Rewriting the Rules

[Vrecknidj]

Wizards are all specialists. They begin by learning magical rituals, which later progress to spells. In other words, the spell you learn at 1st level takes longer to cast, but by 3rd level you've mastered it.

I had thought of something similar--and may use my idea (or steal yours) if I start a new campaign. My idea was that there is a base class (the arcanist) that only goes up to 8th level. There are then several advanced classes, each of which is associated with a particular school of magic (so, transmuter, evoker, illusionist, etc.). In each case, the prerequisite for the advanced class is so many ranks in Knowledge (arcana), Concentration and Spellcraft, and the having of so many spells from that school in one's spellbooks. Each advanced class was a six-level class.

In addition, there are then prestige classes, each associated with a school, with names like Master Evoker, Master Transmuter, etc. Each of these has more stringent requirements. And each is also a 6-level class (8+6+6 = 20, this system is designed to handle up to 20th level but adding epic versions of the classes would be straightforward). In addition, there's a 6-level prestige class called the Master Arcanist. The prerequisite for this is the ability to cast spells of 4th level from three different schools. This will have required the caster to have taken two levels in each of the three advanced classes, but not to have become an expert in any. So, the Master Arcanist has the greatest breadth of spells known, but cannot cast the highest level spells.

Anyway, I seem to remember typing it all up and leaving it to collect electronic dust in some folder on my harddrive somewhere. But when I read your post I was reminded that it's there.

Dave

 

[Raven Crowking]

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[Raven Crowking]

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[Raven Crowking]

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[Piratecat]

Piratecat, I have 11 players now, and a line outside the door hoping for a chance to get in. Most of them are greatly desirous to try to altered rules as soon as they become available.

Cool. Some people are inveterate tinkerers, and it's great that you have players who are willing to give stuff a try. Glad to hear it.

 

[Starman]

Sounds interesting. One of the ideas I was playing with was trying to create an atmosphere where nearly everyone would want to build toward a prestige class, simply because the prestige classes offered more than the core classes. In other words, building in a bias toward prestige classes. After all, if you want to play in a certain style of game, building bonuses into the rules for playing in that style seems to be a good move to me.


RC

Have you thought about using the d20 Modern classes? They are very generic and players are encouraged to move into advanced classes and prestige classes to fit their character concept.

Starman

 

[Raven Crowking]

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[Matt Black]

Raven, I've done a lot of d20 tinkering myself. I've found that it's necessary if you want to craft a game with a very particular flavour. Having thoroughly enjoyed your Lakelands stuff, which has lots in common with our style of play, I'd be very interested in seeing your rules adaptions. Especially your ideas on magic! The examples you give are very cool.

Matt

 

[Raven Crowking]

Started Work on Race Adaptations

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[The Souljourner]

If you use a battle mat for fights, you really shouldn't remove attacks of opportunity. They force players not to move willy-nilly through a battle field, and add a lot of strategy to the game. They also balance many actions, like grappling, spellcasting, etc. and add a lot of danger to large, high level monsters. In addition, you're making reach weapons almost useless. I know I'd never use a reach weapon if I couldn't get attacks of opportunity from them - enemies just walk right up to you and get inside your reach, and you're screwed.

It also sounds like you're really lowering the power of spellcasters. I'm pretty sure I'd never play a priest who could randomly stop being able to cast spells in the first battle of the day. Something as important as how many spells you can cast in a day should not be determined by random chance... especially in the case of a priest. Rolling bad and not getting any more spells sounds like the randomness of a chaos god, which is fine if that's what you want, but other gods? Not so much.

-The Souljourner