help making Terry Goodkinds wizard/sorcere

I'm working on my masterpiece, not finished yet, but this what I think it is going to contain: a world map of 30 A3 pages, and about 100 A4 pages of historie to the lands and the world. My problems is, that I've tried to make wizards and sorcere like those in Terry Goodkins books (If you haven't read them, DO IT, because next to Tolkien, he's the best fantay writer that have been.), by removing the speelbooks, material, somatic and verbal components. I've never had thought it was very wizardly to pull out, a spider for exampel, to cast a spell. But here comes the tricky part, because i've boosted them even more. I've tried to make them really cool, and give wizards +2 dc to all there spells, and fireballs is +2 dam per die. they learn all their spells at first level, but can't cast them all yet. They roll dices to know how many spells they know, and their int decides how many dices they shall roll. They can still lern spells, but it takes one month per spell level to learn a new one. All wizard have to be at least middle age. Sorceres have their cha mod to their spells known and they can cast a lot more spells. clerics a removed, and all the healing spells a now under the wizard/sorcere spell list. I personly think that this is an positive change to them. But now two classes a improved a lot, so why should you play anything that wizard or sorcere? My friends think it's a cool change to the two spell classes, but can't give me any idea, how to make the other classes better.

The questions is:

Have I boosted the wizard WAY to much?
And the Sorcere?
If yes, any idea how to make the spellcasters more farytale alike?
If no, how does I make the other classes seem even?
And what do you think of it?

Moved to House Rules...

Have I boosted the wizard WAY to much?

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Well, quite obviously, yes.

But isn't that what you wanted to do?

Kynn said:

Well, quite obviously, yes.

But isn't that what you wanted to do?

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Hey, dont flame the poor guy; he is just asking for advice.

Obviously, if Morgoth had a sense of balance in this particualr issue, he wouldn't be posting his question.

Now, aside from that, i have read the books, and they are amazing (!!!!!). Infact, i recall a few times comparing his writting to Tolkien; and as a contemporary writer, he is quite fantastic.

I am a bit crusty on the specifics of his world though. Goodkind (not Goodkin, as you originally posted) gives some very different associations with certain identifing naems in his world. War-Wizards are ones that can utilize wizards fire, a sort of "edritch blast" of greek fire that is MUCH more potent than either (seperate or combined). Sorcerers i beleive are never male (or are associated with them) They are all Sorceresses and are usually Sisters of the Light or Dark (good and evil factions) Divination spells are almost unheard of; Prophets are special spellcasters which are very scary and can have very bad implications for those that heed their words. Dreamwalkers are kinda like psions, but much more potent, they kinda have some Darth Vader-like killing abilities

So i dunno, i personally don't think that Wizards or Sorcerers as are would do justice to Goodkinds works. There are many things to consider when using very specific classes; more-so with spellcasters since a new varient on them seems to spawn with every book series.

I am going to have to go for now, its bedtime pretty much; but i have bookmarked your thread adn will respond back in more detail to it ASAP.

Sorry for not responding to your original question purely, but IMHO, you need to flesh out a bit more of what you intecd to do with all of this, then build the class.

well, yes and no, Kynn. I dont relly want to boost them, as I wanted to make them more like those in Terry GoodkinDs books , because I like the spellcasters in those books. So because of that, i've removed the clerics, and gave the wizards and sorceres the ability to heal. Also I have to make a difference between the sorcere and wiziards. Wizards in the books have a greater magic, so I tried to boost them. So I'm just asking for advice, specialy from those who have read the books.

I could ask the questions in a different way:
How can I make the wizards and sorcere like those in Terry Goodkins books?

Another reason I want the spellcasters changed, is because I hate to be a spellcaster in DAD because of the components. Never have imagine a spellcaster use six sek, to wave his arms, speak in tongues and cast dust to perform a spell. Maybe rituals wich used longer time to cast.

Morgoth said:

I could ask the questions in a different way:
How can I make the wizards and sorcere like those in Terry Goodkins books?

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What more could i say other than "make a fresh build." ?? Not much.

Terry Goodkind has a lot of flavour (and thus mechanical changes) in his books which are different than D&D. I am 100% willing to help you with this; i always wanted to stat up those guys Damn, is this gonna be fun.

