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johnbragg
2018-01-27, 07:06 PM
Note: Just because of the old-school value of it, I'm bringing back Magic Users as the generic category that book-wizards and hedge-wizards and totem shamans and thematic casters are all members of.

What I want.

Forget arcane vs divine, prepared vs spontaneous. Those distinctions are artifacts of D&D evolution--I want to start from scratch.

I want thematic casters--pyromancers and snake priests and bear shamans and enchantress and necromancers and diviners and healers, specialists who are the unparalleled masters of a handful of spells in a small domain of magic.

I also want book wizards, arcane-academic sorts who pore over massive tomes of magic. Massive tomes that make your 5 pound college hardback textbook seem convenient and travel-friendly. Most are not the property of a single wizard, they are the property of the guild or academy (or the king or city that sponsors the guild.)
Book wizards know some spells by heart (comparable in number to the specialists), but any other spells must be cast directly from the books that hold them. And those spells come at a cost.

I want spellbooks to be prizes, major magic items in their own right. The LEsser and Greater Necronomicon (all necromancy spells levels 1-2 and 3-4). The Three Testaments of Heraklitus (Transmutation spells, level 1, 2 and 3) and, possibly the Lost Testament, known by some as the False Testament of the Pseudo-Heraklitus. You cannot just copy some pages with one or two spells and call it a spellbook and expect it to work--the book itself is a coherent whole.

(So book-wizards are sort of like standard sorcerors, casting spontaneously from a Spells Known list. But they also have the option of casting from a magical book. Or at least trying--I’m thinking of using spellcraft checks, 1 check per spell level, at the cost of d6 backlash damage per spell level.)

johnbragg
2018-01-27, 07:09 PM
Generalist spellcaster mechanics

Spells Per Day: As PHB Cleric or specialist wizard
Spells Known: At first level, a generalist spellcaster knows a number of spells equal to 2 plus her casting stat modifier. (Intelligence for book-wizards). At each new level, a generalist spellcaster learns 2 new spells of a level she can cast.

Book-wizards can also cast spells directly from a spellbook that includes that spell. The process takes an entire day, at the end of which the book-wizard makes one Spellcraft roll for each level of the spell (DC 15 + SL), and takes d6 damage for each level of the spell. If she succeeds on all of the Spellcraft rolls, she memorizes the spell, which holds one of her spell slots until the spell is cast (or dismissed or somehow lost to mishap).

(Spellbooks are not an individual wizard's notes or collections of spells. They are great classics of magical theory and practice, delving deeply into the knowledge of some particular school of magic or magical technique or theme. Spellbooks are not commonly adventuring gear.)

johnbragg
2018-01-27, 07:11 PM
Specialist spellcaster mechanics

johnbragg
2018-01-27, 07:26 PM
Mechanics for casting from spellbooks.

Spellcraft check (DC 15 + SL) for each level of the spell cast. At the end of the process, whether the spell succeeds or fails, take d6 damage per level of the spell cast.

You must be of a high enough level to cast a spell of that level. (Maybe. Or should be let apprentices gamble their lives to cast a fireball?)

Specialist casters can use a similar process to cast spells that are not Spells Known, but are on their class list. So a Summoner who knows Unseen Servant, Summon Monster I: Fiendish Dire Rat, and Summon Undead I: Human Warrior Skeleton could try to Summon Monster I: Fiendish Octopus by making a DC 16 Spellcraft check and taking d6 damage.

How long does this take?
A PHB wizard learning a new spell takes 24 hours.
A PHB wizard preparing a spell from a borrowed spellbook takes the normal preparation time.
So, this process would take all day to memorize the spell in one of the book-wizard's spell slots, held in memory until the spell gets used. VERY Vancian. I kind of like it.

johnbragg
2018-01-27, 07:51 PM
Bards are different, and possibly not a good option for PCs.

Bards' or chanters' abilities work slowly (by D&D combat standards) and cumulatively. There are a handful of songs, compared to the wealth of options open to spellcasters. Their abilities can turn a mob of mooks into a terrifying bloodbath.

Song of Doom. (Escalating fear effects vs all enemies who hear it)
Song of Rage. (Escalating effects--bless, prayer, rage--on all allies who hear it)
Song of Love. (fail enough saves and it's a charm person effect with a nasty duration)
Song of Sleep. (lullaby, fatigue, daze, touch of idiocy, sleep)
Song of Healing. (2x natural healing rate. Stacks with DC 15 "Long Term Care" Heal check)

EDIT: I want to limit the bards to effects to things that we have some experience of feeling through music.

There is a space for an E6 + feats Bard to sing someone back from the grave--but not all the way back.

johnbragg
2018-01-27, 08:34 PM
5th edition backport:
All 1 round/level and 1 minute/level spells have duration:concentration.
You can concentrate on one spell as a free action.

johnbragg
2018-01-27, 08:45 PM
New cantrips.

Circle Magic. Create a pool of thaum (psychic/magic energy that everyone has to some degree) that others can join and contribute thaum to for a common purpose, or cast to contribute to an existing pool.

Arcane Strike. Melee touch attack, casting modifier damage, or ranged touch attack for 1/2 casting modifier damage.

Arcane assistance. Add your casting modifier to an ally's AC, attack bonus, saving throws or skill check for 1 round

Arcane defense. Add casting modifier to your AC for one round

johnbragg
2018-01-28, 11:59 AM
Let's start jotting down ideas. I'm going to start with Specialist spellcasters.

Specialist spellcasters can face a very limited spell selection. A pyromancer only has about a half-dozen 1st level spells from the SRD, (endure elements, produce flame, burning hands, maybe summon monster I (fire variant creature instead of celestial/fiendish.)

Options

Specialist casters get one additional spell per day of each spell level.

Specialist casters get a +2 bonus to their CL for calculating saves and spell effects. Only thing you can do is X, but you do X like a boss.

Specialist casters get metamagic--Bonus feat? Maybe a free metamagic reducer that doesn't stack with anything else as a class ability?

Specialist casters get a Channeling ability--in a 30' radius, either damage foes with their specialty, or heal allies within the same radius. (Everybody likes healing, even psycho cultists.)

