Mith's Musings on Methods of Magic

[Mith]

Hey Playground,

I know that this type of thread is fairly frequent, and this is mostly a response to Eric Diaz's Methods & Madness post on a different caster system. However, my response was almost worthy of a blog post oc it's own, so I figured I would post it here instead and potentially collect more feedback. I know these ideas are not original, but I like to get it out of my head. In the end, the only really "new" idea is the defining of different casting diciplines. The actual mechanics are fairly standard.

My appologies if this is a bit of a mess, as I am posting from my phone.

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If I were to muse on making a more simplified magic system for D&D, I would probably do something like this:

1) Divide between Studied, Innate, and Patron casters. Studied casters are like the traditional wizard, where a spell list is prepared each day. Innate casters have a set spell list that can not be changed easily. Perhaps upon level up or after some downtime (think skill learning), where you teade one spell for another. Patrons are odd ducks that are granted spells, and may be limited options based on who their patron is.

2) The division of spell classification would be as followed: Arcane, Divine, Natural

-Arcane: the manipulation of the elements and planar influences. This involves manipulating the Elemental and Energy Planes, with some Summoning/Planar travel spells to the Outer Planes. Cannot heal wounds, but can restore Vitality (Thinking of a Wounds & Vitality system). Higher end masters of the Arcane can achieve immortality through Deathless or Undeath.

- Divine spells focus on the Outer Planes and mostly manipulate the Energy Planes snd Outer Planes. Spells focus on Healing/Harm and Buffing/Debuffing, with summons focused on the Outer Planes. Will also have Planar travel with potentially diffrrent restrictions (travels have better protections, but are limited in actions that can be done without losing protections). High end Divine agents do not die, but are called to their domain before the killing blow (sort of like Jedi).

Natural: I would say it is a blend of Arcane and Divine summoning Fey and Elementals. I would make Faerie essentially a Hidden realm of the Material Plane, a sort of immune response to the Outer Plane influence. Seelie and Unseelie Courts would deal with their respective counterparts. They would lose out on Planar travel, but have means for traveling within the Prime. High end Natural agents show minimal signs of age, but reincarnate with their previous life's knowledge. They end the cycle by becoming a Fae and being reborn entirely.

- Psionic and Ki could become Mystic, with Monk/Martial Adepts taking on the martial aspects of the system, and Psionist taking on the traditional Psionics. While not high damage, it is highly effective control or boosting personal effects. The Mystic system can be countered by the Counterspell/Dispel etc., but the effects seem to target the mind/anima. So range of effects are either Self, Touch, or at range regardless of barriars. High end Mystics cease to age, and vanish upon being killed by unatural causes (exactly like Jedi).

3) Spell levels

Spell levels work in three general categories:

-0th level spells are "proto spells" that a caster always has reserves to cast. Studied and Patron casters can switch their cantrips out each day. They grow stronger as the character gains levels.

- Ground State spells: at 1st and higher levels, there are spells that can only be cast at that level or higher.

- Upcasted spells: These are spells cast at higher than their ground state.

While this is so far the same as a regular Vancian casting, the difference comes in the upcasting of the spell. Where as before, Fireball is a distinct spell, it now is a 1st level spell modified by spell level to take on new traits, similar to Metamagic effects. Where Innate and Studied casters differ is that Innate casters use a Spell Point variant and have access to other Metamagic features that Studied casters do not have. So while a Studied Magic User can cast 2 3rd level spells at a certain level, an Innate magic user can cast two 3rd level spells a level earlier or 3 3rd level spells at the same level while sacrificing much of their magic reserves.
Patron casters may not gain full "Metamagic" features, but perhaps a boost to spells of a certain type depending on patron.

I would probably use a speed factor initiative where higher level spells take longer to cast and getting hit before casting a spell causes a Conecentration check, with failure either having the spell fail or a chance of a Wild magic surge.

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Thanks for reading this ramble. Feel free to share your thoughts!

URL for Eric Diaz's blog: http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2018/07/one-thousand-mage-classes-with-six.html?m=1

-Mith

[nonsi]

.
Since there's no evidence in the real world of the existence of magic, it wouldn't make much sense to criticize one's view of how magic should work.

Given the above, what I can do in the name of intellectual honesty is provide my PoV and try to explain why I see things the way I see them.


I picture magical powers to stem from 4 primary sources:

Arcane magic:
Drawing power from the weave. The weave of magic is all over the fabric of space-time. Unless powerful forces are activated to nullify access to the weave, it is always accessible.
The class that does pure arcane magic in my system is "Mage".

Nature magic:
Drawing power from objects indirectly. Physics has taught us that matter and energy are the same. Well, all life forms are basically energy factories. The world itself moves through space, which produces tremendous amounts of energy. This gives spellcasters that draw from nature more than enough ambient energy to draw from.
The class that does pure nature magic in my system is "Druid".

