D&D 5E Differentiating Arcane and Divine Magic.

[Xeviat]

The runaway thread on the new Psionics UA got me thinking about how could we differentiate arcane and divine Magic from each other more. Traditionally, divine Magic users "know" all their spells, and just choose from them each day. Arcane magic users have to learn their spells, either through their book like wizards or through level up like the sorcerer (Baldur's Gate's Bard, which I assume was like 2E's, learned from scrolls while 3 and 5Es bard learns like a sorcerer).

Psioncs fans want Psionics to be different, but how could we go about making divine Magic more different than arcane magic? How would you go about making it feel more spiritual?

 

[Guest 6801328]

I suspect it works the other way around: if you distinguish the mechanics more, one will feel more spiritual and one will feel more arcane.

Whichever one gets changed, though, it wouldn't feel like D&D to most players.

That said, it's still a fun game to try.

I've always wanted a system of increasing risk. There's no hard limit to how many times you can use your spells, but each time you face increasing risk. Levels of exhaustion, maybe? Then it all resets on a long rest.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Divine and Arcane felt more separate and unique back in the AD&D days. And not just from Alignment mattering to Divine casters, unlike today. But aside from that, Divine casters got their power through faith and belief, which allowed them to channel divine power into their spellcasting. Lose their faith and they lose their powers. Have strong enough faith in 1st Ed AD&D and you could still cast 1st and 2nd level spells, even if your character was somehow cut off from their deity. Arcane casters learn to control and manipulate the latent magical energy both within themselves and within the world around them. Some have to study and learn rituals and spells to control this energy and some are just born with the ability to control it. So in other words, you control Arcane, but Divine controls you.

 

[ccs]

Well the main difference in any game I run is that Divine spells (and abilities) are granted by the gods/powers-that-be.
If you lose favor with your patron ? You won't be casting any spells.

 

[R_J_K75]

One of the major ways I think of differentiating between divine and arcane spell casting was how both are prepared in 2E and editions that came before. After 3E once Sorcerers were introduced and bards got their own spell list of both arcane and divine spells things got blurred. Up until 3E wizards studied their spellbook which was pretty straight forward, it just look like some reading a book, while clerics and priests prayed for their spells which could take any form the player wanted or was required by the deity they worshipped. Because both classes required V, S, & M components to cast spells, the act of casting a spell and the effect afterwards probably wouldnt seem any different to a non magic using person.

 

[Kurotowa]

Are we talking differences in flavor, process, or result?

Differences in result require different spells for Clerics and Wizards. Not just some spells being on one list and not the other, but two entirely separate lists with no overlap and different traits for the spells that mostly do the same thing. This was more a thing in older editions but has decreased over time.

Differences in process is kind of where we are now. Cleric and Wizards learn their spells differently, prepare them differently, and use different casting foci. They may cast the same Fireball, but the game mechanics for how they got it are different. That said, they're not too different, as there's some desire to keep the core classes fairly simple.

Differences in flavor are the intangibles, the things that come down to PC backstory and DM fiat. Can a Cleric's access to spells be revoked? Are there wild magic zones that scramble arcane spells but not divine ones? Or is the setting's cosmology that there is no distinction between arcane and divine, but that magic is magic and the question is if your access to it was learned or granted.

 

[Perun]

Differences in result require different spells for Clerics and Wizards. Not just some spells being on one list and not the other, but two entirely separate lists with no overlap and different traits for the spells that mostly do the same thing. This was more a thing in older editions but has decreased over time.

I always like when the same spell was different level for clerics and wizards in olden editions. Light, for example, used to be a 1st-level spell for clerics, and a 2nd-level spell for wizards, IIRC. And the memory is a bit foggy, but I seem to recall some spell were reversible on one list, but not on the other... but I could be wrong on this.

Also, one of the major differences between arcane and divine magic was the number of spell levels. Divine casters only got spells up to 7th level, while arcane casters (well, wizards, as they were the only full arcane spellcasting class back then) got up to the 9th-level spells.

 

[DammitVictor]

Honestly, I have never liked preparation as a Cleric mechanic. I'd prefer if the "Cleric" spell list were much narrower, Clerics got two Domains, and then cast Warmage-style with an Advanced Learning class feature.

