D&D 5E Spell-paths

[Bupp]

Tangentially related is some work Laurafindel did on GitP and the Paizo forums dividing all 5e spells into the five colors of Magic: The Gathering. I was going to use it as a base of Magic themed "Mana Caster" class but I was never able to work it out.

She allowed me to host the list on my blog.

Plane Shifted: Spell List as Color

This is part of my ongoing Plane Shifted series. This was something that I was planning on doing on my own, but while researching the subject, I found that Laurefindel over at both GitP and Paizo f…

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[JiffyPopTart]

It would be really cool to have an optional system of casters have less spells overall but each spell having its own progression of "powering up" when cast at higher levels.

There has always been a little bit of this in D&D (fireball a classic example since 1e) and 5e has upcasting in many of its spells, but the differences when upcasting are usually one dimensional (an extra target, an extra die of damage etc.) rather than an overall change in power and design. I'd like to see expanding range, radius, damage, ignoring resistances, and even brand new abilities depending on the level.

When a spellcaster gets their two spell choices per level they could either pick something new or "enhance" a spell they already have to do something brand new, but at the cost of using a higher slot of power.

This more complex design maybe doesn't fit well into the 5e design mantra of keeping things similar, but it would be an interesting path to create as an optional set of rules which i'd love to use.

 

[jmucchiello]

Monte Cook's Arcane Unearthed spell system did stuff like this. It was kind of like 2e spheres as well. I can describe the system in total here. But spells had rarity. So some classes might get all simple spells while others would get all simple and rare spells. Spells had traits so a class might have all simple spells and all rares with trait1 and trait2. (I forget the specifics.) Feats could grant access to rare traitX spells. And almost every spell had a reduced and heightened effect. So the spell was 3rd level and you had to have access to 3rd level spells to learn the spell. But you could cast it at reduced effectiveness as a 2nd level spell or at enhanced effectiveness as a 4th level spell.

Additionally, The game was based on 3E but it assumed no 3E characters with 3E spell lists existed (though you could combine them if you wanted). So there was no easy teleport or resurrection.

I'm probably not doing it justice here. But the MCAU spell system has not been topped in terms of "D&D"esque spell systems.

 

[Pauln6]

My character is a shadow mage converted from earlier editions built as a Warlock. The thing that put me off the shadow sorcerer was the absence of any way to adopt thematic spell choices when you have so few to choose from. A few custom invocations will have to do the job.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I believe this is exactly how spells are handled in Shadow of the Demon Lord. Each list of themed spells is called a Tradition. Characters can learn a handful of Traditions during their career; there are no swiss-army knife wizards. Traditions are split between arcane and divine, with significant overlap. For example, the Fire tradition is available to both arcane and divine casters, but only divine casters can access the Healing tradition, and only arcane casters can access Teleportation.