A Cleric, by any other name, twould cast as sweet.

[amerigoV]

I prefer the Savage Worlds approach. Mostly spells are just minor variants of each other. Magic Missile, Melfs Acid Arrow, etc all pretty much do the same type of stuff, just varies in power by level. SW has a nice core of spells. The player and GM come up with Trappings to describe the spell's effect (with natural consequences). The Trappings, if specialized/narrow enough, makes the spell more powerful in certain situations (eg - Trappings that only impact undead should be very powerful vs. undead).

Example. Their Magic Missile type spell is Bolt. Here are some sample trappings I made up based on theme:

• Fire - an arrow of flame streaks to the target
• Force - the traditional MM
• Shadow - dark energy strikes the targets shadow
• Psionic - “I can kill you with a thought” – massive headache. On death, blood oozes out of eyes, ears, and nose.
• Necromancer - Screaming skulls smash into target
• Vermin - A swarm of insects appears (rises out of the ground) and rips into your exposed skin

That is the simple MM type spell. One can have all sorts of fun with the various spell types (entangle, barrier, etc).


I doubt they would go this way. 3e introduced too much in the way of spell keywords - [Fire] for example - the whole system was balanced on it.

 

[steeldragons]

This kinda all stemmed out of this idea I had to "Sphere-ize" the BECMI and 1e Cleric spell lists...and got to think just how many categories/domains would I need to really cover the bases.

One thing that I definitely was going to borrow from 2e was the idea of an "All" sphere. All clerics/all deities have access to these spells. Yes, they are generally lower level spells that feed into the flavor of cleric as "priest"...then the god's specific domains/spheres would be used to offset clerics from each other in the more "martial/crusader/adventurer/champion of the faith" sort of way.

So things like: Detect Magic, Detection of and Protection from good/evil, Bless/Curse, Cure/Cause Light Wounds, Light/Darkness, (off the top of my head) Chant (2nd level), Prayer (3rd), etc..would fall into the "All" Sphere.

From there, I wasn't sure how far/many to go. I would love to narrow it down even as far as 6....but could, conceivably, make it 10...I think anything over 12 would be confusing/more than necessary for beginning players.

One way to cut back is to lump some things together that have, in various editions, broken up. Things like "Elemental" being separate "Air, Erath, Fire, Water" domains.

Of course, this then puts the onus on the DM (could be "more work") to have things make "common sense rulings." A storm deity, for example might be given access to Air spells (winds and lightning) and Water spells (rain, snow, hail), but no earth or fire spells. A mountain or sea god would be permitted earth and water spells, respectively, but not other elements (or water and earth is you had Poseidon-esque sea god who was also in charge of earthquakes). etc...

Something like the old "Astral" sphere, which I'd rename "Celestial" myself, to incorporate things for sun, moon, stars, sky in general. A sun god would, obviously, not have access to "moon-related" effects or spells. A god of night wouldn't get "sun-related" effects, etc.

I did always like "Healing" as its own domain/sphere. There are few deities in my homebrew who have "full access" to all healing spells.

So, I was thinking something like this:
All
Celestial
Elemental
Battle/War
Knowledge
Nature
Healing

I don't know that Protection and Divination spells need be separate. Things like Resist Fire/Cold could be put into Elemental and or Nature. Pretty much any divination can go into Knowledge...

Maybe an "Infernal" domain that incorporates Necromantic spells, fire-based/damage causing spells, things like the "Destruction" and"Death" domains, darkness/shadow effects, conjurations...

I dunno. Like I said, one could go on forever, breaking down godly domains into more and more specific/specialized areas of influence.

 

[Greg K]

I prefer the Savage Worlds approach.

I do too. I think there are a lot of benefits to switching to such a system. It is simple. There is more transparency. There is no need to create completely new spell write-ups that are merely minor variations of existing spells in appearance or minor mechanics to fit a new schools or magic sources. The results are the freeing of space in the core books, less padding via spells in supplements (or at least they would take up less space), and hopefully, less crappy spells

I would , howevre, look to HERO or M&M for more base powers. To bolt, blast, and burst, I would add a mind blast. I would add powers two illusion powers: one for "holographic" type illusion and one for mental illusions ( Yes, I know in SW that these are trappings of other powers (e.g., Puppet and Burst (vs. spirit) because they are so real in the mind that they cannot be ignored ) and variation of Obscure that people do not have to react to once they make a Notice check that it is not real,. However I think it is better to have actual powers Mental Illusion going into the target's mind and standard Holographic types that everyone can see.