Divisions of Magic

[Roman]

Has anybody tried dividing magic into something different than the 8 schools (plus 9th universal school) of magic in standard D&D? If so, how have you done this?

 

[AIM-54]

Back in my 2E days I once redid the schools of magic into elemental schools: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Life and Death. It wasn't totally elegant, but I thought it was pretty cool and it was perfect for my homebrew at the time.

 

[Roman]

Back in my 2E days I once redid the schools of magic into elemental schools: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Life and Death. It wasn't totally elegant, but I thought it was pretty cool and it was perfect for my homebrew at the time.

Sounds pretty interesting. What concepts did you associate with what element or did you not do that? For example, did you associate divination with air?

 

[Dirigible]

In 2nd ed, they divided magic based on casting method: into the schools of Geometry (somatic), Song (verbal) and... something else... in the Players Option books.

 

[AIM-54]

Sounds pretty interesting. What concepts did you associate with what element or did you not do that? For example, did you associate divination with air?

I believe I did something like that for those spells that didn't otherwise fit into my dividers. I can't remember specifics anymore, as this was 8 or 9 years ago now. I do recall putting invocation/evocation spells into the "Fire" school for the most part. But I did try and make elemental characteristics the first determining factor.

 

[Kageneko]

In 2nd ed, they divided magic based on casting method: into the schools of Geometry (somatic), Song (verbal) and... something else... in the Players Option books.

Good ol' Spells and Magic. I still miss the critical hit tables. Anyway, it has:

Schools of Philosophy (basic Player's Handbook stuff)
Schools of Effect (Elementalist, Dimensionalist, Force Mage, Mentalist, Shadow Mage)
Schools of Thaumaturgy (Alchemist, Artificer, Geometer, Song Mage, Wild Mage)

Amongst other keen magical options.

 

[Michael Morris]

Has anybody tried dividing magic into something different than the 8 schools (plus 9th universal school) of magic in standard D&D? If so, how have you done this?

Magic and alignment tie in Dusk, my setting.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=96112&highlight=Dusk

And the spell lists themselves are here.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=121207&highlight=Dusk

 

[Roman]

Oh yes, the good old Spells and Magic Player's Option book from 2e. It was a superb book of options (although it should have been meant for DMs not players) and many ideas presented therein are relatively easily applicable in 3e too.

 

[DMH]

I love path magic (Dragon 216) and recently the idea was converted in GR's Advanced Player's Manual. I find it much more sensible than the standard rules.

And then there is Plot Device's color scheme, the most recent is here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4372&SRC=EnWorld

 

[Verequus]

Spectrum Shift has a line on RPGnow named "Colors of Magic". There are twelve colors, but only four are available yet. I've bought them all, but I haven't looked into the books, so I don't know, how good they are (or, if the arcane/divine-Divide has been done away). The only review I've seen sounded promising.

Another product, which divides magic in a new way, is "Elements of Magic Revised". It presents a new magic system, where you choose spell lists, which give access to enhancements. The spell lists are mainly sorted after the action type, like Evoke, Move or Heal. Every enhancement, which does damage, is somewhere in Evoke - this is true for every enhancement. To create actual spells, these enhancements are combined like lego bricks (within a certain limit). There are even four magical skills, which are usable in spells. I haven't seen a better magic system yet - with a small fix it does even entirely away with the multiclassing problematic for casters, included the mixing with non-caster classes - without the use of dual-caster-PrCs and feats like Practiced Spellcaster.