Primitive vs Advanced Magic

[frankthedm]

The Magic spells characters normally cast seem to me as a very advanced form of magic.

Allowing casters to forgo the VSM's of spells with painfully high failure and mishap rates allows for less evolved casting. Don’t want to use bat poo with one’s fireball? Randomly determine it’s range with a % die roll. Skipping the somatics? Casting time becomes 1d4+1 rounds. Etc, etc…

 

[VirgilCaine]

IMC, Some PHB spells are the basis for better spells.

Speak With Dead-->Interrogate Dead (forcing the dead to speak whether it wants to or not)-->Absorb Dead Knowledge (pick through a dead spirits body of knowledge for specific data).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

EarthDawn had multiple magic systems: raw casting, spell pattern objects, grimoire casting, blood magic and matrix magic. Raw is the most powerful, fastest, and dangerous. Matrix magic is the most refined, complex, safe but slow.

Yes, Earthdawn seems like a good example for different "advances" in magic. But it's not only a question of advancement of understanding, it was also a question of the ebbs and flow of mana in the world.

Shadowrun also offers a kind of magic advancements over the course of its editions.
The rules for magic changed slightly. A notable difference might be between 3rd and the new 4th edition:
In 3rd edition, spellcasters were divided into Shamans and Hermeticians. Shamans had a Totem and could conjure nature spirits. They were "spontanous" conjurer, in that they could conjure a new spirit on the fly, though they could only retain control over a single spirit at the same time. Hermeticians could conjure elementals, which required a long ritual. They could bound multiple elementals with this rituals, and could call and control them individually.

In the 4th edition, the game mechanis for magic were more streamlined, and as a result, the strict distinction between shamanistic and hermetic magic was removed. Every spellcaster could summon spirits on the fly or bind spirits. The in-game logic was that magicians have learned that the distinction was artifical and that the percieved limits didn't really exist.

(I guess not all SR groups were happy with these changes, by the way, though I appreciated the streamlining a lot.)

 

[DMH]

Okay, how about making the PH version of magic primitive- what comes next?

I do have one book, but not a setting, that covers this a bit- Factory. But that is just in golem to computer and implant advances, not spells.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Okay, how about making the PH version of magic primitive- what comes next?

Well, one thought would be some progression toward something like a point based magic system.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Okay, how about making the PH version of magic primitive- what comes next?

I do have one book, but not a setting, that covers this a bit- Factory. But that is just in golem to computer and implant advances, not spells.

I'm planning on doing something like this as my campaign progresses - one thought would be to have magic evolve to something more like Arcana Evolved, where spell templates can be added to any spell, and all spells have heightened and diminished versions.

I'm planning on making pure spellcasting classes less common, but having more partial spellcasters - you'll see less wizards, but more urban rangers, bards, and such. Also I'll probably allow general use of some of the "use low-level magic" feats from Complete Arcane...

 

[Chris Tavares]

The lack of progress in magic goes back to the source material that D&D was based on.

Tolkien, Vance, Moorcock - in all these works, the setting was a diminished age, that was a mere shadow of the past. This translates directly into the "we've used the same spells for 1000 years, because nobody could improve on them" and "if we want power we need to delve into the ancient past down this hole in the ground."

The idea of progress is really pretty modern.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

One of the reasons why I like Iron Kingdoms is that arcane magic is relatively new, being only a few hundred years old and they are making new, better, bigger things all the time.

Magic with its own industrial age, basically.

Magic being a dying force is of course heavily through celtic-influenced fantasy as we see through Tolkien and his many, many author-spawn. I think it's a great idea to have a growing idea of 'science' effecting magic.

Rules wise, however, theres nothing to really show a great deal of difference. It's all in the description. My single player rogue hunted around to get a speak with dead spell at one point; I described a gypsy-type woman who cut off the corpses head, ripped off the face and nailed it to the wall where it was forced to answer questions or stay in that torment; much different to the stench of chemical, lack of eyebrows, yellow fingers and palsied condition of the wizard she'd come across, or even the sorcerer with flashing green pupils who effected fire magic like most people walk.

It's all in the description. My suggestion to really work it into your game is to describe the ways of magic. Got a "primitive" mage? he mutters and mumbles and draws runes on the ground and spills chicken blood on them. Got an "Advanced" mage? His neatly inscribed latin forms a mathematical whirlwind on the ground, to which he adds the life essense distilled from a chicken.

Note: Advanced mages will tend to reach higher levels quicker, simply because they already have a codified research and practise system, and a society that allows them to be as such. Primitive mages will tend to stay at middling levels; they level slower, have less spells and so on simply because they haven't the wealth of knowledge and access to research a society supported wizard may have.

Imagine Lorenzo d'Medici patronising a court wizard, feeding him, clothing him, giving him access to rooms and methods to study and gain experience. Lorenzo purchases some ancient books on magic theory for our court wizard that have been long hidden and not available to any hedge-mage. The mage himself, perhaps a genius or perhaps just a working joe would increase to and beyond the capacity that any hedge maze, shaman, or backstreet conjuror could simply because our court wizard has access to all of those other mages and they do not have access to his resources. Lorenzo may use him in battle or other reasons, but more than most he spouts it to the other lords that he has the "greatest" wizard in the land. Not to say with the most potential, or anything. But the most thorough, reliable, well educated and broad wizard.

Our wizard, being intelligent and powerful, organises greater copies of these books to go around to his friends. They then organise for more. Perhaps a college, with magical researchers is set up to study magical phenomena, or so on.

Arcane magic should be renaissance in tone, basically. There needs to be the society and culture set up to support aging finger wagglers; this didn't happen in human society a great deal until the renaissance.