Elemental Campaign World

[DamionW]

You may remember me briefly commenting on the nature of Yahoo! Files links in the other thread, but I didn't say much else. Truth is, I haven't had the chance to look through your files. But I'm very interested in helping out.

I ran a similar concept a while back. Unfortunately, it never got past the first session. Back then, I used baseline D&D with a few spellcasting quirks, a special template, and liberal additions from Oriental Adventurers. In true George Lucas style, I have decided I should do a sequel without ever really writing out the "original" story in full detail.

Age of Elements II: Shards of Fate will use the Arcana Evolved rules for the most part, and I'm considering whether or not to swap out the magic system for Elements of Magic. I need to fully read through AE before I can make that decision, though.

I'd recommend taking a look at both of those books, especially since they have good material for the kind of game you want to run.

I found the EoM pdf my friend gave me and I was looking over it now. Might use it, might not. Seems to make casters very generic and utilitarian. Great for ease of use and compatibility, but not sure if it fits my campaign flavor yet. Don't own AE or many other books. Was hoping just to take mainly core RAW and develop house rule tweaks to explain the setting. The things I really need to develop are spellcasting classes overall, particularly clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers (the divine ones). I want to make a cleric for the elemental gods that gets granted powers and certain spell lists from them, as well as a weakened cleric of the old gods to reflect lack of worshippers = lack of connection to the deity. The druid should be less destructive and more charming to be a diplomat, and I want the paladin to be aquatic and champion creation and compassion against destruction, not necessarily justice and goodness like old paladins. Developing class abilities to those molds and tweaking the spell lists for them is where I feel balance could get shaken up in a bad way.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Am I the only one who's tired of elemental systems? Or, at least, ones based on the classical four (or, at times, five) elements? They're thoroughly overused, in my opinion, and too orderly for me to believe 'em as the fundamental principals of a natural world.

Well, it's not so much that I love elemental systems. It's that the classic D&D system seems to me to be too tied to the four alignments, with a bunch of extra spells thrown in in no real order. I dislike the fact that alignment has actual power in a game system, because it tends to substitute for roleplaying too easily. You know, the classic "they detect as Evil, kill 'em!" problem. In our world, there's no game-related effects of alignment, so how else would you sort magic?

And I actually sort of agree with your point; I don't like purely elemental systems, either. While it'd be nice to sort some things by elements, you should leave the rest alone. In our system, the Elemental school of magic (which actually has 10 elements, I only listed the six "basic" ones.) covers anything manifesting in the purely physical world. Granted, that's a lot of spells, but we have three schools of magic; the other two are Astral (planar stuff, item enchantment, summoning) and Psionics (divination and enchantment; anything involving the minds of living beings, basically), each of which follows slightly different rules. So it's not like the elementalists dominate everything.

 

[GreatLemur]

I just like the idea of a mountain growing taller into the sky for no other reason to block the wind and having cultures so devoted to fire that they tend fields for no other reason to let them dry up and start flashfires.

I've got to admit, that is sort of interesting. I think I'd just prefer it if it wasn't formalized as a set of artificial-sounding categories. For example, what if the primal force mortals interact with as "fire" was generalized a bit more vaguely as something like "energy" (thus including things like lightning, movement, and perhaps even life or magic) or "entropy" (which would then also maifest as things like rust, rot, and erosion). I dunno; I'm thinking this up as I go.

Well, it's not so much that I love elemental systems. It's that the classic D&D system seems to me to be too tied to the four alignments, with a bunch of extra spells thrown in in no real order. I dislike the fact that alignment has actual power in a game system, because it tends to substitute for roleplaying too easily. You know, the classic "they detect as Evil, kill 'em!" problem. In our world, there's no game-related effects of alignment, so how else would you sort magic?

I certainly agree that alignment should have no mechanical effects whatsoever. That's always bugged me about D&D.

I like your organization of magic a lot, on the top levels of its hierarchy: physical-spiritual-mental is a good triumvirate. I'd just rather divide physical magic a bit more scientifically than with an elemental system, categorizing spells or effects by the specific forces or changes they inflict upon the world. Spells that move earth or water both do so by applying motive force to inert matter, and so would belong in the same category ("kinesis," maybe?). Meanwhile, a spell to create water would be doing something completely different (conjuration, I suppose).

I'm interested in hearing your full 10-element list, though.

 

[genshou]

I found the EoM pdf my friend gave me and I was looking over it now. Might use it, might not. Seems to make casters very generic and utilitarian. Great for ease of use and compatibility, but not sure if it fits my campaign flavor yet. Don't own AE or many other books. Was hoping just to take mainly core RAW and develop house rule tweaks to explain the setting. The things I really need to develop are spellcasting classes overall, particularly clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers (the divine ones). I want to make a cleric for the elemental gods that gets granted powers and certain spell lists from them, as well as a weakened cleric of the old gods to reflect lack of worshippers = lack of connection to the deity. The druid should be less destructive and more charming to be a diplomat, and I want the paladin to be aquatic and champion creation and compassion against destruction, not necessarily justice and goodness like old paladins. Developing class abilities to those molds and tweaking the spell lists for them is where I feel balance could get shaken up in a bad way.

Head down to your FLGS–or if yours is like mine and not friendly, to the local bookstore instead–and flip through a copy of Arcana Evolved. If you don't see enough to wet your appetite, there's something wrong with you. It's like hating pizza, chocolate, and ice cream.
In particular, I think you'll like the NO ALIGNMENT rule and the Champion class–basically a non-alignment focused character somewhat similar to paladins, but they get to choose their own cause.

