Tattoo Magic

[Amy]

Would this make a wizard 's spellbook something akin to a flash book like in a tattoo shop?

A variant of this (I'm remembering the movie Pillow Book) is the amount of artistry on the visible tattoos, where more elaborate tattoos would equal higher levels.

Could the tattoos shift position on the body?

 

[pntbllr]

Of course, nothing to stop a 1st lvl wizard from putting fake spell tats on his face to really freak out your fighters

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Would the wizards actually tattoo themselves? Speaking from experience this is much more difficult than tattooing sombody else , at least in some areas of the body. Would this also require a craft art check?

 

[LordBOB]

ok guys so as i was reading i thought of something. i like the idea of the spells being as tats and when you use them they dissapear. How about also making the tattoo PERMINANT as well as the spell it symbolises...... Ex. Scribe the spell "feather fall" onto your arm or something and a simple touch of the arm would activate it. Im sure this idea would be expensive and maybe even a little painful but it would be great to have a perminant feather fall whenever needed.

 

[Philthulhu]

Hmmm... perhaps, but the method of determining the amount of body space covered should definitely be kept simple. ... By making tats more complex rather than larger, it requires a real student of the arcane arts to tell exactly what spell-power level they're looking at.

I've always loved this whole idea, too. It opens up runic magic, too. That arcane glyph on the cultist's rug is actualy one of the symbols of power for a powerful spell. Find three more, and you might be able to decipher it and create a new spell.

Of course, nothing to stop a 1st lvl wizard from putting fake spell tats on his face to really freak out your fighters

Or a Fighter from putting tattoos on his body to fake out spellcasters.

Or that Fighter actually ahving tattoos that do things as well. Tattoos that provide spell resistance. Or damage reduction. Or bonuses to Attack/Damage/etc.

Everything that a magic item can do, a tattoo could do too.

Of course, that would be from a sect of spellcasters that even the outcast Wizards would hardly be fond of... giving away secrets like that... sheesh!

 

[Philthulhu]

"Watch out! He's going to cast Meteor Swarm!"
"Nah, I just had an itch on my back."

Makes you wonder where they scribed the Fireball tattoo...

Or the strange movements under the Wizard's sheets at night... "I'm scribing a tattoo, honest!"

 

[Sir Brennen]

Wow. I had almost forgotten about this thread. Thanks to all the posters showing renewed interest.

Would this make a wizard 's spellbook something akin to a flash book like in a tattoo shop?

It would probably be a bit more involved than that. Notes and explainations of the ink preparation, arcane metaphysics behind the tats, minor rituals to bind spell energy to them, etc. State of mind and visualization techniques while applying the tattoos are probably important too.

Basically, what it boils down to is that an Expert with ranks Profession (Artist) isn't going to be able to have access to a spell just by copying a picture of the corresponding tattoo from a spell book. In fact, there may not even be a picture of the final tattoo in the spell book... just a text description of various arcane symbols and how to draw them in relation to each other.

Would the wizards actually tattoo themselves? Speaking from experience this is much more difficult than tattooing sombody else , at least in some areas of the body. Would this also require a craft art check?

I see what you're saying, but I wouldn't want to add a skill check that would potentially impact something as important as how many spells a wizard could cast per day. I'm thinking the Scribe Scroll feat would provide the neccessary skill to handle self-tattooing. Alternately, once the wizard has mentally prepared, preformed the rituals and created the ink, merely drawing a line of ink over the area to be tattooed is all that's needed, and the symbols will magically take shape themselves. Or, perhaps assisting in drawing tattoos is another function of a familiar.

Of course, nothing to stop a 1st lvl wizard from putting fake spell tats on his face to really freak out your fighters

Or a Fighter from putting tattoos on his body to fake out spellcasters.

Perhaps. But I'd think it'd be much easier for a wizard to spot a fake spell tattoo than anyone else. Probably a DC 10 Spellcraft Check, or an opposed check of Profession (Artist) vs. Spellcraft, with the Spellcraft getting a +10 bonus. (Again, distance modifiers would apply the same as a Spot check.)

How about also making the tattoo PERMINANT as well as the spell it symbolises

Yep. As you and Philthulu mention, having tats as magic items is the next logical step for this concept. I've even used the concept in a 2E game I've run before. I don't see any reason you couldn't do this using the Wonderous Item Creation feat, using the rules for creating new items from the DMG (though I would probably add the price increase for a slotless item.) I thought there was a feat somewhere in a Forgotten Realms supplement somewhere that let a spellcaster place a single use tat on another character, but couldn't find it. The rules for Psionic Tattoos (XPH) might be adaptable for regular spellcasters, as well.

