Random Opinion: D&D Would be better with WUBRG

[Catullus64]

Not an opinion that I expect would gain much traction in general, but it's been dancing through my head since I made a dungeon puzzle that revolves around the five magic colors from Magic: The Gathering.

I think that the five-color system from Magic would be better suited as an in-game division system for magic than the Eight Schools approach that is pervasive in D&D.

To me, it seems like the eight schools are an invention to fit playstyles of spellcasters much more so than they are a theme in themselves. As in, it seems like we started with "wizard who uses direct damage spells to blow things up" and "wizard who raises the dead", abstracted those into vague descriptions about "manipulating energy = Evocation" or "manipulating life = Necromancy."

But because of adherence to said vague ideas about what separates the spells from one another, we have arrived at the point of spells that encompass very different themes (Animate Dead vs. Resurrection) sharing the same game classification, while very thematically related spells (Flaming Sphere vs. Fireball) are separated into different schools.

I'm not a historian of Magic (I played it in high school and haven't really touched it since), but the five colors seem like they're designed from the ground up to marry theme and mechanics. They are related to the world in a way that is tangible (different types of land) rather than abstract. They share philosophies, emotions, and values, rather than academic distinctions.

I don't think that the game literally needs to use WUBRG (vertically integrated though it would be); something similar to the different Winds of Magic from Warhammer Fantasy would also be more in this vein. But I do think that having the division of magic schools reflect something tangible and present in the game world would be a superior piece of game fiction to what we have now.

[sayaijin]

I like the concept, but what is the proposed benefit? Changing subclasses and who gets access to what spells?

[Catullus64]

I like the concept, but what is the proposed benefit? Changing subclasses and who gets access to what spells?

Good question. In the current game, there are features that directly act and are acted upon by the existence of the schools of magic. Detect Magic alone is sufficiently pervasive that it makes schools a relevant part of the story. There are other examples of spell schools having real impact on in-game events; the new feats that require spells to be chosen from given schools, the Fighter and Rogue subclasses that can only draw on certain schools, and of course the primary Wizard subclasses. Schools of magic are given a diegetic existence.

But when spell schools have such a weird relationship to the actual thematic content of the spells, it makes those interactions weird. When a character discerns that a given spell effect is necromancy, that can mean a lot of things, from healing to harming; they are encouraged to think more about what they as a player know about spells than what their character knows about magic. A lot of the division between "Illusions" and "Enchantments" strike me as similarly arbitrary.

If a game needs to have a classification system for its magic at all, I would prefer one that matches up with the thematic niches of the spells rather than a somewhat arbitrary criterion about something like "life", "matter", "energy" and so forth. I cite WUBRG as a system that I think accomplishes this well, at least in the flavor text surrounding the actual game, and the card sets I played with way back when.

[ZRN]

But when spell schools have such a weird relationship to the actual thematic content of the spells, it makes those interactions weird. When a character discerns that a given spell effect is necromancy, that can mean a lot of things, from healing to harming; they are encouraged to think more about what they as a player know about spells than what their character knows about magic. A lot of the division between "Illusions" and "Enchantments" strike me as similarly arbitrary.

Hmm, I don't think you'd have a much easier time with the magic colors, would you? Like, is detecting Black any more helpful than detecting Necromancy?

[Man_Over_Game]

Hmm, I don't think you'd have a much easier time with the magic colors, would you? Like, is detecting Black any more helpful than detecting Necromancy?

Necromancy is 1 of 8 (12.5%, Black is 1 of 5 (20%), and colors are able to mix while schools cannot.

That would mean that Detect Black would have about 25% of a chance to be relevant, while Detect Necromancy is closer to 12.5%, not to mention that Black is not limited to Necromancy (while Necromancy clearly is limited to undead and dark energy).

I see where OP is getting at. Red is the most aggressive and fastest-paced (good for Barbarians and fire magic, in the 5e context). Blue is for targeting the stream of magic, illusions, and mobility (Wizards, some Monks). There are internal synergies within each color that makes them feel more fleshed out than individual classes or spell schools.

If I was a "White Class", I'd focus on shielding, protecting, warfare, and supporting others, all through equal parts force and magic, yet those concepts are all isolated from each other in 5e despite being thematically similar (the only "shielding" subclasses being the Abjuration Wizard and Nature Cleric).

[Protolisk]

My issue is knowing exactly what a color even means. Magic the Gathering especially had issues for me of what a color exactly stands for, and then trying to backtrack what a spell is to a certain color. While it does tend to lend towards a theme, the theme wasn't a description rather than just a "feel" of a card. They have philosophies, but what exactly makes one spell different than another in a philosophical nature? Sure, Fireball is Red, but what exactly is Tidal Wave? Is it Blue, because it is based on water? Is it also Red because it is focused on direct destruction right now?

It turns out, Tidal Wave is a Blue card, but Tsunami was a Green card because it countered Blue. But... they mean the same thing? And neither was really about wiping away everything like I expected. And yet, Blue and Green are opposites, just like how you said Animate Dead and Resurrection are, yet the base idea (a big wave of water) was the same.

Though I do like the idea of "sources" of magic, we sort of had them in the form of Arcane, Divine, Psionic, and so forth, but a source isn't so much philosophical.

