This is always a huge problem. Roughly 40% of the PHB of every edition except 4e is made up of spells, and if we're tearing out the D&D magic system and starting from scratch we're down to fighters, rogues, barbarians, and monks (and even there not every subclass).I was not expecting to be as enamored with Shadow & Bone on Netflix as I was, but I was immediately hooked and really looking forward to them expanding the universe in future seasons.
While watching, I couldn't help but feel that the Grisha powers would make for an awesome alternate magic system for a D&D campaign.
I've often heard this said, that DnD isn't always the best system to base things off of when trying to create a game for any given piece of media, simply because it's one of the most popular systems. Obviously there are a ton of other rules systems out there, but I'm not personally familiar with many of them as DnD 5E is the only system I've played, and even that only sparingly. Would you be interested in connecting on Discord to discuss this further and possibly collaborate on some more ideas? That's where I spend most of my time. I'm not in any rush either, I'm currently DM'ing a campaign of my own for the first time so most of my creative efforts go into planning for that.I haven't done any work on this due to real life concerns. Might at the end of the year look at cobbling something together.
For me the hardest part about tweaking D&D is the prevalence of magic and spells into so mamy class features. Where other RPGs might have a talent that let's you do something, in D&D is often a spell (looking at you hunter's mark).
I think it'd be best to use an AiME approach and create new classes reusing many of the class features in D&D classes.
Just brainstorming you could have as your mundane classes:
Scout (ranger equivalent)
Soldier (fighter)
Medic (non magic cleric type healing abilities)
Navigator (skills/bard equivalent)
And then you have your 2nd army grishas of course. I imagine their spells would be much more focused than d&d but perhaps have more versatility in how they are used. I feel warlock invocations might be a better way to handle this rather than a spell list, but who knows.
I'm imagining the Crows playing D&D now and the picture in my mind is hilarious.I saw this and thought it would be about the characters in the show playing D&D. This is also good.
Grisha are essentially similar 2E AD&D Psionicists minus the telepathy - so stuff like body control, forcing the body to heal itself or stop living, moving molecules or even atoms around (they have pretty advanced science, seemly thanks to the Grisha), pushing air around, etc.I was not expecting to be as enamored with Shadow & Bone on Netflix as I was, but I was immediately hooked and really looking forward to them expanding the universe in future seasons.
While watching, I couldn't help but feel that the Grisha powers would make for an awesome alternate magic system for a D&D campaign.
For those unaware, the types of Grisha (sorcerers) generally fall under:
Corporalki
The Order of the Living and the Dead
Etherealki
- Healers - 'nuff said
- Heartrenders - can affect others hearts and other organs to warm their bodies, excite or calm people, slow healing and even give people heart attacks
- Tailors - can change peoples physical appearances
The Order of Summoners
Materialki
- Squallers - can manipulate air pressure to create wind strong enough to move ships, knock over people, and even dampen or heighten sound. They can also summon lightning
- Inferni - can enhance combustion - essentially a fire mage
- Tidemakers - can manipulate water
The Order of Fabrikators
There are also a few other special characters who can manipulate other things such as light or shadow.
- Durasts - can manipulate inanimate objects changing them permanently. A 'crafter'
- Alkemi - Alchemists specializing in poisons and blasting powders
The key element to this is that none of the Grisha "create" anything. They only manipulate what is already present.
Another really cool element of the setting is it's set in a faux late Tsarist Russia, where arms technology is rapidly advancing (flintlock and early repeating rifles are found here) that the power of technology is rapidly catching up with magic.
If any of you were to go towards creating a setting for this, what would you put into it? I think clearly rules for firearms and detailing of Grisha powers would be needed. But how would you do this? And what else would you include?
They wouldn't have any D&D spells, let's be clear - that's absolutely not how Grisha powers work, at all. They're explicitly not magic. They're not spells. There are no incantations or components or rituals. No spirits or other planes or anything. Most Grisha need to have their hands free, though it's established later on that they don't always have to (bizarrely in the show with a character who loses an arm, he gets basically a cyberarm, whereas in the books he learns to use his powers one-handed, which is kind of more impressive).What individual abilities (spells) would each Grisha-type have?