steady-date medium-aether universe?
    Maybe. Probably not, as that would violate other Laws. You can add, but it gets interpreted not to conflict with prior Laws. Although there are several entities who desire just that, including a Demon Prince. The previous Laws have added new styles of magic to the world: wizardry, spirit talking, Divine empowerment, and lastly (recently), aether crafting (personal magical technology, except not quite).

    Ideas include creating an aether sink that burns aether at just the right rate (some theorize that that was the original purpose of the Oblivion Gate at the heart of the abyss) or fixing the amount of aether created (which might cause stasis).

    One fact of the cycles is that it's not a full reset to baseline. The "lows" are, in fact, growing over time.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post

    One fact of the cycles is that it's not a full reset to baseline. The "lows" are, in fact, growing over time.
    Your world codified power creep?

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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I don't see the deeper problems, but that's a YMMV situation, so we can agree to disagree.
    At the end of the day it comes down to taste and my taste does not like D&D. I could try to explain exactly why but it eventually becomes me saying what I like and don't like. Like the generic wizard is in fact kind of the point of the D&D wizard, Dice made a good argument in its defence, doesn't change the fact it is a type of caster I don't really enjoy.

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Magic isn't rare there at all, but it is "more recovered than learned," as you put it.
    But it fails the other requirement; "and too precious to waste on experimentation." Otherwise the lost knowledge can be recovered, and will probably either be happening right now or has already happened, in which case the fact that it was at one point recovered is irrelevant.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jama7301 View Post
    Your world codified power creep?
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    It's less power creep than broadening of the power base, making power available to more people. That, plus increasing populations, results in an aggregate increase in aether despite each individual having less personal power.

    The First Age was ruled by creatures of almost unfathomable power--Titan and Wyrm. The weakest of these were on the demigod scale, with only restraint from each other. They shaped the world and the people. Only a few "mortals" had any power at all, and civilization was at the tribal level. Those that did have power wielded only the Harmonies, and those in limited fashion. Titan wielded written Runes; wyrm wielded sound and words--True Sorcery.

    The Second Age, heralded by the First Law: "Sound and shape combine to upset the tyrant's power," broke the twin powers of Runes and True Sorcery, recombining them into wizardry. This was accessible to mortals more easily, but even the greatest aelvar wizard-king wasn't nearly as powerful as the weakest Titan or Wyrm. But they had degenerated (into giant-kin and dragons respectively) and used the last of their fading power to crack the mega-continent in half. The aelvar built an empire based on wizardry for a few millennia.

    The Interregnum, heralded by the Second Law: "The spirits of all things heed our call and will strike bargains," saw the wood elves (aelvar that refused or were unable to wield wizardry) use the new art of spirit-talking to call down the spirit of the third moon, cracking the half-continent and destroying the center of the aelvar empire. During this period of strife and chaos, humans and orcs were created from goblin stock.

    The Third Age started with the Third Law: "Faith brings power." With this, the gods (who had existed but really played no part in mortal affairs) were able to grant power to faithful individuals, the start of Divine Empowerment. The new human empires exploded into shape with their willingness to wield all the magics. This lasted until they delved too deep into blood magic, playing god with souls. The civil war that erupted plunged half a continent back into a dark age. Later, a misused artifact triggered a Cataclysm and started the 2nd Interregnum, killing 70% of the world's population and "turning off" magic for 50 years (including killing off all the gods).

    The current date is 210 years post Cataclysm. The Fourth Age dawned about 5 years ago, and so far is the only one without a major destructive event; this one was irregular because of the Cataclysm doing a lot of the aether-diminishing effects a bit early. The effects and details of this Law are still unknown, but it's believed that it's responsible for the spontaneous awakening of Soulforged--metal and wood constructs come to life and carrying souls of their own. Some people have noted the presence of people who wield strange "construct-magic" or alchemical magic that only seems to work for them. But those are just rumors

