Path magic versus being a general wizard

[enworldatemylogin]

Is anyone familiar with the idea of path magic? Basically you are a specialist mage casting spells only from the paths you choose, like path of fire, path of blades, etc. You can find the details about it here: http://forum.sonomarin.net/viewtopic.php?t=293

I decided to give it a try, but found this idea to be horrible.

Scenario 1
Let us assume a Wizard of 5th level with and Intelligence of 18 is being created.
Let us also assume that I have no interest in creating Paths from scratch, thus I must use paths available. In this case those paths are from Sean K. Reynolds.

A first level Path mage with an 18 INT will start with 5 paths. 1 base path and 4 for his INT bonus.

Now, for this character the paths I chose had to fit, even if only remotely, into one of the following parameters. Since this character was supposed to have learned magic from a FireKnife assassin, one path had to deal with fire and another path sharp pointy things. Second, I wanted at least a few of the spells I would choose for a normal wizard, (ray of enfeeblement and dispel magic). Lastly, I wanted to make sure I had at least 1 spell from levels 0 to 3 to cast.

Thus to fit these parameters the first 5 paths taken at first level are:

Path of Light (dancing lights, light, continual flame, daylight, sunburst)
Blade Fury (magic weapon, greater magic weapon)
Death Rays (ray of enfeeblement, enervation, finger of death, energy drain)
Mind Lock (daze, sleep, hold person, confusion, feeblemind, hold monster, insanity)
Fiery Spheres (flaming sphere, fireball, delayed blast fireball, meteor swarm)

In the case of death rays a modification was required as Enervation was listed as a second level spell when it is a 4th level spell.

Thus, at first level this wizard begins play with the following spells.

0th level
Dancing Lights
Light
Daze

1st level
Magic Weapon
Ray of Enfeeblement
Sleep

When the wizard levels up to 2nd level he gets to choose 3 spells from his paths to add to his spell book. The path mage must still abide by his caster level, thusly he can't choose to add 2nd level or higher spells yet.

This path mage thus gains the following spells for second level.

0th level
none

1st level
none

Upon reaching 3rd level the path mage gets to add both 2nd level spells to his book as well as add a 6th path. This path mage chooses the
Path of Dispelling (dispel magic, antimagic field, greater dispelling, Mordenkainen's disjunction).
He gets to add 3 spells of either 0th, 1st, or 2nd level to his book.

0th level
none

1st level
none

2nd level
Flaming sphere
Continual Flame
Daylight

Now the path mage has reached 4th level. He can add another 3 spells of either 0th, 1st, or 2nd level.

0th level
none

1st level
none

2nd level
none

Finally the wizard has reached 5th level and gains access to 3rd level spells as well as a 7th path. The path chosen for this level needed modification as 3.5 removed one of the spells from the game. Thus the 7th path:
Path of haste (haste, timestop)

3 more spells from the 7 paths can be added to the spell book.

0th level
none

1st level
none

2nd level
none

3rd level
Haste
Dispel magic
Fireball

Thus, this 5th level path mage with 7 paths has 12 spells total in his spell book.
Perhaps if he had different paths he would have more spells. Perhaps less.

Scenario 2
Now, let us assume he chose all paths which had exactly 1 spell of each spell level and recalculate his spell access.

1st level with access to 5 paths means:

0th level
5 spells

1st level
5 spells

Now at 2nd level the mage can add 3 spells. Here we have a problem. If the 5 paths only have 1 spell of 0th and 1st level each, he has already taken all spells possible and thus gains nothing. See the level 2 entry from Scenario 1 above for comparison.

But at 3rd level he gains a 6th path and access to second level spells.
Thus he can add 3 more spells.

4th level is gained. Let us assume at 3rd level the mage took the 0th, 1st, and 2nd level spells from his 6th path. Thus he can still choose the 2nd level spells from the first 5 paths. So he gains 3 more spells.

Finally 5th level and yet another path and 3 more spells.

So he gains 3 more spells.

Total for this particular path mage is 19 spells in his spell book at 5th level.

Now, while writing this I discovered something I believe any reasonable DM would allow. Notice at both versions 2nd level the wizard gained no spells. That's 3 spells he should be able to add at a later time. Thus taking our first example, if the mage waits for 5th level to add those missing 3 spells, he gets:

0th level
none

1st level
none

2nd level
none

3rd level
greater magic weapon
Hold person

Thus the path mage has a revised total of 14 spell.

Taking the second example if we allow the 3 spells to be added at 5th level, the mage only has 2 spells he has not added and so adding those 2 his revised total at 5th level is 21 spells.

Now, let us take a look at a normal wizard.

At first level a normal wizard gets to add 18 0th level spells (not including read magic which would be 19 but a path mage would get as well) and 3 plus 1 for each bonus from INT, for a total of seven 1st level spells.

2nd level he gets to add any 2 spells of 0th or 1st level.

3rd level he gets to add any 2 spells of 0th, 1st or 2nd level.

4th level he gets to add any 2 spells of 0th, 1st or 2nd level.

5th level he gets to add any 2 spells of 0th, 1st, 2nd or 3rd level.

Thus a 5th level normal wizard has a total of 33.

Thus 14 spells for the first example path mage, 21 for the second example or 33 for the normal wizard.