 

[Li Shenron]

The runaway thread on the new Psionics UA got me thinking about how could we differentiate arcane and divine Magic from each other more. Traditionally, divine Magic users "know" all their spells, and just choose from them each day. Arcane magic users have to learn their spells, either through their book like wizards or through level up like the sorcerer (Baldur's Gate's Bard, which I assume was like 2E's, learned from scrolls while 3 and 5Es bard learns like a sorcerer).

Psioncs fans want Psionics to be different, but how could we go about making divine Magic more different than arcane magic? How would you go about making it feel more spiritual?

The "know all spells" vs "have to learn spells" differentiation is theoretically cr4p. This was a big mistake in 3e because it soon skyrocketed the list of spells available to Clerics by default thanks to lots of splatbooks. Fortunately, in 5e it matters little because the PHB Cleric/Druid spell list is fairly short, many Clerical spells are samey, and there are only a few supplements, so it doesn't bother me at all. But I still think it's cr4p in principle, it would be just fine if every class had a limited number of spells known.

Instead of looking at a mechanical differentiation, or maybe thinking about that as an afterthought, I would focus of the why different classes are capable of casting spells i.e. what is the source of their magic.

Clerics have their source in faith, and might be required to uphold their faith by actions; in fact, an old way to differentiate them has always been to require a Cleric to act according to their faith or temporarily lose the ability to cast spells. It's not nice to use it as a punishment however (like the DM saying "ha! you just did something opposite to your dogma, you lose all your spells!"), instead it should be the player's initiative to roleplay her Cleric PC properly, not pick e.g. the Life domain because it's powerful and then roleplay a murderhobo.

By converse, Wizards have their source in study, therefore their actions after they learned their spells don't matter at all, but perhaps some explanations before learning new spells might be required (it could be as simple as narrating where new spells are learnt from, or how downtime is spent in such activity). Normally the game handwaves this completely for spells gained at level up, and obviously some players are going to be completely uninterested in adding details, but at least the PHB enforces some time and cost for additional spells scribed into the spellbook.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Clerics have their source in faith, and might be required to uphold their faith by actions; in fact, an old way to differentiate them has always been to require a Cleric to act according to their faith or temporarily lose the ability to cast spells. It's not nice to use it as a punishment however (like the DM saying "ha! you just did something opposite to your dogma, you lose all your spells!"), instead it should be the player's initiative to roleplay her Cleric PC properly, not pick e.g. the Life domain because it's powerful and then roleplay a murderhobo.

We've seen how this works out for the last 30+ years though, and what actually happens, is two things:

1) Gods who have potentially onerous restrictions on behaviour for adventurers just do not get chosen by players, or on the rare occasions that they do, last like two adventures before being retired or whatever. No, that one time someone played an SP of Illmater or whatever, and against all odds, it worked, doesn't mean the general trend isn't a big issue.

2) Loads of domains are powerful, and any gods with "adventurer-friendly" tenets will get played, and the players won't even have to alter their behaviour, because, in old V:tM terms, they picked "The Path of What I Was Going To Do Anyway". So you effectively just limit the pool of domains to "whatever domains are possessed by adventuring-friendly gods".

And this is essentially an RP restriction on a single class, which is gains nothing for it. Which isn't great.

It also goes limits what the DM can do with enemy religious casters very steeply! You can't ever have a "religious leader gone bad" scenario if you work on a "you don't get spells if you aren't a good boy" deal, because you can effectively detect any divine spellcaster who isn't following the tenets of their religion by simply asking them to cast a spell.

I think the 4E (and arguably 5E default) approach that when you become a Cleric, you are granted a divine spark, and your power comes from that, is much more interesting and retains much more flexibility for the DM. That way, you can have clerics "go bad" or the like, and it not be trivial to deal with them. You can also have the situation where the god knows his cleric has gone bad, and sends you after him - he doesn't want that divine spark being used for evil. You can still have Fallen Paladins and the like, too - they are oathbreakers, and that likely causes divine retribution.

As for the OP, I don't think it's a useful distinction in 5E. I don't think it has been for a long time, really. Psionics only being fouled up by anti-magic fields isn't a big deal, because it's just a spell in 5E, and one could always say it was actually an "anti-magic and psionics field" and then you never have to think about it again. It's useful to separate the CHARACTERS and the origins of their power, it's not useful to separate the magic results of that power. Especially when Arcane Casters like Bards can cast healing spells and so on (which has been the case since 3E).