    So overall, the individuals have gotten weaker. But there are many many more of them with even some power, so the total goes up.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    At the end of the day it comes down to taste and my taste does not like D&D. I could try to explain exactly why but it eventually becomes me saying what I like and don't like. Like the generic wizard is in fact kind of the point of the D&D wizard, Dice made a good argument in its defence, doesn't change the fact it is a type of caster I don't really enjoy.
    This is a point I can heartily agree with. Taste is taste. The bold part is something we totally agree on--I wish D&D magic enforced much more specialization among spell-casters.
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    Quote Originally Posted by RedMage125 View Post
    I, for one, do not find that the old "casting all but the last bits" of a spell to be in conflict with 3e and up at all
    Not necessarily in conflict with the rules, but it does raise the question of why nobody ever seems to cast a spell all at once, even if they're a homebody NPC wizard
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    See, I don't see the connection. They're beyond the outer planes. They're not associated with them at all--positive/negative is orthogonal to upper/lower. Positive isn't good, Negative isn't bad. They're just...there.
    They shouldn't be associated, but people have been mistakenly conflating Positive Energy with Good because it's bright and shiny and Negative Energy with Evil because it's dark and draining for decades, which is why we got "mindless undead default to evil" and "healing is Conjuration because Necromancy is evil" in 3e. So when the 5e devs expand the Positive and Negative Energy Planes to "encompass everything" and draw the new Wheel with the PEP arcing over the Upper Planes and the NEP arcing below the Lower Planes, it's going to further encourage that misconception and it's a pretty good sign at least some of the designers probably labor under it themselves.

    And having 6 types of "things" plus souls is just really busy. I'd rather simplify it down to just 1 fundamental type of thing with a bunch of aspects.

    But then again I'm really not fond of the whole Great Wheel as a thing--it seems full of pointless box-checking symmetry-for-the-sake-of-symmetry and forces alignment into everything (which I hate). It's also super rigid.
    The entire structure of the Great Wheel is, in-game, due to the fact that the multiverse coalesced during (or at least around the time of) the War of Law and Chaos in which the forces of "reality should exist and have rules" fought against the forces of "reality should do whatever I want at the moment" and won, so the Wheel was shaped by people (for a given value of "people") who felt that symmetry, order, cycles, and so forth were important, hence why the "Chaotic" planes still feel orderly and the classification system of cosmic principles known as alignment is a big deal.

    I feel quite the opposite about the Wheel: every attempt I've seen to "improve" the Wheel by replacing it with a different cosmology basically boils down to taking all the elemental planes and either (A) throwing them into a big mishmash because "single-element planes are boring and hard to adventure in" despite the fact that turning the Plane of Earth or Plane of Water into Limbo makes it harder to adventure in or (B) folding them into other planes and ignoring the implications if your Fire plane is also your Hell plane or if one of the four isn't represented, then having either (A) one or two "good afterlife with harps and halos" planes and one or two "bad afterlife with fire and/or darkness" planes in a setup derivative of every real-world mythology ever or (B) an arbitrary number of Outer Planes so the DM can pull out the Plane of the Week at a whim and players don't know what to expect, and calling it a day.

    The 3e MotP did that for its one-page example of a dead-simple cosmology, 4e did it because its cosmology designers didn't have an ounce of creativity between them, homebrewers do it all the time. Say what you will about the Great Wheel, it's one of the more stand-out setting cosmologies out there and it gives a DM a ton of hooks to work with.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    But it fails the other requirement; "and too precious to waste on experimentation." Otherwise the lost knowledge can be recovered, and will probably either be happening right now or has already happened, in which case the fact that it was at one point recovered is irrelevant.
    Not too precious, no (except on Athas), but the point is that that experimentation isn't happening at the kind of scale that you need to make settings go from post-apocalyptic ones scavenging lost magic from the ruins of the latest world-changing/-ending event to ones where magic is understood, research into it is expanded and built upon, and magic as a field of study is notable advanced.