Warhammer does have the Winds of Magic, and I think the Heroes of Might and Magic series had a similar idea, almost one-to-one comparison with WUBRG: in Heroes 4, there was Life, Order, Death, Chaos, and Nature, with the outsider of pure Might to contrast all of magic itself. But what exactly makes a Centaur a Might versus a Nature character, and so on?

Forced description for the sake of describing is kinda moot. Even in 5e, there is little to care about the 8 schools as it is besides some rules, mostly for the Wizard subclasses (and Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster). Outside of them, there aren't really that many rules that directly interact and depend on those schools. Except maybe Detect Magic/Identify, but even then you can get the idea of what a Enchantment is a little more cleanly than a Black or Blue styled effect, which both could just be Dominate Person.

I will agree, however, that the schools should be more uniform in what they do cover. Flaming Sphere and Fireball, by name, mean the exact same thing. Why are they different schools, they both involve a great big orb of heat?

[Man_Over_Game]

My issue is knowing exactly what a color even means. Magic the Gathering especially had issues for me of what a color exactly stands for, and then trying to backtrack what a spell is to a certain color. While it does tend to lend towards a theme, the theme wasn't a description rather than just a "feel" of a card. They have philosophies, but what exactly makes one spell different than another in a philosophical nature? Sure, Fireball is Red, but what exactly is Tidal Wave? Is it Blue, because it is based on water? Is it also Red because it is focused on direct destruction right now?

It turns out, Tidal Wave is a Blue card, but Tsunami was a Green card because it countered Blue. But... they mean the same thing? And neither was really about wiping away everything like I expected. And yet, Blue and Green are opposites, just like how you said Animate Dead and Resurrection are, yet the base idea (a big wave of water) was the same.

Though I do like the idea of "sources" of magic, we sort of had them in the form of Arcane, Divine, Psionic, and so forth, but a source isn't so much philosophical.

Lol, so like 4e? The classes were literally divided into the sources of power between Arcane, Divine, Psionic, Martial, etc. The trend was kept through the expansions, as they're each called Psionic 1 & 2, etc.

A lot of what you're describing comes from efficiency. Black is efficient with resurrection, because it finds cheats. Sacrifices or mutations of your own creatures are generally what Black can resurrect. However, White often isn't limited to a specific graveyard, and often don't come with drawbacks, and so they pay a little extra instead of sacrificing their own units or something. Blue has some damage effects, but they aren't going to be as efficient or as fast as a Red spell doing the same.

And sometimes, decisions are made because balance demands it. It's a PvP game, balance is important.

[ZRN]

Necromancy is 1 of 8 (12.5%, Black is 1 of 5 (20%), and colors are able to mix while schools cannot.

That would mean that Detect Black would have about 25% of a chance to be relevant, while Detect Necromancy is closer to 12.5%, not to mention that Black is not limited to Necromancy (while Necromancy clearly is limited to undead and dark energy).

I see where OP is getting at. Red is the most aggressive and fastest-paced (good for Barbarians and fire magic, in the 5e context). Blue is for targeting the stream of magic, illusions, and mobility (Wizards, some Monks). There are internal synergies within each color that makes them feel more fleshed out than individual classes or spell schools.

If I was a "White Class", I'd focus on shielding, protecting, warfare, and supporting others, all through equal parts force and magic, yet those concepts are all isolated from each other in 5e despite being thematically similar (the only "shielding" subclasses being the Abjuration Wizard and Nature Cleric).

...but if Detect Magic told you a color rather than a school, it would mean LESS, because as you say there are only five colors and as Protolisk points out, the distinctions between what card is which color is pretty arbitrary too.

I'd be all for a rejiggering of 5e magic to have more meaningful sources and distinctions. Like, it'd be fun if "evocation" always meant "drawing and controlling material from the four elemental planes," while necromancy was "drawing and controlling energy from the negative energy plane" or whatever. But grafting the already-fuzzy five-color sorting onto the already complex pastiche of 5e spells and cosmology would be a tough task.

[MaxWilson]

Necromancy is 1 of 8 (12.5%, Black is 1 of 5 (20%), and colors are able to mix while schools cannot.

Why would you say that schools cannot mix? 5E never forbids it, and there's precedent for multiple-school spells (a quick scan of my AD&D2 PHB yields Otiluke's Freezing Sphere as one example of a spell which is both Alteration and Evocation, implying that the same effect can be created through either school's methods). I think there are rather a lot of dual-school spells, something on the order of 5-10%.

[Damon_Tor]

There's plenty of pure gamishness in MTG, more I would argue. For example, permanently taking control of another creature is a blue effect, but taking for just one turn is red for... some reason.

Five categories is simply too few. MTG tries to combine fire and earth and chaos and aggression into one color. This leads to weird situations like dwarves and orcs sharing the color "red" even though they're diametrically opposed, just because orcs have the "chaos and aggression" aspects while dwarves are creatures of earth. Wall of Stone is a red spell, the color that's supposed to be all about offense. Other colors have similar issues.

[Man_Over_Game]

Why would you say that schools cannot mix? 5E never forbids it, and there's precedent for multiple-school spells (a quick scan of my AD&D2 PHB yields Otiluke's Freezing Sphere as one example of a spell which is both Alteration and Evocation, implying that the same effect can be created through either school's methods). I think there are rather a lot of dual-school spells, something on the order of 5-10%.

Not saying that it's impossible, only that 5e doesn't support it. It'd all be dm fiat. MTG already has a system in place for hybrids.