Question: Do PHB specialist wizards fit anywhere in this scheme? Even limited to only their one school of magic, they have a lot more options than fixed-list casters. Can we give them the same class chassis as pyromancers or Serpent Priests or even summoners and have it work out okay?

Deepbluediver
2018-01-28, 12:26 PM
If you want to make various types of magic "feel different", then I'd consider incorporating one of the spells-to-powerpoints conversions you can find lying around the forum. Keep spell-slots for some kinds of magic, like divine, maybe, because the powers granted to you are more structured, and more arcane magic more freeform.

johnbragg
2018-01-28, 01:17 PM
If you want to make various types of magic "feel different", then I'd consider incorporating one of the spells-to-powerpoints conversions you can find lying around the forum. Keep spell-slots for some kinds of magic, like divine, maybe, because the powers granted to you are more structured, and more arcane magic more freeform.

I thought about a spell point system. But the way 3X spells are written, I don't think there's a conversion that works well--remember, the NPCs use the same rules as the PCs, so a spell points system either means that the NPC caster gets to spam 3rd level spells until the combat is over (one way or another) or the PCs barely get to cast their 3rd level spells. NPCs will nova pretty much every combat, which isn't really fair to the PCs.

I figure that just having specialized casters cast thematically appropriate spells, instead of the best tactical options in the SRD, is enough to give them a different "feel." Sure, an evil druid and a book-wizard and warcaster and a pryomancer will both cast produce flame at you, but it's going to feel different because everything else about them is different. The druid might follow up with entangle, the book-wizard (or the warcaster) with the Arcane Strike cantrip or maybe with magic missile or by bless-ing his mooks--the pyromancer is following up with another fire spell. Maybe produce flame again, maybe summon monster i for a Fiery Rat (use Fiendish Dire Rat stats, replace disease with +1 point of fire damage.

(For truly terrifying end-bosses--dragons and devils and demons and liches rebuilt for E6+10--I figure they're either throwing out 4th or 5th level spells, or using alternate magic systems just to give them an alien, otherworldly feel--psionics, soulmelds, Tome of Battle feats, I'll figure that out later)

Climowitz
2018-01-28, 05:27 PM
I made a caster that creates insects instead of spells, if they bite you, you are affected and the insect disappear, if they place in your foot and go boom, area spell activates, etc.

Morphic tide
2018-01-28, 06:56 PM
In regards to spellbook-casting being extremely difficult to do as it is now, the spellbook is quite iconic. Making them more difficult to acquire and less prone to being a gateway to totipotence is sensible, but doing it by making all spellbooks into major magic items isn't the way to go about it. Among other things, progress knows few halting forces, so many, many attempts would exist to work around the difficulties. A compromise of sorts would be having scrolls and spellbook pages be the same thing, save that spellbook pages have less magic imprinted on them as they don't need to allow anyone to cast the spell within.

This offers some mechanical opportunities with spellbook-casters, as they can have Minor Spellbooks that can work almost like standard, but cost more to write in and are used like partial scrolls in place of having full spellcasting ability. Essentially, they only get current-Bard slots without the book, but normal slots with the book. Moderate Spellbooks could then be used for improving the capacity of how many spells are available at a time by being cheaper to transfer scrolls to and simply having a larger limit to how many spell levels can be in it before the magic involved starts to get problematic, with a minor risk element in that a miscast "burns out" the spell until you expend a slot to recharge the magic tied to it. An added advantage being that you can intentionally "burn out" the spell to cast without a slot with different risks and costs, meaning that it's a very dense spell storing item with some funky consequences. Provided you're actually a spellcaster who can use it, that is.

Then Major Spellbooks would offer entire categories of spells, but you have to be able to work out how to execute the spell from the principals, introducing some fairly harsh risks because you're only a step away from working it out from scratch. The older sorts are better for those with the talent to work out the spells, but more modern editions actually provide some of the magically-backed instruction seen in Moderate Spellbooks that cuts out much of the complexity and risk. Of course, a failure there takes more magic to fix and burns out a lot more spell access. You mess up on a Shadow Illusion, the whole subschool gets cut off and you have to blow several days to fully restore it.

The oldest Major Spellbooks are purely records, with some eventually being made as teaching tools, never intended to actually be used as an assistance to casting the spells. Which is why there's so risky to do so with, but also why they're so absurdly varied in what you can do in such application with them. The Minor Spellbooks started off as, quite simply, a tool to make it so that Mage Guilds could expand their reach away from their libraries, as having most of your spellcasting ability tied to absurdly expensive and impractical to transport books is unwise, at best, so a new sort of spellbook was made specifically to have what was needed to do that kind of spellcasting. Scrolls came after this, taking it to the logical conclusion of making means for anyone to cast a spell. Then Moderate Spellbooks took the lessons learned needed to make scrolls to work around magical issues with Minor Spellbooks, partly by better isolating the magic and partly by fitting more into the pages, and got scroll usability added in for the sake of extending the workday endurance of spellcasters in stressful situations.

---

In regards to specialist Wizards/Archivists(works better when you are varying the set of available abilities), the real thing to note is that they'd be the people sitting in a room, reading and writing spellbooks all day. They know the theory involved by heart, and the majority of the path forward is execution. They'd sacrifice some skill with spellbook use (smaller bonuses to the checks) for being less reliant on it, learning spells by category and casting them from principals until they learn the spell by heart (basically getting spells known), giving them far greater versatility at the cost of failure rates in combat situations, longer casting time out of combat if they don't want the failure rate, and a harder time expanding their arsenal of tools to new topics due to a much stricter limiting factor on what they are able to internalize for use. Of course, not suffering the reduced output that the generalists do when using their memorized spells is a pretty significant advantage.

Throwing in useful extra features, like the Variant Specialist Necromancer's permanent, scaling, Undead minion, possibly made to cover important stuff they need to be able to do, like giving a damage source for Enchanters who lack an actual ability to deal damage conventionally without failure rates, like granting a variant of Animal Companion with scaling Moral bonuses/a Cohort. Something to be able to hit enemies for actual damage permanently attached to the character.