Further restrictions. A path mage can't use any scroll or wand he might find that contains magic not on his path. Such items can NOT be used by a path mage, while a normal wizard could use a wand and add a scroll to his spell book or use the scroll.

Am I missing something? Or is this as horrible as I think? Even at 6th level it is horrible, as both Scenario 1 and 2 have no spells to add. Maybe at 7th level it would finally start looking like a viable option, but who the hell is going to stay with it for 7 levels?

 

[Heretic Apostate]

You wouldn't happen to know what was the Dragon number that this first appeared in, would you? Is it (hopefully...) in the first 250? (I have the Dragon Magazine Archive, thus I am hoping I don't have to hunt it down...)

 

[enworldatemylogin]

Alas, my dragon cdrom archive is packed away, just as my magazines are, though those only go up to about 200. But I'm sure I didn't read any of the articles, so I couldn't guess even.

 

[Silveras]

Yeah, that was designed for 2nd Edition, when Wizards started with 3 1st-level spells and relied mostly on found scrolls and captured spellbooks for more. They also had a "cap", based on Intelligence, as to how many spells of each level they could understand ("know"). Very, very few Wizards could know all spells; most had to be choosy about which ones they acquired. This system actually guaranteed that a Wizard got a useful spell at some levels, one which s/he might have had a hard time finding otherwise.

I think, with 3rd Edition's more generous allowance for spells, the approach used in a couple of the Forgotten Realms supplements might be better.

The idea is that the DM selects a series of spells, one each from 1st level through 9th level, and defines that as being the "tradition" for a region. S/he then creates a feat named for that region. For example, you might create such a list and a feat named "French Aeromancer". It might have these spells:

(1) Obscuring Mist, (2) Gust of Wind, (3) Wind Wall, (4) Ice Storm, (5) Overland Flight, (6) Acid Fog, (7) Control Weather, (8) Incendiary Cloud, (9) Etherealness

Taking the feat would grant you +1 caster level with those spells when you could cast them. Note that the Forgotten Realms also has "Regional" requirements for feats -- you must either have been born there, or have made the effort (invested skill points) to learn the ways of the region before you can take its feats.

 

[enworldatemylogin]

Any idea on how to make path magic work, besides using feats?

 

[Silveras]

Any idea on how to make path magic work, besides using feats?

I'll start by saying that it works better as a flavor thing now, and not as a mechanic. It was designed as a structured way of learning spells in 2nd Edition, when such was often haphazard or required a lot of research; those conditions are not true in 3.0/3.5, and so trying to stick to it too closely makes what was the advantage into a drawback.

That being said, you could do these things:

• Borrow another old concept. The 1st Edition Oriental Adventures gave a bonus to damage on all spells of one element if the Wu Jen caster knew all of the available ones. In other words, if a Wu Jen who could cast 3rd level spells went out of his way to learn ALL of the fire-related ones of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level, s/he could get bonus damage when using them. Similarly, if a character knows all the spells of a path up to the level s/he can cast, a small bonus might be in order. However, in that case, the caster should be limited in how many paths s/he is pursuing, preferably to 1 or 2. Other spells may be learned, but they do not earn bonuses.
• Create a new class that does not get 2 spells each level, and instead learns by Paths.
• Make Path magic an option for Sorcerers, not Wizards. This restores its function of *increasing* the spells known instead of decreasing them.
• Make the lower level spells of a path pre-requisites for learning the higher level spells. Want Greater Scrying ? You need Locate Object, Locate Person, and Scrying first.

In the end, something has to change. Path magic, as described in the article, presumes a different list of spells (some 1st & 2nd Edition spells were dropped when 3rd Edition was created) and a different availability (wizards had to work harder). You are probably better off creating a new mechanic that preserves the flavor (learning lists of related spells) instead of trying to make the old one work (somehow).

 

[Eternalknight]

As to which Dragon it was either 216 or 217.

 

[Buttercup]

You could reduce the number of paths by splitting the SRD spells into a smaller number of categories.

Earth
Air
Fire
Water
Mind
Life
Death
War
Peace


Just off the top of my head. I think this would work better for a themed sorcerer than a wizard, though.

 

[Allanon]

Scarred Lands has something similar to this in the Scion feats (which are sorcerer exclusive).
In short you can take such a feat (which entails roleplaying difficulties) and get a bonus to certain spells on a specific list for that scion feat. You're also obligated to take these spells.

But ask Nightfall if you want to know more. He is the Scarred Lands Sage after all

 

[seankreynolds]

Hello.

First of all, my path magic stuff he's referring to can be found here: http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/pathmagic.html

Second, my path magic was never intended to be a limit to what you could not select as a sorcerer or wizard ... it was intended to reward people who chose spells with a similar theme, so using my paths as a basis for "you're allowed X number of paths to choose spells from" is probably completely unbalanced, especially as many of the paths have no spells for some spell levels (a problem the 2E cleric spheres system had). So I wouldn't use it for that.

Third and last, I expanded upon the paths and added spells to fill in spell-level holes in most of them in my book Path of the Magi.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with path magic. Honestly, if your DM wanted a balanced and playable character for you using paths as a limit, they should have designated more spells as "universal" spells, like 3E did with read magic and such.