What can magical magic do?

[kinem]

If magic is to stimulate the imagination, it must be more than just another power source for doing the same things as everyone does.

Here's my list of what magic should be able to do:

- affect people's minds

Charm and compulsion spells, love potions, mind reading, and modifying someone's memory are a key part of magic's lore ... and lure.

- fool people

Disguises, invisibility, treasures and monsters that don't really exist ... illusions are indispensable.

- do what mundane means never could

This includes rapid healing of wounds, raising the dead, as well as things like finding something far away (like the compass in Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest).

- be able to do things that REQUIRE more magic to undo

This includes things like curses, turning creatures to stone, or creating a portal to hell. Often this leads to quests to obtain the required magic. A classic example is the witch in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe who used a wand to turn creatures to stone.

This is a VERY important aspect of what makes magic important; without it, magic is simply NOT INTERESTING.

This is why baleful polymorph in 3.5 is a cool spell, but "foe to frog" in 4E (which is a temporary inconvenience that could only matter in combat) is a sickening embarrassment that would make baby Gygax cry.

This may seem like I'm saying magic has to be powerful, but actually that's a seperate point. Even if baleful polymorph required that the victim had to be knocked unconcious first, which would make it totally suck, it would still be infinitely cooler than foe to frog.

- be able to end fights without causing hit point damage

This should go without saying, but then 4E came along, so I'm saying it. Also, in other news, 1+1 = 2. A fight against a wizard should feel different than a fight against a warrior, and magic should not just be a means to allow the warrior to do his job, either.

- be able to enhance warriors

Protection spells, enhancing the body, giving them items with deadly powers.

- sometimes be unpredictable

I don't know why water pools in caves sometimes turn into powerful magic pools with random effects, but I do know that encountering them in play can be quite entertaining.

- be able to create monsters

Animating undead, building constucts, and crossbreeding or mutating creatures are classic uses for magic - and should be available to PCs too.

- flavor the world

Imagine living in the campaign setting. In some ways it's like medieval Earth; but magic is one important difference. Raising of the dead is one obviously important difference, if it exists, but there should be other things that matter to the way people live. Perhaps there is a large city supported by farmland in the middle of the desert; without the local druids, the crops would vanish. Perhaps illusion shows are a popular entertainment. Perhaps you can send a magical message to your relatives in a distant city.

 

[Incenjucar]

One of the major traits of pre-4E magic is that many spells contained a number of different abilities.

Take a breakdown of 3E Fireball into 4E format::

Fireball Wizard/Sorcerer Attack 5
A fireball spell is an explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar, dealing fire damage to creatures and objects within the area. The explosion creates almost no pressure.
Daily * Arcane, Implement, Evocation, Fire
Standard Action Area burst 3.5 within 80+8/level squares
Target: All creatures and objects in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex
Requirements: You must be able to speak and gesture, and must have a tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur.
Hit: 5d6 fire damage
Level 6: 6d6 fire damage
Level 7: 7d6 fire damage
Level 8: 8d6 fire damage
Level 9: 9d6 fire damage
Level 10: 10d6 fire damage
Miss: Half damage
Special: If a barrier interrupts line of effect when you use this power, the center of the burst is in that square.
If you have line of effect, but only through a narrow passage such as a keyhole, make an Intelligence check against DC 15. On a failure, that square instead acts as a barrier.
Barriers destroyed by the burst do not block line of effect from the origin square of the burst.

Compare to a 4E Fireball:

Fireball Wizard Attack 5
A globe of orange flame coalesces in your hand. You hurl it at your enemies, and it explodes on impact.
Daily Arcane, Evocation, Fire, Implement
Standard Action Area burst 3 within 20 squares
Target: Each creature in the burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex
Hit: 4d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage.
Miss: Half damage.

Notice how much more information a 3E fireball has? And that's not even including all the fluffy junk about the types of metals it can melt.

 

[Jack7]

I think that, generally speaking, you guys are very much on the right track.

I'd even go so far as to say that individual Magicians and individual Clerics ought to be able in some way to alter the way a spell or wonder works or operates or the effect it achieves based upon the individual attributes, intentions, and interests of the character and/or player involved.

And rather than being pre-programmed by the game-designers (which limits the possible effects and operations to the imaginations of the designers) I think much of the fluidity of magic and miracles needs to rest with the players and the DMs.

 

[Aenghus]

I don't think one PC should be able to do all the things the OP mentioned, as being able to do everything means they don't need the other PCs.

I could live with specialist casters who can do a subset of these things, but unless there are tradeoffs, or the magic is weakened in power, casters basically obsolete non-casters.

And DMs can fix everything, but I don't want to go back to the days of asking a new DM 100 questions to figure out what classes and character concepts are viable in their campaign and which are spear-carriers or traps.

 

[SKyOdin]

I don't think you will ever make magic feel magical just by taking on more effects that it can do. On the contrary, doing so will just further dilute the "magicalness" of magic. What is necessary to make magic feel more magical is constraint.

The ultimate problem with why magic doesn't feel magical in D&D is because it is flavorless. There is no flavor in D&D Arcane magic. This is because there is no concept behind magic other than "wizards wiggle their fingers and say some funny words, then magic happens". To my knowledge, no edition of D&D has ever tried to create a cohesive system for Arcane magic that explains how it is that a wizard turns a prepared spell into a blast of fire. This is important, since it is reflected in the spell and class design, and can be a key element in introducing flavor into a game.