Divine magic:
Drawing power directly from a deity. You don't have to have ever met with the deity in question and you don't need to know how and why it works. The deity recognizes you as a follower worthy enough to represent it and wield its powers (and even deities make mistakes from time to time).
The class that does pure divine magic in my system is Priest.
Some divine casters tap into divine magic via instinct, w/o even realizing that that's what they do.
Pact magic could be explained as a variation of divine magic, by saying that you tap into the residual energy of powerful extraplanar beings that seeps through dimensional cracks between the planes.

Ki magic:
Drawing power from one's self. With level progression, your body generates and stores ever increasing amounts of energy that may be utilized in various ways.


There are many ways with which one can wield magical powers. Spellcasting is the obvious method, but certainly not the only one.




I find the above split comprehensive enough to explain just about everything that one can accomplish with bypassing/overcoming the restrictions of one's physical body.
I'll try to explain why I find the other methods detailed in official 3e materials to be unnecessary and even problematic.


Psionics:
Psionic powers manipulate the mind and body.
Manipulation of the mind is done via enchantments and illusions. Self-related mental effects and mental inquiry are divination effects.
Manipulation of the body is done via transmutation and necromancy. Portive powers are conjuration effects. Restricting someone's actions is basically abjuration.
Among my favorite house rules is making Heighten Spell feat an automatic feature of all spellcasters. This grants the ability to augment effects by putting greater investment into them w/o needing Psionic rules.

Incarnum:
This basically breaks down to 2 things:
1. Augmenting creatures with magical effects.
2. Augmenting objects with magical effects.
For the former, I have a homebrew feat that allows spellcasters to grant spell-like abilities, and another feat to elevate spell-like abilities to supernatural abilities.
For the latter, I've redefined magic item creation in a way that would allow you to put virtually any effect with any activation mode to almost any item, not just handwave magical items by comparing them to already proposed official items.

Truenaming:
Truenaming is basically persuading reality to bend to your will and change via words.
In my view, the Bard encompasses that role perfectly, as well as many other roles (depending on the chosen Perform sub-skill).

Shadow magic:
Everything that can be attributed to Shadow magic can be broken down to illusions, necromancy, conjuration and evocation.

Pact Magic:
My main issue with pact magic is common sense that says: "if you can grant it, then by all means you can wield it" (to the point where granting it would not hinder your ability to wield it).
Well, to this day, I haven't seen a monster in D&D that's not a deity but can serve for that function.
The closest thing to pact magic that I could see viable is explained above under Divine magic, but that's not exactly pact magic, because your source of power has no say on the matter.
.

[Gorum]

Pact Magic
Pit Lords and Balors would fit the bill, if onlu though their ability to grant wish spells to mortals or in their very specific upgrades where custom powers can be developped. Then, alter egos with outsiders of other alignments can easily be designed.

Similarly, you could alter a master brain so it can influence a PC from the far future, an Aboleth lord from the past. If you're willing to be even more creative, a legendary evil spellcaster that managed to transform itself into an undead but failed to give him any form of autonomy and must imbue mortals with powers. Heck, maybe the character is a phylactery of some sort?

Then there could be fey, elemental entities, long dead relatives (perfect for a dwarf), spirits of the land...

[Mith]

.
Since there's no evidence in the real world of the existence of magic, it wouldn't make much sense to criticize one's view of how magic should work.

Given the above, what I can do in the name of intellectual honesty is provide my PoV and try to explain why I see things the way I see them.


I picture magical powers to stem from 4 primary sources:

Arcane magic:
Drawing power from the weave. The weave of magic is all over the fabric of space-time. Unless powerful forces are activated to nullify access to the weave, it is always accessible.
The class that does pure arcane magic in my system is "Mage".

Nature magic:
Drawing power from objects indirectly. Physics has taught us that matter and energy are the same. Well, all life forms are basically energy factories. The world itself moves through space, which produces tremendous amounts of energy. This gives spellcasters that draw from nature more than enough ambient energy to draw from.
The class that does pure nature magic in my system is "Druid".

Divine magic:
Drawing power directly from a deity. You don't have to have ever met with the deity in question and you don't need to know how and why it works. The deity recognizes you as a follower worthy enough to represent it and wield its powers (and even deities make mistakes from time to time).
The class that does pure divine magic in my system is Priest.
Some divine casters tap into divine magic via instinct, w/o even realizing that that's what they do.
Pact magic could be explained as a variation of divine magic, by saying that you tap into the residual energy of powerful extraplanar beings that seeps through dimensional cracks between the planes.

Ki magic:
Drawing power from one's self. With level progression, your body generates and stores ever increasing amounts of energy that may be utilized in various ways.


