D&D (2024) Playtest 6: Spells

[Yaarel]

For example in Norse texts, the word to "heal" and to "grow" are the same word, gróa. Healing magic is about shapeshifting.

There is also a magical healing technique where one transfers the ailment from the patient into an inanimate object, such as a whale bone or a stone. This is similarly a form of shapeshifting.

In modern analogues, it is more like cloning new organs, including new skin cells, or like expelling toxins or parasites.

In D&D, Healing deserves to be its own magical category, and the term "Abjuration" is useful.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Death is about killing.

The dead are about the influence of those who exist in a new form of nature, including those who are the corpses of dust and the breaths of wind.

This may be a cultural difference, but no. That is not how that is generally perceived in my experience.

True Resurrection and Clone are examples of creating a new body. For example, if the original body exists but is irretrievable, then there would be two bodies (thus two ki lifeforce aura that cling to each body), but the disembodied mind (being the consciousness and self of the soul) unites with only one of them. There is no actual need to destroy the original body.

To remove a disease by pulling it out as ooze, or simply sweating it out or via urine or feces, is fine. Maybe for the sake of the story, yuckier imagery is more visceral and fun.

And both of those spells (True Resurrection and Clone) are listed as Necromancy spells. Additionally, we are talking about low level healing magic, such as cure wounds or lesser restoration, which do not create new bodies for the host spirit.

And, while it may make a good yuck story, that is not the visual presented with magical healing in DnD. We do have to be somewhat careful in not stepping too far outside the bounds of what DnD presents magical healing as.

Healing damage such as a missing limb has nothing to do with death or destruction.

How do you deal with the scar tissue? The bacteria in the air that latched onto the wound? How do you prevent the super cells that are regenerating at an accelerated rate from becoming cancerous? How did you get them to work in that manner in the first place (doing so requires destroying the limiters on cells)?

Yes, some of this is highly medically technical and may not be taking place, but it can easily fit in there.

Except when medicine doesnt work that way, such as by creating prosthetic limb or supplying a missing hormone, nutrient, or other chemical agent, or by supplying "good" bacteria for the healthy ecosystem of the gut.

Prosethetics aren't how healing magic works, that is something entirely different. But it is fair to say that supplying a missing chemical or healthy bacteria is a factor. But you must also remove the things that caused that imbalance in the first place. It does you no good to put good bacteria back in, if you can't remove the bad bacteria which devoured them all and caused the illness.

Killing bacteria and gaining assistance from undead souls ... are dissimilar concepts.

Neither are carnivores who eat meat the same thing as undead. Nor are Fighters who kill in combat the same thing as undead.

Necromancy is more specifically about dangerous magic, including undead, fiend, and the "Necronomicon".

That is only because you are artificially limiting it. This is similar to saying the only use for radioactive material is to create nuclear bombs. Yes, there is a dangerous thing here, but there are other uses. Also, nothing in necromancy as it pertains to DnD requires a fiendish connection. Every spell to contact or summon fiends is either divination or conjuration, not necromancy.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In D&D, Healing deserves to be its own magical category, and the term "Abjuration" is useful.

Useful, but not perfectly accurate. Abjuration includes creating physical barriers and manipulating magical energy. Neither of which exactly correlates to restoring lost limbs. There are ways to make it work, in the concept of "rejection of" but it is a much trickier and more esoteric connection than the straight line you can draw between necromancy and healing.

Specifically because Necromancy must include the ability to manipulate life energy and the body, otherwise it could not give rise to zombies and ghouls.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I've seen a number of fantasy worlds use words like 'Animancy' and 'Biomancy' to incorporate all parts of the life/death cycle (including healing) in order to avoid the cultural conventions of what 'Necromancy' has always been.

Necromancers traditionally are 'bad guys'. They create undead, which is generally considered at least morally grey-- if not outright evil. So no amount of reasoning will get a lot of people onboard to the idea of healing spells being necromantic. So if you change the name of the school to Animancy or Biomancy, you could then create a DMG / NPC subclass of 'Necromancer' that is specifically about grey or evil wizards (to go along with the Oathbreaker and Death Cleric.)

 

[Stalker0]

It is a fair question that if wizard subclasses stop using spell schools (which miiiight happen).... is there really any point to schools anymore?

Its kind of like alignment, it still "exists" technically but in a hippy go with the flow kind of way, nothing really works off it anymore. So at the end of the day you can say a spell is from any school per say, what does it really matter?

 

[Yaarel]

I've seen a number of fantasy worlds use words like 'Animancy' and 'Biomancy' to incorporate all parts of the life/death cycle (including healing) in order to avoid the cultural conventions of what 'Necromancy' has always been.

I suspect the 5e designers (ala 4e) are intentionally using the term "Necromancy" for the purpose of being "darker" and "edgier" and amoral "shades of gray".

But life magic − especially biological animal life − and undead are different kinds of creatures, different kinds of concepts, and different kinds of magic.

I appreciate when the school categorization keeps separate concepts separate.

 

[Yaarel]

Necromancers traditionally are 'bad guys'. They create undead, which is generally considered at least morally grey-- if not outright evil. So no amount of reasoning will get a lot of people onboard to the idea of healing spells being necromantic. So if you change the name of the school to Animancy or Biomancy, you could then create a DMG / NPC subclass of 'Necromancer' that is specifically about grey or evil wizards (to go along with the Oathbreaker and Death Cleric.)

With regard to necromancing the undead, its ethics depends on the memory and dignity of those who died.

"No amount of reasoning" can erase the reallife meanings of "necromancy".

 

[TwoSix]

It is a fair question that if wizard subclasses stop using spell schools (which miiiight happen).... is there really any point to schools anymore?

Its kind of like alignment, it still "exists" technically but in a hippy go with the flow kind of way, nothing really works off it anymore. So at the end of the day you can say a spell is from any school per say, what does it really matter?

I mean, that definitely would have made sense, right up until WotC added a clause that Druids could only cast Abjuration spells while Wild Shaped. Then it becomes a relevant game term for which we can ask valid questions about the design intent.

 

[Yaarel]

I didnt know this, but the two meanings of "necromancy" − undead magic and fiendish magic − derive from two separate etymologies.

Originally, Greek nekromanteía means "corpse oracle", namely visiting graves or summoning ghosts to reveal knowledge. Compare modern mediums who describe speaking with ghosts. This Greek term enters Latin as necromantia, whence Old French necromancie and English necromancy.

However, Medieval Latin also altered the Latin term to innovate nigromantia to describe "black magic", namely magic done via harmful or evil spirits.

Under the influence of the undead magic itself being a forbidden (biblically unkosher) method of magic, sometimes understood to be dangerous, deceptive, or idolatrous, these two terms necromantia and nigromantia merged back together, whence English necromancy.

For D&D, the dangerous and forbidden creature types are Undead, Fiend, and Aberration.

 

[Yaarel]

It is a fair question that if wizard subclasses stop using spell schools (which miiiight happen).... is there really any point to schools anymore?

Its kind of like alignment, it still "exists" technically but in a hippy go with the flow kind of way, nothing really works off it anymore. So at the end of the day you can say a spell is from any school per say, what does it really matter?

Huh. I might prefer if 5e treats the spell lists as flavor only without mechanics.

The default lists are arcane, primal, or divine. But other lists can appear instead, such as psionic, elemental. A more consistently organized School spell lists can appear, with one spell list for each school.

The purpose of any of these lists is to help the player decide which flavor one wants to explore for a character concept. The lists themselves lack mechanics, but the player can decide which flavors feel appropriate.