---

Bards having Songs that scale up over time could work, if they have Songs that actually matter for the second and third round and have some way of ensuring the fight lasts long enough for it to matter. I'd have the caps end up massively overkill at level 6, so that long, grindy fights go more and more in favor of the Bard as it goes on and on, which renders the Bard the best force multiplier in warfare as they just keep getting stronger to a rather crazy cap.

I'd have the Songs be a bit more modular, being based on some sort of points, so that more varied abilities can be rolled into it over time, but rather than just being a bundle of effects, a list of "paths" would be the way to go. Essentially, more advanced effects come with sticking to one thing, so you start off with just a bonus to Attack rolls, then move on to Damage rolls, then people start getting moral bonuses to Charisma and Strength, and then the freaky **** like bursting into flames and having your blows come with thunder kicks in. But you have to go through the full set to get the higher end effect, so you have a budget.

Of course, you can always work alongside another Bard to build up to greater feats than are able to be done alone, leading to an orchestra of novices led by a master of the craft making armies shatter against their own favored men. Falloff of effect could excuse going over the cap of the "lead" in a path/tune by letting it carry farther.

Deepbluediver
2018-01-28, 06:57 PM
I thought about a spell point system. But the way 3X spells are written, I don't think there's a conversion that works well--remember, the NPCs use the same rules as the PCs, so a spell points system either means that the NPC caster gets to spam 3rd level spells until the combat is over (one way or another) or the PCs barely get to cast their 3rd level spells. NPCs will nova pretty much every combat, which isn't really fair to the PCs.
This raises a couple of different issues.

First, NPC classes. Depending on what kind of game you are running, a lot of your enemy's might be humanoids with class levels, or they could constitute almost none of the opposition. It seems odd to discard an entire option just because of potential problems with one use of it. If this is concern, then maybe you should choose to limit the number of spellcasters your PCs face.

Second, what kind of NPCs are you envisioning? Are they NPCs with PC class levels? Or are they NPCs with NPC (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/adept.htm) class (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/expert.htm) levels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/warrior.htm)? Since you're redoing magic anyway, this could be an opportunity to revise the NPC classes so that they maintain spell-levels but with a reduced pool to draw from, so that the PCs face level-appropriate spells, but not an overwhelming amount of them.
In this same vein, for an E6 campaign you want to homebrew some alterations to the PC classes that let them use their abilities more often. Even in a normal game, it's often not until ~3-5th level that casters and psions have enough spell-slots/power-points to reliably use something every round without worrying to much that they are going to run dry before the rest of the party is willing to call it quits for the day.

Finally, just how much metagaming is going on? Do the NPCs KNOW they are NPCs, destined only to die as speedbump along the PCs path? Or are they fully fleshed out characters expecting to live long, fulfilling lives? The PCs might kill 75% of an enemy squad before the remnants decide they've got nothing left to loose and "go nova". So it might provide a suitable climax for a fight, but it's not likely to change the overall outcome much.


Just a few things to think about.

johnbragg
2018-01-28, 08:17 PM
This raises a couple of different issues.

First, NPC classes. Depending on what kind of game you are running, a lot of your enemy's might be humanoids with class levels, or they could constitute almost none of the opposition. It seems odd to discard an entire option just because of potential problems with one use of it. If this is concern, then maybe you should choose to limit the number of spellcasters your PCs face.

Second, what kind of NPCs are you envisioning? Are they NPCs with PC class levels? Or are they NPCs with NPC (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/adept.htm) class (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/expert.htm) levels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/warrior.htm)? Since you're redoing magic anyway, this could be an opportunity to revise the NPC classes so that they maintain spell-levels but with a reduced pool to draw from, so that the PCs face level-appropriate spells, but not an overwhelming amount of them.

The setting is actually something I'm designing to be a basically coherent, low-magic-rich fantasy world in the background, while allowing the players to play kitchen-sink options. The main kingdom has developed rituals to unreliably summon heroes from other realms. So while there may not be monks or duskblades or Dread Necromancers(TM) native to the setting, the townspeople aren't that surprised to see a factotum or a Jedi Knight or an Equestria Girl sorcerer wandering confusedly through the marketplace. (Sages dispute whether the heroes were in fact conjured from Elsewhere, or were created by the ritual. Other sages maintain that there is no difference.)

That said, the NPC casters are going to run on the rules outlined here, with the exception of BBEGs who get things like lair effects, and genuinely terrifying things like demons and dragons (rebuilt more in the fashion of 1st edition dragons and devils, but giving them alien casting styles like psionics or truespeech or ToB manuevers fits). I'm inclined to build the native mundanes with the UA Generic classes, with Fighting Styles added on.


In this same vein, for an E6 campaign you want to homebrew some alterations to the PC classes that let them use their abilities more often. Even in a normal game, it's often not until ~3-5th level that casters and psions have enough spell-slots/power-points to reliably use something every round without worrying to much that they are going to run dry before the rest of the party is willing to call it quits for the day.

Arcane strike (casting modifier as a melee touch attack, 1/2 modifier as a ranged touch attack) is their fallback, together with arcane assistance (boost your buddy's AC/to hit/saves/skill check). Not as good as 5E cantrips, but better (touch AC) than a dagger or a crossbow and more wizard-y. Maybe also add a hex ability, the mirror image of Arcane Assistance, giving an enemy a penalty equal to your casting mod, or just a one-round Doom cantrip.


Finally, just how much metagaming is going on? Do the NPCs KNOW they are NPCs, destined only to die as speedbump along the PCs path? Or are they fully fleshed out characters expecting to live long, fulfilling lives? The PCs might kill 75% of an enemy squad before the remnants decide they've got nothing left to loose and "go nova". So it might provide a suitable climax for a fight, but it's not likely to change the overall outcome much.

The NPCs don't know they're NPCs, but the PCs are probably the only bunch of heavily armed murderhobos who are likely to show up today, so they're probably going to lead with their best spells and not hold back a whole lot. (Now if they give the PCs their best shot, and the PCs are clearly winning, morale checks absolutely exist at my table.) The PCs are usually the ones who come looking for a fight, and a fight after that and maybe a fight after that one before the BBEG has time to readjust plans.


Just a few things to think about.

