Blog (A5E) A Sneak Peek At Magic

In this article, we're going to take a look at some of the changes to spells and magic in Level Up. Most of these changes are ease-of-use changes for clarity, but there are some minor structural changes. We'll use fireball as an example of a spell while discussing these changes. Note that this is early in the design process for this part of the game, so things might yet change, and your feedback as always will affect that.

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Fireball​

3rd-level (evocation, arcane, fire)
Classes: Sorcerer, wizard
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Long (120 feet)
Area: 20-foot-radius sphere
Components: V, S, M (bat guano and sulfur)
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Dexterity half

A fiery mote streaks to a point within range and explodes in a burst of flame. The fire spreads around corners and ignites unattended flammable objects. Each creature in the area takes 6d6* fire damage.

Cast at Higher Levels. The damage increases by 1d6 for each spell level over 3rd.

Rare: Ravjahani’s Blackfire. This spell’s silent black flames deal necrotic damage and don’t damage objects or leave marks on bodies. Any nonmagical flames in the area are extinguished. The spell has no vocalized component.

Rare: Katrina’s Improved Fireball. The fireball deals 8d6 fire damage.

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Schools of Magic​

The first thing you might notice are the words under the spell name. For fireball, those words are evocation and fire. These are the schools of magic to which fireball beyonds.

Wait! I hear you say. Fire isn't a school of magic! Well, this is the first of our changes. The 8 classical schools of magic, as defined by wizards long past and handed down in formal tradition, all exist as you know them: evocation, divination, necromancy, and so on.

But that formal classification isn't the only way magic-users throughout the ages have labelled spells. In the multiverse there is a near-infinite array of spell schools; some are based on elemental sources (like fire, water, shadow, plants, beasts, and so on), while others are based on effects (healing, compulsion, and more).

The classical schools are rigidly defined; a spell can only belong to one classical school. Other schools are not as strict, however; a spell can belong to multiple non-classical schools. These schools are a tool which you can use to create spell lists, whether they be classical schools, or you want to give that red dragon access to all fire spells, or you need to simply list all fire spells in order to plan the spell choices of your fire-themed sorcerer. They're there to use as you wish.

In addition to the eight classical schools, Level Up contains the following list of magical schools: acid, affliction, air, arcana, attack, beasts, chaos, cold, communication, control, displacement, divine, earth, enhancement, evil, fear, fire, force, good, healing, knowledge, law, lightning, movement, nature, necrotic, negation, obscurement, planar, plants, poison, prismatic, protection, psychic, radiant, scrying, senses, shadow, shapechanging, sound, storm, summoning, technological, teleportation, terrain, thunder, transformation, utility, water, weaponry, weather.

Let's look at a couple of other spells and how they're classified.

Fire shield -- 4th-level (evocation, arcane, cold, fire, protection)

Locate creature -- 4th-level (divination, arcane, divine, beasts, plants, knowledge)

Sleet storm -- 2nd-level (conjuration, arcane, nature, cold, nature, weather)

Spell Stats​

You'll see that the spell has more information in the stat block up top. This give you lots of information about the spell at a glance. You might also notice that spell ranges have been standardized; common distances include short range (30 feet or less), medium range (60 feet or less), or long range (120 feet or less), as well as self, touch, and special ranges.

The components entry has changed slightly, too. V,S,M are used in the same way, but their meanings have been expanded to Vocalized, Seen, and Material. Different spell casters may cast spells differently -- a Vocalized spell is apparent to creatures that can hear, but might be a bard's song, a wizard's incantation, or even a musical instrument.

We make mention of material spell components to add flavor to the game, but if there is no price listed for those components, they are simply considered part of your spellcasting pouch.

Rare Spells​

One fun thing we're introducing is the concept of rare spells. Not all spells have rare versions. You can't choose rare spells out of the rulebook; you have to find them. They might be found in a treasure hoard, or in the depths of an ancient library; a rare spell might be the motivation for a quest. These rare spells -- which are all named after a famous spellcaster -- are better than the 'regular' versions, and are highly sought after. If you know a rare spell, you can memorize it instead of the regular version.

New Spells​

Of course, we have a whole bunch of new spells to add to those in the core rulebook, but you’ll have to wait to see those!


*Let us know what you think of the 6d6 fire damage! We haven't changed most spells fundamentally (other than clarity rewrites) but this is one of a few that we're considering.

Continue reading...

 

[Lanefan]

Rare spell variants: brilliant idea. Note though that to avoid power creep the relative power of the rare variants should about - pun intended - level out, with maybe some being a bit better than the base spell, others a bit worse, and most about the same.

 

[Stalker0]

Looks cool!

*6d6 damage is how much a fireball should do. At 8d6: As a player it is murder to have it cast on you until you get level 5 or 6, and once you can cast it , it kind of takes something out of the game as your life starts to be "how can I deal 8d6 damage to as many people as possible" the movie. As a DM once your players can cast fireball its more impacting than any other spell they could cast for quite a few levels, and you either accept that your encounters are going to be trivialize, or warp the way you build them.

I do believe that lightning bolt should stay at 8d6.

I have found hypnotic pattern to be a much more encounter defining spell.

firebsll is a workhorse spell, it’s a solid damage dealer but monsters generally have enough hp that I don’t find it game breaking, it’s just very solid

 

[tetrasodium]

... carpenter's level, pressure level, level crossing, on the level, level with me ...

Level your cake

 

[tetrasodium]

I have found hypnotic pattern to be a much more encounter defining spell.

firebsll is a workhorse spell, it’s a solid damage dealer but monsters generally have enough hp that I don’t find it game breaking, it’s just very solid

It doesn't need to be game breaking to make a bunch of other spells pointless.or pointless enough

 

[Arilyn]

I think rare spells should be something only wizards can pursue. It'd give them some of their flavour back. Right now, with everyone else just knowing spells, it feels like wizards are doing things the hard way. Could also be cool if higher level wizards could create their own rare versions, which would require some dangerous travel... because D&D.

I like the spell format. 5e drives me crazy with page flipping to check on class and levels for spells.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Have you looked at how spells were done in Arcana Evolved? Most of the spells in that game had three base versions: Normal, Lesser, and Greater.

Normal used its standard spell slot, Lesser used one spell slot lower and Greater used one spell slot higher. The Greater effects were also considered more Rare options in the game.

You could easily use the game as inspiration for coming up with Rare spell options for Level Up.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

... carpenter's level, pressure level, level crossing, on the level, level with me ...

Up a level, or down a level?

Maybe Morrus & Co need a thesaurus.

 

[ChaosOS]

How do rare spells work with learned spellcasters?

 

[Leatherhead]

Sleet storm -- 2nd-level (conjuration, cold, nature, weather)

This is an interesting bit here: It implies that Sorcerers and Wizards can learn non-arcane spells.

 

[Maxperson]

I really love the idea of rare spells. I personally would rather see a lot of them put out in a separate book of spells, though. I'd snap that up.