    Even Eberron, the only setting that has markedly improved in the last century instead of improving a millennium ago and recapitulating things since then, has many magic items being reliant on the user having a dragonmark partly because the Houses like their monopolies but also largely because they haven't figured out to duplicate certain effects without using that as a shortcut, wizards being quite rare compared to magewrights so few people are doing much independent arcane research, and entire armies of warforged were created in ways that no one can replicate using magical forges that no one understands.

    I completely agree with your original objection, by the way, that spells are too special-case-y and don't interact with their environment and other magical effects in a uniform way. But that's an out-of-game problem, and I think you're dramatically underestimating the impediments to a typical wizard understanding his spells enough to fix that in-game in any published setting.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    This is a point I can heartily agree with. Taste is taste. The bold part is something we totally agree on--I wish D&D magic enforced much more specialization among spell-casters.
    There should be more class options that trade breadth of potential options for a more focused thematic scope, sure. But "guy who knows a smattering of lots of different kinds of magic" is a character concept in lots of fiction, especially more modern series like Harry Potter or the Dresden Files that a lot of players like to emulate, and I see no reason to go out of your way to set up your theory of magic to forbid that kind of character. Even Shadowrun, a game known for having a very consistent and easily-extrapolated magical metaphysics because the flavor was designed first and the mechanics built around that, put some limits on conjurable spirits by tradition and vary the way you access magic, but leave the kinds of effects you can access completely open to every kind of magic user.

    What I think needs to happen to satisfy the "wizards are too broad" complaints (which are completely legitimate) is to emphasize that the wizard is indeed a magical dabbler--a scavenger of lost magic who makes do with whatever scraps he can find and reverse-engineer, in many cases, and has a collection of potentially useful tricks rather than a carefully-crafted magical arsenal of all the good spells. If it ends up to specialist casters like the bard is to the main core classes, second-best at anything but not able to compete with a specialist, you can leave the concept intact without having it overshadow anyone else.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Not necessarily in conflict with the rules, but it does raise the question of why nobody ever seems to cast a spell all at once, even if they're a homebody NPC wizard
    Presumably they do, but if the mental magical constructs of spells need to be crafted in the same way whether you're going to cast them immediately or save them for later, it's reasonable to assume that casting a full spell in one go would still take up and then expend a spell slot because the mental channels (i.e. spell slots) used in that case are the same.

    Of course, it was a very common houserule in AD&D to let magic-users cast spells directly from their spellbooks without using slots if they had sufficient downtime and either an obscure rule whose origin I forget or another common rule to let them cast spells from their spellbook like scrolls if they were short on time (complete with using up the page just like a scroll and potentially damaging other spells in the book), and 5e has the ability to cast spells as rituals without using up slots (though for the flavor to make any sense, all spells should really be castable as rituals, not just ones with the right descriptor), so it's not unheard-of for non-spell-slot-based casting to be a common thing.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    They shouldn't be associated, but people have been mistakenly conflating Positive Energy with Good because it's bright and shiny and Negative Energy with Evil because it's dark and draining for decades, which is why we got "mindless undead default to evil" and "healing is Conjuration because Necromancy is evil" in 3e. So when the 5e devs expand the Positive and Negative Energy Planes to "encompass everything" and draw the new Wheel with the PEP arcing over the Upper Planes and the NEP arcing below the Lower Planes, it's going to further encourage that misconception and it's a pretty good sign at least some of the designers probably labor under it themselves.



    The entire structure of the Great Wheel is, in-game, due to the fact that the multiverse coalesced during (or at least around the time of) the War of Law and Chaos in which the forces of "reality should exist and have rules" fought against the forces of "reality should do whatever I want at the moment" and won, so the Wheel was shaped by people (for a given value of "people") who felt that symmetry, order, cycles, and so forth were important, hence why the "Chaotic" planes still feel orderly and the classification system of cosmic principles known as alignment is a big deal.

