Building a better spellcaster: Combiding priest and wizard spell lists?

[Uller]

<snip>

Modern fantacists have, for politically correct reasons, differentiated between the two, to allow wizards to exist without being priests in the traditional christian sense without also being evil satanists.

<snip>

That's a rather sweeping statement. You seem to be inferring that to define magic as haviong a source other than divine is to be PC...

IMC, the difference between wizards/sorcerers/bards, clerics/paladins and rangers/druids is thus:

Arcane magic (wizards/sorcerers/bards) derives from magic inherent in the world around the spell caster. The spell caster is able (either through knowledge or force of will) to manipulate that power and manifest it as spells.

Divine magic derives directly from dieties or other "extraworldly" beings. Such powers are requested through prayer.

Spirit magic (druids/rangers) derives from spirits that live within the world. Everything has a spirit (malevolent, benign or somewhere in between)associated with it. Druids are able to communicate with and/or command these spirits. Spells are manifested through bargaining with or commanding these spirits.

None of that is to be "politically correct"...that would be silly. I seriously doubt that Col_Pladoh was concerned with offending Christians when he originally seperated Magic Users and Clerics into two seperate classes. He probably just did it because they were two important literary and historical archtypes that everyone is familliar with. You can hardly claim that the authors responsible for those archetypes were all trying to avoid offending Christians. You think Michael Moorcock allowed such concerns to influence Elric? I mean, the guy was all about demons...

 

[I'm A Banana]

On a side note, the fantasy RPG idea of seperate divine and arcance magic is a fundamental flaw in the game, and I've never liked it. One man's prayer is another man's spell, and generally throughout history western civilization has condemned as magic what other people called prayer and religion. Magic begins as prayers to the gods, as witnessed in Egypt and elsewhere. Modern fantacists have, for politically correct reasons, differentiated between the two, to allow wizards to exist without being priests in the traditional christian sense without also being evil satanists.

It's really a mechanical division.

You have a Healer/Buffer class, and a Nuker/Dibilitator class. You don't want one who can do both, because then you wouldn't need anyone else.

Arcane = Nuker/Debilitator = Sorc/Wiz
Divine = Healer/Buffer = Cleric

Of course, the line is blurred recently -- Druids are very effective nukers, and Bards have nice buffs -- but it's not about being PC. It's about one class not being able to do everyfuggin'thing.

An' you're looking at the cultural development of magic and mysticism somewhat backwards. It's not that there were gods, and there was magic. It's that people could do weird, unexplainable things (or convince others they could), and deities were, to some extent, constructed to give them justification and social status. Depending upon your religious beliefs, some of these are true and valid and really justified, and others are deceptions, and illusions, and temptations. And to be honest, the possibility that not every weird mystic has mystical powers is fairly recent, developed out of exclusive and prohibitive monotheism (e.g.: there is Right and Wrong) and skepticism (e.g.: there is Fact and Perception).