There are many ways with which one can wield magical powers. Spellcasting is the obvious method, but certainly not the only one.




I find the above split comprehensive enough to explain just about everything that one can accomplish with bypassing/overcoming the restrictions of one's physical body.
I'll try to explain why I find the other methods detailed in official 3e materials to be unnecessary and even problematic.


Psionics:
Psionic powers manipulate the mind and body.
Manipulation of the mind is done via enchantments and illusions. Self-related mental effects and mental inquiry are divination effects.
Manipulation of the body is done via transmutation and necromancy. Portive powers are conjuration effects. Restricting someone's actions is basically abjuration.
Among my favorite house rules is making Heighten Spell feat an automatic feature of all spellcasters. This grants the ability to augment effects by putting greater investment into them w/o needing Psionic rules.

Incarnum:
This basically breaks down to 2 things:
1. Augmenting creatures with magical effects.
2. Augmenting objects with magical effects.
For the former, I have a homebrew feat that allows spellcasters to grant spell-like abilities, and another feat to elevate spell-like abilities to supernatural abilities.
For the latter, I've redefined magic item creation in a way that would allow you to put virtually any effect with any activation mode to almost any item, not just handwave magical items by comparing them to already proposed official items.

Truenaming:
Truenaming is basically persuading reality to bend to your will and change via words.
In my view, the Bard encompasses that role perfectly, as well as many other roles (depending on the chosen Perform sub-skill).

Shadow magic:
Everything that can be attributed to Shadow magic can be broken down to illusions, necromancy, conjuration and evocation.

Pact Magic:
My main issue with pact magic is common sense that says: "if you can grant it, then by all means you can wield it" (to the point where granting it would not hinder your ability to wield it).
Well, to this day, I haven't seen a monster in D&D that's not a deity but can serve for that function.
The closest thing to pact magic that I could see viable is explained above under Divine magic, but that's not exactly pact magic, because your source of power has no say on the matter.
.

Thsnks for your response. To be clear, this is less an "I think you are wrong", and more "That's not how I would do it. How would I do it?" and going from there. If I don't get that stuff out of my head, it jusf bounces around making a racket.


Pact Magic
Pit Lords and Balors would fit the bill, if onlu though their ability to grant wish spells to mortals or in their very specific upgrades where custom powers can be developped. Then, alter egos with outsiders of other alignments can easily be designed.

Similarly, you could alter a master brain so it can influence a PC from the far future, an Aboleth lord from the past. If you're willing to be even more creative, a legendary evil spellcaster that managed to transform itself into an undead but failed to give him any form of autonomy and must imbue mortals with powers. Heck, maybe the character is a phylactery of some sort?

Then there could be fey, elemental entities, long dead relatives (perfect for a dwarf), spirits of the land...

Good thoughts on Pact Magic.

The more I think on it, the more I see Pact magic as specific powers like Warlock Invocations. Clerics get a minor form with Domain spells, and perhaps Paladin Smite mechanics could be modelled after this as well.

[Eric Diaz]

Interesting stuff... I don't think we really disagree. My point is: there is no reason to limits the types of casters; you could easily have an Int Warlock or Sorcerer, or even a Wis-based one (of course, balance is a concern).

You make some interesting points about Innate spells being harder to swap, but other than that... there is nothing stopping a deity from giving a new power every day, for example, or giving you a small list of powers that can never be changed. Both are possible.

There is no reason why there can be a "White Mage" character that can magically heal because he read a formula in an ancient book. Also, he cannot wear medium armor. The things aren't necessarily tied to one another.

Here is another post (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-best-way-to-get-spells-in-d.html) about the subject, but is concerned with OSR more than 5e.

The idea is that you could learn spells from a book, form a deity, a patron, another wizard's scroll, etc. Doesn't matter - you could create all types of wizards, sorcerers, etc.

[Mith]

Interesting stuff... I don't think we really disagree. My point is: there is no reason to limits the types of casters; you could easily have an Int Warlock or Sorcerer, or even a Wis-based one (of course, balance is a concern).

You make some interesting points about Innate spells being harder to swap, but other than that... there is nothing stopping a deity from giving a new power every day, for example, or giving you a small list of powers that can never be changed. Both are possible.

There is no reason why there can be a "White Mage" character that can magically heal because he read a formula in an ancient book. Also, he cannot wear medium armor. The things aren't necessarily tied to one another.

Here is another post (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-best-way-to-get-spells-in-d.html) about the subject, but is concerned with OSR more than 5e.

The idea is that you could learn spells from a book, form a deity, a patron, another wizard's scroll, etc. Doesn't matter - you could create all types of wizards, sorcerers, etc.

