Primitive vs Advanced Magic
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
The closes of this I can think of in terms of settings and mechanics might be Arcana Evolved/The Diamond Throne.DMH said:
There are three tiers of spells - simple, complex and exotic spells. While there exists no specific mechanic for it, there is some indication that some spells started off as exotic, and eventually became complex or simple, as people began to understand the spell better and more spellcasters used it. A few spellcasters even can cast unique spells nobody else can cast (yet).
Evilhalfling
Adventurer
I ran a game where magic was just starting in a world, and the big change was that all clerics were spontaneous casters from the UA - I didn't want those huge spell lists available to them.
and each cleric having only a few options made them far more unique - but it made getting rid of conditions - curse, blindness, disease much harder.
and each cleric having only a few options made them far more unique - but it made getting rid of conditions - curse, blindness, disease much harder.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
DMH said:
The closest I can think of is the old Arcane Age: Netheril boxed set in 2E for the Forgotten Realms. It took place something like two thousand years before the present-day campaign, and had a different spellcasting system and spellcasting classes (though given what a magic-rich empire Netheril was, their "primitive" magic was more powerful than what followed after them).
The thing with examples like this, however, is that they tend to make ancient magic more powerful but lost to time; other times primitive magic is just different, but not any worse than magic of the modern period. I think you're looking for examples where ancient magic just isn't as potent or convenient as modern spellcasting (the same way ancient guns don't hold a candle to modern ones), and I can't think of any examples of that.
MoogleEmpMog
First Post
Mongoose's version of RuneQuest deals with something like this, because its version of Glorantha takes place in the 'golden age of magic' preceeding the original Gloranthan setting. The magic of both of the major powers of the Second Age is, in game terms, definitely more powerful than the magic in the RuneQuest core book and companion, and in the fluff this is described as being because those empires (especially the God Learners) have developed the 'science' of magic to much greater heights. For example, a normal sorcerer's attack spell might require two rounds to cast and have touch range, whereas a God Learner sorcerer could cast a spell of the same potency in one round with medium range.
Kerrick
First Post
We've got it in our campaign world. There are spells that have been around for thousands of years, that were invented waaaay back in the beginning of time to help quality of life, work, etc. - things like bake clay (makes clay bricks into adobe), ease childbirth (eases the pain of childbirth), and even dry wood (dries some wood to make it burnable). They're low-level spells, not usually stuff the PCs would use, but they are still in use to this day by adepts, rural tribes, etc.
Varianor Abroad
Explorer
I think you could use magic systems like True20s to stand in for "primitive" magic - if it's truly lower power than current D&D magic. The reverse of that of course is heightening the power curve. Create a D&D world where peasants can use 3rd level spells and there are powers well beyond 9th level (please no Epic discussions), and that's a more advanced magic.
MaxKaladin
First Post
In my homebrew, one of the things that I defined but which never really came up in play was that sorcerers were basically "primative magic" and wizards were "advanced magic".
Sorcerers were basically people who were born with a natural ability to use magic that would manifest as they grew up. They'd work out how to do things with it (or not, as the case may be) pretty much by trial and error but didn't really understand what they were doing or how it worked. They just knew that they'd worked out a few tricks where if they did this and that and the other thing while holding such and such, a magical effect would happen. For thousands of years, this was pretty much the only kind of arcane caster around . You had to be born with the talent to become one and you pretty much just had to muddle through to learn how to do anything.
Eventually, a particular civlization arose that had philosophers who studied things to see how they worked in the same way Greek philosophers in our world studied various things. Some of them turned their attention to magic and, over the course of centuries, they worked out how magic actually functioned and what the sorcerers were actually doing to make various things happen. This let them create a codified system of "laws of magic" that defined how it all worked. They also figured out magic did not depend on innate talent and that anyone with sufficient intelligence and mental discipline could understand how magic functioned well enough to create magical effects. This, in turn, led to them working out how to be a wizard.
Thus, essentially, sorcerers practice "primative" magic while wizards practice "advanced" magic. Sorcerers magic is inborn and pretty much worked out by trial and error for each sorcerer. Wizards do not necessarily have any inborn talent but but do have a codified system of magic and centuries of accumulated magical knowledge to call upon.
