Dominarian Magic (seperating the spells into colors)

So I'm finally trying to make a class which uses the colors from Magic: The Gathering. Right now I'm breaking the Wizard, Cleric and Druid spells into colors. I'm trying to give each color a unique, mechanics-based identity.

Here are the definitions of the colors that I've got so far:

White: Protection, Healing, Anti-undead, Good, Law

White mages are basically prototypical clerics. Good at keeping a party fit to fight. Strong against undead, will gain a cleric's ability to turn undead. Wisdom is their key stat.

Green: Summoning, Transmutation, Animals, Crowd Control (web, grease, etc), Energy resistance

Green mages are similar to druids. They specialize in dealing with animals, changing the environment to their advantage, and summoning. I'll give them an animal companion. Wisdom is their key stat.

Red: Physical power, Combat, HP Damage, Chaos

Red mages are physically powerful and imposing, fearsome warriors lead by passion. They're equally good at fighting with weapons as they are at blasting foes. Not sure what special ability or abilities I'll give them... I'm thinking of an enhanced BAB. Charisma is their key stat.

Black: Status Effects (fear, sicken, etc), Ability Damage, Undead, Evil

Black mages are horrible foes, adept at weakening enemies. They're especially powerful against single targets, since they can just keep laying on the debuffs. I'll probably give them an undead companion. Charisma is their key stat.

Blue: Charms, Misdirection, Illusion, Divination

Blue mages are deceptive tricksters, easily likened to rogues. They are masters of infiltration. Really not sure what sort of special ability I'll give them... Maybe a significant boost to skill points.

Also note: All the law spells are currently listed under blue, but after thinking about it I changed law to white... So mentally move those law spells to white's spell list.

Here's what I've got for spell levels 0-2. Let me know what you think. In particular I want to know if you think the colors are balanced, and if they're internally consistent.

[sblock=White]0: Cure Minor Wounds, Detect Poison, Disrupt Undead, Resistance
1: Bless, Bless Water, Cure Light Wounds, Detect Chaos, Detect Evil, Detect Undead, Hide from Undead, Mage Armor, Protection from Chaos, Protection from Evil, Shield, Shield of Faith
2: Aid, Align Weapon (Good), Align Weapon (Law), Barkskin, Blur, Consecrate, Delay Poison, False Life, Gentle Repose, Owl's Wisdom, Protection from Arrows, Remove Paralysis, Restoration, Lesser, Status
3: Create Food and Water, Cure Serious Wounds, Halt Undead, Heroism, Magic Circle against Chaos, Magic Circle against Evil, Neutralize Poison, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Water Breathing
4: Cure Critical Wounds, Death Ward, Globe of Invulnerability, Lesser, Reincarnate, Restoration, Spell Immunity, Stone Skin
5: Break Enchantment, Cure Light Wounds, Mass, Dispel Chaos, Dispel Evil, Disrupting Weapon, Hallow, Raise Dead, Spell Resistance[/sblock]
[sblock=Green]0: Know Direction, Purify Food and Drink
1: Calm Animals, Charm Animal, Detect Animals or Plants, Endure Elements, Entangle, Grease, Hide from Animals, Obscuring Mist, Remove Fear, Speak with Animals, Summon Nature's Ally I
2: Animal Messenger, Animal Trance, Calm Emotions, Darkness, Fog Cloud, Gust of Wind, Hold Animal, Owl's Wisdom, Reduce Animal, Resist Energy, Soften Earth and Stone, Spider Climb, Summon Nature's Ally II, Summon Swarm, Tree Shape
3: Daylight, Deeper Darkness, Dominate Animal, Meld into Stone, Plant Growth, Protection from Energy, Sleet Storm, Speak with Plants, Stinking Cloud, Stone Shape, Summon Nature's Ally III, Water Walk, Wind Wall
4: Command Plants, Control Water, Dimensional Anchor, Giant Vermin, Repel Vermin, Summon Nature's Ally IV, Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice
5: Animal Growth, Awaken, Commune with Nature, Control Winds, Insect Plague, Passwall, Plane Shift, Summon Nature's Ally V, Transmute Mud to Rock, Transmute Rock to Mud, Wall of Stone, Wall of Thorns[/sblock]
[sblock=Red]0: Light, Ray of Frost
1: Burning Hands, Detect Law, Enlarge Person, Entropic Shield, Jump, Magic Missile, Magic Weapon, Magic Weapon, Protection from Law, Shocking Grasp, True Strike, Magic Fang
2: Acid Arrow, Align Weapon (Chaos), Bear's Endurance, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Continual Flame, Eagle's Splendor, Flaming Sphere, Heat Metal, Scorching Ray, Sound Burst, Spiritual Weapon
3: Call Lightning, Fireball, Flame Arrow, Haste, Keen Edge, Lightning Bolt, Magic Circle against Law, Magic Fang, Greater, Magic Weapon, Greater, Rage
4: Divine Power, Enlarge Person, Mass, Fire Shield, Flame Strike, Ice Storm, Shout
5: Call Lightning Storm, Cone of Cold, Dispel Law, Righteous Might[/sblock]
[sblock=Black]0: Daze, Touch of Fatigue
1: Bane, Cause Fear, Color Spray, Detect Good, Doom, Protection from Good, Ray of Enfeeblement, Sleep
2: Align Weapon (Evil), Blindness/Deafness, Command Undead, Daze Monster, Death Knell, Desecrate, Eagle's Splendor, Ghoul Touch, Glitterdust, Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Scare, Touch of Idiocy
3: Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, Contagion, Contagion, Diminish Plants, Magic Circle against Good, Poison, Ray of Exhaustion, Slow, Speak with Dead
4: Blight, Crushing Despair, Enervation, Fear, Poison, Rusting Grasp
5: Baleful Polymorph, Cloud Kill, Dispel Good, Feeblemind, Hold Monster, Magic Jar, Mark of Justice, Mind Fog, Slay Living, Unhallow, Unhallow, Waves of Fatigue[/sblock]
[sblock=Blue]0: Detect Magic, Ghost Sounds, Mage Hand, Message
1: Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, Disguise Self, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Identify, Reduce Person, Silent Image, Unseen Servant, Ventriloquism
2: Alter Self, Detect Thoughts, Find Traps, Fox's Cunning, Invisibility, Knock, Locate Object, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Misdirection, Obscure Object, Phantom Trap, See Invisibility, Silence, Undetectable Alignment
3: Arcane Sight, Blink, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Dispel Magic, Displacement, Explosive Runes, Fly, Glyph of Warding, Illusory Script, Invisibility Sphere, Major Image, Nondetection, Secret Page, Sepia Snake Sigil, Shrink Item, Snare, Suggestion, Tongues
4: Air Walk, Charm Monster, Detect Scrying, Dimension Door, Discern Lies, Fire Trap, Freedom of Movement, Hallucinatory Terrain, Illusory Wall, Invisibility, Greater, Polymorph, Reduce Person, Mass, Scrying, Sending
5: Command, Greater, Contact Other Plane, Dominate Person, False Vision, Mage's Private Sanctum, Mirage Arcana, Overland Flight, Persistent Image, Seeming, Symbol of Pain, Symbol of Sleep, Telepathic Bond, Teleport, True Seeing[/sblock]
[sblock=Universal]1: Arcane Mark, Prestidigitation, Read Magic
5: Permanency
[/sblock]

