D&D 5E D&D Magic the Gathering alternate magic system

[CubicsRube]

Talking about M:tG has me thinking again about the disappointment I had with the Ravnica guide.

On a personal note, I enjoy 5e as it is, but as I've played a lot of it, I would absolutely love to try this with a completely different magic structure and set of spells.

It's been a long time for me playing it, but I absolutely loved the themes and strategies of Magic's colour system. I could see quite easily a setting of 5e that removed all other magic classes and included a White Mage, Blue Mage, Black Mage, Green Mage, and Red Mage.

What features would you give such a class? And what are some of the iconic spells you would give to these spell lists (and what level would you put them at?)

 

[Aelryinth]

That questions is just WAY TOO MUCH WORK.
I agree with the thought and the concept. Having the time to actually do it and work things out, strive for balance, etc, is something completely different.
It also turns Casters into a bunch of specialists instead of people who can pull out lots of different effects, destroying much of the flavor of the classes.
Changing class lists and restricting the Casters is a major change to the whole structure of the game. I'm not saying you can't do it, but it would be VERY different in flavor.

 

[Ath-kethin]

EDIT: my response was not directly related to the question of using Magic's system, and I frankly think I misread the OP's question and intent. I'm removing it to keep from cluttering the thread.

 

[Charlaquin]

Talking about M:tG has me thinking again about the disappointment I had with the Ravnica guide.

On a personal note, I enjoy 5e as it is, but as I've played a lot of it, I would absolutely love to try this with a completely different magic structure and set of spells.

It's been a long time for me playing it, but I absolutely loved the themes and strategies of Magic's colour system. I could see quite easily a setting of 5e that removed all other magic classes and included a White Mage, Blue Mage, Black Mage, Green Mage, and Red Mage.

What features would you give such a class? And what are some of the iconic spells you would give to these spell lists (and what level would you put them at?)

I have put a fair bit of thought into such a thing. It would be a huge undertaking, but the end result could be really, really cool. What I would probably do is scrap the schools of magic and re-categorize spells by color. I’d also make lots of summon spells for each color, because summoning creatures is a big part of MtG. I’d also bring back classic Vancian spell preparation where each use of a spell has to be prepared separately, and I’d have you prepare 7 spells on a long rest. On a short rest you can prepare an additional spell, then if you have more than 7 spells prepared, chose one of them to “forget.” Use spell points instead of spell slots and call them mana.

 

[Aelryinth]

My group and I (most of whom have been playing together on and off since 1995 or so) are seriously unimpressed with the 5e mage "specialists." The fact that all of them can learn all the same spells makes them all way too same-y for our tastes.

So the rule we implemented is what we call "true specialists." It's simple: only a specialist in a given school can cast spells of 3rd level or higher in that school. So if you wan to cast fireball, you better be an Evoker. Wanna cast dispel magic? Better be an Abjurer.

This approach does wonders to make the specialists actually feel like specialists, and is also great for worldbuilding. It also cuts down on the swiss army knife effect casters have on many campaigns; some challenges are still.much easier if you have a wizard, but no wizard is a one-size-fits-all solution to all problems.

The wizard is INTENDED to be a solution fixer, because there's only one or two Casters in the typical party.
On the metascale, sure, further narrowing the spells by School (or later by Element) restricts the Casters, but it changes the intended feel of Wizards a great deal.
This is further complicated by the five Colors of Magic.
White is basically Paladins and holy clerics.
Green is druids and ranger/barbarians and fey.
Red is earth and fire users... and more barbarians who love war.
Black is necromancers.
Blue is classical wizards without direct damage spells or necromancy, especially mental effects, magic toys, counter magic, and some control of air and water (which overlaps with Green).

So, an MOTG re-write effectively changes a LOT of classes. Thieves fall into Blue magic, for instance, and Fighters can be either White or Red depending on their Alignment.
Oh, right, Alignment has colors too!...

I would say that a full Specialist Re-write of the Casters and their Classes with spell restrictions would be a full sourcebook. I think the Spheres books from 3e (not sure about 5e) did something like that.

 

[CubicsRube]

My group and I (most of whom have been playing together on and off since 1995 or so) are seriously unimpressed with the 5e mage "specialists." The fact that all of them can learn all the same spells makes them all way too same-y for our tastes.

So the rule we implemented is what we call "true specialists." It's simple: only a specialist in a given school can cast spells of 3rd level or higher in that school. So if you wan to cast fireball, you better be an Evoker. Wanna cast dispel magic? Better be an Abjurer.

This approach does wonders to make the specialists actually feel like specialists, and is also great for worldbuilding. It also cuts down on the swiss army knife effect casters have on many campaigns; some challenges are still.much easier if you have a wizard, but no wizard is a one-size-fits-all solution to all problems.

I actually wanted to try having specialists only be able to cast spells in their school.

Then I saw how unbalanced the schools of magic really are...

Would be a great way to do a spell expansion book!

 

[Aelryinth]

It could be said that Summoning is the school that balances out all the others, because if you Summon the right thing, you can pretty much cover the jobs of all the other magical schools!

 

[CubicsRube]

@Aelryinth it sounds like this thread is not for you.

Yes it would require a lot of work. And yes it would change the classes significantly. That's the point!

So I'm asking others if they want to share their opinions on how this would be done.

If you don't want to contribute that's fine, but please don't threadcrap.

 

[CubicsRube]

I have put a fair bit of thought into such a thing. It would be a huge undertaking, but the end result could be really, really cool. What I would probably do is scrap the schools of magic and re-categorize spells by color. I’d also make lots of summon spells for each color, because summoning creatures is a big part of MtG. I’d also bring back classic Vancian spell preparation where each use of a spell has to be prepared separately, and I’d have you prepare 7 spells on a long rest. On a short rest you can prepare an additional spell, then if you have more than 7 spells prepared, chose one of them to “forget.” Use spell points instead of spell slots and call them mana.

Yes definitely a lot of recategorisation. I also imagine quite a few extant spells in M:tG could be converted to a D&D standard without hopefully too much work per spell.

I'd be tempted still to keep the spell slots and spell levels, just because moving to a spell point system would require even more work in rebalancing, IMO.

 

[Aelryinth]

@Aelryinth it sounds like this thread is not for you.

Yes it would require a lot of work. And yes it would change the classes significantly. That's the point!

So I'm asking others if they want to share their opinions on how this would be done.

If you don't want to contribute that's fine, but please don't threadcrap.

I replied the way I did BECAUSE you were NOT asking for opinions. You were asking people to do the work for you.

So, that is a nice redirection of attention and trying to blame me for it, but I'm not buying it.

If you want opinions, state it. If you want work done, generally the best thing to do is start out by generating work of your own and sharing it... or asking if there's products out there that do what you want, which I believe the Spheres series does.