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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 89632" data-attributes="member: 1645">That's an idea I've been batting around for quite some time.  My idea though wasn't tied to historic occult traditions but to mundane skills and their magical counterparts.  For instance, instead of having a Bard class, the Bard would be a variant Rogue.  Once his Perform skill reached a certain level, he'd be eligible for a Sorcerer-variant Prestige Class full of song-related spells.  Similarly, a Druid would be some kind of mundane Expert-variant until his Wilderness Lore and Knowledge (Nature) skills qualified him for a Prestige Class full of nature spells (i.e. the current Druid spell list).This would mean that only mundane experts would become magical experts, and you'd have no such thing as a Bard barely good enough to earn his meal (four ranks of Perform) singing magical songs, or a Druid who knows the deepest secrets of the forest without actually having the skill to survive in the wild (four ranks of Wilderness Lore).  This also meant that any Wizard would have a full array of Gandalf-esque knowledge skills, as they would be prereqs for spellcasting.  It also meant that spellcasting Rangers and Paladins could be a Prestige Class for mundane woodsmen and templars to enter.That might work fine, especially if each spell list is as one-dimensional as a typical Cleric Domain.Further, many spells should only work at certain times, or their components should only be valid if plucked at certain times, etc.  You can only collect so many chicken eggs hatched by a toad at midnight on Midsummer's Eve.That's one of my serious peeves, summoning a fiendish dire rat for six seconds.Agreed.  And a really long spell duration might be "a year and a day". Excellent examples.Good ideas.      Agreed.  There doesn't have to be much risk to explain why magic wouldn't be ubiquitous.  Really, a 1% chance of summoning an angry demon is quite a risk to take.  Or a 1% chance that you'll polymorph into a wolf just fine, but you might not come back.Absolutely, but some of those make for better game mechanics than others.  Tying spellcasting to phases of the moon means that either the DM controls the PCs power depending on his mood (one of the chief complaints of the Ranger's Favored Enemy ability), or the PCs can turn the tables and wield more power than he'd like by only adventuring when they want to.  It's something to think about.</blockquote>

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