    I feel quite the opposite about the Wheel: every attempt I've seen to "improve" the Wheel by replacing it with a different cosmology basically boils down to taking all the elemental planes and either (A) throwing them into a big mishmash because "single-element planes are boring and hard to adventure in" despite the fact that turning the Plane of Earth or Plane of Water into Limbo makes it harder to adventure in or (B) folding them into other planes and ignoring the implications if your Fire plane is also your Hell plane or if one of the four isn't represented, then having either (A) one or two "good afterlife with harps and halos" planes and one or two "bad afterlife with fire and/or darkness" planes in a setup derivative of every real-world mythology ever or (B) an arbitrary number of Outer Planes so the DM can pull out the Plane of the Week at a whim and players don't know what to expect, and calling it a day.

    The 3e MotP did that for its one-page example of a dead-simple cosmology, 4e did it because its cosmology designers didn't have an ounce of creativity between them, homebrewers do it all the time. Say what you will about the Great Wheel, it's one of the more stand-out setting cosmologies out there and it gives a DM a ton of hooks to work with.
    I've never been a big fan of extraplanar content in general. There's plenty enough to get excited about on the material plane without needing a plane comprised entirely of fire (which was mostly nonsense anyway).

    In my mind, the only planes you really need are 1 good aligned heaven (for the angels), 1 evil aligned hell (for the demons), and the planes adjacent to the material (astral, ethereal, and shadow). Mechanus and limbo are optional, as their significance depends largely on the campaign's theme. Nothing else is needed.

    I mean, you call it derivative, but nothing in the game is truly original anyway. I don't see any problem with copying the solution here as well. Just a boring cosmology? Better a boring one than a needlessly complex one.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pleh View Post
    I've never been a big fan of extraplanar content in general. There's plenty enough to get excited about on the material plane without needing a plane comprised entirely of fire (which was mostly nonsense anyway).

    In my mind, the only planes you really need are 1 good aligned heaven (for the angels), 1 evil aligned hell (for the demons), and the planes adjacent to the material (astral, ethereal, and shadow). Mechanus and limbo are optional, as their significance depends largely on the campaign's theme. Nothing else is needed.
    I don't see why the transitive planes are needed; they're basically an answer to a question nobody asked
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    I don't see why the transitive planes are needed; they're basically an answer to a question nobody asked
    I repurposed them as liminal planes. They're the way you get between the Mortal plane and the others. They're a shadow cast by the Astral (as aether heads upward, being a manic reflection of mortality), by the elemental planes (as condensed aether returns in the form of elemental matter and energy, being a melancholic reflection of mortality), and by the Abyss (whose unnatural corruption produces a wasteland of war and famine, being a reflection of the worst of mortality).

    The spirits of the dead find the place best suited for them and abide for a time, until they fade out or are eaten. After that? No one knows, not even the gods.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    I don't see why the transitive planes are needed; they're basically an answer to a question nobody asked
    I find character/monster abilities like Shadow Walking or Etherealness to be a bit too common in my games to easily explain without transitive planes. That said, I don't see them as much as entirely separate planes from the material, but more as dimensional layers of the material plane. Sort of like the Upside Down dimension in Stranger Things.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pleh View Post
    I've never been a big fan of extraplanar content in general. There's plenty enough to get excited about on the material plane without needing a plane comprised entirely of fire (which was mostly nonsense anyway).
    Depends on much you value verisimilitude/are part of the Sim crowd. It´s not a bad thing to be able to keep the power level/fantastical stuff on the prime on an easily digestible level, by having the whole really high fantasy stuff take place elsewhere, preferable other planes that are intentionally different than the Prime.

    I think 4E actually broke the game more or less down into three phases, corresponding with character levels: 1/3 Wilderness Exploration, next 1/3 Dungeon Exploration, last 1/3 Outer Planes and stuff.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    I don't see why the transitive planes are needed; they're basically an answer to a question nobody asked
    For D&D, they were apparently used to model physics. In PF, Transitive Planes have been tied more closely to the mythological functions of the multiverse, along with the Inner Planes.

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    Default Re: D&D Magic Theory

    A random thought, not fully developed:

    If D&D wizardry truly is available to anyone who can study it, there should be a lot more people who can cast at least basic wizard spells. Every adventurer should be able to pick up a cantrip or so during downtime. But that doesn't seem to be the case. So something in the model doesn't fit.