Prolly the first thing to do would be re-name the post, and add in a bit of a foreword to your first post, so as to draw people in. Simply saying that adding the healing spells to the Wizards/Sorcerer was not satisfactory, and now you want to make a fresh build based on Terry Goodkinds books. hen, re-name the post to something like "Need Help with making Terry Goodkind Wizard/Sorcerer". Thats a good start; if you want to completely re-make the Wizard/Sorcerer.

Morgoth said:

Another reason I want the spellcasters changed, is because I hate to be a spellcaster in DAD because of the components. Never have imagine a spellcaster use six sek, to wave his arms, speak in tongues and cast dust to perform a spell. Maybe rituals wich used longer time to cast.

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Yeah, this is something i don't like about D&D as well. If you are a Wizard, you HAVE to have a spellbook and material components. Ugh. What about the Zoroasterian Priests called Magi? Obviously, this lead the way to the name "mage" in English. Wizards? this used to eman Wise man > Tolkien in Middle Earth does an excellent job of distinguising this by using some very old themes, and by continually reffering to the wizards (Gandalf, Saruman, etc) as "the wise."

I do not know of any other system which gets rid of this load of donkey doo-doo; but I'd be willing to give it more than a fleeting skim-over. The idea of wizards having spellbooks and spell materials is more-so comtemporary over-elaboration of soem older rituals that took much longer than "one round" etc. Who here has seem Alexzander? The ritual with the bull near to the beggining is definitively a ritual, and probably pretty accurate. Near the end of Rome time in britain, there are account of bull sacrifices in which people stood underneath a platform and the dieing/dead bulls blood would drip though specially placed pipes onto the people underneath > sorta like a permanent "Bulls Strenght" and or "Bears Endurance."

Anyways, what do you think of a fresh build?

well, other systems have removed them, if they ever had them. Rifts and Gurps as an example, but those systems is a hell to convert to D20.
I like the idea of making a fresh restart with sorceres and wizards. But the same problem accurs, when making the difference between the two. You have the wizards, wich have the strongest magic, and the sorcere wich basicly can cast the same, but a little weaker. To make the Subtractive magic is easy, by taking shadow weave magic from forgotten realms.
so how to make the difference between the two, so both classes is worth playing, and all the other classes, not to forget those? I have posted my idea, and right now, well I'm dead tired, and my brain don't function well. I will try later.

It's been a while since I read those books, but IIRC magic tends to start out at epic levels. I mean, the dreamwalker more or less has a no-range limit, swift action multi-target possession kind of effect. The mord-sith can render helpless any wizard who so much as targets one with a spell, and can bottle up their magic indefinitely. Except they are helpless against the dreamwalker. A confessor's hold on a person is even harder to break than a dreamwalker's; it totally and irreversibly destroys the victim's personality, replacing the personality with an utterly devoted minion. Its only limitation is that it is range touch and fatigues (or exhausts) its possessor.

These kinds of effects scream "ultra high level" to me.

Cheiromancer said:

It's been a while since I read those books, but IIRC magic tends to start out at epic levels. I mean, the dreamwalker more or less has a no-range limit, swift action multi-target possession kind of effect. The mord-sith can render helpless any wizard who so much as targets one with a spell, and can bottle up their magic indefinitely. Except they are helpless against the dreamwalker. A confessor's hold on a person is even harder to break than a dreamwalker's; it totally and irreversibly destroys the victim's personality, replacing the personality with an utterly devoted minion. Its only limitation is that it is range touch and fatigues (or exhausts) its possessor.

These kinds of effects scream "ultra high level" to me.

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thats true; but I'd almost consider calling the confessor a Template, like the Saint template from BoED. Dreamwalker is a Epic PrC, IMHO, Mord-Sith are a normal PrC (they are a pretty rare character, limiting to play, and are only useful against mages)

Anyways, perhaps we should simply focus on the main, base classes here. I can't get into any detial for the next few days (work, D&D session, then work again) But I'll try to continue on with this thread as best i can. Thoughts?

well, yes. If you want to create a morth-sith, but I don't really want that, because there abilitys only work when they got a giftet lord. I've thought about a morth-sith as a npc, not as players. But it's more the wizards/sorcere I think about. I've found a little, witch might be useful, and its mana. It's from path of magic, a traps and legacy book(I think it's what it's called). Every person have a mana-pool, adjusted to his/her level. Maybe that could work instead of the spell per day. but I haven't got the fadest idea of how to make the difference between the two classes, exept for the one I've already had. But that would make them to powerfull.

The group this is going to be play, is already in a campaign witch dosn't end before december (maybe) so I've got a little time, not much.