While I'm a huge fan of d20 & OGL games, I'm not much enamored with the default magic system as presented in D&D. I like the idea of sorcery being more "art" than "science" and the pick-and-choose approach of D&D only reinforces this.
I've purchased a lot of variant magic systems. Currently my system of choice is the spellcasting rules from the Thieves' World Player's Manual - good middle ground of spellcasting uncertainty and what I would call "middle fantasy" rather than D&D's "uber-high-fantasy". The other benefit was it used D&D spells, which made source material easy for my players. However, I'm still left with the random pick-and-choose portion.
Previously, I had looked at Elements of Magic. While I loved the idea of magical traditions, EoM as a spellcasting system was too much of a departure for either myself or my players.
I recently learned of the idea of "Spell Paths", originally suggested by Wolfgang Baur in an old Dragon issue (AD&D 2e). Sean K. Reynolds also had a preliminary framework on his website.
Are there any recent d20/OGL products that group spells in "paths" or "traditions" in this type of fashion? I would want to apply this to wizards and sorcerors and I could see how they could be developed/grouped for clerics and druids much as Domains are.
Also, I'm not looking to consolidate the spellcasting classes down to a single spellcasting class.
Has anyone played with such a system? Any pros or cons you'd care to share?
Thanks!
I've purchased a lot of variant magic systems. Currently my system of choice is the spellcasting rules from the Thieves' World Player's Manual - good middle ground of spellcasting uncertainty and what I would call "middle fantasy" rather than D&D's "uber-high-fantasy". The other benefit was it used D&D spells, which made source material easy for my players. However, I'm still left with the random pick-and-choose portion.
Previously, I had looked at Elements of Magic. While I loved the idea of magical traditions, EoM as a spellcasting system was too much of a departure for either myself or my players.
I recently learned of the idea of "Spell Paths", originally suggested by Wolfgang Baur in an old Dragon issue (AD&D 2e). Sean K. Reynolds also had a preliminary framework on his website.
Are there any recent d20/OGL products that group spells in "paths" or "traditions" in this type of fashion? I would want to apply this to wizards and sorcerors and I could see how they could be developed/grouped for clerics and druids much as Domains are.
Also, I'm not looking to consolidate the spellcasting classes down to a single spellcasting class.
Has anyone played with such a system? Any pros or cons you'd care to share?
Thanks!