D&D General Progressive Spells?

[dave2008]

Thank you everyone for pointing me to resources in D&D an other games that do something similar. If I get a chance I will work on this idea further for 5e.

 

[dave2008]

My favorite rendition of spells was in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved where spells kind of did this.

I will take a look - thanks!

 

[dave2008]

Clerical domains are kind of like this. Paths of Power, from Distant Horizons Games, takes the idea and runs with it, turning virtually all magic into domain-like paths, grouped by things like creature type, alignment, narrative archetypes, etc. The book is free, and there's an expansion over in Paths of Power II: Monstrous Paths.

A compiled version of both books can be found over on Lulu.

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

Thank you for the suggestion!

 

[dave2008]

This was actually in a couple of older editions: there were spell paths. I know I've seen it in the 2e Wizard's Spell Compendium and in Dragon #216, but I'm trying to think if I've seen it anywhere else.

That is the one many people seem to remember. I will be sure to check it out. Thank you!

 

[Mannahnin]

An issue discussed upstream - having to plan out ones spell progression in advance - actually doesn't apply quite that way here. The magic paths were self-contained but had some overlap. They also had a completely different spell progression, in which you learned paths instead of individual spells.

So say that at 2nd level you could know 2 paths, and one of your choices was the Path of Fire. That path had basically all the fire spells in it, but some of those fire spells were also in other paths for various reasons.

Isn't this basically what Rolemaster (and MERP, by extension) does as well? Any given caster character has access to certain spell lists, which have spells of increasing power from lowest level to highest? And the lists themselves are each curated to a theme, IIRC.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Isn't this basically what Rolemaster (and MERP, by extension) does as well? Any given caster character has access to certain spell lists, which have spells of increasing power from lowest level to highest? And the lists themselves are each curated to a theme, IIRC.

It might be. I haven't looked at RoleMaster in 20 years.

Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria also has narrow lists based on speciality (pyromancer, cryomancer, illusionist, etc).

I don't think it's a bad approach overall. Curated spell lists are a decent way of finding off the swiss army knife effect without hobbling spell casters to the point of uselessness.

 

[jgsugden]

A flip on this idea for campaigns where spellbooks/scrolls will be rare: Wizards automatically gain the next spell in a progression when they advance to the appropriate level if they have an earlier spell in the progression in their spellbook. I did that waaaaaaaaay back when in a game where the PCs were exploring a world without spell scrolls or spellbooks in it. It worked fine.

Outside of that - I suggest that if you like this approach, mention it to your players and let them make the choice to do it. Otherwise, let them build their PCs as they see fit.

 

[Oofta]

Much like I don't have to learn to make cupcakes before I know how to make a cake, I just don't see manifesting magic in certain ways as being a prerequisite. In addition to the meta-game reasons to not do it, the effect of a spell doesn't really matter. It's a question of have you mastered the formula of how to invoke a spell.

I could kind of see having a lower level spell from the same school, but that's it. If you want a specific PC to do this, it's interesting thematically. As a general rule? No.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Conceptually I think it's a very interesting idea. An expansion of the idea of spell schools, really.

Practically speaking, though, I think you'd have to redesign significant portions of the magic system to get it to work.

For example, if you're a Sorcerer or Wizard that chooses "project fire", you might get Firebolt, Burning Hands, Scorching Ray, Fireball, Wall of Fire, Firestorm, Meteor Swarm, etc. If you choose "project lightning", you get... Shocking Grasp, Lightning Bolt, and Chain Lightning. If you choose "project acid", you get Acid Splash and Melf's Acid Arrow and that's it.

Now you have to resolve the idea of if picking a track takes up a spell known, does each spell in the chain take a spell known? So Fireball takes 4 spells to know? That's obnoxious, especially for a Sorcerer.

On the other hand, if picking a path gives you all the spells in the chain, why would you ever pick "project acid"?

 

[TwoSix]

I loved the idea (especially since my two favorite Al-Qadim authors wrote the article and the example lists were AQ based). But it's a very difficult one to manage in D&D, both because there are so many spells that have nothing to do with anything else and because new spells have always been added so quickly that any list published would be out of date before the ink dried.

I agree. It's an interesting approach if the system is built around developing paths and then filling it in with spells (Shadow of the Demon Lord is built this way), but I think it's too difficult to do with D&D's existing, extremely varied approach to spell design.