Chris_Nightwing
First Post
I've been gathering my thoughts on how magic has been presented in previous editions of the game, how it exists currently in D&D Next and perhaps how it ought to be. There are a number of major questions to answer, some of which have been discussed by the designers and these boards already, but I will try to summarise the arguments where possible. I also present some suggestions that will, in my opinion, help to define magic for D&D Next, focusing mainly on the Arcane side of things.
Question 0
The most fundamental question, I think, that differentiates magic systems from different worlds/games is, "Can magic do ANYTHING?". I think that all editions have had the same spirit, which is that, yes, magic can do anything, whether that be turning a wizard into a combatant as good as a fighter, or ressurecting the dead party member, or finding the planar location of the bad guy's lair. I will note that due to the somewhat careful balance of 4th edition, there were fewer reasons to research your own spells (I don't recall offhand if the rules discuss this), but I certainly did so in all prior editions. This was often to create a signature spell, or to have a specific damage type at a given level, or just to see how much I could abuse a DM's lack of experience.
Should magic be able to do anything? I think that this principle is worth aligning with, though some fundamental limits should remain in place. For instance, whilst Wish was a highly amusing spell, it was *too* open-ended to be a useful addition to the game. The addition of Rituals in 4th edition allowed a non-trivial cost to be assigned to any given effect, and I think this a rule to stick with. The individually prepared cantrips and spells cast by a Wizard/Cleric should never create something permanent, nor bypass an 'exploration' task (such as finding the bad guy's lair). Making an individual challenge trivial though, is acceptable (such as casting fly to get over a chasm, or charm person to avoid a bar fight). Non-ritual spells should still be cautious not to make another character's schtick redundant, so casting knock to get through a door is acceptable if it means the Wizard can pretend to be a Rogue for that check, not if it opens any door without question. For spells that are both prepared and available as rituals, I am undecided - it's hard to put a component price on something you can technically several times a day if you ready yourself for it, but on the other hand I don't want the Wizard having to prepare fly for everyone and having nothing else to do because you know a chasm is coming up. I suppose my final word on this is that if magic can do anything, prepared spells should only be able to do a subset of everything.
Other Questions
Arcane vs. Divine: A sort of question 0.5 is whether or not the type of magic determines what can be done. Traditionally clerical magic can heal and deal with animals and grand-scale effects like weather better than the arcane, whereas the arcane can deal more damage and has a tendency towards area effects. Both can create things, summon things, divine things and affect minds.
I think it's a good idea to reduce unnecessary spell entries wherever possible. If clerics are going to have effects that match their deity, and happen to be similar to wizard spells, then there's no point in making two spell entries. On the other hand, I am all for making the two forms of magic more distinct. I don't think that clerics should be dishing out elemental damage unless theit god is related to the elements. 'Holy' damage is acceptable, particularly if alignments interact with the world again. Generally though, with different domains, it would seem like clerics will be able to do anything wizards can, plus healing, so perhaps restrict the 'general' spell list they have access to, but allow them some subset of Arcane magic through domains. Wizards will still have the advantage as the ultimate magic users if they can use every element and school, with clerics restricted to 1 or 2 at best.
Spells/Rituals: We've had classical Vancian magic, we've had cast-at-will cantrips, we've had encounter powers and rituals. We've had prepared spells and spontaneous casting. There are a whole host of ways to cast spells, but how best to do so?
I like rituals - they allow for the 'magic does anything' scenario, but place a cost on elaborate effects and make magic more reasonable for world-building. I also approve of at-will cantrips, to give spell-casters something to do when their big effects are done for the day. I was never an encounter-power fan. I would (and am pleased to see) the separation of magic into cantrips, spells and rituals. I would add one more category though: ceremonies. These would be rituals in which anyone can participate, so long as one person knows the ceremony. The point of this is to allow other party members to contribute non-GP costs towards effects that will benefit the whole party. For instance, 'Mass Fly' could cost GP, sure, but why not give everyone taking part flight for the duration at the cost of HP/XP/HD? Sure, GP or magic dust effectively allows this already, but I'd rather move away from an economic cost for effects to a personal cost. If you want to reign in buff spells, give them a cost of some kind. I quite liked the XP costs of 3rd edition permanency, I think that effects that buff the entire party to make a challenge or encounter easier could easily cost XP. Similarly, you could spend HD, reducing your available healing in exchange for that all-day immunity to poison buff.
