D&D 5E Reworking Spell Lists (Reducing "Sameyness")

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens
Supporter
Lets not even joke about giving all the walls to Primal. That's just silly. Mind you, the Arcane list seems to be losing all the summoning as well, so IDK... :p
 

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Tony Vargas

Legend
..
Overall, the current spell count through level 3 is:
Cleric - 69, Druid - 72, Wizard - 85

Wizard is approaching the maximum improved length I want to see for myself, but hopefully it won't get about 25-30% greater than Cleric and Druid.
For perspective, of the spells in the PH, over 200 are wizard, just over 100 druid and 100 cleric. So you're committing to eliminating a lotta arcane spells.

Otiliuke's Resilient Sphere
I suppose you could go all "Kord's Resilient Sphere" or whatever, but, I'd rather not.

Banishment
Summon Greater Demon
...I'm increasingly liking 'Arcane summons, Divine banishes'

Confusion
Been an MU spell far too long. (but, I get the Fey connection)
Polymorph
Can't see moving that one, either. And Druids already shapechange, themselves.
 

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens
Supporter
It does fit the theme of taking all the good spells out of the arcane list though. :p Sorry, couldn't resist...
 

tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Epic
Regarding druids being mature is, it's really only fr &greyhawk that are into tree hugging as a whole.

In dark sun there aren't really many trees but one strip (forest ridge?) And they pretty much just kill people

In eberron ther are a lot more complex and developed

Green singers are iirc kinda boring

Ashbound - they believe non druidic magic to be an abomination and after the day of mourning happened might have some merit there. Picture Greenpeace at their worst but directed at things like arcane magic in a world where magic is the electricity and oi.

Children of winter. Pretty much what you might imagine if you tried to think up nectomantic druidic rites. They shepherd death and such because all things end for rebirth to happen in other things


Wardens of the wood. During the last war aundaire was busy with the war and neglected doing things like policing the eldeen reaches (foresty western edge). Which was especially problematic because lots of the bandits were refugees and foreign armies. The wardens put their foot down and under the great pine auline(?) Declared themself to be local security and government. By all accounts it's a pretty nice place despite some unusual laws and holidays that may be partly due to the wilderness.

The gatekeepers.... these are druids who looked at the war hammer40k orcs and decided that it was a poor showing. They were the first druids in khorvaire (possibly more than just thst) and were eberron orcs taught druidic and maybe draconic magic by the black dragon Vvaraak who became known as the scaled apostate for doing so. Their mission was not to protect "nature", it was to fight off an extraplanar invasion foreseen in the draconic prophecy as being apocalyptic and while they beat the daelkyr by imprisoning them in Khyber its unknown if the daelkyr were THE invasion so they remain vigilant against extraplanar influences and incursions. They created monstrous crossbreed known as the horrid beasts and doing so is implied to have been a pretty dark act either directly or by how they were used. One possibility was to fight alongside... a different but credible possability was as area denial self populating depopulation tool that had the lucky benefit of maybe killing some daelkyr creations while killing the native creatures so the daelkyr could not transform them... whatever the case it may have been the reason why some of the other druidic sects said whoaah and split off.
 

tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Epic
@Tony Vargas I posted a bunch of seordmeow's spells that can be used to pad out the lists with new stuff but only got up to level 5 and probably can't devote much time to the rest for the next couple days but they are publiceally available like the others
 

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens
Supporter
I've always been interested in the idea of differentiating casters based on mechanics rather than domain. So different casters interact with magic in different ways. That's a whole other project though. I have been toying with the idea of writing warren based magic system for 5e based roughly on the Malazan books. Off topic though, moving sorta back on track...

Druids as written in PHB don't interest me much, but I can think of some variants that do. Something is a balance/death/psychopomp role would be super keen. I think I need to kitbash a Shadowfell Druid just to see what that would look like.
 

TwoSix

Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
Then lets rebalance a little with the next spell levels!

Arcane Sphere
Arcane Eye
Charm Monster
Dimension Door
Evard's Black Tentacle
Fabricate
Greater Invisibility
Leomund's Secret Chest
Locate Creature (I think cleric could be better. Like, its a questing knight spell: ''find the dragon'' and all that)
Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound
Mordenkainen's Private sanctum (maybe let cleric have this one so they have one ''housing spell'' before Temple of the Gods?)
Phantasmal Killer
Storm Sphere
Vitriolic Sphere (Arcane got ''spheres'', Primal got ''walls'' : Go Geomancers!)
Watery Sphere

Divine Sphere
Aura of Life
Aura of Purity (could be druid)
Banishment
Compulsion
Death Ward
Divination
Freedom of Movement
Guardian of Faith
Otiliuke's Resilient Sphere
Sickening Radiance (maybe Arcane? Its it more divine light or radiation?)
Staggering Smite
Summon Greater Demon

Primal Sphere
Blight
Confusion
Conjure Minor Elementals
Control Water
Dominate Beast
Elemental Bane (could be Cleric, with the anti-primordial vibe of the gods)
Fire Shield
Giant Insect
Giant Vine
Hallucinatory Terrain
Ice Storm
Polymorph
Stone Shape
Stoneskin (I could go with Arcane if need be)
Wall of Fire
Yea, we have a fair amount of agreement on these. Where I differed:

Divine Sphere - Mine included Charm Monster, Confusion, and Find Greater Steed. I may need to rethink, I don't think Divine charm has a lot of traction (as much as I like it).

Primal Sphere - Mine also has Conjure Woodland Beings, Guardian of Nature, Storm Sphere, and Vitriolic Sphere.

Arcane Sphere - Mine has Fire Shield, Freedom of Movement, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Polymorph, Sickening Radiance, and Shadow of Moil.

I think I'm comfortable deemphasizing Divine charm, but I think extraplanar magic like Conjure X and Banishment really fits comfortably into Divine's wheelhouse.

The most important tossup spells here are Polymorph (A,P), Fire Shield (A,P), and all the spheres.
 

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens
Supporter
Leave Polymorph in A. Let the hurting stop.;) Vitriolic seems pretty A, but Watery could be P for sure. Leaving Storm which could go wither way. I think Wall of Fire should maybe slide back to A in exchange for some sphere action - the Arcane list needs some Wall spells. I know, meta meta meta, but it's important.
 

TwoSix

Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
Leave Polymorph in A. Let the hurting stop.;) Vitriolic seems pretty A, but Watery could be P for sure. Leaving Storm which could go wither way. I think Wall of Fire should maybe slide back to A in exchange for some sphere action - the Arcane list needs some Wall spells. I know, meta meta meta, but it's important.
Arcane is going to get Wall of Force, which is pretty much all the Wall action anyone really needs. :)
 

Tales and Chronicles

Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix
Arcane is going to get Wall of Force, which is pretty much all the Wall action anyone really needs. :)
Wall of Force, Prismatic wall and Forcecage! and maybe Stonewall, because I always felt like its more of a ''dungeon wall'' than a wall of primordial stone.
 

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