New name for Abjuration

[Elves]

D&D and other fantasy games have taken to calling protective magic "abjuration". I find it a dumb/annoying name since the word has no relation to protection or protective magic. It means a renunciation, and came to be a generic word for magic based on a connotation of religious heresy.

Looking for a more fitting name for this type of magic. Some ideas:

warding - warder (the simplest, but doesn't fit in with the rest of the magic schools which are all -ations and -mancies)
protegation - proteger, protegure (pro-tuh-jer or pro-teh-gyure)
contegation - conteger, contegure (con-tuh-jer or con-teh-gyure) sounds too much like conjuration
arcomancy - arcomancer
cingomancy - cingomancer sounds like singing magic

Which of these do you like best? Your own ideas?

[Batcathat]

On its own, I like warding the best, but I agree it doesn't mesh very well with the others so with that in mind I'd probably pick arcomancy. No particular reason, I just like the way it sounds.

[Elvensilver]

So, basically:
Protegation: from protegere, to protect,
Contegation: from contegere, to cover,
Arcomancy: from arcere, to (en-) close,
Cingomancy: from cingere, to gird.

Fitting orgin words, but the results just sound so strange in my mind... Thus, I also prefer "warding".

Plus, I have some beef with the suffix "-mancy". Do you predict the future by warding? No, you don't!
How about "Contegurgy" ("cover-work"), or "Protegurgy" ("protection - work" )?

No wonder the designers turned to abjuration- Everything else just sounds so weird...

[ezekielraiden]

The idea is supposed to be that it's magic which "rejects" other forms of magic. Whether that's a wise naming choice is, of course, up for debate.

[Mastikator]

Abjuration also destroys magic and sends outsiders back to their home plane, so it's not necessarily "protection". It's rather renunciation of magical effects, spells and sometimes physical attacks. Dispel Magic and Counterspell are famously Abjurations, even if you can destroy entirely non-hostile effects and even use them offensively.

Additionally some protection spells are explicitly NOT abjurations, like fireshield is (and should be) evocation as are the various Wall of X.

IMO you should either base the category on the source or the outcome, but not both. Out of your options I like Warding, mostly because it's the only one that I can tell what it does based on its name only. But then you should unroot the entire magic school system. Warding does not sit well next to evocation, conjuration and divination for example. It would sit well next to blasting, summoning and information. In that system both magic missile (evocation) and cloudkill (conjuration) would be blasting. Summon lesser demon, summon shadowspan and summon undead would all be summoning. (and only create undead should be necromancy, since summoning is not creating!)

[Elves]

The idea is supposed to be that it's magic which "rejects" other forms of magic. Whether that's a wise naming choice is, of course, up for debate.

Abjuration also destroys magic and sends outsiders back to their home plane, so it's not necessarily "protection". It's rather renunciation of magical effects, spells and sometimes physical attacks.

I get your point. They're trying to reinterpret the word's etymology which is clever I guess but seems like a stretch to me.

Warding does not sit well next to evocation, conjuration and divination for example. It would sit well next to blasting, summoning and information. In that system both magic missile (evocation) and cloudkill (conjuration) would be blasting. Summon lesser demon, summon shadowspan and summon undead would all be summoning. (and only create undead should be necromancy, since summoning is not creating!)

I completely support this, schools should be defined by their game effect not some abstract notion of power source. Conjuration was so OP in 3.5 because they did it the second way -- and almost anything can be justified as conjuration so it got a huge variety of powers. Instead of inane discussions about at what point you're "evoking" fire or acid as opposed to "conjuring" it, the question should be what is conjuration gameplay vs evocation gameplay.

I don't even think you need to change the names to do that though.

So, basically:
Protegation: from protegere, to protect,
Contegation: from contegere, to cover,
Arcomancy: from arcere, to (en-) close,
Cingomancy: from cingere, to gird.

Fitting orgin words, but the results just sound so strange in my mind... Thus, I also prefer "warding".

Plus, I have some beef with the suffix "-mancy". Do you predict the future by warding? No, you don't!
How about "Contegurgy" ("cover-work"), or "Protegurgy" ("protection - work" )?

No wonder the designers turned to abjuration- Everything else just sounds so weird...

The best two are protegation and arcomancy. Protegation fits in fairly well I think, the problem is "proteger" (pr. protejer) sounds stupid. I guess you could call it protegation but specialists in it are called warders.

Arcomancy/arcomancer sounds good but like evocation it's not easy to tell from the word what it means, unlike protegation.

[Mastikator]

I completely support this, schools should be defined by their game effect not some abstract notion of power source. Conjuration was so OP in 3.5 because they did it the second way -- and almost anything can be justified as conjuration so it got a huge variety of powers. Instead of inane discussions about at what point you're "evoking" fire or acid as opposed to "conjuring" it, the question should be what is conjuration gameplay vs evocation gameplay.

I don't even think you need to change the names to do that though.

Ok but is fire shield a warding spell then? Is Banishment a (un)summoning? Does inflict wounds become blasting?

What about bestow curse? Do we need a debuffing category? And haste, does it belong in the buffing category? Or maybe buffing/debuffing is one category. Because it can't all go into transmutation, transmutation also deals with converting one object into another object, or one matter into another. Which is unlike haste

[clash]

Im with you on changing the name. I would go with protegation for a protegure.

[Elves]

Ok but is fire shield a warding spell then? Is Banishment a (un)summoning? Does inflict wounds become blasting?

What about bestow curse? Do we need a debuffing category? And haste, does it belong in the buffing category? Or maybe buffing/debuffing is one category. Because it can't all go into transmutation, transmutation also deals with converting one object into another object, or one matter into another. Which is unlike haste

The point is that whatever categories you go with should have a clear mechanical identity and when categorizing spells you should ask "is this effect something that fits with the gameplay of this school", not what the made up magic fluff or even the name of the effect is -- if its name or fluff doesn't fit but the effect does, rename and refluff it.