Damage Types: Another edition means another chance to clear up the 1001 damage types and keywords that exist. Off the top of my head I can think of: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Thunder/Sonic, Acid, Psychic, Holy/Unholy, Chaos/Law, Force. Should damage types align with the elemental system, the planes, or be independent?
I particularly loathe acid and thunder damage types. The former is really a fire/physical effect, and the latter a purely physical effect. I'm not sure where to go with damage types - it depends entirely on the planes to be honest. If the classical elements are used then I would suggest fire (fire), ice (water), lightning (air) and physical (earth), with force being the mysterious fifth element. Express acid as a combination of fire/physical damage. Get rid of psychic damage - that's for psionics. The aligned damage types.. depend on alignment interaction with clerics, the planes and the world, so they could stay or go. An alternative element system would be fire/ice/lightning, earth absent. It's tricky to find the right set, but a reduction rather than expansion would be ideal.
Schools of Magic: Magical schools have been around a while, the standard 8 being: Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion and Necromancy. Cleric spells were shoe-horned into these schools (notably healing spells have been both necromantic and conjured). There has been quite a lot of overlap between what effects the different schools can have (evocation/conjuration mostly) and they vary in perceived power level.
Here's the big thing I'd like to see with better definition. I have wracked my brains to figure out how to divide every possible magic effect. The best I could come up with was a division into three: Creation, Alteration, Destruction, but this doesn't really cover Divination, and Illusions are unclear. Instead I think consolidation and better definition of existing schools is required. Abjuration has an obvious flavour: defence, but the means by which this is achieved vary considerably (incorporating force, elemental and mental effects). Alteration is perhaps the most vague, as changing things could include almost anything. Conjuration makes sense when it summons things, but this has grown to include bringing non-creatures from the planes. Divination is obvious. Enchantment should be mind-affected spells, but has got a little bloated. Evocation ought to be just damaging things, but confuses itself with conjuration. Illusion at low-levels is clear, but then starts to act like evocation and enchantment. Necromancy seems obvious, but isn't really. So here's what I think: first of all, remove necromancy and associated spells and make life and death entirely the business of clerics (if they classify spells by schools then Necromancy is a fine name). Second, consolidate abjuration and alteration - most protective spells change the caster in some way (stoneskin for instance) except for those that created barriers (and were evocation anyway). Refine enchantment to make it entirely direct mind-affecting spells, and do the same with illusion to make it entirely indirect mind-affecting spells (the key difference being whether or not there is a specific target, or if anyone who finds the illusion might be affected). Evocation and Conjuration should stick to what they know - evocation being a formation of the elements to do something, and conjuration summoning actual things from the planes (presuming there are elemental planes). Divination remains as is, though an alternative consolidation might be divination/abjuration, as you can't protect yourself without knowing what to protect yourself against. This gives us Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation and Illusion - six schools, with clerics handling Necromancy if they must.
My Final Suggestion
This has been discussed before, but I was surprised in the playtest that it appears the Wizard is getting an increasing number of spells per level, and that the spells at each level were distinct. Especially given the discussion of fireball being prepared at different levels. You can solve all of this by giving Wizards/Clerics a fixed number of spell slots that never changes - the only thing that gets better as level increases is what spells you can prepare in those slots. I'm going to go for a nice round number, five, as a starting point, with new spell levels coming in at 2nd, 4th, 6th etc.. and a lowest level slot being exchanged for a highest level slot at each level up:
Now, the effect of preparing a spell in a given slot is either increased damage for evocation, increased HP threshold for legitmate targets for enchantment, more targets for various schools, longer duration/greater bonus for alteration, greater HD creatures for conjuration, longer range or detail for divination and more significant effects/duration for illusion. Linear power progression, something new every level and lots to do at 1st level. Distinct and restricted spell schools.
Thoughts? Sorry if I bored you!