That pretty much explains the differences between the two classes, as well. Sorcerers have an innate talent and can manifest more effects than a wizard of equal level, but their understanding of magic is so poor that they can only do a few things. Wizards, on the other hand, are basically working without the talent of the sorcerer and thus can do fewer effects than an equal level sorcerer and must impress them on their mind (memorize) instead of just doing them -- but their greater understanding of magic allows them to be more versatile than the sorcerer can ever be.
Sorcerers can attempt to apply some of the codified knowledge of magic to their own talent. I never worked out the details but this was basically the explanation for being able to take various feats expanding their spell slots or known spells and so-forth. One aspect of this was going to be that there was only a certain amount of this they could apply to their innate talent and, beyond that, they were studying to become wizards. This is because they both work differently. Wizards and sorcerers both manipulate magic, but the mechanism they use to do so is not the same (as manifested in game mechanics by wizards being dependant on INT and sorcerers on CHA). A sorcerer can use magical knowledge to make his own manipulation of magic more efficient but beyond a certain point he just has to leave his talent behind and learn how to do things "the wizard way". I had planned to have people who were sorcerer/wizards who had basically manifested a talent and taken it however far before they basically took up wizardry. A typical backstory there would be the kid from a remote village who manifested a talent and had a couple of levels of sorcerer before "getting noticed" and becoming an apprentice wizard.
That was probably too long winded. Sorry.
Sorcerers were basically people who were born with a natural ability to use magic that would manifest as they grew up. They'd work out how to do things with it (or not, as the case may be) pretty much by trial and error but didn't really understand what they were doing or how it worked. They just knew that they'd worked out a few tricks where if they did this and that and the other thing while holding such and such, a magical effect would happen. For thousands of years, this was pretty much the only kind of arcane caster around . You had to be born with the talent to become one and you pretty much just had to muddle through to learn how to do anything.
Eventually, a particular civlization arose that had philosophers who studied things to see how they worked in the same way Greek philosophers in our world studied various things. Some of them turned their attention to magic and, over the course of centuries, they worked out how magic actually functioned and what the sorcerers were actually doing to make various things happen. This let them create a codified system of "laws of magic" that defined how it all worked. They also figured out magic did not depend on innate talent and that anyone with sufficient intelligence and mental discipline could understand how magic functioned well enough to create magical effects. This, in turn, led to them working out how to be a wizard.
Thus, essentially, sorcerers practice "primative" magic while wizards practice "advanced" magic. Sorcerers magic is inborn and pretty much worked out by trial and error for each sorcerer. Wizards do not necessarily have any inborn talent but but do have a codified system of magic and centuries of accumulated magical knowledge to call upon.
That pretty much explains the differences between the two classes, as well. Sorcerers have an innate talent and can manifest more effects than a wizard of equal level, but their understanding of magic is so poor that they can only do a few things. Wizards, on the other hand, are basically working without the talent of the sorcerer and thus can do fewer effects than an equal level sorcerer and must impress them on their mind (memorize) instead of just doing them -- but their greater understanding of magic allows them to be more versatile than the sorcerer can ever be.
Sorcerers can attempt to apply some of the codified knowledge of magic to their own talent. I never worked out the details but this was basically the explanation for being able to take various feats expanding their spell slots or known spells and so-forth. One aspect of this was going to be that there was only a certain amount of this they could apply to their innate talent and, beyond that, they were studying to become wizards. This is because they both work differently. Wizards and sorcerers both manipulate magic, but the mechanism they use to do so is not the same (as manifested in game mechanics by wizards being dependant on INT and sorcerers on CHA). A sorcerer can use magical knowledge to make his own manipulation of magic more efficient but beyond a certain point he just has to leave his talent behind and learn how to do things "the wizard way". I had planned to have people who were sorcerer/wizards who had basically manifested a talent and taken it however far before they basically took up wizardry. A typical backstory there would be the kid from a remote village who manifested a talent and had a couple of levels of sorcerer before "getting noticed" and becoming an apprentice wizard.
That was probably too long winded. Sorry.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
You could look at Eberron that way. Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics, etc all use 'primitive' magic, while Artificers, who are not bound by an arcane/divine divide, use 'advanced' magic. Kind of like all the other casters are using Newtonian physics while Artificers have moved on to a quantum model. Or all the other casters look at magic as 'apples and oranges' while the Artificer looks at magic as 'fruit'.
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