We can try to make one, but it'd be pretty difficult to decipher, considering stuff like walls are divided randomly into Evocation, Transmutation and Conjuration (with surprisingly few Abjuration for no reason...).

It's a pretty shoddy foundation to begin with, I wouldn't advise trying to build more on top of it to assume it'd work out fine.

[Grod_The_Giant]

But I do think that having the division of magic schools reflect something tangible and present in the game world would be a superior piece of game fiction to what we have now.
D&D, at this point in history, is all about emulating itself. All the sacred cows, the weird quirky mechanics and inefficiencies? You can't really excise them without ending up with a noticeably different game-- look at all the hate 4e got, back when it first launched. The 5e designers tried to keep as many of those sacred cows around as they could while still streamlining mechanics... but within that framework, they also tried to make the system as fluff and setting-neutral as possible, because D&D often winds up as a de-facto generic fantasy RPG, and thus needs to serve many different sorts of campaigns.

So... could you replace spell schools with MtG colors? Sure, although it would be a lot of tedious work and arguing. You could probably replace alignment too. And maybe have different classes/subclasses aligned with different colors... and monsters... ooh, and maybe replace the six ability scores with colors too, for a Fate Accelerated style approaches-based mechanic... and before you know it, you've got a completely different system.

Like you yourself said, "the five colors seem like they're designed from the ground up to marry theme and mechanics." The philosophies should be the base of the system, not something awkwardly grafted on afterwards.

[Protolisk]

Lol, so like 4e? The classes were literally divided into the sources of power between Arcane, Divine, Psionic, Martial, etc. The trend was kept through the expansions, as they're each called Psionic 1 & 2, etc.

A lot of what you're describing comes from efficiency. Black is efficient with resurrection, because it finds cheats. Sacrifices or mutations of your own creatures are generally what Black can resurrect. However, White often isn't limited to a specific graveyard, and often don't come with drawbacks, and so they pay a little extra instead of sacrificing their own units or something. Blue has some damage effects, but they aren't going to be as efficient or as fast as a Red spell doing the same.

And sometimes, decisions are made because balance demands it. It's a PvP game, balance is important.

Well, yeah, I get that, it is a card game. Having literally only defense belong to one color or literally only attack belong to another means that the game is way too asymmetric to even seem like a fair game.

Every color can make similar effects, though some are focused a little more. But if every school can make almost any effect, with degrees of power, and you try to use the Detect Magic spell on an item and it radiates Black aura, what in the world is that item able to do? Is it something that returns things back to life? Is is a big ol' ball of poison? Does it summon a demon? You could try and categorize all of these as "bad thing happens". At best you can find out that's its selfish, since i believe that's what Black represents, or some other form of philosophy. But does an object with no mind of its own actually have a philosophy? It doesn't have a mind, let alone a code of ethics.

But then you find a "White" item, and now what? Is that a guaranteed good thing? Is summoning an angel good? Is it a buff? Will the buff be for you, or something else? And so on. Its a descriptor, but an almost meaningless one. Both Black and White might be able to bring people back to life: its a true resurrections, so White actually restored life. But the item is a "cheat", so is it Black?

As for 4e, never played it so I'll take your word on it. But in the end, what does it matter if the source is different if they both produce Hold Person? Considering that spell is virtually on every class list (except Artificer, I think). An Arcane Hold Person effect that dings as "Arcane" doesn't really differentiate it much from a Divine Hold Person: it's still Hold Person.



I do note, however, that the description of what "Black" and "White" item above is still muddy from a 8 schools of magic as well. Conjuration and Evocation are very similar in idea, so a staff that radiates a "evocation" aura only tells you that it makes effects, but not effects that last too long, or else that would be a Conjuration staff, even though both staves make big balls of fire. Same for a staff pinging Illusion might force an image of something scary, but doesn't actually instill fear like an Enchantment would. Just because the current system fails this test doesn't mean we should instead emulate a different system that also fails this test. Its the same issue as the Alignment Wheel, where the PHB definitions of Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Good both can (but not always) mean the exact same thing, even though they are almost direct opposites. Lawful Neutral says you can act by your personal code, and Chaotic Good act by their conscience. If you have a character whose personal code was modeled based on their conscience, then which are you?

They are all labels, but the labels currently have little information in it, to me.

We can add more and more labels if we wanted, for descriptions sake. Maybe some effect is a Necromancy Spell, sourced from Divinity, colored White, leans Neutral Good, uses the Life distinction, and blows under Wind of Ghyran. Knowing all these things can help you determine that yeah, it might be a healing spell. But if we didn't use Detect Magic and instead used Identify, then bam: its a staff that casts Cure Wounds. We didn't need to deal with all the labels. The labels were superfluous.

You certainly can if you want to, though. But the current systems are all muddy at best. If both White and Green heals, if both Evocation and Necromancy heals, if both Lawful Good and Chaotic Neutral heals, if both Divine and Psionic heals... then why bother with all the rigmarole?

[ZRN]

(a quick scan of my AD&D2 PHB yields Otiluke's Freezing Sphere as one example of a spell which is both Alteration and Evocation, implying that the same effect can be created through either school's methods). .

Is there any published D&D fiction that actually lays out the eight schools as actual... schools, in the sense of academic traditions that have specific histories, associated masters, techniques, philosophies, etc?

Every D&D wizard I can think of doesn't really differentiate between spell schools in a meaningful way, although I assume that e.g. the 3e versions of like Elminster and Blackstaff followed the rules about having forbidden schools, etc.