Many magic systems do draw upon a lot more flavor. Take Magic: The Gathering for example, which uses the five colors of mana as the basis of its magic system. Different colors of mana come from different kinds of terrain, and each can be used to wield different kinds of magic. In other magic systems, magical power runs in leylines across the surface of the planet, and gathers in nodes. In various real world magical traditions, the act of casting magic is a complex ritual designed to safely summon demons and compel them to do the summoners biding.

In many of these cases, the flavor of the magic doesn't come from what the magic can do, but rather from what the limits of magic are. In Magic: the Gathering, a mage can't set something on fire without using red mana. In systems with leylines and nodes, the most powerful spells can't be cast at all without access to a powerful leyline or node. In hermetic magic, any individual demon can only perform certain tasks.

By having a firm idea for the mechanics that function behind magic, and thus creating logical limitations for magic, it is possible to make magic a lot more flavorful and evocative. As it is, D&D magic will never be particularly interesting without adding in more of this structure. Some D&D classes, such as the Warlock, already embrace this approach, and are the better for it.

 

[harlokin]

No.

I agree that magic should be able to do what the mundane cannot, as long as non-caster does not equal mundane again.

Going back to casters being high fantasy while non-casters play low fantasy is an absolute deal breaker for me.
.

 

[TwinBahamut]

- affect people's minds

- fool people

These are reasonable things for magic to do.

- do what mundane means never could

This includes rapid healing of wounds, raising the dead, as well as things like finding something far away (like the compass in Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest).

I really, really dislike the use of the word "mundane" in fantasy. Fantasy isn't made up of a fusion of magical and mundane things, it is made of fantastic things. Every class in D&D is equally fantastic, whether you are talking about Wizards, Rogues, or Fighters.

Fantasy isn't the domain of a subset of D&D.

Anyways, effects like those are all fine for effects to be in the game, though I prefer different ideas on raising the dead, and rapid healing of wounds is in a weird place with D&D's abstract HP system.

- be able to do things that REQUIRE more magic to undo

This includes things like curses, turning creatures to stone, or creating a portal to hell. Often this leads to quests to obtain the required magic. A classic example is the witch in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe who used a wand to turn creatures to stone.

This is a VERY important aspect of what makes magic important; without it, magic is simply NOT INTERESTING.

This gets a big "No Way" from me.

There is nothing that I hate more in fantasy than the idea that you need a wizard to beat a wizard, magic in order to defeat magic. Every bit of magic should have a weakpoint that can be exploited, or a way to stop it without some kind of specially made counterspell. Honestly, there is nothing in D&D that kills the idea of magic being "magical" than things like Dispel Magic, Antimagic, Restoration, or the various other "solve any problem" spells, and the idea that you need magic to beat magic is the reason those spell exist.

Honestly, I don't even like the idea of spells that immediately cause a permanent effect without duration or limitation. Curses should be broken when the heroes kill the wizard who cast them. Any magic item short of the most powerful artifacts should need a constant supply of magical energy or else they will lose their effects. Portals to hell should be fragile, and broken by simply breaking the magical circle or flooding it with holy water. A band of non-wizards should simply not be reliant on cheap Gandalf knockoffs in order to be heroes.

- be able to end fights without causing hit point damage

This should go without saying, but then 4E came along, so I'm saying it. Also, in other news, 1+1 = 2. A fight against a wizard should feel different than a fight against a warrior, and magic should not just be a means to allow the warrior to do his job, either.

This is nowhere near as obvious as you say it is. For one thing, this kind of thing is a huge source for massive gameplay imbalances and frustrating experiences for many players. It is also an open question considering the abstract nature of HP. If HP refer to abstract luck, mental endurance, and physical endurance, then why don't they apply for all kinds of effects, including stuff like petrification and death magic?

- be able to enhance warriors

Protection spells, enhancing the body, giving them items with deadly powers.

No problems with buffing magic, but I'd rather see players get magic items from legendary blacksmiths, ancient heroes, and gods rather than wizards.

- sometimes be unpredictable

A little randomness is always fun in fantasy.

- be able to create monsters

A bit debatable... Making golems is either more like making a robot or a divine miracle in a lot of fantasy... I prefer undead who rise from the grave on their own over the wizard-made kind. Magical genetic engineering is also rather annoying, if you ask me. I prefer monsters of more fantastic origin.

- flavor the world

Imagine living in the campaign setting. In some ways it's like medieval Earth; but magic is one important difference. Raising of the dead is one obviously important difference, if it exists, but there should be other things that matter to the way people live. Perhaps there is a large city supported by farmland in the middle of the desert; without the local druids, the crops would vanish. Perhaps illusion shows are a popular entertainment. Perhaps you can send a magical message to your relatives in a distant city.

I've never been a fan of assuming that fantasy settings are identical to Earth, with the addition of magic...

Wildly fantastic settings with all kinds of cool stuff in them are fun, though.

Overall, I really don't see how any of this makes magic more "magical", though. These are effects you want in the game, but I don't think any of them relate to what I consider to be important to the idea of magic being something fun and interesting. As SkyOdin mentions above, the key is the way magic is performed and the story around it, rather than a list of effects.