D&D General Progressive Spells?

[dave2008]

Well, first, I didn't mean to diss you at all. I just happen to disagree. Sorry if that's not clear.

No worries!

I could see having to take at least one evocation spell per spell level, I just think focusing on energy type doesn't work. What's the precursor to Evard's Black Tentacles? There are a lot of spells that don't do specific energy damage. But maybe I'm just confused by your example? I mean ... take spells that do acid damage as another example. The cantrip is Acid Splash, a conjuration spell. But that's the only spell that does acid damage, most of the rest are evocation.

To me spell school is a logical grouping that still gives you a decent spread of spells. Kind of goes back to the old editions where you had opposing schools, the spell school is all about how you manipulate reality. The theory and expertise is in one specialty of manipulating reality not the result of that manipulation.

To be honest I am thinking less of how the current spell list magic system is set up an how it might work a new set up. If I were to try this I would first throw out the current spell list then build it back up with that idea in mind, filling in gaps where needed. I also don't think you need spell at every level (so you don't need a fire spell at each level to cast a 5th level fire spell).

 

[Alzrius]

the feat chain problem, which can be extra annoying if you require wizards to find their spells in the wild.

Could that problem be solved, or at least mitigated, by providing extra feat slots which could only be spent on feats that expanded your spell access? It seems (in theory at least) that - if you tied them to a spellcasting class's progression - it wouldn't be too different from how spellcasting classes currently gain spell slots for Vancian spells.

 

[Faolyn]

Could that problem be solved, or at least mitigated, by providing extra feat slots which could only be spent on feats that expanded your spell access? It seems (in theory at least) that - if you tied them to a spellcasting class's progression - it wouldn't be too different from how spellcasting classes currently gain spell slots for Vancian spells.

Well, it's not real feats. It's that you have to take spell A if you want to be able to cast spell Z down the line. If you don't have easy access to new spells, for wizards--or you can only know a handful of spells, like with sorcerers--then you're spending "slots" on spells you might not want later on.

 

[dave2008]

Could that problem be solved, or at least mitigated, by providing extra feat slots which could only be spent on feats that expanded your spell access? It seems (in theory at least) that - if you tied them to a spellcasting class's progression - it wouldn't be too different from how spellcasting classes currently gain spell slots for Vancian spells.

I don't think @Charlaquin is actually talking about spell feats. They are suggesting that if there are spell requirements it creates the problem like a feat chain, it is spell chain if you will.

 

[Scott Christian]

Seems like a neat concept. If it were to be implemented, I would think the DM needs to be fairly generous in their treasure allotment of spellbooks and scrolls. Maybe expand the number of spells the wizard can memorize as well. I don't think it would break anything to allow this.

 

[Blue Orange]

I wonder if this works better narratively (say in a fantasy novel) than in games. It's logical, given that wizard magic is often analogized to science and science is divided into increasingly divergent subfields (a physicist knows little molecular biology), but a big part of D&D is finding random spellbooks and scrolls as treasure, and this greatly decreases the probability any randomly determined spell scroll or book is useful. If this is going to be done, you might want to make sure wizards' schools make lower-level spells easily available.

It almost works better for classes with more limited spell lists like warlocks and sorcerers. Some of it's already done for warlocks, what with the archfey/fiend/great old one trichotomy.

 

[MoonSong]

It almost works better for classes with more limited spell lists like warlocks and sorcerers. Some of it's already done for warlocks, what with the archfey/fiend/great old one trichotomy.

On the contrary, sorcerers are already hard to play because they have so little spells available with a heavy strain between being effective and sticking to a theme. Forcing them to have to take spells in order -including many spells that overlap and are redundant with each other- only makes it worse, not better.

 

[Faolyn]

I think if you really want to have progressive spells, what you should do is create a completely new bunch of spells that get progressively better as you spend higher level slots on them. Not just the +1 die damage per slot level. Things like, if you spend a 1st level slot, it's basically burning hands, with a 2nd level slot, it's pretty much scorching ray, with a 3rd level slot, it's fireball, with a 4th level slot, it's wall of fire, etc. (And then get rid of the individual spells they mimic.)

 

[DeviousQuail]

It's a neat idea. Clearly, it would be better served by being built into the system but I've never let that stop me before.

Half-baked idea number one: D&D already has schools of magic for every spell so make the rule "to add a spell to your spellbook you must have another spell already in your spellbook that is from the same school and is at least half the level of the spell you are adding". Using the round down rules of 5e that means no requirement for any 1st level spell, at least one 1st level spell before you can add a 2nd level spell, at least one 2nd level spell before you can add a 4th, ..., and at least one 4th level spell before you can add a 9th. Not difficult but does meet the requirement of needing previous training in a school to master higher level spells. You can adjust this to be 2/3, one level lower, or whatever tickles your fancy. This rule wouldn't apply Clerics, Druids, Rangers, and Paladins since they can adjust their spell lists whenever. Perhaps Sorcerers are special because they get to ignore it too?

Half-baked idea number two: If memory serves Morrus' Level Up gives a bunch of "tags" to spells like Divine, Fire, Nature, Water, Arcane, etc. It would be pretty easy to make highly customizable chains from that. Every time you get a new spell level you just pick another spell on your class list that must include your chosen tag. Since many of the spells have multiple tags you could easily have two characters with the same tag that end up with entirely different spells.

 

[clearstream]

There is no problem I am trying to solve. This is not an issue of balance or flexibility or anything like that. It was just an idea of how to express how we learn things. In particular I was thinking about how we learn math. There is a progression from basic match to more advanced math and I was thinking magic would / could be similar. If that is what I want, how would I go about doing that in the simplest way possible. Does that clarify the OP for you?

Here I am using 'problem' to mean something like - what does the design do for players that is meaningful to be done? It's a common phrasing for design work. One looks through a lense of problems to solve or jobs to be done. Benefits that matter. Change that makes things better. It guides to articulating the parameters of a good solution as a separate activity from working in solution mode.

As another poster noted, you stated a problem in the quoted part - you were thinking about how we learn and asked how magic could follow that in the simplest way possible. The problem then is that magic does not follow in the simplest way possible how we learn. I understood your OP. I was offering some ideas to efficiently reaching a solution. Think about the work to revise the spell list? Quite a lot of effort. And you need your spell management systems on top of that. Then playtesting. And revisions. The thought is to make clear what your payoff will be prior to paying that cost.