    What if the rate-limiting factor in spell-casting ability isn't learning the spells themselves, but opening the spell slots?

    In my model, the spells and spell slots are separate. You could be a scholar who knows all of everything about the spells, down to having dozens memorized but be unable to actually put any of them into practice because you lack the internal energy structures to spark them.

    My thought was that this process for most people requires hours per day of meditation, practice, and other non-studying, non-working time over the course of years per slot. A cleric might be meditating and praying, trying to gain a full connection to their god and working to build the flow of energy within themselves. A wizard might be doing mental exercises to build the patterns, much like an athlete practices the basics for hours at a time.

    So a commoner, who has to provide for themselves, won't have the time to spare. They can't take years off of farming/hunting/crafts/etc to do this. Most nobles (and people) don't have the patience to dedicate themselves this much for that long.

    Some people (PCs included), however, have the innate talent for quickly opening these slots and learning to control the connection to the patterns. So they might open one in a few weeks of concerted effort. Those that don't get their slots at 1st level (1/2 casters and 1/3 casters) would be presumed to be working toward opening them as they adventure.

    Warlocks, however, are the exception. They get theirs torn open as part of the pact and just have to learn to control them. That's why Pact Magic slots are so different (more limited in number, auto-scaling, and returning on a short rest) from "regular" ones--they're the result of cheating the normal order. I see Pact Magic as being the "tempting shortcut" for many people. Fiends are the easiest to contact, but the most likely to demand something outrageous (like a soul or straight up evil deeds). The others are less baleful, but harder to contact (requiring more research and work).

    It's not fully developed, but I think it's a promising avenue for further thought.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pleh View Post
    I've never been a big fan of extraplanar content in general. There's plenty enough to get excited about on the material plane without needing a plane comprised entirely of fire (which was mostly nonsense anyway).
    The Elemental Planes have as much of a mythological pedigree as heaven and hell planes do. Many mythoi have the universe existing as endless primordial water before the god(s) do something to push it back into its own realm, "underworld"-style afterlives are basically cognate to the Plane of Earth, Norse mythology has Muspelheim and Niflheim (basically the Elemental Plane of Fire and Paraelemental Plane of Ice) as first two of the Nine Worlds, and so forth.

    In my mind, the only planes you really need are 1 good aligned heaven (for the angels), 1 evil aligned hell (for the demons), and the planes adjacent to the material (astral, ethereal, and shadow). Mechanus and limbo are optional, as their significance depends largely on the campaign's theme. Nothing else is needed.

    I mean, you call it derivative, but nothing in the game is truly original anyway. I don't see any problem with copying the solution here as well. Just a boring cosmology? Better a boring one than a needlessly complex one.
    There's a difference between being influenced by (and a remix of) classical sources and being a straight-up copy. Plenty of fantasy is influenced by LotR, but Eragon and the early Shannara books are very derivative of it, for instance, and they suffer for it. I personally think watering D&D down with a standard mythological cosmology, generic mana/spell points in place of Vancian and so forth, reflavoring psionics into just another magic and getting rid of the science-fantasy flavor, excluding the non-Tolkien races, and so forth does a big disservice to the game and cuts out a lot more options and playstyles than it does "reduce needless complexity."

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    I don't see why the transitive planes are needed; they're basically an answer to a question nobody asked
    The specific questions of where do demiplanes come from, how do souls get to the afterlife, what a "para-energy plane" would look like, and so forth may not be questions you need the answers to (although considering we're in a thread about coming up with a Grand Unified Theory for magic, talking about coming up with pointless answers to pointless questions is a bit counterproductive ), but they do fulfill important niches in that the Ethereal Plane fills the role of your archetypal "alternate dimension that can see but not touch the real world" plane while the Plane of Shadow is your archetypal "weird and spooky mirror of the real world" plane, both of which are used in all sorts of stories and which DMs might want to use in their campaign.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    In my model, the spells and spell slots are separate. You could be a scholar who knows all of everything about the spells, down to having dozens memorized but be unable to actually put any of them into practice because you lack the internal energy structures to spark them.
    That's essentially how things work in canon, since it's entirely possible to have max ranks in Spellcraft and Knowledge (Arcana), or in 5e expertise in Arcana, without the ability to cast spells, and conversely for high-level sorcerers to have major magical mojo with 10 Int and no arcane training whatsoever.

