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Godskook
2009-05-01, 05:38 PM
I've been thinking, and that is normally when people start running, but hear me out.

I've heard complaints about how the current barred schools rule for wizards doesn't make sense from a fluff or crunch perspective("Why should my Illusionist be less useful with certain magic items then the party idiot(fighter)?"). My thought was to utilize existing mechanics to give it a bit more of a logical feel.

Skill points:
Focused Specialists gain 4 additional skill points per level. Specialists gain 6. Generalists gain 8.

Skills:
Spellcraft is no longer a class skill for a wizard.

Instead, a wizard gains the following as class skills:
School of Abjuration
School of Conjuration
School of Divination
School of Enchantment
School of Evocation
School of Illusion
School of Necromancy
School of Transmutation

These skills all function identically to spellcraft except as noted here and below. Each is usable only when the spell in question is of that school. Should a wizard gain spellcraft as a class skill(through a feat or class skill), spellcraft does not function with wizard spells and a multiclass caster may choose spellcraft or the appropriate School skill when dealing with their class spells.

A wizard must have x*2 ranks in a skill in order to cast a spell of x-1 level from that school. This is in addition to all other restrictions. A wizard that has insufficient ranks in a certain skill may not cast spells of that school nor gain school-associated spell slots of that level(A 15th level FS Diviner with only 10 ranks in the School of Divination can not use divination slots above 4th spell level).

The act of barring a school causes you to lose 10 ranks in that skill(it is possible to have negative ranks in a school skill), and you gain a +2 on skill checks related to your chosen school for each barred school. Barred schools are treated as cross-class skills with one exception, feats that loosen the cc restrictions of skill have no effect on these skills unless explicitly specified(Ex: Able Learner has no effect on them).

Synergy:
Any skill that received a synergy bonus from spellcraft receives a +2 synergy bonus only from the most relevant skill, and only if you have 5 ranks in it. This bonus does not stack with the synergy bonus gained from spellcraft.

Any skill that gives a synergy bonus to spellcraft also gives a bonus to each of these skills.

When a wizard attempts to use UMD, if he has negative ranks in the appropriate school, he instead subtracts his ranks from the DC(A wizard who barred Necromancy and didn't invest SP into it would need to beat a DC 30 to use a wand of inflict critical wounds).

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I'm pretty sure I left the overall game intact while hopefully giving a mechanical system that better illustrates specializing without it seeming illogical. And this way, a player who barres necromancy before learning its such a useful skill has the ability to fix the mistake without multiclassing(Admittedly, at the cost of 60 Skill points)

So, thoughts?

The Mentalist
2009-05-03, 11:42 AM
Would it not make more sense to give them a -10 penalty instead of -10 ranks?

Also I think that higher ranks should help with caster level.

Godskook
2009-05-03, 07:03 PM
Would it not make more sense to give them a -10 penalty instead of -10 ranks?

I don't know. I'm rather new to D&D, and while I've read a lot about it, I'm still getting used to the nuances of the system.

I think the main reason I went with negative ranks was to keep book-keeping simple. The player already keeps track of ranks, but most character sheets I've seen don't allow for easy notation for where modifiers come from. With negative ranks, a 25th level caster doesn't need to remember if he adds a penalty to his School checks or not, the ranks are already written.

Actually, scratch that. The reason I went with negative ranks is that I wasn't using checks for the new restrictions. It also tells us what happens when a player becomes a Red Wizard, they lose 10 ranks of the appropriate skill, which might not be negative in this case.


Also I think that higher ranks should help with caster level.

Maybe at epic ranks, but the point was to be able to switch this with the current system without actually changing anything important. While adding benefits for a high rank makes sense to me, that would make this a bonus instead of lateral change.

The Mentalist
2009-05-03, 09:39 PM
It's already a bonus, you have Wizards with more skill points than rogues now, you take a level in Factorum to have all class skills then pound the rogue skill monkey into the ground.

Godskook
2009-05-03, 11:21 PM
It's already a bonus, you have Wizards with more skill points than rogues now, you take a level in Factorum to have all class skills then pound the rogue skill monkey into the ground.

Hmm.....maybe the numbers need work.

Ouch, I've thought about it a little and realized you're right, doing this would totally blow any other skill monkey away(and you don't need factotum to get all skills as class skills, there's a feat for it).