Question 0
The most fundamental question, I think, that differentiates magic systems from different worlds/games is, "Can magic do ANYTHING?". I think that all editions have had the same spirit, which is that, yes, magic can do anything, whether that be turning a wizard into a combatant as good as a fighter, or ressurecting the dead party member, or finding the planar location of the bad guy's lair. I will note that due to the somewhat careful balance of 4th edition, there were fewer reasons to research your own spells (I don't recall offhand if the rules discuss this), but I certainly did so in all prior editions. This was often to create a signature spell, or to have a specific damage type at a given level, or just to see how much I could abuse a DM's lack of experience.
Should magic be able to do anything? I think that this principle is worth aligning with, though some fundamental limits should remain in place. For instance, whilst Wish was a highly amusing spell, it was *too* open-ended to be a useful addition to the game. The addition of Rituals in 4th edition allowed a non-trivial cost to be assigned to any given effect, and I think this a rule to stick with. The individually prepared cantrips and spells cast by a Wizard/Cleric should never create something permanent, nor bypass an 'exploration' task (such as finding the bad guy's lair). Making an individual challenge trivial though, is acceptable (such as casting fly to get over a chasm, or charm person to avoid a bar fight). Non-ritual spells should still be cautious not to make another character's schtick redundant, so casting knock to get through a door is acceptable if it means the Wizard can pretend to be a Rogue for that check, not if it opens any door without question. For spells that are both prepared and available as rituals, I am undecided - it's hard to put a component price on something you can technically several times a day if you ready yourself for it, but on the other hand I don't want the Wizard having to prepare fly for everyone and having nothing else to do because you know a chasm is coming up. I suppose my final word on this is that if magic can do anything, prepared spells should only be able to do a subset of everything.
Other Questions
Arcane vs. Divine: A sort of question 0.5 is whether or not the type of magic determines what can be done. Traditionally clerical magic can heal and deal with animals and grand-scale effects like weather better than the arcane, whereas the arcane can deal more damage and has a tendency towards area effects. Both can create things, summon things, divine things and affect minds.
I think it's a good idea to reduce unnecessary spell entries wherever possible. If clerics are going to have effects that match their deity, and happen to be similar to wizard spells, then there's no point in making two spell entries. On the other hand, I am all for making the two forms of magic more distinct. I don't think that clerics should be dishing out elemental damage unless theit god is related to the elements. 'Holy' damage is acceptable, particularly if alignments interact with the world again. Generally though, with different domains, it would seem like clerics will be able to do anything wizards can, plus healing, so perhaps restrict the 'general' spell list they have access to, but allow them some subset of Arcane magic through domains. Wizards will still have the advantage as the ultimate magic users if they can use every element and school, with clerics restricted to 1 or 2 at best.
Spells/Rituals: We've had classical Vancian magic, we've had cast-at-will cantrips, we've had encounter powers and rituals. We've had prepared spells and spontaneous casting. There are a whole host of ways to cast spells, but how best to do so?
I like rituals - they allow for the 'magic does anything' scenario, but place a cost on elaborate effects and make magic more reasonable for world-building. I also approve of at-will cantrips, to give spell-casters something to do when their big effects are done for the day. I was never an encounter-power fan. I would (and am pleased to see) the separation of magic into cantrips, spells and rituals. I would add one more category though: ceremonies. These would be rituals in which anyone can participate, so long as one person knows the ceremony. The point of this is to allow other party members to contribute non-GP costs towards effects that will benefit the whole party. For instance, 'Mass Fly' could cost GP, sure, but why not give everyone taking part flight for the duration at the cost of HP/XP/HD? Sure, GP or magic dust effectively allows this already, but I'd rather move away from an economic cost for effects to a personal cost. If you want to reign in buff spells, give them a cost of some kind. I quite liked the XP costs of 3rd edition permanency, I think that effects that buff the entire party to make a challenge or encounter easier could easily cost XP. Similarly, you could spend HD, reducing your available healing in exchange for that all-day immunity to poison buff.
Damage Types: Another edition means another chance to clear up the 1001 damage types and keywords that exist. Off the top of my head I can think of: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Thunder/Sonic, Acid, Psychic, Holy/Unholy, Chaos/Law, Force. Should damage types align with the elemental system, the planes, or be independent?