    It's basically the science/engineering split. A theoretical physicist does research using machines mechanical and electrical engineers build, programmers use techniques developed by computer scientists, and so on, and while the disciplines overlap a lot at advanced levels and it's very beneficial to be trained in both, it's not necessary to cross-train to get the job done.

    Some people (PCs included), however, have the innate talent for quickly opening these slots and learning to control the connection to the patterns. So they might open one in a few weeks of concerted effort. Those that don't get their slots at 1st level (1/2 casters and 1/3 casters) would be presumed to be working toward opening them as they adventure.
    I don't think ascribing things to nebulous "innate talent" is a satisfying solution, really, since that posits that all PCs (or just those that want to multiclass into a casting class, perhaps) happen to be drawn from a pool of exceptional individuals, and while many PCs have that kind of backstory there's plenty who have the "just an ordinary person thrust into extraordinary circumstances" backstory and don't want to discover midway that they've been special all along.

    What might make more sense is to say that exposure to magic (both physically being exposed to it and merely encountering and studying it) improves your ability to create and open spell slots. They're magical channels in your mind and body, after all, so having magic flow through you would help with that, and being able to recognize the sensations of magic, see what other magic-users are doing, and so forth can help guide meditations and point out blind spots in practice regimens.

    This helps explain why fighter PCs can pick up wizardry faster than an apprentice wizard if they want to--if you're repeatedly getting fireball'd and cure wounds'd on a daily basis and running into all sorts of strange magical fields, you can skip a lot of the basic regimens because you don't need several weeks to sense your chakras (they're still smarting from that behir's breath last weekend, thankyouverymuch), a month to figure out how to totally clear your mind (that mystical fountain on the third level of that tomb had a fairly similar effect), and so forth. It also explains why non-wizard arcanists might congregate in guilds (just being around experienced spellcasters is helpful for apprentices even if you don't directly learn anything from them), why wizards build towers (it concentrates lots of magic to make it easier for you to open your spell slots), and other setting conceits.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Literally all of them except Eberron.

    Dark Sun? Arcane magic screwed up the world and practicing it is forbidden on pain of death. Forgotten Realms? There are more fallen empires than existing ones, and Realms-Shaking Events change the magical landscape every few human generations. Greyhawk? The main magical empires had a magical nuke exchange, kingdoms and empires are fragmented, and magic is fading.
    Greyhawk actually strikes me as a setting where the idea of magical knowledge being lost makes literally no sense, given that Boccob has both the means and the motivation to reestablish any arcane knowledge that might become lost to mortals
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    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    I don't think ascribing things to nebulous "innate talent" is a satisfying solution, really, since that posits that all PCs (or just those that want to multiclass into a casting class, perhaps) happen to be drawn from a pool of exceptional individuals, and while many PCs have that kind of backstory there's plenty who have the "just an ordinary person thrust into extraordinary circumstances" backstory and don't want to discover midway that they've been special all along.

    What might make more sense is to say that exposure to magic (both physically being exposed to it and merely encountering and studying it) improves your ability to create and open spell slots. They're magical channels in your mind and body, after all, so having magic flow through you would help with that, and being able to recognize the sensations of magic, see what other magic-users are doing, and so forth can help guide meditations and point out blind spots in practice regimens.