Thanks. I'm not 100% opposed to using NPC classes--I suspect that my specialist casters may lack the versatility to be good PC class options. But if someone's bound and determined to play an Aeromancer or a druid native to World of Thaum, they have the option.

PC-NPC transparency is one of the things I really like about 3rd edition. So I'm not really attracted to cooking up a separate set of spell point rules for NPC casters to use--I figure their spell lists and special abilities are enough work. I can use the PHB tables or simple math formulas (like Casting mod + 2*CL Spells Known) for the rest.

johnbragg
2018-01-28, 09:22 PM
In regards to spellbook-casting being extremely difficult to do as it is now, the spellbook is quite iconic. Making them more difficult to acquire and less prone to being a gateway to totipotence is sensible, but doing it by making all spellbooks into major magic items isn't the way to go about it. Among other things, progress knows few halting forces, so many, many attempts would exist to work around the difficulties.

People can settle in at a good-enough equilibrium for surprisingly long amounts of time. The Roman Empire knew the science behind steam engines, but had plenty of slave labor so did not pursue the matter. (This may be obsolete history, refuted by modern research, but I'm sticking by it.). One of the major ideas of the setting is that spells work in part because people believe they work, and casting the spell with the proper words in the proper inflection and the proper gestures etc etc. Part of that is casting the spell from a proper spellbook.

(I was slightly influenced by a recent twitter rant from a lady watching a horror movies, and commenting that if she were ever demonically possessed she would want an old Irish priest with a drinking problem and a crisis of faith who knew the old Latin chants, not some skinny-jeans-wearing youth pastor with a sleeve tattoo. The forms must be observed.)


This offers some mechanical opportunities with spellbook-casters, as they can have Minor Spellbooks that can work almost like standard, but cost more to write in and are used like partial scrolls in place of having full spellcasting ability. Essentially, they only get current-Bard slots without the book, but normal slots with the book. Moderate Spellbooks could then be used for improving the capacity of how many spells are available at a time by being cheaper to transfer scrolls to and simply having a larger limit to how many spell levels can be in it before the magic involved starts to get problematic, with a minor risk element in that a miscast "burns out" the spell until you expend a slot to recharge the magic tied to it. An added advantage being that you can intentionally "burn out" the spell to cast without a slot with different risks and costs, meaning that it's a very dense spell storing item with some funky consequences. Provided you're actually a spellcaster who can use it, that is.

You want spellbooks you can easily and sanely haul into a dungeon. I want spellbooks to be more special than that. You *can* take them into a dungeon, but it's more like moving furniture than it is like carrying a tent. Casting a spell that's not one of the book-wizard's Spells Known requires a trip back to town, and to a real town with a wizard's guildhouse with the proper spellbooks. And the guildhouse has a Sanctum that you can prepare, to get another +2 on your Spellcraft checks. If you're lucky, the mage's guild has an especially ornate copy of the spellbook for another +2. (x2 cost).

The (exquisitely crafted spellbook) (containing ancient formulae copied over a millenia or more) housed in (a special sanctum carved with arcane runes and decorated with wizardly paraphernalia and diagrams) form a whole. You can't expect to take only a part of that formula and have it succeed. Do that, and you might as well be a hedge-wizard trying to cast without a book at a -10 penalty.

Now, the greatest of arcane scholars may try to create a new spellbook, on some new theme, with either a mix of common and obscure spells, or with an entirely new list of spells. That's where splatbooks come from. :smallbiggrin: But part of the reason those books work is the reknown of their authors gives other casters confidence that they will work. Then they pass the Spellcraft check a couple of times, and it *does* work. But trying to cast from a spellbook fragment, or from a scroll, is a highly unreliable process. (-5 penalty, plus no Sanctum bonus, no +2 for a masterwork-artisan-quality spellbook, etc.)


---


In regards to specialist Wizards/Archivists(works better when you are varying the set of available abilities), the real thing to note is that they'd be the people sitting in a room, reading and writing spellbooks all day.

Yes. Like medieval monks, copying and illustrating their manuscripts. To be a fully recognized master of the book-wizard guild, you need to have successfully copied one of the major spellbooks.


They know the theory involved by heart, and the majority of the path forward is execution. They'd sacrifice some skill with spellbook use (smaller bonuses to the checks) for being less reliant on it, learning spells by category and casting them from principals until they learn the spell by heart (basically getting spells known), giving them far greater versatility at the cost of failure rates in combat situations, longer casting time out of combat if they don't want the failure rate, and a harder time expanding their arsenal of tools to new topics due to a much stricter limiting factor on what they are able to internalize for use. Of course, not suffering the reduced output that the generalists do when using their memorized spells is a pretty significant advantage.

I'll mull this over thinking about how to handle book-wizards who specialize in a school of magic. They're not as narrowly focused as the thematic casters (evokers have a lot more spells available than pyromancers, conjuration specialists obviously have more than summoners, etc). But they don't have the flexibility of the generalists.


Throwing in useful extra features, like the Variant Specialist Necromancer's permanent, scaling, Undead minion, possibly made to cover important stuff they need to be able to do, like giving a damage source for Enchanters who lack an actual ability to deal damage conventionally without failure rates, like granting a variant of Animal Companion with scaling Moral bonuses/a Cohort. Something to be able to hit enemies for actual damage permanently attached to the character.

I don't really want to write 8 new classes--at that point, I'd just go ahead and use the PAthfinder archetypes, even though I find them fiddly.

---


Bards having Songs that scale up over time could work, if they have Songs that actually matter for the second and third round and have some way of ensuring the fight lasts long enough for it to matter. I'd have the caps end up massively overkill at level 6, so that long, grindy fights go more and more in favor of the Bard as it goes on and on, which renders the Bard the best force multiplier in warfare as they just keep getting stronger to a rather crazy cap.

That's the idea. Song of Rage would be 1. Remove Fear, 2. Bless, 3. Prayer, 4. Rage. Song of Doom would run bane, shaken, shaken again, frightened, frightened again, panicked.


I'd have the Songs be a bit more modular, being based on some sort of points, so that more varied abilities can be rolled into it over time, but rather than just being a bundle of effects, a list of "paths" would be the way to go. Essentially, more advanced effects come with sticking to one thing, so you start off with just a bonus to Attack rolls, then move on to Damage rolls, then people start getting moral bonuses to Charisma and Strength, and then the freaky **** like bursting into flames and having your blows come with thunder kicks in. But you have to go through the full set to get the higher end effect, so you have a budget.