[Lapak]

To toss another base-word into the fray, Abjuration is broadly about establishing limits and boundaries.

• "No magic here; reality only."
• No extraplanar creatures here, natives only
• No nonmagical weapons past this point
• 'Keep Out' sign that only applies to fire
• and so on

Which suggests terminus as a starter word. Clearly, all wizards who specialize in protection and warding are Terminators.

[RedMage125]

Abjuration also destroys magic and sends outsiders back to their home plane, so it's not necessarily "protection". It's rather renunciation of magical effects, spells and sometimes physical attacks. Dispel Magic and Counterspell are famously Abjurations, even if you can destroy entirely non-hostile effects and even use them offensively.

Additionally some protection spells are explicitly NOT abjurations, like fireshield is (and should be) evocation as are the various Wall of X.

I'm glad someone said it. This was the exact point I was going to make when i read the OP.

Which suggests terminus as a starter word. Clearly, all wizards who specialize in protection and warding are Terminators.

But this is also hilarious.

[Eldan]

How about going a bit simpler and calling it Negation? It is almost all reactive magic, after all.

[Lapak]

But this is also hilarious.

That post started serious until I saw where it led me. A word that ends up less counter-intuitive but uses the same concept could be limina / liminal as a base word (thresholds / dealing with thresholds.) Call them liminomancers, limnists, something like that.

[Altheus]

Forbiddance, given that this is the school of the magic "Nope" I think it fits.

[Eldan]

Hrm. I can't find out what a priest of Terminus, the god, would be called. Shame. I suppose there could be a Flamen terminalis.

[Mastikator]

How about going a bit simpler and calling it Negation? It is almost all reactive magic, after all.

What's the intended goal here though? Are we just changing the name "Abjuration" because it's icky or are we changing the magic category system? Negation and Abjuration are very similar, negation and warding are merely related (much in the same way that illusion and enchantment are, or shadow illusion and evocation). I think any magic system that isn't built from the ground up is always going to suffer from the problem of being arbitrary and inconsistent.

[Maat Mons]

I don't think there should be schools.

Schools were intended to be mutually-exclusive categorizations. I mean, they're not anymore. Not since dual-school spells were introduced. But the original idea behind schools was that they don't overlap. Which is untenable, as the designers eventually realized. No matter what criteria you select for schools, or what replacement concept you use, there are going to be spells that people can come up with that should rightfully belong in more than one category.

Everything should be descriptors.

The descriptors system doesn't fall apart if, for example, someone wants to make a spell that deals both electric and sonic damage. It just gets both the electric and sonic descriptors. The game designers can say "Hey, I think it's worthwhile to note some spells as being 'cold' and some spells as being 'fire'. That way, we can write rules that interact differently with spells depending on whether they fall into one of those categories." And other game designers aren't forbidden from creating spells that mix energy types. Nor does anyone wind up having to decide if the IcyHot line of spells is more icy or more hot. Because they're not forced to give it a categorization that ignores half of what it does. Because that would be stupid.

[LibraryOgre]

I don't think there should be schools.

Schools were intended to be mutually-exclusive categorizations. I mean, they're not anymore. Not since dual-school spells were introduced. But the original idea behind schools was that they don't overlap. Which is untenable, as the designers eventually realized. No matter what criteria you select for schools, or what replacement concept you use, there are going to be spells that people can come up with that should rightfully belong in more than one category.

In the 1e PH, we have our first multi-school spell, the Glyph of Warding, which is Abjuration and Evocation. There are a few other spells in there that combine effects, and by 2e, they were everywhere. In BECMI, RC, and Supplement 1: Greyhawk, I can't see any mention of school.

So I'm not so sure when you say that schools don't, or were not supposed to, overlap... it does not seem to have been the case in any published product I can find.

2e's Spells and Magic went into different school schemas a bit. The standard schools are schools of "Philosophy", and are united in what they do with the magic... Alterations alter things that are already there, Conjurations make things appear from elsewhere, the related Summoning subschool makes people and animals appear from elsewhere, usw. The book also goes into schools of Effect, which don't worry about HOW you're doing something, but what you're doing it do... Elementalists, Force mages, Dimensionalists, etc. Schools of Thaumaturgy (Alchemist, Artificer, Geometer, Song Wizards, Wild Mages) don't care what you're doing with the magic, or what you're doing it to, but rather what you're doing it WITH. An alchemist uses potions; a Geometer uses diagrams, a wild mage farts magic at it and hopes for the best... all of them are specialists in using differing tools.

A generalist says "**** it" and casts their spells in 70 different ways. This one is an Artificer spell. That one is a Geometer spell. This one uses Gnome Titan Battledancing, and is a sight. to. see.

[Tanarii]

It means a renunciation, and came to be a generic word for magic based on a connotation of religious heresy.

Interesting. Because I've never heard (unsurprising) or read (surprising) abjure being used that way. It almost always (in novels) as a exorcist abjuring a possession, or a magician abjuring a demon, etc.

But sure enough that's apparently the technical definition.

[Roninblack]

What's the intended goal here though? Are we just changing the name "Abjuration" because it's icky or are we changing the magic category system? Negation and Abjuration are very similar, negation and warding are merely related (much in the same way that illusion and enchantment are, or shadow illusion and evocation). I think any magic system that isn't built from the ground up is always going to suffer from the problem of being arbitrary and inconsistent.

The topic of the thread is renaming abjuration, not rebuilding the magic schools system so I think we can safely say it's the former.