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View Full Version : A New Wizard [Class?]



Jibar
2007-02-21, 12:38 PM
In any kind of video game, I love magic. I absolutely love it to death. But in almost every game, I find it is the single most flawed thing about the game. This goes for D&D.
So, I'm going to try and build a wizard with a new spellcasting system.
This will be exactly the same as the wizard, but without the magic.
Instead, I will replace their spells, with a new system based upon one of my campaign worlds.
In this world, magic is free to use. It's everywhere. But the only problem is, only a select few can be use it. Here, wizard isn't a class. It's a race.
The Magic Realm is a seperate plane, attached to the Material Plane. This world is nothing but pure magic. When a creature enters this plane, they are walking on magic, breathing magic, being attacked by magic.
Magic is split into four colours.
Blue Magic
This magic is simple. Waving your hands right is enough to trigger a Blue Magic spell. These spells are also weak though. You'll never be able to summon vicious monsters to do your bidding. You can however throw balls of Blue at enemies, conjure fire, lightning, ice, or other elements to damage your enemies. It's also used for simple jobs like telekinesis, seeing long distances, basic jobs heightened by magic.
Purple Magic
This is where things get interesting. This where you'll start summoning creatures to serve you, raising the dead, creating portals to cross the landscape and similar stuff. This is the magic that makes up the Magic Realm. When you walk through this mystical place, you'll see Purple, hear Purple, smell Purple. Blue Magic wanders through the Material Plane, but Purple Magic must be dragged out of the Magic Realm. To cast Purple Magic spells, you'll need to use magic items, such as crystals, staffs and wands.
Yellow Magic
A wild card, even in the Magic Realm. Yellow Magic allows the caster to start playing with the big toys. They can craft hideous creatures from the surrondings, rip the flesh from the bones of their enemies, transform themselves into other forms. But Yellow Magic comes with a great price. After first taming the spell, casting it drains the lifeforce of the wielder. A wizard who tries to cast too much Yellow Magic often finds themselves dead.
Red Magic
Red Magic is the heart of the Magic Realm. One great mass of Red sits in the centre of all Magic, and it is from here that Purple, Blue and Yellow is born. Red Magic is sentient though. Unlike their beast-like children, Red Magic has greater intelligence than even the smartest humanoid, and is capable of feeling everything any human ever could. Because of this, permission to cast a Red Magic spell must first be obtained from the Red, and then a whole group of wizards is required to cast it. But the rewards are worth it. Creating black holes. Ripping the earth in twain. Creating storms of fire and brimstone. Bringing all the Material Realm to its knees. Red Magic is the ultimate goal.

The mechanics is what fails me though. I was thinking it could work like the warlock invocations, with fewer spells, but infinite spells-per-day. Learning Yellow Magic would require side quests into the Magic Realm to tame them. Red Magic would be an entire quest just to learn a spell, let alone gain permission.
But how would this work? I was hoping that you could keep some of the spells but tweak them to this system. Magic Missle would become a Blue Magic spell for example, while Gate may be Yellow Magic.
I'm horrible at this sorta thing, and I would like to leave time to work on the Cat-Muffinocon, so what do you think?

cferejohn
2007-02-21, 01:04 PM
Interesting idea, but I'm not quite sure where it is going yet. There seem to be some general magic areas that don't really have homes. You don't seem have any kind of mind affecting spells (hold person, confusion, suggestions, and such), which at high levels are really the best spells a wizard has in DnD (save or die/suck). You also make no mention of healing (assuming you are intending this system to replace both divine and arcane magic). Maybe you are more interested in magic as dangerous, powerful energy as opposed to subtle mind-effecting stuff, which is fine, but it does risk making a wizard somewhat akin to a bow specialist - a ranged damage dealer and not much else.

Basing spells on completing quests, especially if you are going to allow infinite castings once a spell is learned, seems kind of problematic. The idea of the classes (nevermind the degree to which it is or is not achieved), is that they are roughly balanced from level 1 to 20. One decently constructed 15h level character should be roughly as powerful as another. However, if one 15th level character has made quests that allow him to cast powerful spells at will, while the other has not, that seems to upset the balance (hard to be more specific without, will, specifics).