I'm thinking you know one major Bard song per level. Bards exist to make groups of low-level mooks terrifying again.


Of course, you can always work alongside another Bard to build up to greater feats than are able to be done alone,

I'm thinking that the accompaniment is not from another Bard, but the background music comes "from everywhere and nowhere", in the old middle-school D&D cliche; and the chorus is chanted madly by the targets of the spell.

Cosi
2018-01-29, 01:08 AM
I think the thing to do if you want different kinds of magic to feel different is make them different. Don't try to split up the existing spell lists into "thematic Necromancers" and "thematic Warmages" and whatever. Write a Necromancer that gets thematically appropriate Necromancer powers and has some appropriately Necromancer-y resource management system for those powers. It sounds like a lot of work, but remember that this is supposed to run on an E6 engine. You're getting a rate of return on the order of three or four for one.

Your setup for Wizards is, I think, too punishing. Having Wizards be able to reasonably easily learn spells from scrolls and ancient texts is great, because it gives Wizards a reason to go explore dungeons. The ancients had awesome magical powers, and if you defeat the guardians and monsters that lurk in their ruins, you too can have awesome powers.

Your setup for Bards also seems kind of weird. "Power that grows over time" seems like it should be a class-agnostic ritual, not a class power. Also, it is totally legitimate for people to just do magic by singing (sometimes metaphorically, but whatever). See: The Second Apocalypse, The Lord of the Rings (although I think it's just in supplemental materials), and I think maybe Earthsea. Singing the language of creation to do magic is a perfectly acceptable way for people to do magic.

Morphic tide
2018-01-29, 04:25 AM
People can settle in at a good-enough equilibrium for surprisingly long amounts of time. The Roman Empire knew the science behind steam engines, but had plenty of slave labor so did not pursue the matter. (This may be obsolete history, refuted by modern research, but I'm sticking by it.). One of the major ideas of the setting is that spells work in part because people believe they work, and casting the spell with the proper words in the proper inflection and the proper gestures etc etc. Part of that is casting the spell from a proper spellbook.

(I was slightly influenced by a recent twitter rant from a lady watching a horror movies, and commenting that if she were ever demonically possessed she would want an old Irish priest with a drinking problem and a crisis of faith who knew the old Latin chants, not some skinny-jeans-wearing youth pastor with a sleeve tattoo. The forms must be observed.)

You want spellbooks you can easily and sanely haul into a dungeon. I want spellbooks to be more special than that. You *can* take them into a dungeon, but it's more like moving furniture than it is like carrying a tent. Casting a spell that's not one of the book-wizard's Spells Known requires a trip back to town, and to a real town with a wizard's guildhouse with the proper spellbooks. And the guildhouse has a Sanctum that you can prepare, to get another +2 on your Spellcraft checks. If you're lucky, the mage's guild has an especially ornate copy of the spellbook for another +2. (x2 cost).

The (exquisitely crafted spellbook) (containing ancient formulae copied over a millenia or more) housed in (a special sanctum carved with arcane runes and decorated with wizardly paraphernalia and diagrams) form a whole. You can't expect to take only a part of that formula and have it succeed. Do that, and you might as well be a hedge-wizard trying to cast without a book at a -10 penalty.

Now, the greatest of arcane scholars may try to create a new spellbook, on some new theme, with either a mix of common and obscure spells, or with an entirely new list of spells. That's where splatbooks come from. :smallbiggrin: But part of the reason those books work is the reknown of their authors gives other casters confidence that they will work. Then they pass the Spellcraft check a couple of times, and it *does* work. But trying to cast from a spellbook fragment, or from a scroll, is a highly unreliable process. (-5 penalty, plus no Sanctum bonus, no +2 for a masterwork-artisan-quality spellbook, etc.)
Okay, the point of the compromise I was thinking of was built on a mixture of in-universe working around the problems by focusing less on the exhaustive theory and more on the actual instructions to cast the particular spells, under the assumption that magic was a true science rather than subjective. The real reason is to remove a need for major infrastructure in utility spells (what the hell is the use of a Scroll if it has a 30% or less chance of working?), which you seem to be against. For some reason. In a game called Dungeons and Dragons, where you are expected to spend weeks away from civilization to Do Things.

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Yes. Like medieval monks, copying and illustrating their manuscripts. To be a fully recognized master of the book-wizard guild, you need to have successfully copied one of the major spellbooks.
Again, I was actually thinking of it in terms of magic as a science, so the specialist Wizards would be akin to biochemestry majors at mid-high (for e6) levels. They study one section of magic extensively, so they've internalized the general formulae enough to not need the book physically with them to construct the spells.

With magic, including spellbook functionality, being largely "clap your hands if you believe" in nature, this sort of thing... Doesn't work. Though bonuses to the various stuff related to specialization does work out, most would see it as reducing penalties because the bonuses are to things introduced to nerf Wizards-as-we-know-them.


I'll mull this over thinking about how to handle book-wizards who specialize in a school of magic. They're not as narrowly focused as the thematic casters (evokers have a lot more spells available than pyromancers, conjuration specialists obviously have more than summoners, etc). But they don't have the flexibility of the generalists.
...Wait, you actually want to make a dedicated mono-typed Evoker? How terrible are you at understanding how the game actually plays? Because the number of situations a Pyromancer class would be useful in is absolutely tiny compared to even an Evoker, who at least isn't locked into the most resisted energy type in the game. And a Summoner is a pile of bull**** no matter how much you try to limit them because they need only have access to one creature with an ability to be able to use that ability.

Generally, let the specialist book users be able to use any spell in their school/theme off the generalist list, however you define it, and maybe a limited number of non-theme spells. They're a variation of the generalist, so they should be a direct rework of it, preferably an in-class option akin to what the Psion has going on.


