Magic Categorization

[Roman]

Just as a theoretical exercise, how what 'schools' of magic would you implement if you were not using the core schools and wanted to encompass all magic (arcane, divine, etc)?

I thought of something like this:

Life Magic - healing spells, resurrection spells, etc.
Death Magic - death effects, undead creation, etc.
Dimensional Magic - summoning, gates, instantaneous movement, time manipulation, etc.
Energy Magic - blasting, telekinesis, etc.
Transformation Magic - polymorphing, direct buffs, imbuing items & creatures, etc.
Mental Magic - charms, domination, compulsions, etc.
Illusion Magic - phantasms, glimmers, etc.
Divination Magic - question & answer spells, scrying, etc.

Am I missing something?

Dimensional magic and transformation magic do seem more powerful than other schools in this case, but they make conceptual sense. Perhaps they could be split up into two schools each:
Transformation magic into - Transformation magic and Infusion magic
Dimensional magic into - Dimensional magic and Temporal magic

That would give:

Life Magic - healing spells, resurrection spells, etc.
Death Magic - death effects, undead creation, etc.
Dimensional Magic - summoning, gates, instantaneous movement, etc.
Temporal Magic - hasting, time manipulation, etc.
Energy Magic - blasting, telekinesis, etc.
Transformation Magic - polymorphing, transmutation, etc.
Infusion Magic - imbuing items & creatures, curses, etc.
Mental Magic - charms, domination, compulsions, etc.
Illusion Magic - phantasms, glimmers, etc.
Divination Magic - question & answer spells, scrying, etc.

Any thoughts?

 

[kyloss]

Personaly I have been looking at some like this for a while and I have the following breakdown

life-healing, curing, undead, resurection(for me only resurection is 9th level spell and very rare.)

destruction- death effects, disintigrations-all insta kills-very resricted, illegal, rare, and just generaly frowned upon.

trickery- enchantment and illusion

energy- w 2 subschools- offense and deffense

transportation-conjuration teleports etc all other movements as well

transmorgrification- transmutions and some alterations that dont fit elsewhere.

And on a side note all casters need a theme or gimick along with some other mods like wizards using wands or staffs inplace of spell components. sorcerers use spell components still.

 

[Beholder Bob]

1st thought: I'd make the names more evocative - more flavorful. Saying 'I am a dimension mage' doesn't sound very DnD/medieval.
2nd thought: don't break a school into offense/defense. Find another division.

For my game, I use the following schools. I do allow some spells to fall into more then 1 school.

Khemia: Sympathetic magic, Alchemy, the manipulation of matter and release of stored energies.

Astrology: Tap into the flow of celestial lines of force, granting some divination, harnessing the local lines to create astral constructs, and the purpose (but not shape or form) of creatures and objects.

Cabalism: Manipulate the raw numbers and formula that describe creatures and objects. The power of glyphs, wards, probable fates, and temporary life to objects.

Diabolism: Mastery of earth and fire, bending it to your will. Earth is born of fire in the volcano.

Stratomancy: Mastery of water and sky, thunder and lightning, weather and cold. Water is born from the air.

Necromancy: Manipulation of the soul and spirit, the animating force of life. Fear, domination, and death magic.

Sarcomancy: Magic of the flesh, blood, and bone. Animate the dead, alter your body.

Mesmerism: Alteration of thought, controlling minds, and purely mental illusions.

Oneiromancy: The magic of sleep, dreams, and illusions. Perception, the quasi real, and some divination.

Shadowmancy: Abominations, things that should not be, and annihilation. Darkness, mirrors, and madness.

Unseelie Arts: Fey minions, faerie magics, glamours, transformations, and bending realities rules.

Common Arcanum: spells that effect other spells or are so common that they form the foundation for any magic study.

So - 12 schools, counting the common Arcanum.

BB

 

[Tric]

Reminds me of Everquest (or something like that), it fooled one of my old friends into thinking there were 6 "elements": Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Life, and Death. *rolls eyes*

Not saying your makings are anything like that, mind you...

 

[Roman]

Well, how about this for esoteric names (inspired or taken from Latin):

Eruditionis Vitae (Life Magic) - healing spells, resurrection spells, etc.
Lucubratio Necros (Death Magic) - death effects, undead creation, etc.
Magia Spatiale (Dimensional/Spatial Magic) - summoning, gates, instantaneous movement, etc.
Veneficium Temporalis (Time/Temporal Magic) - hasting, time manipulation, etc.
Arcana Vigoris (Energy Magic) - blasting, telekinesis, etc.
Studium Metamorphosis (Transformation Magic) - polymorphing, transmutation, etc.
Gnaritas Infusio (Infusion Magic) - imbuing items & creatures, curses, etc.
Disciplina Cognitio (Mind/Mental Magic) - charms, domination, compulsions, etc.
Doctrina Praestigiae (Illusion/Trickery Magic) - phantasms, glimmers, etc.
Gnaritas Prudentia (Divination Magic) - question & answer spells, scrying, etc.

 

[Spatzimaus]

For a homebrew, this is exactly what we did, combining all magic into some schools. In our system, there are three Schools of magic: Elemental (physical effects on the normal world), Psionic (mental effects on the normal world), and Astral (effects on the metaphysical world, i.e. the connections between the planes).

Elemental has ten subschools in three tiers.
The lowest Tier, the "Basic" elements, are Life, Death, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Each of these is tied to a specific plane (and our world is on the Life plane, named "Gaia") where that element is the strongest and the opposed element is the weakest.
The second Tier, the "Advanced" elements, are Force (manipulation of forces / Law), Nexus (manipulation of positions, i.e. teleportation / Chaos), and Light (manipulation of raw energy / Balance). Each is also tied to a plane, but they don't oppose; instead, each is tied to an opposed pair of Basic planes, so Light is between Life and Death, Force is between Earth and Air, Nexus is between Fire and Water. The advanced element is strong on both connected basic planes.
The highest element is Time. Really, really nasty stuff.