[Catullus64]

D&D, at this point in history, is all about emulating itself. All the sacred cows, the weird quirky mechanics and inefficiencies? You can't really excise them without ending up with a noticeably different game-- look at all the hate 4e got, back when it first launched. The 5e designers tried to keep as many of those sacred cows around as they could while still streamlining mechanics... but within that framework, they also tried to make the system as fluff and setting-neutral as possible, because D&D often winds up as a de-facto generic fantasy RPG, and thus needs to serve many different sorts of campaigns.

So... could you replace spell schools with MtG colors? Sure, although it would be a lot of tedious work and arguing. You could probably replace alignment too. And maybe have different classes/subclasses aligned with different colors... and monsters... ooh, and maybe replace the six ability scores with colors too, for a Fate Accelerated style approaches-based mechanic... and before you know it, you've got a completely different system.

Like you yourself said, "the five colors seem like they're designed from the ground up to marry theme and mechanics." The philosophies should be the base of the system, not something awkwardly grafted on afterwards.

Ok, fair. Replacing Eight Schools with Five Colors at this point might be too much. I just hope that in the future, some game writers for D&D really take the opportunity to make ACDEEINT a little more a part of the world. Lean in to the implied personalities associated with the magic types, and make all the spells in a given school consistent with a given philosophy, force, flavor of ice cream, et al.

I don't think it should be too controversial to say that the eight schools are primarily a thing for Wizards, and that all other magic-using classes kind of get it as a hand-me-down. The AD&D PHB all but explicitly calls this out. While it makes sense for Wizards themselves to have an abstract formal classification system for all magic, it makes less sense for that system to be the actual cosmological classification for all magic, in the way that things like Detect Magic imply.

Unless the game is trying to imply that a powerful cabal of wizards has hijacked reality to make it conform with their academic system. I would absolutely love it if that were the official explanation.

[MaxWilson]

Is there any published D&D fiction that actually lays out the eight schools as actual... schools, in the sense of academic traditions that have specific histories, associated masters, techniques, philosophies, etc?

I'm not sure how much detail you're asking for, nor do I feel that D&D-branded fantasy books are necessarily the best way to understand game settings, but one example does come to mind: the first Spellfire book has the main character's love interest as a conjuror, who IIRC does specifically obey game rules for conjurors including not being able to cast Evocation spells (or Greater Divination), although he breaks the rules for spell preparation (memorizing spells multiple times a day).

That's all I can think of, but frankly I haven't even read very much D&D-branded fantasy fiction, probably fewer than twenty books in my life and half of those were about Drizzt (and another five books were the Prism Pentad, and three more were the Avatar Trilogy).


Ok, fair. Replacing Eight Schools with Five Colors at this point might be too much. I just hope that in the future, some game writers for D&D really take the opportunity to make ACDEEINT a little more a part of the world. Lean in to the implied personalities associated with the magic types, and make all the spells in a given school consistent with a given philosophy, force, flavor of ice cream, et al.

I don't think it should be too controversial to say that the eight schools are primarily a thing for Wizards, and that all other magic-using classes kind of get it as a hand-me-down. The AD&D PHB all but explicitly calls this out. While it makes sense for Wizards themselves to have an abstract formal classification system for all magic, it makes less sense for that system to be the actual cosmological classification for all magic, in the way that things like Detect Magic imply.

Unless the game is trying to imply that a powerful cabal of wizards has hijacked reality to make it conform with their academic system. I would absolutely love it if that were the official explanation.

Why does classification imply hijacking of reality to you?

When biologists decided to shoehorn platypuses in as mammals despite their unusual traits like egg-laying, did that require hacking reality, or just a system of classification which aspires to be complete? What makes you think Detect Magic wasn't designed as a classifier compatible with magical theory as viewed by wizards?

[Catullus64]

Why does classification imply hijacking of reality to you?

When biologists decided to shoehorn platypuses in as mammals despite their unusual traits like egg-laying, did that require hacking reality, or just a system of classification which aspires to be complete? What makes you think Detect Magic wasn't designed as a classifier compatible with magical theory as viewed by wizards?

The fact that it says the same thing when cast by a Druid?

[Grod_The_Giant]

The fact that it says the same thing when cast by a Druid?
Think of it like this. We, the omniscient player reading the rulebook, know that magic can be broken down into eight categories. Just like in our universe you can use the Standard Model of physics to sort everything into 17 elementary particles. Why 17? We couldn't tell you. Why does magic come in eight fundamental categories? We don't know for sure, but it's an objective fact that it does.

Detect Magic, then, tells you that the spell you're looking at belongs to one of the eight categories, because every magical effect belongs to one of the eight categories, because that's just how the universe works. You don't literally get a little sign popping up that says "abjuration," you get some sort of sensory feedback-- a blue-red glow, an E-chord, the feeling of silk running across your fingers, whatever-- that you've learned to associate with magic of that type.

If you have formal training in magical theory, you would know the commonly accepted names for each of the eight categories (or "schools," as your textbook called them). If you don't, you must just call it "protective magic," or "Saint Fenric's Breath," or even just "green magic." It doesn't matter what name you assign to the category-- Detect Magic still gives you one of eight results. You might see glowing lights, and your buddy might hear music, but the key is that your observations are consistent. Any abjuration spell you Detect will be blue-red, or sound like an E-chord. Even with no knowledge of the other's classification system, you'll both Detect that the magic is of the sort that seals and protects, and that's the important part. We just use the eight schools as a common frame of reference as players, just like we say that doing this is an action but doing that is a bonus action.


tl;dr: Different styles of magic might work differently, but the ultimate effect is the same.