    This helps explain why fighter PCs can pick up wizardry faster than an apprentice wizard if they want to--if you're repeatedly getting fireball'd and cure wounds'd on a daily basis and running into all sorts of strange magical fields, you can skip a lot of the basic regimens because you don't need several weeks to sense your chakras (they're still smarting from that behir's breath last weekend, thankyouverymuch), a month to figure out how to totally clear your mind (that mystical fountain on the third level of that tomb had a fairly similar effect), and so forth. It also explains why non-wizard arcanists might congregate in guilds (just being around experienced spellcasters is helpful for apprentices even if you don't directly learn anything from them), why wizards build towers (it concentrates lots of magic to make it easier for you to open your spell slots), and other setting conceits.
    First, I'm very firmly of the opinion that all PCs have extraordinary potential, even the non-spell casters. It's part of the "innate magic" side of the theory. In 5e (where this theory originates), a 1st level Fighter (who is described as an apprentice) is already significantly better than a Guard. A 1st level wizard is much better than an Apprentice Wizard (the NPC stat block). And if anyone could achieve the pinnacle of human potential in a few months, there would have to be a lot more high power people around. Which makes for horrible worldbuilding. So I've made it canon in my setting that each individual has a cap on their potential for growth. Basically a maximum amount of aether they can handle. Most people cap at the equivalent of levels 1-3, if even they get that far, with exponential fall-off from there. So having PCs (and select others) with extraordinary potential works for me.

    Also, I wanted to allow for non-traditional backstories. The 1st level Outlander Wizard who found a moldering spellbook on a desiccated corpse and learned magic in a few months or even a year (when most would take years of guided study). The bard who awoke to his potential while performing in a tavern. The soldier called by Torm on the battlefield, casting his first healing spell on the spot. I want to make it possible for the apprentice to a guild craftsman in a village to awaken to his potential and harness his inner rage, learning the art of the axe in (relatively) no time at all. I want to explain why that folk hero halfling can learn to cast spells in weeks without a significant magical training facility around, while the common high elf takes many years to learn that racial cantrip and may never progress beyond that.

    I feel PCs should be special. Not because we're paying attention to them but rather the reverse. We're paying attention to them because they're special and doing interesting things. If they weren't special or interesting, we'd follow someone who is. D&D is not a game about ordinary people. It's about heroes, doing heroic deeds. So having them be special is, to me, the presumption.

    But your tack would work for those who feel otherwise. It's a good model, just not one I happen to like personally.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I feel PCs should be special. Not because we're paying attention to them but rather the reverse. We're paying attention to them because they're special and doing interesting things. If they weren't special or interesting, we'd follow someone who is. D&D is not a game about ordinary people. It's about heroes, doing heroic deeds. So having them be special is, to me, the presumption.
    This is close to my take on D&D Magic. In a world that's full of magic, to me, that seeps into everyone and everything. Every human has some amount of magical energy in them, whether latent or already awakened. The people that become heroes tend to have a larger reservoir within them that allows them to do extraordinary things whether it be spells or something like an undying, Indomitable spirit. Undead can be caused by twisted magic, or by purposeful manipulation.
    Last edited by Jama7301; 2019-04-18 at 04:44 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    If D&D wizardry truly is available to anyone who can study it, there should be a lot more people who can cast at least basic wizard spells. Every adventurer should be able to pick up a cantrip or so during downtime. But that doesn't seem to be the case. So something in the model doesn't fit.
    The implicit answer is already given by the rules: becoming a Wizard takes years longer than becoming most other classes, and if you look at costs of spellbooks, spells etc., it is more expensive as well.

    For example: under d20 rules, a young adult human takes 1d4 years to become a Barbarian or Rogue, average 2.5. Or 1d6 years to become a Fighter or Bard, average 3.5 years. It takes 2d6 years to become a Cleric, Druid or Wizard, average 7 years.

    If you look at rules for starting characters, it's not meant to be something you can easily do during downtime. The impression that it is, is caused by very free multi-classing rules for player characters in post-d20 systems. Plus massive inflation in number of base classes that get magic from word go.

    For contrast, a sorcerer takes 1d4 years to realize their powers, but that's because they're explicitly born with them.
    Last edited by Frozen_Feet; 2019-04-18 at 10:53 PM.

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