Level Up (A5E) Improving spells

[Giltonio_Santos]

Creating brand new spells, according Level Up sensibilities, is also a way to be backward compatible. D&D 5e can easily import new spells.

I second this suggestion. Also, sometimes a new spell can go a long way to improve what seems to be a weak archetype. Look at the Beastmaster, for example: having a version of hunter's mark that you could cast on your beast would improve it a lot without the need to change the core ranger.

 

[Eltab]

I second this suggestion. Also, sometimes a new spell can go a long way to improve what seems to be a weak archetype. Look at the Beastmaster, for example: having a version of hunter's mark that you could cast on your beast would improve it a lot without the need to change the core ranger.

Beast of Combat that gives your animal companion (and ONLY that companion) buffs like hunters mark, heroism, or bless.

 

[Giauz]

Perhaps a really simple change would be best. The big list of spell names sorted by class and alphabetically at the beginning of the Spells chapter- just put '(abbrev. School of magic)' next to each spell. That way nothing much changes for normal findability of spells, and I can make my Eldritch Knight faster.

 

[Zaukrie]

With the goal of taking up less space for spells that are kind of the same......

Elemental Ball:
You cast a ball of elemental energy at your enemies. (that's fireball, snilloc's snowball swarm, etc)

Damaging Bolt:
This is firebolt, ray of frost, etc.

This would maybe help people with fluff also, since really a lot of spells are just the same spell re-fluffed.

 

[CubicsRube]

With the goal of taking up less space for spells that are kind of the same......

Elemental Ball:
You cast a ball of elemental energy at your enemies. (that's fireball, snilloc's snowball swarm, etc)

Damaging Bolt:
This is firebolt, ray of frost, etc.

This would maybe help people with fluff also, since really a lot of spells are just the same spell re-fluffed.

That's very much like Savage Worlds.

You have a spell called "Bolt" that you have to assign a trapping to when you learn it. So perhaps you learn the spell as fire bolt, but someone else learns it as cold bolt. Later on you could pick the same spell and learning it as thunder bolt (or whatever).

The DMG has some rules for modifying spells by damage type, notably that damage die should decrease for damage types that are less resisted. But it would be nice to have something like this established in core. I love the idea of an enemy necromancer having a "necrotic bolt" while the cleric in the party fights back with a "radiant bolt" or whatever.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's very much like Savage Worlds.

You have a spell called "Bolt" that you have to assign a trapping to when you learn it. So perhaps you learn the spell as fire bolt, but someone else learns it as cold bolt. Later on you could pick the same spell and learning it as thunder bolt (or whatever).

The DMG has some rules for modifying spells by damage type, notably that damage die should decrease for damage types that are less resisted. But it would be nice to have something like this established in core. I love the idea of an enemy necromancer having a "necrotic bolt" while the cleric in the party fights back with a "radiant bolt" or whatever.

See, I've always felt that genericizing spells in this way does a disservice to the game by removing a lot of flavor to magic and forcing people to make it up themselves. It's the same reason I preferred the old Ultimate Powers Book from TSR's Marvel game over the more modern effects-based systems like Mutants and Masterminds. Idiosyncrasies are replaced by unifying blandness.

 

[Zaukrie]

See, I've always felt that genericizing spells in this way does a disservice to the game by removing a lot of flavor to magic and forcing people to make it up themselves. It's the same reason I preferred the old Ultimate Powers Book from TSR's Marvel game over the more modern effects-based systems like Mutants and Masterminds. Idiosyncrasies are replaced by unifying blandness.

Fair....of course, you can put in the fluff for all the versions of the ball of energy.......but save space by not re-doing all the other stuff......

In reality, it would be great if we could figure out how to magic more magical.....but I'm not sure how to do that easily and well in an RPG where many of the players have read/played/etc magic stories for a long time.

 

[Larrin]

See, I've always felt that genericizing spells in this way does a disservice to the game by removing a lot of flavor to magic and forcing people to make it up themselves. It's the same reason I preferred the old Ultimate Powers Book from TSR's Marvel game over the more modern effects-based systems like Mutants and Masterminds. Idiosyncrasies are replaced by unifying blandness.

I agree, I would like to see most elements having a signature spell at most levels, but I don't want them to just be clones of each other. So not just "[fill in the blank] Ball" but like level 3: fire gets a ball, lightning gets a line, thunder gets a cone, acid gets single target, psychic gets blah, etc. Spread them out among the schools too when possible.

 

[CubicsRube]

Well most people have heard me mention it here, but by far my favourite magic system for fantasy is Shadow of the Demon Lord. Most schools are fairly tightly bound thematic packages of levelled spells to learn and modular, so you can combine as you want. If you want to have light and radiant spells, pick celestial. Want bardic spells? Pick Song. Want to be a radiant bard? Pick both and learn them.

The core book has around 30 spell schools with many more in supplements. It's great as a GM. I've created demonolist transmuters, technomancer diviners, Curse and healing witches, storm clerics, water spell pirates, teleportation shamans, and more. I don't know any other system that has this level of modularity without being totally freeform and more crunchy, like GURPS.

 

[Scott Christian]

Well most people have heard me mention it here, but by far my favourite magic system for fantasy is Shadow of the Demon Lord. Most schools are fairly tightly bound thematic packages of levelled spells to learn and modular, so you can combine as you want. If you want to have light and radiant spells, pick celestial. Want bardic spells? Pick Song. Want to be a radiant bard? Pick both and learn them.

The core book has around 30 spell schools with many more in supplements. It's great as a GM. I've created demonolist transmuters, technomancer diviners, Curse and healing witches, storm clerics, water spell pirates, teleportation shamans, and more. I don't know any other system that has this level of modularity without being totally freeform and more crunchy, like GURPS.

I don't know this system, but it sounds neat.

It makes me think what if there were a system where you combined various elements: demon magic with a pinch of transmutation and then rolled to see what was created.