[MaxWilson]

The fact that it says the same thing when cast by a Druid?

Therefore what? Why should a druid's magic be uninfluenced by wizardly magical theory?

An Eastern musician may not necessarily use Western music theory to write his music, but if you point a Western-designed pitch analyzer at him while he's playing a piece, there's no reason it wouldn't tell you what the central chord is (if any). He's free to ignore the answer though.

[ZRN]

Think of it like this. We, the omniscient player reading the rulebook, know that magic can be broken down into eight categories. Just like in our universe you can use the Standard Model of physics to sort everything into 17 elementary particles. Why 17? We couldn't tell you. Why does magic come in eight fundamental categories? We don't know for sure, but it's an objective fact that it does.

Detect Magic, then, tells you that the spell you're looking at belongs to one of the eight categories, because every magical effect belongs to one of the eight categories, because that's just how the universe works. .

I prefer thinking of it as more an evolution - magic tends to flow along familiar pathways, so every time someone casts a particular spell it becomes easier to cast that spell. Since most spells are thousands of years old and have been cast a million times, they’re pretty well-established - that’s why it’s way easier and more common for anyone - wizard, cleric, demon, whoever - to be able to cast a 20’ radius fireball than a 22’ or even 18’ radius fireball. Even designing a “new” spell is basically like coding in modern Windows - you’re mostly referencing bits of more established spells (APIs) and trying to bundle them together to do something new-ish.

In that system, maybe you could say there were eight very different types of magic-user a long long time ago, and each group created the theoretical foundations and proto-spells that later became the wizard schools?

[MrStabby]

Not an opinion that I expect would gain much traction in general, but it's been dancing through my head since I made a dungeon puzzle that revolves around the five magic colors from Magic: The Gathering.

I think that the five-color system from Magic would be better suited as an in-game division system for magic than the Eight Schools approach that is pervasive in D&D.

To me, it seems like the eight schools are an invention to fit playstyles of spellcasters much more so than they are a theme in themselves. As in, it seems like we started with "wizard who uses direct damage spells to blow things up" and "wizard who raises the dead", abstracted those into vague descriptions about "manipulating energy = Evocation" or "manipulating life = Necromancy."

But because of adherence to said vague ideas about what separates the spells from one another, we have arrived at the point of spells that encompass very different themes (Animate Dead vs. Resurrection) sharing the same game classification, while very thematically related spells (Flaming Sphere vs. Fireball) are separated into different schools.

I'm not a historian of Magic (I played it in high school and haven't really touched it since), but the five colors seem like they're designed from the ground up to marry theme and mechanics. They are related to the world in a way that is tangible (different types of land) rather than abstract. They share philosophies, emotions, and values, rather than academic distinctions.

I don't think that the game literally needs to use WUBRG (vertically integrated though it would be); something similar to the different Winds of Magic from Warhammer Fantasy would also be more in this vein. But I do think that having the division of magic schools reflect something tangible and present in the game world would be a superior piece of game fiction to what we have now.

I think the colors of magic are certainly thematically stronger than spell schools, and I would like to see this fleshed out as an alternative, but there are a few problems. Now bare in mind my knowledge of MTG is about 10 years out of date...

1) Colors of magic are as much associated with a profession/class as anything else. This might make some concepts less viable

2) Some colors are problematic for various reasons. Black for example has its iconic spells like Terror which instantly kill a creature, which is a bit much in D&D and discard effects (so whilst you could force mages to forget spells it is a bit niche). Once you strip this out you are left without much that doesn't fall equally well under other color headings/is a worse version of what they have. Some things would be left - animate dead, raise dead etc. but it s a pretty narrow field.

3) At the other end of the scale Blue gets a very broad range of effects: counterspells, most enchantments, a monopoly on illusions, stunning (tapping) enemies, most divination, water spells, some air spells, almost all cold spells, most psychic damage spells, any kind of stasis effect.

Building magic round MtG would probably be an improvement but it would need a lot of work and tearing down most of the existing content.

Also worth taking a look at:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?490201-Spell-list-as-Color-a-D-amp-D-MtG-crossover&highlight=magic%2C+white%2C+black%2C+blue

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?569592-MtG-Crossover-Colors-of-Magic&highlight=magic%2C+white%2C+black%2C+blue

[Cikomyr2]

I will start my reply by being frank that I do not believe rewriting D&D to include the Magic color system would be a good idea.

That said, just creating a side-5e d&d ruleset that works based around the Magic color system would be great.

What are Paladins but White-[X]? You can have Oath of the Ancient (White-Green), Oath of Vengeance (White-Red). Just have 5 clearly defined subclasses for spell casters that work for each color.

Druids are Green-X. Warlocks are Black-X. Artificier are colorless.

Wizards would be Blue-X. Clerics are X.

Redraw spell lists around the 5 colors. Allow the Subclass to pick level appropriate spells of their selected color and have them add to their spell known.

Theres potential there to create a variant of D&D that rethinks the way magic work but keep the crunchy rules. You would be reimagining the fluff of DnD.

