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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hjorimir" data-source="post: 1536446" data-attributes="member: 5745">The way I've always said it is, "As a DM, you can write all the plot you want. It is the players, however, that will write the story."Anyway, I also favor trying to make magic more, well, magical within D&D. It is no easy task. Most of us have been playing so long that we have become hopelessly jaded with fireballs and magic missiles. I even see fighters telling their wizard counterparts how to best cast spells for a given situation. Of course, I have to remind the fighter's player that they don't really have any training and shouldn't be telling magic users about magic at all.But I digress. One of the major hurtles when toying with the magic system inherent to a D&D game is the rippling effects that has on game balance. Even a minor change, while seeming innocuous enough, can have untold repercussions on the delicate balance between the player characters and the opponents they face.We’ve been giving the point system presented in Unearthed Arcana a run in my current game. While I think it has worked out okay (and has really toned down the use of evocation spells in favor of those that are more subtle…and cost less) I don’t think it has increased the ‘feel’ of magic in any way.In my campaign, there are very few wizards (and very few places to gain spells). As a result, the player characters will have to research almost every spell they add to their books (including clerics, but I won’t get into that). This at least makes spells and the materials required to research them highly desirable and, therefore, special in the eyes of the players.Another thing I am doing is encouraging the players to actually develop new spells unique to their characters. This will mean that the other players will not have any intrinsic knowledge of how such spells operate, which creates a sense of newness within the game. That is the theory, at least.I would like to incorporate other unusual factors into magic, but haven’t come up with anything that doesn’t shift the balance too far (either for or against the player’s benefit). I have considered associating spells with celestial movements (and that would make a certain amount of sense within my game), but if feels awfully Dragonlance-cheesy to me (not to suggest I didn’t enjoy Dragonlance in its day, just that it is completely unoriginal in its conception).Something I have toyed around with before and am considering using again is the impact of seasons upon a druid’s spell casting power. Briefly, all I did was associate the seasons with an aspect of magic. It seemed like summer was too strong (with all of the fire spells) when compared to the spells that were enhanced during the other seasons. Not a huge issue as I subsequently weakened the seasonal magic during the opposite season (i.e. summer spells being weaker during the winter months).</blockquote>

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