Concrete suggestions:

Make some spells universal. WotC did this with Divinations (you can't ban read magic, detect magic and identify).

- - -or - - -

Consider the direction that Psionics took, with a general list, and then a specialist list -- most spells will have a color, but can be cast by anyone, while the best spells of each color will be the exclusive domain of a specialist.

Cheers, -- N

Similar to Nifft's suggestion, there should be some things that all colors should be able to do - the only difference would be the description of how they achieve the effect. Everyone should have some basic attack and defense spells, or they're going to feel out of the loop.

In D&D terms, I've always thought that the colors mapped to the schools decently. Evocation magic is almost all Red, Necromancy is Black, Abjuration is mostly going to be White, Blue will get Enchantment and Illusion. Most Transmutation effects are Green, though if you associate air and water magic with Blue, then some of them should go there. Divination will mostly be blue, though white should get some of it as well. Conjuration is strange, since in MtG, all the colors do Conjuration as part of the basic way things work.

Can't comment too much right now, at work, but I will say that I do have some universal spells. It's a small list, IIRC, just 2 or 3 level 0s and a level 1 right now.

You might want to take a look at Green Ronin's Advanced Players Guide (or Manual, I forget which). There is a class there called Eldritch Weaver that I believe re-organizes the spells along similar lines.

thanks,
Rich

SteelDraco said:

In D&D terms, I've always thought that the colors mapped to the schools decently. Evocation magic is almost all Red, Necromancy is Black, Abjuration is mostly going to be White, Blue will get Enchantment and Illusion. Most Transmutation effects are Green, though if you associate air and water magic with Blue, then some of them should go there. Divination will mostly be blue, though white should get some of it as well. Conjuration is strange, since in MtG, all the colors do Conjuration as part of the basic way things work.

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Actually, one of the reasons I'm doing this is because I have issues with D&Ds schools... Ironically, they remind me too much of Magic's color system, way back when! Schools are delineated more by flavor than they are by mechanics. For example, Evocation is supposed to be the "kaboom" school, but other schools are perfectly capable of dealing damage, they just have different flavors for how it's done... Hell, arguably some of the most powerful damage spells (the orbs) are conjuration!

Incidentally, here's the Universal spells I've got:

Universal
0: Arcane Mark, Prestidigitation, Read Magic
1: Feather Fall

Just updated the spell lists with spells of up to 5th level

Don't forget that white seeks punishment.