[Devils_Advocate]

Why should a druid's magic be uninfluenced by wizardly magical theory?
Because druids get their magic from nature, not from wizards.


An Eastern musician may not necessarily use Western music theory to write his music, but if you point a Western-designed pitch analyzer at him while he's playing a piece, there's no reason it wouldn't tell you what the central chord is (if any). He's free to ignore the answer though.
Yeah, and if you point an Eastern-designed pitch analyzer at someone playing a piece, it would be very weird for it to categorize things based on a Western music theory that the device's designer had no knowledge of.

[MaxWilson]

Because druids get their magic from nature, not from wizards.

Clearly there are interactions between them, or wizards and druids couldn't Counterspell/Dispel/Detect each other's spells. They may have some common roots (and shared magical theory could come from those common roots). There's no indication that they don't have common roots.



Yeah, and if you point an Eastern-designed pitch analyzer at someone playing a piece, it would be very weird for it to categorize things based on a Western music theory that the device's designer had no knowledge of.

Since druidic Detect Magic does detect schools, you can safely conclude that schools of magic are not something druids have never heard of, even if they don't have many mechanics that interact with them.

[Daracaex]

For schools of magic, I don't think it's very helpful. The color pie isn't super consistent when it comes to flavor of spells. It's much better for the particular effects, but I don't see that describing a spell as Red is super helpful when that could mean fire magic or temporary mind control or elemental summoning.

I actually really like the philosophy side of the color pie as a replacement or supplement for alignment though. There are nine ways to describe a character's alignment on the good-evil and lawful-chaotic axes. There are 31 ways to describe a person's personality through different color combinations (Though maybe practically only 25 as four and five color combinations are maybe less useful).

[Veldrenor]

There's a product that does exactly this. It's called Tap Untap Burn, it's on the DM's Guild, and it both reorganizes the spells based on the five schools and provides a spell point spellcasting variant that's based on MtG mana. I haven't looked at it too closely yet, I didn't want to spring a new spellcasting system in the middle of a campaign, so I can't speak to how balanced or effective it is.

[KorvinStarmast]

Like you yourself said, "the five colors seem like they're designed from the ground up to marry theme and mechanics." The philosophies should be the base of the system, not something awkwardly grafted on afterwards. Indeed. For the five color system to fit into D&D, it needs to be from the ground up. (We had this same discussion a few weeks ago, in this sub forum).

For the OP: No, it doesn't. 6e, if they build it that way from the ground up, might be able to make it work. (I'd not mind seeing the 'school' thing go away, but that's just one player's opinion)

And, they can also screw it up.

[KittenMagician]

reading through this thread i see a lot of people referring to the physicality of the colors, red = fire, blue = water or ice, black = death or evil, etc. but i think we could layer in the emotions or feelings of the colors onto the different schools as they stand.

I am a long time player of MtG and love both it and D&D in equal measure. when you detect magic and detect an abjuration effect on an orb in a dungeon, what does that mean? is the orb a device sealing something away? does it counterspell all your spells? does it suck your soul out and seal it away?

Why not have it be that when you use detect magic and get a feel for the school you can then roll a spell casting check (use your spell casting attack bonus) to get a feel of what it might do based on the color associated.

White = Peace, law, structured, selflessness, equality (community)
Blue = Knowledge, deceit, cautious, deliberate, perfecting (logic)
Black = Power, self-interest, sacrifice, uninhibited, ambition (the ends justify the means)
Red = Freedom, emotion, active, impulsive, destructive (passion)
Green = Nature, wildlife, connected, spiritual, tradition (primality)

so that same orb as before is abjuration but has a blue feel. maybe its projecting an illusion to trick you
a black feel. it does the soul sucking thing i said earlier.

regardless if you get the school and the color you might be able to conjecture a little more as to what it does. necromancy/white = healing/resurrection, necromancy/black = death/reanimation (zombie)

i feel like there is merit to be had in the MtG color wheel but not as a total replacement on the system we have already

[sayaijin]

reading through this thread i see a lot of people referring to the physicality of the colors, red = fire, blue = water or ice, black = death or evil, etc. but i think we could layer in the emotions or feelings of the colors onto the different schools as they stand.

I am a long time player of MtG and love both it and D&D in equal measure. when you detect magic and detect an abjuration effect on an orb in a dungeon, what does that mean? is the orb a device sealing something away? does it counterspell all your spells? does it suck your soul out and seal it away?

Why not have it be that when you use detect magic and get a feel for the school you can then roll a spell casting check (use your spell casting attack bonus) to get a feel of what it might do based on the color associated.

White = Peace, law, structured, selflessness, equality (community)
Blue = Knowledge, deceit, cautious, deliberate, perfecting (logic)
Black = Power, self-interest, sacrifice, uninhibited, ambition (the ends justify the means)
Red = Freedom, emotion, active, impulsive, destructive (passion)
Green = Nature, wildlife, connected, spiritual, tradition (primality)

so that same orb as before is abjuration but has a blue feel. maybe its projecting an illusion to trick you
a black feel. it does the soul sucking thing i said earlier.

regardless if you get the school and the color you might be able to conjecture a little more as to what it does. necromancy/white = healing/resurrection, necromancy/black = death/reanimation (zombie)

i feel like there is merit to be had in the MtG color wheel but not as a total replacement on the system we have already

I likewise love both games, and I feel like the color wheel is one of the best parts of MtG.

You would definitely have a major overhaul of D&D if you want to incorporate color magic.