No one can physically travel to a higher plane, although there are spells that let you astrally project to one of the next tier. And, you can only use elements of your tier or one higher, so no humans can use Time magic or view the plane of Time.
One side effect is that there is no longer the focus on the "Prime Material"; all six basic planes are equal, with the exception that Gaia was the original home of the protorace that diverged into the other intelligent races, and has by far the highest population. The inhabitants of the higher planes are the gods, basically.

Psionic has two subschools: Divination (incoming/passive) and Enchantment (outgoing/active). They're much larger than any of the individual elemental subschools. Every psionic ability involves other living beings.

Astral has two subschools: Planar (travel, perception, summoning) and Material (item enchantment/construct summoning). Like with Psionic, they're much larger than the elemental subschools.

 

[kyloss]

1st thought: I'd make the names more evocative - more flavorful. Saying 'I am a dimension mage' doesn't sound very DnD/medieval.
2nd thought: don't break a school into offense/defense. Find another division.

First in answer to the second question they are only subschools not seperate schoold it is just a role playing thing, Offensive magic is generaly restricted like military weapons so defensive magics like wall of flame and protections arent as restricted or looked down upon for the average person to use. second in answer to the first the names are just names, simple discriptors used to let the public understand what he does in a nut shell - in my game magic is not esoteric to understand, just to use., also I do a magic is common but weaker campaign- above 4th level or so is very very rare but below that - common and plentiful.

 

[Roman]

For a homebrew, this is exactly what we did, combining all magic into some schools. In our system, there are three Schools of magic: Elemental (physical effects on the normal world), Psionic (mental effects on the normal world), and Astral (effects on the metaphysical world, i.e. the connections between the planes).

Elemental has ten subschools in three tiers.
The lowest Tier, the "Basic" elements, are Life, Death, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Each of these is tied to a specific plane (and our world is on the Life plane, named "Gaia") where that element is the strongest and the opposed element is the weakest.
The second Tier, the "Advanced" elements, are Force (manipulation of forces / Law), Nexus (manipulation of positions, i.e. teleportation / Chaos), and Light (manipulation of raw energy / Balance). Each is also tied to a plane, but they don't oppose; instead, each is tied to an opposed pair of Basic planes, so Light is between Life and Death, Force is between Earth and Air, Nexus is between Fire and Water. The advanced element is strong on both connected basic planes.
The highest element is Time. Really, really nasty stuff.

No one can physically travel to a higher plane, although there are spells that let you astrally project to one of the next tier. And, you can only use elements of your tier or one higher, so no humans can use Time magic or view the plane of Time.
One side effect is that there is no longer the focus on the "Prime Material"; all six basic planes are equal, with the exception that Gaia was the original home of the protorace that diverged into the other intelligent races, and has by far the highest population. The inhabitants of the higher planes are the gods, basically.

Psionic has two subschools: Divination (incoming/passive) and Enchantment (outgoing/active). They're much larger than any of the individual elemental subschools. Every psionic ability involves other living beings.

Astral has two subschools: Planar (travel, perception, summoning) and Material (item enchantment/construct summoning). Like with Psionic, they're much larger than the elemental subschools.

I particularly like the division of the elemental magic and its tying to the planes. What I think is best is that physical travel to other planes is impossible - this has the right flavour as far as I am concerned. However, I would like to ask how do you interact with the planes in your game without physical travel?

 

[Spatzimaus]

What I think is best is that physical travel to other planes is impossible - this has the right flavour as far as I am concerned. However, I would like to ask how do you interact with the planes in your game without physical travel?

Not quite. Under our system you can't physically travel to a HIGHER plane. Plane Shift, or its equivalent, can take you from one Basic plane to another, conditions permitting. And that last clause is the kicker; the spells that give planar travel are a lot less reliable in our setup. There's a system of "planar turbulence"; a good caster can force his way through it, but the more people you bring or the further you try to go, the more likely it'll fail.

So, a Human from the Plane of Life (Gaia) could physically travel to the Plane of Death (Svarga), and vice versa. While he couldn't actually travel to the Plane of Force (Elysium), he could astrally project there (although it's not as good as being there; think of yourself as a 2D creature in a 3D world). And he couldn't do anything involving the Plane of Time (Amber); it's completely out of bounds.

The idea in our cosmology was that Gaia was the "garden of Eden", the only lower plane with an intelligent race, and then the protohumans discovered magic (the whole Tree of Knowledge thing) and figured out how to cross the planar barriers. The planar boundaries strengthen and weaken in cycles, and during one of the lulls they spread to the six Basic planes, and eventually evolved into seven intelligent races appropriate to their surroundings: Humans (Life), Dwarves (Earth), Nymphs (aka Elves, Water), Sylphs (aka Fairies, Air), Salamanders (Fire), Gargoyles (Death), and Shades (Death). None are inherently good or evil, other than the Shades (completely xenophobic).

The point is, what does planar travel get you? Going to the Plane of Water sounds all well and good, until you realize that the reason it's called the Plane of Water is that the entire surface is underwater. The Plane of Fire is a big desert world (it's called Arrakis, you can get the rest of the concept from that). The Plane of Earth is, well, the Underdark. And so on; most of these places aren't really suited for anyone other than their inhabitants, so most adventures just naturally end up taking place on the Plane of Life. It's worked well, actually.