D&D 4E 4e Magic: The De-Science-ing?

[Imp]

Yeah, there's a balance to be struck.

– mysterious, strange magic is fun
– it does get annoying to keep running across schmoes who arbitrarily wield magic that is inaccessible to you
– it makes sense & is fun to have some strange magic become accessible to PCs, after they run across it
– in 3e at least, this isn't really feasible if you are using different systems to generate your "strange magics", since in order to pick up the magics, the wizards would have to retrain or multiclass, thus losing power in order to pick up new freshness

I can think of a way to patch this in 3e a little (using shadow evocation etc. as a model) but who knows how this would apply to 4e at this point.

 

[GreatLemur]

I pretty much always want magic to be a science. Because, if it was real, it would be.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

I pretty much always want magic to be a science. Because, if it was real, it would be.

QFT.

I always admired the (A)D&D school system for grouping spells by their method of operation rather than some arbitrary elemental descriptor, like most competitors. It was thematically very appropriate, because spells that do similar things should be related. It wasn't perfect -- for example, Transmutation did too much at once, and one has the distinct impression that healing spells were moved to Conjuration in 3e for the simple reason that they wanted Necromancy to be "all bad, all of the time" -- but it was a very good framework to work with. If it does go away in 4e to make way to contrived elemental groupings, where the wizard who can cast a good lightning bolt can teleport farther, I'll certainly miss it.

 

[The Little Raven]

It seems as though 3.5e magic is practically a science.

Except for the fact that it doesn't have a solid methodology for what defines a spell of a particular school, as we learned from healing being a Conjuration spell (because you're not transmuting flesh to heal effectively, you're summoning super healing powers from the aether), and also how Teleportation used to be Transmutation (because.. ummm... you're transmuting one location into another?). And then there's things like energy spells being both Evocation (I am generating energy) and Conjuration (I'm summoning it from another place, just as a cheap way of getting around spell resistance and such), while negative energy (a single type of energy) has it's own entire school (most of which could easily belong to other schools; why does fear require manipulation of negative energy?). And then there's Illusion, which isn't necessarily mental manipulation (Enchantment) or the manipulation of light and sound (Evocation).

D&D magic has a long way to go before it can be anywhere near a science.

 

[The Little Raven]

I pretty much always want magic to be a science. Because, if it was real, it would be.

The best division of magic, IMHO, is from Mage: the Awakening.

Death, Fate, Forces, Life, Matter, Mind, Prime, Space, Spirit, Time.

I can't think of a single effect that cannot be wrought with this system.

 

[Simplicity]

Not to threadjack, but while I'm perfectly happy to see Outsiders, or Dragons, or Beholders use weird and alien magics that my PC will never understand, I HATED it when some NPC wizard could do something my PC could not simply because he was an NPC. The old school RPGs were rife with this kind of crap (usually Alchemists, Demonologists and Artificers) because they wanted to keep crafting or whatever out of the hands of the PCs and couldn't come up with a better excuse. It always drove me absolutely mad.

At first I agreed with this sentiment, but then I realized that to me it's not true. I want the NPC wizards to be able to do things that I can't do. Then, I want to dissect their spellbooks and learn how they did it. Its good to run up against crazy wizard powers. As long as it isn't just a DM's-only thing.

 

[Simplicity]

I pretty much always want magic to be a science. Because, if it was real, it would be.

Not necessarily true. Only true if magic follows set laws like physics. For example, if magic itself were sentient, then no laws might apply. Casting magic might be more like taming a creature than computing y = ax + b.

Or, magic might be non-sentient but chaotic or nearly chaotic. Wielding magic becomes more like taming a biological system or predicting weather. Which admittedly, can be done scientifically, but not always very accurately. You can give a person Tylenol, but you can't necessarily predict for that it's not going to kill them. It'll be partly cloudy today, if a tornado doesn't kill you all.

Magic could be a craft. Like weaving together threads of reality. Tying and untying complicated knots. More of a skill than a knowledge and application of physical rules.

 

[Andor]

At first I agreed with this sentiment, but then I realized that to me it's not true. I want the NPC wizards to be able to do things that I can't do. Then, I want to dissect their spellbooks and learn how they did it. Its good to run up against crazy wizard powers. As long as it isn't just a DM's-only thing.

Well that was what drove me mad in the old days. It was exactly that, a GM only thing. You could kill the Mad Alchemist and spend the rest of your life studying his books and lab, but you would never, ever, be able to do what he did. It was the flipside of the current "The PCs are special" meme. NPCs could do stuff you couldn't because such power belonged only in the hands of the DM.

 

[frankthedm]

It was the flipside of the current "The PCs are special" meme. NPCs could do stuff you couldn't because such power belonged only in the hands of the DM.

And Mearls is putting it back to The way things ought to be! if it makes a cool scene / fun fight for an NPC caster to cause an platau to rise up a 100 feet from the ground, then it is gonna happen. And that does not mean a PC will be able to get the ability so he can wreck towns and dungeons.

If the DM abuses such, then his players will wisely vacate his table. If the players instead take offence at such things being a DM's perrogative to have as available options, they are also free to leave the table.

 

[InkwellIdeas]

Except for the fact that it doesn't have a solid methodology for what defines a spell of a particular school, as we learned from healing being a Conjuration spell (because you're not transmuting flesh to heal effectively, you're summoning super healing powers from the aether), and also how Teleportation used to be Transmutation (because.. ummm... you're transmuting one location into another?). And then there's things like energy spells being both Evocation (I am generating energy) and Conjuration (I'm summoning it from another place, just as a cheap way of getting around spell resistance and such), while negative energy (a single type of energy) has it's own entire school (most of which could easily belong to other schools; why does fear require manipulation of negative energy?). And then there's Illusion, which isn't necessarily mental manipulation (Enchantment) or the manipulation of light and sound (Evocation).

I did my best to put spells under multiple schools where it made sense. It gives specialists a bit more choice, but that didn't seem too bad when most spells don't have multiple schools. The same spell effects can be achieved in multiple ways as you point out, so I thought this made sense.

Here's the list: Revised Spell Schools