 

[DamionW]

I've got to admit, that is sort of interesting. I think I'd just prefer it if it wasn't formalized as a set of artificial-sounding categories. For example, what if the primal force mortals interact with as "fire" was generalized a bit more vaguely as something like "energy" (thus including things like lightning, movement, and perhaps even life or magic) or "entropy" (which would then also maifest as things like rust, rot, and erosion). I dunno; I'm thinking this up as I go.

I know that the archaic concept of four elements isn't the most accurate division of forces in the world, and that it's also hackneyed, but as a novice DM, it is an easy way to start. My more experienced DM was working on alternate elemental systems, say one composed of Water, Air, Metal and Flesh. Admittedly neat and nasty baddies could come for that, but it's easier to use monsters and spells divided as is to execute my ideas of setting then rework everything from scratch. I encourage you to take a look at the Geography handbook in the other thread at least to see that even though the current four element division is cliche, you can still come up with an interesting setting organized around it, IMO.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I'd just rather divide physical magic a bit more scientifically than with an elemental system, categorizing spells or effects by the specific forces or changes they inflict upon the world. Spells that move earth or water both do so by applying motive force to inert matter, and so would belong in the same category ("kinesis," maybe?).

Ironically, that's actually close to how we did it, although we had to fudge it a bit to fit all the elements in for our cosmology. Ever play jacks? Think of one of those, with the six Outer planes (the ones corresponding to the basic elements) at the ends. Each of the three axes is an Inner plane, corresponding to a more "fundamental" element, while at the center is the hub of Time (the strongest element; in fact, it's too strong for the basic races to use at all). So, the elements come in three "triads" of three, linked together by the top element.
It's awkward to call them all "planes"; you can't travel to higher planes, physically, because they're more... dimensional, I guess. As in, the plane of Force has 4 space dimensions, so a 3D person there wouldn't see more than a glimpse of the reality, and couldn't physically survive there long.

The Life and Death planes are connected by the Light (energy, darkness, invisibility) axis.
The Earth and Air planes are connected by the Force (telekinesis, force walls) axis.
The Fire and Water planes are connected by the Nexus (teleportation, chaos, lotsa instadeath stuff) axis.
In some ways, we kept parts of the old alignment system; Force corresponds to Law, Nexus to Chaos, with Light acting as neutrality. But there's definitely no Good/Evil split any more (and no, Death is not automatically evil, although it comes close). We reworked the specialization system so that you could specialize in several elements or a couple subschools of the Astral or Psionic schools, but the "advanced" elements are harder to specialize in, since they tend to be more efficient at what they do. And, if you specialize in one element, other elements in the same triad are cheaper and easier.

You could use the core races, but we made our own. Each element has a native sentient race: Humans are the native race on Gaia (the plane of Life), while the Dwarves come from the earth plane, the Nymphs (think aquatic elf) from water, Sylphs (fairy halflings/gnomes) from air, Salamanders (lizardfolk) from fire, and the death plane has two races (Gargoyles and Shades, i.e., demons and devils, although the gargs aren't evil; statwise they're close to half-ogres). There are also a couple "uplifted" (magically created) races, like Drak'hai (man-sized dragons) and Tabiranths (big tigers).
The races from the upper planes tend to be looked at as gods by the lower ones, so PCs can't play them.

 

[genshou]

Am I the only one who's tired of elemental systems? Or, at least, ones based on the classical four (or, at times, five) elements? They're thoroughly overused, in my opinion, and too orderly for me to believe 'em as the fundamental principals of a natural world.

I wouldn't say you're the only one... but yours is not the only camp out there. I love the four (five) elements. The writings of Plato are not scripture to me, but they are a great source for gaming inspiration. Look at all the successful video games that rely heavily on the concept of the elements (particularly, thinking of Golden Sun and Final Fantasy). Playing in an elemental setting is fun.

And what's wrong with orderly? Isn't everything else in game rules orderly? And haven't we determined that all things in the real-world universe follow laws (only some of which we can understand at this point)?

 

[DamionW]

Cool design Spatzimaus. Not what I'm going for here, but would've liked to play in it. I like the idea that the axes that connect earth to air and fire to water should mean something. Might work on that.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I like the idea that the axes that connect earth to air and fire to water should mean something. Might work on that.

It worked pretty well in practice; you ended up with a few different styles of elemental mages. Some went for the outer elements, giving them lots of flexibility, while others specialized on the axial elements for more raw power. Most mixed and matched; my mage used Divination, Water, and Force, with a bit of Life and Planar thrown in. (Custom class; think of it as a Psion that burns HP, with more specialized spell lists.)
The axial system was also nice, because instead of elements being purely "opposing", you actually thought of them more as two extremes of the same underlying concept. So, a Force mage had a natural bonus to Earth and Air magic. I suppose you could try creating a pseudoelemental caster PrC that specializes in opposed elements, but I'm not sure how well that'd work for your system.

 

[DamionW]

It worked pretty well in practice; you ended up with a few different styles of elemental mages. Some went for the outer elements, giving them lots of flexibility, while others specialized on the axial elements for more raw power. Most mixed and matched; my mage used Divination, Water, and Force, with a bit of Life and Planar thrown in. (Custom class; think of it as a Psion that burns HP, with more specialized spell lists.)
The axial system was also nice, because instead of elements being purely "opposing", you actually thought of them more as two extremes of the same underlying concept. So, a Force mage had a natural bonus to Earth and Air magic. I suppose you could try creating a pseudoelemental caster PrC that specializes in opposed elements, but I'm not sure how well that'd work for your system.

Did you come up with rationalizations for the axes you had? As there a reason that Fire and Water are more linked to teleportive effects than telekinetic effects, or how did you devise that? Also, I would like to create a spectrum on those axes, showing how becoming less earth and more air is a result of increasing/decreasing some quality (Force in your game). So you could have dust in the middle of the spectrum, say, or steam be the middle of fire/water, etc.