Would trimming it down to a bonus +4, +5 and +7 work? That gives a generalist 9 per level, but each one he doesn't spend on a spellcraft equivalent skill limits his spell selection severely. Sure, he could become a skill-monkey, but to be able to be more useful than a rogue/factotum as a skill-monkey, he'd have to give up 6 of his 8 schools. Is skillmonkey duty worth 3/4s of a generalist's schools?

I guess the question comes down to this, is losing an entire school of casting worth +1 Skill point per level? Sure, a generalist could be a better skillmonkey, but then he'd drastically reduce his casting versatility(is a two-school wizard any better than a sorcerer?).

The Mentalist
2009-05-03, 11:33 PM
That helps quite a bit, although I could still see an Illusionist with rogue level skills and full casting (NO!!!!! a Shadowcraft Mage) I think it has potential for awesomeness. I might be interesting to write in some applied uses for the Schools, (You get a fighter takes ranks in them and can maybe pull of a +1 or 2 to damage with Evocation)

Godskook
2009-05-04, 12:04 AM
That helps quite a bit, although I could still see an Illusionist with rogue level skills and full casting (NO!!!!! a Shadowcraft Mage) I think it has potential for awesomeness.

Yeah, well that's because shadow conj/evoc is cheesy. I mean, who thought giving illusionists better evocations than evokers was a good idea?

Actually....that provides a way to make me a lot more comfortable with the spells. Shadow spells could require ranks in both relevant skills in order to cast them(A 6th level shadow conjuration would require 14 ranks in School of Illusion and School of Conjuration). There, that at least excuses the cheese somewhat, and prevents the horrible cheese of banning conjuration or evocation and then using shadow spells to gain access anyway.


I might be interesting to write in some applied uses for the Schools, (You get a fighter takes ranks in them and can maybe pull of a +1 or 2 to damage with Evocation)

Well, one idea I had for enhancing it is by giving a player bonus slots for high ranks in a school, starting after 10 ranks. For each rank after 10, you gain a 1 bonus spell slot, but its a 0th level slot. For each rank after 20, you gain 1st level slots instead, and so on. By level 20, you'd have 10 extra 1st level slots and 3 extra 2nd level slots for each School you raised that high.

That would drastically boost an epic wizard's longevity without shattering much, if anything, pre-epic.

darkrose50
2009-05-04, 01:43 AM
[1] Name the new mechanic “School Ranks”
[2] Borrow the skill mechanic
[3] Skill Ranks are not School Ranks
[4] Decide if Skill Ranks can be used to buy School Ranks
[5] I like the idea, go nuts!

The Mentalist
2009-05-04, 10:10 AM
Good idea.

Roderick_BR
2009-05-04, 12:07 PM
I've seen some attempts at schools as skills, though I didn't pay much attention to then.
Some questions:
The school skills will replace Spellcraft and/or Concentration?
You'll have to make skill checks to cast spells in combat?

I've been thinking about using it, combined with the spell point variant from Unearthed Arcana. I think it would be interesting.

AgentPaper
2009-05-04, 01:29 PM
Scrap the -10 to banned spells, that's a bad way to go about it. (Hmm, I'm going to focus on necromancy, which makes me a worse enchanter than when I started....what?) Instead, make banned schools cross-class skills.

Also, make everything spellcasting-related depend on the skill system, including spell slots per day. (Probably based on your highest school rank) Make school focus give something like +1 rank in that school's skill for each banned school. Scrap shadow evocation altogether. (it's a bad spell)

Make it so the wizard is a wizard basically because he gets all of the spell schools as class-skills, and gets an extra 4 points per level that can only go into them. (12 at level 1)

Now any class can practice magic the same way that a wizard does, only he'll be pretty bad at it, since the skills are cross-class.

The bard would get most or all spell schools as class skills, but no bonus skill-points to put in them, and no option to specialize.

No idea how the sorcerer would work.

Roderick_BR
2009-05-05, 09:47 AM
I agree with the cross-class skills as banned, but not for all classes. (and forbiding it as class-skills for others classes or feat effects)
And yes, why make a spell that reproduces a whole school of magic, that is already not strong? Shadow Evocation is simply dumb. We should have spells from many others schools to reproduce others schools then.

