Blue Mage

[Odhanan]

Or the two Blue Mages in Middle-earth. You know, the ones we never hear about in the Lord of the Rings. They went further East... and disappeared. The "official rumor" according to JRRT is that the Blue Mages either died or fell to the Shadow some time before the War of the Ring.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I assume the Blue Mage the op is asking after is the version from the Final Fantasy console RPGs. Blue Mages learn new spells by having them used on them by enemies (or allies, if the allies know learnable techniques).

For instance, to learn trine (a sort of three-element fireball), the Blue Mage simply has to find a monster capable of casting it and then survive it. To learn pearl wind (basically mass cure moderate wounds, in d20 terms), however, a Blue Mage would have to either dominate a monster (or have someone else do so) or find a friendly 'monster' willing to cast it.

Unfortunately, the Blue Mage is an incredibly difficult concept to pull off in d20 (and not much easier in other games). In d20, the Blue Mage either learns Sp or Su abilities. If the former, it's not terribly interesting. If the latter, it has the potential to become monstrously broken very fast. The DM has to call all abilities fair game (arguably broken, and untrue to the FF flavor) or set an arbitrary limit (which, being arbitrary, is liable to cause upset and resentment). Also, it's basically impossible to measure the Blue Mage's power against the CR system, since he may be vastly stronger or weaker depending on the number of Blue Magic-learnable enemies the DM uses.

The HERO system incorporates a means of doing Blue Magic, but, IIRC, only temporarily. Actually, HERO is a very good system for Final Fantasy, since it's already ATB-Wait rather than turn-based, and it allows you to model the "few but very powerful abilities/techniques" style of the games.

As a very rough d20 conversion, I'd make the Blue Mage identical to the sorcerer, but instead of learning ANY new spells after first level, he has to have a spell on the sorcerer spell list cast on him, which he can then learn.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

I assume the Blue Mage the op is asking after is the version from the Final Fantasy console RPGs. Blue Mages learn new spells by having them used on them by enemies (or allies, if the allies know learnable techniques).

Oh, good.

I thought he was looking for Smurf! D20.

The Smurfiest Smurfing game you can Smurf!

(I like to play a Smurf who specializes in Smurfing and tries not to Smurf too much).

(I recommend playing the game taking Smirinoff shots until you're 3 smurfs to the smurf).

 

[Odhanan]

Smirinoff

LOL. Smurfnoff. We'd need lots of bottles to get started, given they're smurfing smurfed sized.

 

[Sejs]

Unfortunately, the Blue Mage is an incredibly difficult concept to pull off in d20 (and not much easier in other games). In d20, the Blue Mage either learns Sp or Su abilities. If the former, it's not terribly interesting. If the latter, it has the potential to become monstrously broken very fast. The DM has to call all abilities fair game (arguably broken, and untrue to the FF flavor) or set an arbitrary limit (which, being arbitrary, is liable to cause upset and resentment). Also, it's basically impossible to measure the Blue Mage's power against the CR system, since he may be vastly stronger or weaker depending on the number of Blue Magic-learnable enemies the DM uses.

...

As a very rough d20 conversion, I'd make the Blue Mage identical to the sorcerer, but instead of learning ANY new spells after first level, he has to have a spell on the sorcerer spell list cast on him, which he can then learn.

I was actually thinking of trying to cook up a PrC for the Spellthief class that was essentially a Blue Mage. Eventually learn to steal creature abilities temporarily, and add Spell-Like Abilities or actual spells to the list of spells known.

 

[Arnwyn]

Is there such thing as a Blue Mage?

No.

 

[Davelozzi]

Greyhawk has Philidor, the Blue Wizard, as an NPC.

 

[Sejs]

So, short answer: No.

Long answer: Yes, but not in the way you're thinking.

Hope that helps!

 

[mythusmage]

As long as I take the Effexor I'm fine. Thanks for asking.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

In the BOED they did describe sexual pleasure (and so on) as an Exalted thing (under reasonable circumstances: it was willing, etc.)
So an Exalted Blue Mage could exist, using that Nymphology book.