Casting Styles

[MrStabby]

So I was wondering what might happen if you let people pick some spell lists independently of class?

Specifically the cleric, sorcerer and warlock. What if any of these classes could chose from the other classes?

So if you wanted, you could be a sorcerer picking your spells from the druid list, or a warlock using sorcerer spell?

[ronlugge]

The entire universe would collapse!

...

The class's features are tied to their spell lists. Clerics have a relatively weak offensive spell selection, at least in part because they have armor and weapons (or other class features) to make up for it. Wizards have pretty offensive spells, but their other abilities are (deliberately) below par. An easy (ish) sample is what happens with the basic shield spell. A war cleric can (via plate armor + shield) get an AC of 20 pretty easily. That's pretty tanky, and without any character investment in feats. (Even medium armor clerics can dpulicate that with medium armor mastery) Add the Shield spell, and the 'target number' actually becomes 25 -- a pretty hard to hit number. A gish who uses mirror image & displacement to become hard to hit gets away with it because in order to wear armor, he had to pay some kind of (steep) opportunity cost.

[rhouck]

Ask the bard :)

I don't see much of a balance issue with expanding warlock/sorcerer/wizard spell lists to overlap, but I'd keep the divide between them and cleric/paladin/druid/ranger (i.e., retain the arcane versus divine magic line).

[iTreeby]

if you give a sorcerer a bunch of new spells to metamagic, it can be problematic.

[The Evil DM]

about 25 years ago I redefined magic as a simple manipulation of an energy source. The only difference between a arcane and divine was the arcane caster learned how to manipulate the magic through study and mastery of the science of magic, and the divine caster learned his magic through the prayers to his divine patron.

I have played this way for 25 years starting in 1st ed and carrying it through on to all editions.

Here is what is has done to the campaign.

Balance - no effect - players identify the characters they want to play within that context and it doesn't matter if your healing is coming from a white necromancer or a healing priest.
Game Play - no effect - the spells work exactly the same for everyone.
Simplification - Helped - no more spells that are 3rd level for this class and 2nd level for that class.

The division only helps to support an arbitrarily designed objective of having a four man archetype consisting of a warrior, rogue, cleric and wizard. You eliminate that division and you can start to break down the archetypes.

Part of my counter is I make it harder to acquire and learn spells. None of this you automatically know spells in your spell books.

[rhouck]

Part of my counter is I make it harder to acquire and learn spells. None of this you automatically know spells in your spell books.

So clerics no longer know the entire spell list? Do they now have spell books that they "learn" spells via prayer?

I'm skeptical of your balance analysis, since it just increases caster power relative to martials. It may not affect caster versus caster balance that much (since they all operate the same), but it does increase caster power overall. It seems highly dependent on your DM fiat to limit access to spells. But if your players are happy, that's all that matters :smallsmile:

[ThermalSlapShot]

In 3.5/PF the Sorcerer can learn a spell from any spell list and it was absolutely awesome. I would say since the Sorcerer has so few spell known to give them the ability to take spells from any list. However each spell level they gain the spells must come from the same list.

[The Evil DM]

So clerics no longer know the entire spell list? Do they now have spell books that they "learn" spells via prayer?

I'm skeptical of your balance analysis, since it just increases caster power relative to martials. It may not affect caster versus caster balance that much (since they all operate the same), but it does increase caster power overall. It seems highly dependent on your DM fiat to limit access to spells. But if your players are happy, that's all that matters :smallsmile:

Divine casters have a variety of ways to learn spells, its either memorized rituals, or prayer books or some combination of things.

Its not DM Fiat that limits spells, that description is only based on the perspective of how current edition functions. I have dug way back into various descriptions of spirit magic, voodoo, shamanism, alchemy and other things. Magic is a singular energy, but the means by which it is manipulated can vary greatly from magic type and not all casters are by the book vancian mages. These do exist but they tend to be members of the highest sciences and guilds while the more common casters learn through awareness of the spirits around them.

There are voodoo masters who do nasty things with potions and voodoo dolls.

The limitations on spell casting are not arbitrary either. Energy values have been defined based on what the spell does. These energy values correlate to minimum ability scores required to use the particular spell without risk of damage to oneself.

Re Players Happy. Game has run continuously for 25 years, I share the setting with 6 GMs. It works, can be done and magic can be opened up in many ways.

[rhouck]

snip

That actually sounds really neat. You should post up the rules somewhere, if you haven't already. The energy value part sounds particularly cool and (I assume) the result of a lot of work. I play in a 1e/2e game that has homebrewed non-vancian magic rules, so always curious about alternatives.

[The Evil DM]

That actually sounds really neat. You should post up the rules somewhere, if you haven't already. The energy value part sounds particularly cool and (I assume) the result of a lot of work. I play in a 1e/2e game that has homebrewed non-vancian magic rules, so always curious about alternatives.

Here are the basics. My universe is named Cardia.

In the Cardian Universe magic is a physical force that can be used in energy interactions and energy and matter conversions as an additional form of physical energy in the same manner as heat, or electricity. The manipulation of magic can either sink excess physical energy, or source magic to be transformed into an alternate form of physical energy. In practice spells are defined but the author uses this principle to model and balance magic systems based on total energy required to create a magical effect.