Spell slots should be based on level only. Simpler than calculating what you get from each school, or highest level. The wizard's power grows with his level, but the control (skill checks and what spells he can learn/cast) be based on his school skills.

Hmm. For bards and sorcerers, since their spell list are already limited, you just need a single skill for each of them. Dunno, I'm thinking about it too.

Godskook
2009-05-05, 05:12 PM
The school skills will replace Spellcraft and/or Concentration?
You'll have to make skill checks to cast spells in combat?

As I have it, these replace spellcraft for wizards only. Whenever a wizard would normally make a spellcraft check, he instead makes an appropriate Schoolcraft check. This makes a Conjurer who barred Evocation really bad at dealing with or understanding evocation spells.


Scrap the -10 to banned spells, that's a bad way to go about it. (Hmm, I'm going to focus on necromancy, which makes me a worse enchanter than when I started....what?) Instead, make banned schools cross-class skills.

Well, its primarily meant as a variant, not as change. Cross-class doesn't seem like enough of a penalty in and of itself to justify calling this a variant.

Besides, I wasn't trying to change the system, merely explain it mechanically, and perhaps fluff-wise too.

Look at it this way. Barring happens mostly for 1st level wizards. A wizard with barred schools isn't 'choosing' barred schools, he's 'learning' the way he thinks when he approaches spells academically. This explanation works equally well for most other casters who start wizard training later game, since wisdom and charisma casters don't understand their spells as much conceptually as they do 'in practice'. This happens with musicians(charisma or intelligence based). Charisma based musicians are just naturally good at playing music. They are inspired easily by other musicians, but some can't read sheet music or understand basic musical concepts like 'key'. They have an incredibly easy time switching genres. Intelligence based musicians must learn their music from a book, and typically, they only are comfortable playing the style of music they've studied, with certain types being almost completely out of their reach.(Admittedly, most musicians aren't this polarized, but I assure you, these differences exist in some measure).

Problem 1: Prestige classes. Admittedly, this explanation fails horribly with prestige classes, but that's an easy fix. Part of the rituals involved in attaining a prestige class that bars a school is that sacrifice. A magical cost for the powers the prestige class gives.

Problem 2: Other int-based casters. This is the part I'm not so sure how to deal with, explanation-wise. None of them exist in the SRD, so I'm not really familiar with them as I am with the SRD classes. Archivist would cause the most problems. Duskblade and Beguiler, less so, depending on spell-lists.


Also, make everything spellcasting-related depend on the skill system, including spell slots per day. (Probably based on your highest school rank) Make school focus give something like +1 rank in that school's skill for each banned school.

1.What haven't I included, spellcasting related?

2.General spell slots are awarded normally only if you have at least one school with enough ranks to cast at that level. Specialist slots are only awarded if you have ranks in your specialist school. This was described in the original post.

3.I thought about something like that, but I wasn't sure how to do it in a way that wasn't game-changing.


Scrap shadow evocation altogether. (it's a bad spell)

Again, variant, not game change. I agree that shadow-school spells are cheesy, but under certain conditions, wouldn't be too bad fluff-wise(Read: Not barring evocation or conjuration and having enough ranks to cast the spell you're shadowing).


Make it so the wizard is a wizard basically because he gets all of the spell schools as class-skills, and gets an extra 4 points per level that can only go into them. (12 at level 1)

Not sure what you're suggesting...


The bard would get most or all spell schools as class skills, but no bonus skill-points to put in them, and no option to specialize.

No idea how the sorcerer would work.

Charisma and Wisdom based casters just use spellcraft, having never 'studied' magic the way a wizard does.


I agree with the cross-class skills as banned, but not for all classes. (and forbiding it as class-skills for others classes or feat effects)

90% of classes wouldn't want School-craft skills, since they are inferior to Spellcraft.


Spell slots should be based on level only. Simpler than calculating what you get from each school, or highest level. The wizard's power grows with his level, but the control (skill checks and what spells he can learn/cast) be based on his school skills.

Are you talking about my little add-on from high-ranks? That was just me rambling.

If you're talking about the part where a wizard's new slots won't become available if he doesn't have the School-craft ranks to cast at that level, I think that makes sense. Besides, I doubt it would come up except from something wierd.

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Hmm....I just realized, as written, prestige class wizards get screwed on this deal. How to fix that?