I particularly loathe acid and thunder damage types. The former is really a fire/physical effect, and the latter a purely physical effect. I'm not sure where to go with damage types - it depends entirely on the planes to be honest. If the classical elements are used then I would suggest fire (fire), ice (water), lightning (air) and physical (earth), with force being the mysterious fifth element. Express acid as a combination of fire/physical damage. Get rid of psychic damage - that's for psionics. The aligned damage types.. depend on alignment interaction with clerics, the planes and the world, so they could stay or go. An alternative element system would be fire/ice/lightning, earth absent. It's tricky to find the right set, but a reduction rather than expansion would be ideal.
Schools of Magic: Magical schools have been around a while, the standard 8 being: Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion and Necromancy. Cleric spells were shoe-horned into these schools (notably healing spells have been both necromantic and conjured). There has been quite a lot of overlap between what effects the different schools can have (evocation/conjuration mostly) and they vary in perceived power level.
Here's the big thing I'd like to see with better definition. I have wracked my brains to figure out how to divide every possible magic effect. The best I could come up with was a division into three: Creation, Alteration, Destruction, but this doesn't really cover Divination, and Illusions are unclear. Instead I think consolidation and better definition of existing schools is required. Abjuration has an obvious flavour: defence, but the means by which this is achieved vary considerably (incorporating force, elemental and mental effects). Alteration is perhaps the most vague, as changing things could include almost anything. Conjuration makes sense when it summons things, but this has grown to include bringing non-creatures from the planes. Divination is obvious. Enchantment should be mind-affected spells, but has got a little bloated. Evocation ought to be just damaging things, but confuses itself with conjuration. Illusion at low-levels is clear, but then starts to act like evocation and enchantment. Necromancy seems obvious, but isn't really. So here's what I think: first of all, remove necromancy and associated spells and make life and death entirely the business of clerics (if they classify spells by schools then Necromancy is a fine name). Second, consolidate abjuration and alteration - most protective spells change the caster in some way (stoneskin for instance) except for those that created barriers (and were evocation anyway). Refine enchantment to make it entirely direct mind-affecting spells, and do the same with illusion to make it entirely indirect mind-affecting spells (the key difference being whether or not there is a specific target, or if anyone who finds the illusion might be affected). Evocation and Conjuration should stick to what they know - evocation being a formation of the elements to do something, and conjuration summoning actual things from the planes (presuming there are elemental planes). Divination remains as is, though an alternative consolidation might be divination/abjuration, as you can't protect yourself without knowing what to protect yourself against. This gives us Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation and Illusion - six schools, with clerics handling Necromancy if they must.
My Final Suggestion
This has been discussed before, but I was surprised in the playtest that it appears the Wizard is getting an increasing number of spells per level, and that the spells at each level were distinct. Especially given the discussion of fireball being prepared at different levels. You can solve all of this by giving Wizards/Clerics a fixed number of spell slots that never changes - the only thing that gets better as level increases is what spells you can prepare in those slots. I'm going to go for a nice round number, five, as a starting point, with new spell levels coming in at 2nd, 4th, 6th etc.. and a lowest level slot being exchanged for a highest level slot at each level up:
Code:
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 5 - - - - - - - -
2 4 1 - - - - - - -
3 3 2 - - - - - - -
4 2 2 1 - - - - - -
5 1 2 2 - - - - - -
6 - 2 2 1 - - - - -
7 - 1 2 2 - - - - -
8 - - 2 2 1 - - - -
9 - - 1 2 2 - - - -
10 - - - 2 2 1 - - -
11 - - - 1 2 2 - - -
12 - - - - 2 2 1 - -
13 - - - - 1 2 2 - -
14 - - - - - 2 2 1 -
15 - - - - - 1 2 2 -
16 - - - - - - 2 2 1
17 - - - - - - 1 2 2
18 - - - - - - - 2 3
19 - - - - - - - 1 4
20 - - - - - - - - 5Now, the effect of preparing a spell in a given slot is either increased damage for evocation, increased HP threshold for legitmate targets for enchantment, more targets for various schools, longer duration/greater bonus for alteration, greater HD creatures for conjuration, longer range or detail for divination and more significant effects/duration for illusion. Linear power progression, something new every level and lots to do at 1st level. Distinct and restricted spell schools.
Thoughts? Sorry if I bored you!
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