D&D Spells - Spell Paths/Traditions

Azgulor

Adventurer
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!
 

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Lions Den Press has a supplement out that details...spheres? Something akin to 2e priest spheres. I know there are also arcane spell path supplements out there. I don't have time right now to look them up, though.
 

Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual has the Eldritch Weaver class which is essentially the Wizard who learns spells that are listed in a thread. The spells are grouped in each thread by function or result. Each thread has about 2-4 spells at each level. The caster can know as many threads as his/her int modifier +1.

You could easily adapt this to the Thieves' World system you currently use or have all arcane casters use this in a straight 3.5 campaign.

Thanks,
Rich

Edited for horrible grammar.
 
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I have always found the Spell Path System very useful. I've used the original 2E version by Kuntz/Baur from Dragon 216 quite a bit. A revised excerpt can be seen here: http://hep-www.colorado.edu/~jladue/path.html

Sean K Reynolds adapted the basic system to 3E: http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfil.../pathmagic.html

Green Ronin did an even better version in their Advanced Player's Manual, for their Eldritch Weaver class. See some great additions and examples on this site: http://home.gwi.net/~rdorman/frilond/rul/dm/weaver.htm
 

Paizo is also having another Green Ronin sale, by the way. They might still have that book (they're all 50% off this time, IIRC.)

Anyway, thanks for posting those links, dyx. Particularly the extra material for the Eldritch Weaver. Awesome stuff! :cool:
 

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