Some musings:
Would choosing a particular color identity affect what kind of martial combat you would excel at? Would you be locked into a color identity like an alignment? If you can change color identity, what happens to your powers that were based on your old color? Maybe scaling abilities based on how many levels you spend with a particular color identity?
Would red give more damage to spells whereas blue gives higher save DC for controlling spells? Does white give you amplified defense/buff spells? Does black give you higher debuff save DC?

I likewise think there's a really cool concept here, and it would be cool to play, but it would be a massive overhaul.

[Cikomyr2]

Like I said. "D&D 5e reimagined with Magic's Color system" is definetly a good idea, and I'd be down trying it out.

[Catullus64]

Since druidic Detect Magic does detect schools, you can safely conclude that schools of magic are not something druids have never heard of, even if they don't have many mechanics that interact with them.

That's just my problem, though. Shouldn't Druids have their own system? Wizards in this edition, and to a lesser extent any edition with school specialization, are themed from the beginning to have the eight schools tradition as part of their class ethos. It seems to do wrong by every other class to have their spells divided up according to that tradition, instead of having their own systems by which they view their magical arts represented in the rules text.

Either that, or there should be a system that has meaning and philosophical heft to any class; my initial interest in the Color Wheel was because I think it's more fertile ground for that endeavor than the eight schools as they exist now.

And as a general point, I recognize that this is all thought-experiment, and that implementation would probably require a greater overhaul than the system (or the market) would bear. A more edition-friendly solution would be to include sections in the next player option book talking about what the spell schools mean to non-wizards. What are Druidic attitudes towards Transmutation? How do Clerics react to their death-defying miracles coming from the same source as blasphemous undead?

[Cikomyr2]

That's just my problem, though. Shouldn't Druids have their own system? Wizards in this edition, and to a lesser extent any edition with school specialization, are themed from the beginning to have the eight schools tradition as part of their class ethos. It seems to do wrong by every other class to have their spells divided up according to that tradition, instead of having their own systems by which they view their magical arts represented in the rules text.

Either that, or there should be a system that has meaning and philosophical heft to any class; my initial interest in the Color Wheel was because I think it's more fertile ground for that endeavor than the eight schools as they exist now.

And as a general point, I recognize that this is all thought-experiment, and that implementation would probably require a greater overhaul than the system (or the market) would bear. A more edition-friendly solution would be to include sections in the next player option book talking about what the spell schools mean to non-wizards. What are Druidic attitudes towards Transmutation? How do Clerics react to their death-defying miracles coming from the same source as blasphemous undead?

I kind of like that approach. It gives more thematics to the class spell lists.

[KittenMagician]

I likewise love both games, and I feel like the color wheel is one of the best parts of MtG.

You would definitely have a major overhaul of D&D if you want to incorporate color magic.

Some musings:
Would choosing a particular color identity affect what kind of martial combat you would excel at? Would you be locked into a color identity like an alignment? If you can change color identity, what happens to your powers that were based on your old color? Maybe scaling abilities based on how many levels you spend with a particular color identity?
Would red give more damage to spells whereas blue gives higher save DC for controlling spells? Does white give you amplified defense/buff spells? Does black give you higher debuff save DC?

I likewise think there's a really cool concept here, and it would be cool to play, but it would be a massive overhaul.

colors change for sure. just look at nissa (mainly green but gets blue and black later) or ajani (mainly white but gets red and green later)

also its a misconception that alignments dont change and they act similarly to the color wheel. its about how they behave and think. tragedy could hit a paladins life and they can become more cynical and slide from lawful good to lawful neutral to lawful evil as they become more self centered and egocentric. alignment is not a binding set of rules you choose on day 1, they are a guide to how your character does/should act. its the same with the color wheel.

[Willie the Duck]

To me, it seems like the eight schools are an invention to fit playstyles of spellcasters much more so than they are a theme in themselves. As in, it seems like we started with "wizard who uses direct damage spells to blow things up" and "wizard who raises the dead", abstracted those into vague descriptions about "manipulating energy = Evocation" or "manipulating life = Necromancy."

But because of adherence to said vague ideas about what separates the spells from one another, we have arrived at the point of spells that encompass very different themes (Animate Dead vs. Resurrection) sharing the same game classification, while very thematically related spells (Flaming Sphere vs. Fireball) are separated into different schools.
For what it is worth, the schools were invented* before there was a separate specialist for each school -- there was just magic users and illusionists, but already all 8 schools. So it seems to me that they started out as a way of classifying spells based on some core concept of how magic should be divided, not by a "wizard who _____" metric. I think that shows through in the example: two spells with very similar outcomes can be different schools because of minute (often hair-splitting) theoretical differences in spell concept.
*For AD&D, or possibly late oD&D (I'll have to check the Dragon magazines of the time)


That's just my problem, though. Shouldn't Druids have their own system? Wizards in this edition, and to a lesser extent any edition with school specialization, are themed from the beginning to have the eight schools tradition as part of their class ethos. It seems to do wrong by every other class to have their spells divided up according to that tradition, instead of having their own systems by which they view their magical arts represented in the rules text.

They tried that in 2nd edition AD&D (not with Detect Magic, but in general) -- the wizarding classes had schools, while clerics and druids had spheres. It was a little underdeveloped as far as actual theories of magic was concerned (for example, cleric spells were still assigned school designations, while wizard spells didn't have sphere designations), but it might work as a starting point if desired.