Red shouldn't receive physical bonuses such as a better BAB

I would keep blue with the law enforcement. White being more about justice than order. In any case, I would leave protection from chaos to white for its protection sphere and align weapon (law) for its punishment sphere. Green should depict neutrality.


Spells:
Delay, Neutralize Poison (from White) to Green
Owl's Wisdom (from White) to Blue
Create Food and Water (from White) to Green
Water Breathing (from White) to Green
Reincarnate (from White) to Green; cycle of life
Remove Fear (from Green) to Red
Know Direction (from Green) to Blue
Purify Food and Drink (from Green) to White
Charm Animals (from Green) to Blue
Darkness (from Green) to Black; why make it complicated?
and so should deeper darkness
Dominate Animal (from Green) to Blue
Magic Missile (from Red) to Blue; a sure-shot arrow is too predictable to feel chaotic
Call Lightning (from Red) to Green
Color Spray (from Black) to Red
Freedom of Movement (from Blue) to White
Symbol of Pain (from Blue) to Black
Symbol of Sleep (from Blue) to Black

Those I am uncertain:

Hold animal: Green (Animal; Nature) or Blue (Hold; Control)
Dimensional Anchor: White or...?
Planeshift: Blue or Black or Red?

Thank you for the suggestions! Let me just say that I'm not using the exact same definition of the colors as Magic: the Gathering. In particular, blue is no longer a lawfully-oriented color. Its purviews are all about deception, misdirection and guile.

It's also worth noting that I'm not going to force people to pick a color and only use spells of that color. They do need to pick a primary color, but they also get to choose secondary and maybe even tertiary colors. They're not as powerful in these other colors, but it opens up options such as allowing a red shaman to heal his tribesmen with white spells.

Flame_Excess said:

Delay, Neutralize Poison (from White) to Green

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I originally had the anti-poison spells under green, primarily because I originally assigned the level 0 one to green to keep the number of cantrips balanced. I've since changed that because, by my definition of the colors, this falls under the auspices of white.

Flame_Excess said:

Owl's Wisdom (from White) to Blue

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All of the mental ability enhancers are assigned based on that color's casting stat. These are also the only spells to appear in more than one color. For example, green also has Owl's Wisdom because green and white both use wisdom as their casting stat. Worth noting is that red, as the color of physical power, gets all the physical stat-boosters.

Flame_Excess said:

Create Food and Water (from White) to Green
Water Breathing (from White) to Green
Reincarnate (from White) to Green; cycle of life

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These all fall under white because protection/buffing/upkeep is all meant to be white.

Flame_Excess said:

Remove Fear (from Green) to Red

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That's actually a mistake on my part... Don't know why that's under green when it should be white. Thanks for pointing it out!

Flame_Excess said:

Know Direction (from Green) to Blue
Freedom of Movement (from Blue) to White
Purify Food and Drink (from Green) to White

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Examples here of where I let the flavor trump mechanics. I will fix these. Thanks again for pointing them out!

Flame_Excess said:

Charm Animals (from Green) to Blue
Dominate Animal (from Green) to Blue
Hold animal: Green (Animal; Nature) or Blue (Hold; Control)
Darkness (from Green) to Black; why make it complicated?
and so should deeper darkness

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The animal spells are kind of annoying... You're right that charming/dominating falls under Blue's purviews, but on the other hand animals are green's purview. Ultimately I'm happy with how they are here, but it's not ideal. If I ever decide to make dual-color spells, they'll definitely be blue/green.

As far as darkness and deeper darkness, they fall under the category of crowd management (like web), which I've given to green.

Flame_Excess said:

Magic Missile (from Red) to Blue; a sure-shot arrow is too predictable to feel chaotic
Call Lightning (from Red) to Green

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One of the things that I'm very adamant about in this system is that no color except the one its assigned to gets to do direct hit point damage, or anything along those lines. There are some exceptions, like blue being able to make traps and green making damaging walls, but by and large hit point damage is the exclusive purview of red. Also worth noting that chaos is but one of red's purviews, and no single purview is a defining characteristic of any color.

Flame_Excess said:

Color Spray (from Black) to Red

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This is another flavor-change, but the mechanics clearly dictate that it should be black. Stunning, blinding and knocking unconscious are all common themes in black spells.

Flame_Excess said:

Symbol of Pain (from Blue) to Black
Symbol of Sleep (from Blue) to Black

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I forgot to mention when I edited the post last that I decided to give "traps" to blue.

Flame_Excess said:

Dimensional Anchor: White or...?
Planeshift: Blue or Black or Red?

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These also gave me pains... I'm really not sure where to stick planar stuff, or if I should just make it universal. Certainly, in Magic: the Gathering any planar things would be universal, but I'm not sure if I want to import that flavor or not. The only other logical place I can think to put planar stuff is blue, but blue's already proving very heavy with spells, not to mention that it doesn't fit thematically with its other abilities (though I guess an argument could be made for scrying).