I don't really want to write 8 new classes--at that point, I'd just go ahead and use the PAthfinder archetypes, even though I find them fiddly.
You're the one who is thinking classes for everything. I see it as akin to the Domain choice of Clerics, or the Fighting Style choice Rangers get currently. Or the Bond options that a number of classes get in Pathfinder. Instead of rolling out classes by the dozen (because there will be dozens), you should pare down to the general categories and have subclass features that let you introduce more niches by looking at what classes you've already made, then trying to make it work as a choice for a subclass. 5e does this to pretty good effect, rolling many PRCs into subclasses to remove the need to write all those classes. It makes things more elegant as, among other things, you can't pick up several versions of the same class. You already specialized as a Necromancer, if you wanted the Conjurer goodies, you should have chosen to be a Conjurer. You're already a Priest of (Un)Death, you don't get to focus on Evil too (or Chaos in addition to Death and Evil, if you keep the two-domains thing).

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That's the idea. Song of Rage would be 1. Remove Fear, 2. Bless, 3. Prayer, 4. Rage. Song of Doom would run bane, shaken, shaken again, frightened, frightened again, panicked.
Well, I'd have it be similar bonuses/penalties instead of being spell effects, because that lets Song of Rage cap out at being light Dragonfire Inspiration with +Sonic damage (the mentioned "burst into flames and have your blows come with thunder"). Although an important note about Fear effect stacking is that Shaken+Shaken results in Frightened, while Frightened+Shaken gets Panicked. The point of what I suggested is that it can be built out into an actual subsystem, with feats that offer improvements akin to metamagic and various specialization feats. And have it's own gish class without stepping on any toes.


I'm thinking you know one major Bard song per level. Bards exist to make groups of low-level mooks terrifying again.
Yes, definitely this. Extra bodies are registered as +2 CR per doubling of creatures, but sixteen CR 1/4 dudes sure as **** ain't as bad as a CR 8 monster. Unless that monster has buffs to support their gaggle of weak people and make them some kind of threat.


I'm thinking that the accompaniment is not from another Bard, but the background music comes "from everywhere and nowhere", in the old middle-school D&D cliche; and the chorus is chanted madly by the targets of the spell.
I'm thinking of it in terms of group "casting", actually. Multiple Bards working their magic together by way of coordinated song. Instead of ritual circles, you get orchestras, because that's just how the themes translate.

johnbragg
2018-01-29, 07:02 AM
What I want.

Forget arcane vs divine, prepared vs spontaneous. Those distinctions are artifacts of D&D evolution--I want to start from scratch.

I want thematic casters--pyromancers and snake priests and bear shamans and enchantress and necromancers and diviners and healers, specialists who are the unparalleled masters of a handful of spells in a small domain of magic.

I also want book wizards, arcane-academic sorts who pore over massive tomes of magic. Massive tomes that make your 5 pound college hardback textbook seem convenient and travel-friendly. Most are not the property of a single wizard, they are the property of the guild or academy (or the king or city that sponsors the guild.)
Book wizards know some spells by heart (comparable in number to the specialists), but any other spells must be cast directly from the books that hold them. And those spells come at a cost.

I want spellbooks to be prizes, major magic items in their own right. The LEsser and Greater Necronomicon (all necromancy spells levels 1-2 and 3-4). The Three Testaments of Heraklitus (Transmutation spells, level 1, 2 and 3) and, possibly the Lost Testament, known by some as the False Testament of the Pseudo-Heraklitus. You cannot just copy some pages with one or two spells and call it a spellbook and expect it to work--the book itself is a coherent whole.

(So book-wizards are sort of like standard sorcerors, casting spontaneously from a Spells Known list. But they also have the option of casting from a magical book. Or at least trying--I’m thinking of using spellcraft checks, 1 check per spell level, at the cost of d6 backlash damage per spell level.)


I will reply more to Cosi and to Morphic tide later. But some quick points, clarifying the statement of intention.


I want the world to be full of thematic casters--pyromancers and snake priests and bear shamans and enchantress and necromancers and diviners and healers, specialists who are the unparalleled masters of a handful of spells in a small domain of magic. (These casters don't have to be the PCs. In fact, most of them would make terrible PCs and that's fine.)

I also want book wizards, arcane-academic sorts who pore over massive tomes of magic. Massive tomes that make your 5 pound college hardback textbook seem convenient and travel-friendly. Most are not the property of a single wizard, they are the property of the guild or academy (or the king or city that sponsors the guild.)

One thing I want to avoid is the usual D&D verse situation where any wizard worth his or her salt has just about every spell in the book in her large trunk. (A wizard who's acquired the entire PHB worth of spellbooks is at the E6 equivalent of NAme Level and is building a tower or a dungeon to house them. I'm seeing book-wizards as being comparable to PHB sorcerers--stable list of spells known, with the flexibility to go outside that only with planning and a real cost (scrolls, memorizing spell from book).

MorphicTide, you're right about the summoner. I don't see how the summoner fits into a plot (even if you break Summon Monster/SNA/Undead into separate spells for each creature it summons). I can write a backstory for a gnoll fire-witch who stared into the fire and dreamed of fire all her life until she woke up able to cast fire spells. And her tribe was joyful because they had a spellcaster. Summoner, not so much.

Cosi
2018-01-29, 07:45 AM
Summoner seems really easy, particularly if you split it. The summon monster spells are a little scatter-brained, but it would be easy enough to put together a list of good monsters and a list of evil monsters, at which point you have a pretty standard demon summoner type. summon undead is easy as hell ("I call on the unquiet dead of this land! Arise and serve once again!"). summon nature's ally is also easy. You could even go more conceptual and weird and give someone art powers that allow them to draw new monsters onto the surface of the world or something.

johnbragg
2018-01-29, 08:09 AM
Summoner seems really easy, particularly if you split it. The summon monster spells are a little scatter-brained, but it would be easy enough to put together a list of good monsters and a list of evil monsters, at which point you have a pretty standard demon summoner type.

Thinking fictionally, though, those two guys are just White MAge and Black MAge. They draw on the powers of goody-goodness and mustache-twirling-evil.

A bear shaman summons bears, and enables his tribe's best warrior to rage, and casts a spell to give the whole band the courage of the bear (bless) and maybe beast shapes into a bear. It's pretty obvious why he isn't shooting fire or lightning out of his fingertips, or putting his enemies to sleep, or helping his friends to magically climb trees. (Unless bears can climb trees, of course, I should check.)