To the OP point of using MtG colors -- it seems like an alternate idea, but not really an upgrade.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Counter proposal that has all the benefits (plus some), is about the same effort, and doesn't cause massive systemic problems:

Remove schools for spells. Replace them with tags--so fireball might get "destructive", "elemental (fire)", and "energy".

Now detect magic tells you the tags (or possibly lets you make an Intelligence (Arcana) check, with your result telling you more tags the higher it is). Wizard schools can now become actual schools, each getting bonuses to specific tags. More granularity while not being arbitrary or causing root metaphysics problems.

Further down this road, you could organize things like bonus spells and spell list by tag.

[Protolisk]

Counter proposal that has all the benefits (plus some), is about the same effort, and doesn't cause massive systemic problems:

Remove schools for spells. Replace them with tags--so fireball might get "destructive", "elemental (fire)", and "energy".

Now detect magic tells you the tags (or possibly lets you make an Intelligence (Arcana) check, with your result telling you more tags the higher it is). Wizard schools can now become actual schools, each getting bonuses to specific tags. More granularity while not being arbitrary or causing root metaphysics problems.

Further down this road, you could organize things like bonus spells and spell list by tag.

This is something I'd much rather be implemented. But the base requirement, and what should be done with any categorical system, is that it doesn't have redundancies where two different tags do exactly the same thing.

We sort of already have this when it comes to monsters, in that there are humanoids, but also "orc", and then a different category "Shapechanger". If we are going to have labels, make them mean something, and stick to those meanings.

[Daracaex]

Counter proposal that has all the benefits (plus some), is about the same effort, and doesn't cause massive systemic problems:

Remove schools for spells. Replace them with tags--so fireball might get "destructive", "elemental (fire)", and "energy".

Now detect magic tells you the tags (or possibly lets you make an Intelligence (Arcana) check, with your result telling you more tags the higher it is). Wizard schools can now become actual schools, each getting bonuses to specific tags. More granularity while not being arbitrary or causing root metaphysics problems.

Further down this road, you could organize things like bonus spells and spell list by tag.

This is one of the things 4e did.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This is one of the things 4e did.

Right. And it's one of the things I think 4e did well...in spirit at least. It used tags mostly for mechanical effects, which I'm not so fond of. But the idea of sorting by tag is, I think a good one. As is separating Primal from Divine. But that's a separate hobby horse :smallsmile:

[Cikomyr2]

Dnd Beyond has tags for spells, no?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Dnd Beyond has tags for spells, no?

Very poor and scattered ones. And ones focused primarily on mechanical do-dads. Which is rather the opposite of the intent here.

[Gyor]

Not an opinion that I expect would gain much traction in general, but it's been dancing through my head since I made a dungeon puzzle that revolves around the five magic colors from Magic: The Gathering.

I think that the five-color system from Magic would be better suited as an in-game division system for magic than the Eight Schools approach that is pervasive in D&D.

To me, it seems like the eight schools are an invention to fit playstyles of spellcasters much more so than they are a theme in themselves. As in, it seems like we started with "wizard who uses direct damage spells to blow things up" and "wizard who raises the dead", abstracted those into vague descriptions about "manipulating energy = Evocation" or "manipulating life = Necromancy."

But because of adherence to said vague ideas about what separates the spells from one another, we have arrived at the point of spells that encompass very different themes (Animate Dead vs. Resurrection) sharing the same game classification, while very thematically related spells (Flaming Sphere vs. Fireball) are separated into different schools.

I'm not a historian of Magic (I played it in high school and haven't really touched it since), but the five colors seem like they're designed from the ground up to marry theme and mechanics. They are related to the world in a way that is tangible (different types of land) rather than abstract. They share philosophies, emotions, and values, rather than academic distinctions.

I don't think that the game literally needs to use WUBRG (vertically integrated though it would be); something similar to the different Winds of Magic from Warhammer Fantasy would also be more in this vein. But I do think that having the division of magic schools reflect something tangible and present in the game world would be a superior piece of game fiction to what we have now.

When Adventures in the Forgotten Realms comes out we will see how well a D&D setting interacts with the MtG colour pie in practice.

[Cikomyr2]

Very poor and scattered ones. And ones focused primarily on mechanical do-dads. Which is rather the opposite of the intent here.

I mean, can't we base ourselves on it and just try to add tags to them?

[Theodoxus]

I don't play MtG and never really delved into the minutia of the rules or how the different colors interact. But I've been interested in the crossover settings, stealing bits here and there for my own games (things like the Guilds, which I'm expanding the number of to fit my own campaign). As such, the color aspect of spells is at least intriguing.

What I would probably do, is split the spells into Arcane, Divine and Primal and then grant each 4 or 5 colors (four being the classic elements, 5 being traditional MtG). ADP would have overlap within color, and Colors would have overlap within ADP, but there would still be plenty of unique spells that only belong to a specific magic type and color.

Of course, I would need to define each (elements would obviously be easier to define, but shoe-horning in concepts that aren't strictly elemental would be more problematic. From what I've read, MtG colors aren't necessarily strictly defined either though, so interpreting where things fit could also be problematic.

But at a high level it would be an interesting project; it's just the minutia that gets bogged down.

[Second Wind]

D&D's spells are a hacked together mish-mash of deliberate imbalance. Any useful attempt to categorize them will require reworking the spell lists.