A variant of this (I'm remembering the movie Pillow Book) is the amount of artistry on the visible tattoos, where more elaborate tattoos would equal higher levels.

Yes; per my earlier posts, this is the approach I would be taking.

Could the tattoos shift position on the body?

Not sure what you mean by this. What would the intended purpose of this be, other than a cool, creepy visual

I'm sure I have access to some of them, but what are those sources, anyway? (I have far too many books and pdf's, it seems).
[...]Any other caster types you'd be thinking of modifying in this way, flavour-wise? Like, any of the Oriental Adventures classes, for instance?

Well, as I mentioned, I thought there was a FR feat that let one scribe tattoos as one-shot effects, but can't find it. Probably in another book somewhere. But other sources include Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might (with the Item Image feat, that lets you carry a magic item in a tattoo, as well as the Graven One PrC). There's Psionic Tattoos (XPH) - but since the wearer of the tattoo must supply the power points, it might be difficult to translate to arcane magic. Perhaps the tattoo wearer would have to expend a spell slot to activate it. Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook also has some tattoos as items rules. AEG's Mercenaries has a Tattoo Mage base class, which is more of a warrior than mage. There's probably more; I need to create a master index for all my stuff one of these days.

Also, a quick Google for tattoo magic or feats will turn up a huge number of house rules, but mostly targeted around tattoos as items. Make sure you add "d20" or something similar to the search, or you'll get alot of strange real world links

As far as applying to other classes, I'm not using any other prepared-spell arcane casters in my campaign, but I see no reason why other classes couldn't be changed in a similar manner. It is mostly fluff, after all. Even spontaneous casters could be adapted, having spells known as permanent tattoos.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Found another tattoo magic reference: Forgotten Realms Player's Guide has Create Magic Tattoo as a spell. Basically, it gives the creature touched a day long bonus, from a list of several possible. The spell was updated from the FRCG

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Normally I would never play a wizard but this wizard with runic magic i would play without a moments thought.

Currently I’m playing a druid with vop. But aside from that he has a rune on his body (its like a large artwork of henna) it grows as he levels up and it glows slightly when he casts spells. It is possibly his divine connection to nature that gives him his spells. It also lets him focus his spells via steady concentration from races of stone. Also for this character I have taken eschew materials and currently he is using the rune as a focus instead of the unpriced ones that most spells mention.


My point is I really like the idea of a runic wizard carrying around an art book instead of a spell book in the traditional sense (as I go to art school it’s a very fun idea to me).

 

[Frostmane]

A thought for Rune/Tattoo wizards..

I'd reccomend Patricia Briggs' 'When Demons Walk' which details a spellcasting tradition from her setting where wizards often cast spells 'runically' by means of traced runes on objects associated with the targets or through hidden 'wizard's rune' sensors.. and where wizards' 'patternbooks' depict the elaborate glyphs they cast their spells with. Its available quite cheaply as an Ebook through Amazon and Audible.com and its coming back into print quite soon as well. It might prove quite the inspiration for tatoo or runic mages.

 

[Philthulhu]

There are other RPGs that use Runic magic. Well, I personally know of at least one (Cursed Empires).
The way that one goes is that a spellcaster knows a selection of Runes, and they are able to mix and match each rune to create a total effect. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't... wrong order, your mind can't work with that nasty clash of symbols, or it's just not a valid combination.

The same could well be done for higher-level Tattoo-using Wizards. They can already create their own spells using a tonne of gold, time and XP, so if you were using an arcane tattoo-based spellcasting class, then it could well be possible to mix and match designs.

Each spellcaster personalises his tattoos, naturally, since you can make them a personal focus. But there could well be a language of arcane tattoos. A Burning Hands might look fairly similar to Fireball (sharing a fire motiff), and even a Colour Spray (sharing the same range and arc of effect), at least with a cursory glance. With something like a Primer of the language, a spellcaster could conceivably spend some time creating combinations of tattoos in order to generate a new spell.
And hey, why else are some of them named after guys like Mordenkainen?

Could lead to a whole system of Runic mgic, but only if you wanted to make the rather large jump from fluff to actual rules.