A Black MAge of Eeevil could definitely summon fiendish rats, but I don't see why he couldn't shoot black lighting or cast fear or the like.


summon undead is easy as hell ("I call on the unquiet dead of this land! Arise and serve once again!").

Necromancer.


summon nature's ally is also easy. You could even go more conceptual and weird and give someone art powers that allow them to draw new monsters onto the surface of the world or something.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I made this thread to get criticized, and to slowly ponder the critiques. Some things I have quick answers to, some things I have to ponder further, sometimes I just have to junk a project.

Cosi
2018-01-29, 11:13 AM
Oh, I missed the most obvious one: Alienist.

Also, even if you can individually justify each summon as part of some other class, the guy who gets all the summons still works as some kind of planar boundary mage.


Thinking fictionally, though, those two guys are just White MAge and Black MAge. They draw on the powers of goody-goodness and mustache-twirling-evil.

It depends on how broad you make the classes. "Summons Angels" is definitely a type of White Mage, but he's not inherently the same character as the healer or the lazer mage, who are both also White Mages.


A bear shaman summons bears, and enables his tribe's best warrior to rage, and casts a spell to give the whole band the courage of the bear (bless) and maybe beast shapes into a bear. It's pretty obvious why he isn't shooting fire or lightning out of his fingertips, or putting his enemies to sleep, or helping his friends to magically climb trees. (Unless bears can climb trees, of course, I should check.)

Some bears can definitely climb.

But it is not at all obvious to me that the Bear Shaman does not get any lightning powers. I just read a book (Soul of the World, it's okay) where "Bear Magic" comes with lightning powers because you get it from the spirit of a magical lightning bear. Magic can do whatever you declare it can do. You could have summoning magic come with fear magic, but you could also not do that.

aimlessPolymath
2018-01-29, 02:22 PM
What if instead of Summon Monster, people had variants of the Familiar/Animal Companion feature? Yes, a demon summoner seems like they need to be able to call up demon minions when needed, but having an appropriately powerful minion seems similarly relevant.

If I'm playing Batmage, the bat-themed vigilante rogue/wizard, I don't actually need to be able to summon swarms of bats whenever- I really just need a single swarm that acts as my familiar.

(Note to self: Variant of Death Knell that instead raises the slain creature as a zombie/skeleton. Another one that applies the Fiendish template to things via blood sacrifice.)

johnbragg
2018-01-29, 11:02 PM
I think the thing to do if you want different kinds of magic to feel different is make them different. Don't try to split up the existing spell lists into "thematic Necromancers" and "thematic Warmages" and whatever. Write a Necromancer that gets thematically appropriate Necromancer powers and has some appropriately Necromancer-y resource management system for those powers. It sounds like a lot of work, but remember that this is supposed to run on an E6 engine. You're getting a rate of return on the order of three or four for one.

I disagree--it is the spells, not the resource management mechanic, that make a Necromancer a Necromancer. (That, and the fluff trappings.) You could build a Necromancer as a PHB Wizard, or a PHB Sorcerer, or possibly even as a psionic class.

The powers or class features are to compensate for the fact that they're picking spells on the basis of fluff (thematic coherence) rather than system mastery and actual effectiveness.

IF we just build the specialists as PHB Sorcerers, they'd have 4/2/1 spells known at 6th level. My generalist spellcasters start with 2 + casting stat 1st level spells known, and learn 2 more per level, so a 6th level spellcaster knows 4+Int/4/4.

Some obvious options plundered from elsewhere in 3.5/PF are:

1. +1 or +2 to Caster Level. "+1 to CL for X spells" is a common Domain power, but I don't think any source applies it to blasting spells (the ones where CL means more dice).

2. Channel Energy (PAthfinder version). d6/2 levels healing or damage in a 30' radius. Swap out negative energy for fire/cold/lightning (aeromancer)/ acid/ poison/ etc.

3. MEtamagic Metamagic bonus feat instead of scribe scroll, Easy Metamagic for that feat as a class feature. (Does not stack with any other metamagic reducers.)
Reach spell means the necromancer can inflict wounds at close range.
Lingering spell turns blasting into instant BFC, for a round at least.

4. Elemental Warriors (Dragonfire Inspiration) As an SLA, you add +d6 (type) damage to all allies within earshot (or within 30', since this no longer a song-based ability.)

5. Totem Power (Inspire Courage) +1 to hit and damage to all allies within earshot (or within 30', since this is no longer a song-based ability.



Your setup for Wizards is, I think, too punishing. Having Wizards be able to reasonably easily learn spells from scrolls and ancient texts is great, because it gives Wizards a reason to go explore dungeons. The ancients had awesome magical powers, and if you defeat the guardians and monsters that lurk in their ruins, you too can have awesome powers.

I don't think there's much of a problem of PCs wanting to go into dungeons. I'd like to create a mechanical reason to engage with the town or city where the campaign is based.


Your setup for Bards also seems kind of weird. "Power that grows over time" seems like it should be a class-agnostic ritual, not a class power.

Anyone could do it, in theory. But hitting the DC 30 Peform check is the problem. With +6 ranks, +3 in-class bonus, +5 CHA + 2 masterwork instrument +3 Skill Focus you have a 50/50 shot. The class ability is to do it without the near-superhuman Perform check.


Okay, the point of the compromise I was thinking of was built on a mixture of in-universe working around the problems by focusing less on the exhaustive theory and more on the actual instructions to cast the particular spells, under the assumption that magic was a true science rather than subjective.

Yeah, we're approaching from different premises. Yours leads towards magitech (magic is a predictable, stable phenomenon), mine is more along the lines of Mage: The Awakening (the world is defined as a consensual reality).


The real reason is to remove a need for major infrastructure in utility spells (what the hell is the use of a Scroll if it has a 30% or less chance of working?),

The scroll works, once, as long as you (or someone) pass the check to create it.



...Wait, you actually want to make a dedicated mono-typed Evoker? How terrible are you at understanding how the game actually plays? Because the number of situations a Pyromancer class would be useful in is absolutely tiny compared to even an Evoker, who at least isn't locked into the most resisted energy type in the game.