That is fair. Take this less of a direct response, and more of an indirect response to your post. That's another reason to throw it up here than on your blog.

While I make the distinction that probably doesn't have to exist, I am not sure how I feel about the complete modular nature of what you suggest compared to the archetype nature of D&D. It's probably just an "agree to disagree" here though.

My thoughts on Source division more allows to develop a framework of classification. And to tie the Bards back to the Druidic roots of BECMI. :smallbiggrin:

The concept of wearing armour is a training concept. A mage has to personally study to gain their power, sacrificing training time in martial proficencies. A cleric can be more martial orientated, since their power is externally provided, so they can train to use armours and weapons. Druids disdain armour out of tradition of normally doing things with minimal clothing or sky clad. All of these are fluff based reasons, but they work to make reasons for the base clqss proficencies.

[nonsi]

Pact Magic


Not saying that you're wrong, but the way I see things . . .





Pit Lords and Balors would fit the bill, if onlu though their ability to grant wish spells to mortals or in their very specific upgrades where custom powers can be developped. Then, alter egos with outsiders of other alignments can easily be designed.


A pit fiend (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm) and a glabrezu (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm) don't have an inexhaustible supply of power.
This means that:
1. Any pact would require them to give up a daily resource - each day anew.
2. The recipient of the pact would be pulling at their virtual skirt every morning. That's frustrating even for a devil/demon.
Also, invocations are inexhaustible. How does that add up with the math?





Similarly, you could alter a master brain so it can influence a PC from the far future, an Aboleth lord from the past.


I just checked out Elder Brain and saw nothing in its description that deals with temporal reach, or the ability to grant spellcasting or spellcasting-like-powers to others.

Also, I don't know what's an Aboleth Lord.





If you're willing to be even more creative, a legendary evil spellcaster that managed to transform itself into an undead but failed to give him any form of autonomy and must imbue mortals with powers.


Only if that failure involves the ability to grant powers . . . a long shot.





Heck, maybe the character is a phylactery of some sort?


Sorry, I'm not sure what that means or how it plays.





Then there could be fey, elemental entities, long dead relatives (perfect for a dwarf), spirits of the land...


This actually corresponds with what I described at the bottom of Divine Magic section.
Again, it's not exactly pact magic if they have no say on the matter. You could call that "drawing"/"siphoning"/"binding", not a pact that constitutes a give-and-take interaction.

[Anonymouswizard]

The idea is that you could learn spells from a book, form a deity, a patron, another wizard's scroll, etc. Doesn't matter - you could create all types of wizards, sorcerers, etc.

I have to say, this is where I went with my homebrew system.

You can learn magic from a variety of sources. Where you learn it from doesn't matter, it's all magic and it all behaves the same way (costs Spiritual Energy to use and requires a successful skill roll). But how you learnt to treat magic does matter, and forms your tradition, which gives you access to three forms of magic and your taboos. Note we're leaving out 'natural casters', because they're a whole heap of mess in the system right now (they get a set of random spells and no taboos, but can't learn any spells bar their natural ones).

The three forms bit is very intentional, in that mages are thematically limited. If it's not in your associated forms you can't do it, and magicians don't even get a quarter of the 'core forms'. Your magic is supposed to be personal, or at the very least affected by what you've been taught.

The taboos are simple, actions you can't perform without losing Spiritual Energy and being unable to cast spells. So druids have an iron ban, if they touch anything made of iron or steel for more than a second it drains 1d6SE, but they also have a wilderness restriction and are unable to cast in cities. Other magicians might be unable to leave certain areas, or lose extra SE when casting during the day, or have to perform certain rituals.

Anyway, my point is that changing rules based on where magic comes from limits people. You suddenly become unable to be the druid specialising in fire, minds, and the cycles of the moons, because druids use nature magic and that focuses on animals and healing.

[GalacticAxekick]

Class levels are a mechanic for feature acquisition, so I'd classify magic by how it's acquired.

Wizardry is studied magic. A wizard learns a potentially unlimited number of spells from a potentially infinite range. Setting details my constrict who can perform wizardry, but typically anyone can learn.

Sorcery is innate magic. A sorcerer learns a finite number of spells from a finite range of natural potential. Only magical creatures are all capable of sorcery, and each has its own spell list.

Clergy is channeled magic. A cleric borrows fraction of the spells available to a higher power. Setting details may constrict who can perform clergy, but typically anyone can learn.

Bardic magic is commissioned magic. A bard commands the world around them to perform services in the form of spells. Setting details may constrict who can perform bardic magic, but typically anyone can learn.

By this scheme, monks perform use wizardry or sorcery to augment their martial arts. Paladin either use sorcery, clergy or bardic magic deornding on how you look st them. Clerics and warlocks are fundamentally the same. Bards and druids are too.