Magical energy can be used to balance a physical equation in a manner that will break the normal laws of physics. For instance launching an object out of one’s hand imparts kinetic energy to the object. The size and weight of the object determines the total energy required to launch the object. The total energy required determines spell level and possible effects of caster level on spell power.

So for instance in one dimension a falling object has its mechanical energy at any given moment in time expressed as Kinetic Energy Plus Potential Energy mgh or Energy = 1/2mv2 + mgh

Now I alter that to Energy = 1/2mv2 + mgh +or- ME (magical energy)...

So an object beginning a fall from a stand still just has initial PE based on height above impact plane (hi) or mghi Later in its fall the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy and you have final conditions of energy final = 1/2mv2f + mghf

If a user of magic has feather fall available, the spell alters the characteristics of the falling individual and absorbs (sinks) energy that would be converted into kinetic energy. The final energy equation becomes, 1/2mv2f + mghf - ME

Setting the initial and final conditions together and limiting final velocity to that of the feather fall spell:

1/2mv2f + mghf - ME = mghi

I can solve for energy absorbed over the distance of a fall and set that into

Players need not know physics to use the spells. Rather the system is defined such that the spell descriptions and effects include the physics.

In the Cardian Universe, spell level has no arbitrary limit. A cantrip uses a maximum of one unit (x) of energy. A first level spell is between (x) and 2(x) units of energy. A second level spell is between 2(x) and 4(x) units of energy. The doubling of energy per spell level continues indefinitely.

Mortals using magic have their ability to access and channel the energy determined by ability scores. The ability score limits place a practical limit on mortal magic to between 7th and 9th level. A very rare few mortals achieve power beyond this. However, gods and immortals quite frequently know and possess magical abilities of extreme proportions.

In this paradigm no mortal is ever more powerful than the greater immortals like Pit Fiends, Balor and Drakyn (an immortal form of dragon) The mortal body simply cannot handle the energy flow that an immortal body can. Even at 20th level characters I can challenge the spell casters.

Effect is separate from fluff. Energy levels are mathematically derived. Some spells are moved around a lot from what people expect if they come from D&D canon.

(I am a dual Degreed Engineer (EE/ME) with graduate school in Computational Physics)

[SharkForce]

sorcerers get a heck of a lot stronger. a large part of the problem with sorcerers is not just that they know fewer spells, but that they have a very limited list to choose from.

probably makes a pretty huge difference for warlocks too.

for others... yeah, there's a difference, but it probably isn't huge.

[squab]

So Evil DM, that sounds really interesting, but um, do you have the system down to a point that people can use it without (someone) knowing the advanced math behind it?

[ImSAMazing]

So I was wondering what might happen if you let people pick some spell lists independently of class?

Specifically the cleric, sorcerer and warlock. What if any of these classes could chose from the other classes?

So if you wanted, you could be a sorcerer picking your spells from the druid list, or a warlock using sorcerer spell?

Why would you want that? If you want to "steal" spells, become a bard. All the features of the classes are tied to the spell list... Also why would a Warlock gain healing magic?

[MrStabby]

Why would you want that? If you want to "steal" spells, become a bard. All the features of the classes are tied to the spell list... Also why would a Warlock gain healing magic?

Well I think that the character of a class is closely tied to the spells more than the other casting abilities. Warlock casting Cleric spells would be a Cleric by flavour, a Warlock Casting druid spells would be a druid by flavour and so on - just a cleric or druid that gets back spells on a short rest.

This means that someone who wanted a Cleric by theme and flavour could play one whilst choosing a short rest mechanic.

There are a lot of potential avenues for abuse but I couldn't get them to work so well. Twin spell on a cleric spell list? Sure at low levels guiding bolt could be pretty nasty but it quickly gets outdone by cantrips and just by level 3 spells that a blaster sorcerer would give up. Yes you could get quicken spell and eldritch blast as a single class - but without agonizing blast you wouldn't get the same punch.

It also opens up other themes - you want a cleric as a holy man rather than a fighter - you can, and you can basically trade in weapon and armour proficiencies for something like metamagic. You want to play a trickster cleric? Maybe a warlock chassis will give you a lot of trickery invocations to fluff that out.

It may be Naive but when I sat down to try and abuse this I couldn't come up with a power build that I thought was stronger than what you could build anyway. The only possible exception would be something like taking an elemental damage cantrip and adding wisdom from cleric and Cha from sorcerer. It seemed like you would be trading a lot for that anyway and you could have done similar with a wizard anyway.

[Spacehamster]

With that title I thought it would be something about homebrew casting styles in the vein of the fighting styles for mundanes, which would be cool. :D

[MrStabby]

With that title I thought it would be something about homebrew casting styles in the vein of the fighting styles for mundanes, which would be cool. :D


A good point...

Time to go and homebrew some...

Actually for MC purposes a martial getting an Eldritch fighting style or something could be good. Maybe Spells count as weapon attacks ore something. Although that might be a bit good.