The pyromancer is a bad option for PCs. But fantasy literature is chock full of ice-witches and serpent-priests and wolf-shamans and pyromancers. So I'd like to cobble some rules together for pyromancers, to compensate for them being less flexible than a well-built Sorcerer. Some combination of Element Warrior on his buddies, or a CL boost to his blasting, or free metamagic (I like the idea of a burning hands or fireball that hangs around for a round, doing area damage)


Generally, let the specialist book users be able to use any spell in their school/theme off the generalist list, however you define it, and maybe a limited number of non-theme spells. They're a variation of the generalist, so they should be a direct rework of it, preferably an in-class option akin to what the Psion has going on.

Specialist book users get an extra spell per day per spell level (as PHB specialists), and maybe a free Spell Focus feat.



You're the one who is thinking classes for everything. I see it as akin to the Domain choice of Clerics, or the Fighting Style choice Rangers get currently. Or the Bond options that a number of classes get in Pathfinder. Instead of rolling out classes by the dozen (because there will be dozens), you should pare down to the general categories

I think the general categories of one-trick-pony specialists are elemental specialists (ice witches, pyromancers, geomancers, negative energy necromancers) and totem shamans (wolf, bear, serpent, dragon, etc). And healers, for that matter. (Treat as positive energy elemental specialists?)

There's also the question of school specialists, nature specialists (druid list). I'm not sure one extra spell per spell level is enough there.


I'm thinking of it in terms of group "casting", actually. Multiple Bards working their magic together by way of coordinated song. Instead of ritual circles, you get orchestras, because that's just how the themes translate.

Getting a group of bards together to perform is the sort of thing you do for kingdom-wide rituals.

johnbragg
2018-01-30, 11:33 AM
So everybody has their Spells Known, INT mod + 2 spells per level, that they can cast from their daily spell slots (use cleric or specialist wizard table.) They know those spells intimately, they are part of their nature.

I have one-trick pony specialists. I have book-wizards who can cast anything in the SRD or more if they have access to a good library (at a cost in time and HP, and as long as they make the Spellcraft checks.) And somewhere in between are druids and hedge-wizards, who have a harder time casting spells (+10 to Spellcraft DCs without a book) but have access to 20-30 spells per spell level (again, at a cost in time and HP).

Who are these people? Where do they come from?

Specialist casters have some obsession, some psychologically unhealthy (in our world) fascination with death-and-undeath, or fire, or manipulating people (narrow enchanters), or some animal spirit, or trees, or frost-and-cold-and-winter, combined with some level of magical talent.

So I think the D&D divide between arcane and divine casters is replaced here with generalist and specialist casters. Maybe I should switch those terms to broad and narrow spellcasters. Broad spellcasters use established formulae for predictable effects, codified in books. (More consensual reality.) NArrow spellcasters tap into the power of their strange psychologies.

You grow up in a society, and you're expected to pull your weight and justify the food you eat (especially if you're not providing the food). If you're in a society well-organized enough to have book-wizards and social casters, you're going to be pushed away from being one of those narrow spellcasters--you're a lot more good to the family and the town and the kingdom and everyone in general as a book-wizard or as a pantheon priest (social caster, bard) with maybe a Feat and/or a school-specialization than you are spending all day staring at a sacred (to you and no one else) fire or a bunch of (pilfered) skulls or running around the woods communing with the spirit of the wolf. (Although that guy is at least hunting, and probably bringing some food home to share.)

So narrow spellcasters are found either at the apex of wealthy societies, where you have aristocrats who don't have to justify how they fritter away their time--or savage societies where having a narrow spellcaster (who can at least do some cantrip healing, or Channel Energy for healing) is better than nothing.

In between, you have societies well organized enough to support hedge-wizards and druids, but not rich enough to afford a full wizards' guild (expensive set of spellbooks, at least one wizard for each school, a dedicated building or section of a complex). This is where you tend to find your druids and hedge-wizards. These folks are an asset to a community, so people will make sure they have food and firewood and houses and things so that they have time to druid and hedge-wizard. When Timmy falls down the well, someone who can pop a Cure Light Wounds and brew up a big batch of herbal ointment and mildly magical broth (DC 15 Heal check) is a pretty good person to have around. (Or, to use a sleep spell as an epidural, if you figure out a way around the duration...)

(I should definitely put this in the world-building thread, and probably should put a summary in the first post.)

johnbragg
2018-02-12, 11:01 PM
Generalist spellcaster mechanics

Book-wizards can also cast spells directly from a spellbook that includes that spell. The process takes an entire day, at the end of which the book-wizard makes one Spellcraft roll for each level of the spell (DC 15 + SL), and takes d6 damage for each level of the spell. If she succeeds on all of the Spellcraft rolls, she memorizes the spell, which holds one of her spell slots until the spell is cast (or dismissed or somehow lost to mishap).

(Spellbooks are not an individual wizard's notes or collections of spells. They are great classics of magical theory and practice, delving deeply into the knowledge of some particular school of magic or magical technique or theme. Spellbooks are not commonly adventuring gear.)

REvision.

What I want: Off-list casting is possible, but is much more of an effort than casting known spells. Players won't want to do it on a regular basis, friendly NPCs will only do it reluctantly--instead of asking them to spend a wasting resource (daily spell slot), you're asking them to do something dangerous.

What I tried to use as a mechanic: Compound skill checks as the "gate", and hit point damage as the penalty for failure. That's not great because even making 3 DC 18 Spellcraft checks is trivial for a 5th level PC. (5 ranks + 3 class bonus + 4 INT + 2 synergy + 2 masterwork books = + 16, fails only on a 1. Even rolling 3 times, 0.95^3 = 85% chance of success. An NPC may not have the 18 INT, but they're also more likely to have a feat for a +2 or 3 (MAgical Aptitude, Skill Focus).

What if we separate the "gate" from the penalty? Spellcraft check to memorize the spell from the book (failure = no result, spell slot is lost); then when the spell is cast, you make a Will save against your spell. If you fail the save, you cannot contain and channel the eldritch energies and you take backlash, a ringing headache that does d6 INT damage per spell level for the same number of hours.