Recapturing the old Illusionist 'feel' for 3rd ed.?

[Driddle]

I miss the very separate spell lists for the ol' Illusionist class from previous editions. Even though 3rd edition has a very tidy set-up for various spellcaster specialists (which does serve nicely overall), you're still only giving up one spell school to call yourself an "illusionist" ... and that just doesn't seem like enough differentiation to me to set apart specialists from their generic wizardly brethren.

It's a minor complaint, and I'm not whining a lot. But I'm curious about what additional modifications/variants, if any, other gamers have added to the system to give the spellslingers more of a unique facade. Anyone?

 

[Spatula]

It's two schools now, in 3.5.

Really, nothing beats seperate spell lists for a difference in feel (and that was the only big difference between magic-users and illusionists back in 1E). The easy way would be to designate certain spells as 'specialist-only', so that only illusionists could learn color spray, for example. The harder but ultimately more rewarding (IMO) thing to do would be to come up with completely seperate lists for generalists and for each specialist, with spells that are only available to one or more types of wizard and spells that are known at different levels for different types (like how most healing spells are higher level for druids than they are for clerics).

 

[johnsemlak]

I'm don't remember the exact rules, but Unearthed Arcana presented some nice rules for giving specialist wizards some more interesting differences. Not separate spell lists; but some special abilities, and limitations.

 

[Particle_Man]

A radical change that actually captures an old feel

I just got "The Elements of Magic == Revised" and am impressed with it. It uses spell points and spell lists (which are verb-noun combo's). The way they do illusions is a lot more free-form than 3rd ed., and reminds me of 1st ed. In fact, in some places I think it goes TOO far...the DM needs to step in to make sure that low level illusion-casters don't create gargantuan dragon illusions that do 60% real damage. (This can be solved with a little tweaking -- there are controls on the Summon and Create lists that I would borrow for any Illusion lists that have partially real effects).

Anyhow, while non-illusionists could use some Illusion spell lists, it still pays to learn all of the illusion spell lists one can, and doing so pretty much makes one a de facto illusionist.

 

[Vrecknidj]

I haven't done anything about this, though I too miss the first edition illusionist. If I were to make a change, I'd do one of these.

1) Create a new class, called the Illusionist, and make up a spell list for the class. The basic stuff would be probably the same as the wizard, but the spell list would be smaller, and I'd probably create some new feats that fit the notion of illusion-based magic. I'd make Bluff, Diplomacy, Hide, Move Silently, Sense Motive and Sleight of Hand into class skills.

2) Create a prestige class called the Illusionist. The prerequisites would be the ability to cast a certain number of illusion spells and probably some specific illusion spells. The class would get +1 level to existing spellcasting class every level, would have the skills mentioned above (and perhaps 4 points per level instead of 2), would probably have access to some newly-created feats, and would probably have some interesting feature that allowed the caster to use his Cha modifier as a bonus to some of his illusions.

Dave

 

[Driddle]

I s'pose the loss of two schools just doesn't seem like much differentiation to me, when it leaves so many overlapping spells between "specialists."

(shrug) Eh. Then again, I'm really tired right now. It's probably not important enough to complain about.

What was that trait/feat called in Unearthed Arcana that gives +1 effective caster level to a PC's preferred school at the cost of -1 level to all other schools? Pretty harsh definition, but appropriate to what I'm thinking of here.