D&D (2024) why are spell schools and what should they be?

[Mind of tempest]

It doesn't feel like Dying Earth gave us a system as complicated as electron orbits... And it would have also gotten them all kinds of other cool things if they embraced the rest of the things wizards do?

elaborate if only because I feel sad this time of year and want a distraction from my misery.

 

[Cadence]

elaborate if only because I feel sad this time of year and want a distraction from my misery.

I'm sorry for any misery you are experiencing

The mages in the first three books had no more than 4 total spells they could keep in their heads at one time (legends said up to 6 for some?) - and so the paperwork to keep track is a lot less. They would also have the ability to recover them with some studying during a short rest, although imagine there would be an exhaustion effect. The only tricky part would be on how you keep track of what the highest level spells they could get are.

The mages also seemed to be the ones most likely to have fantastic and magical devices, and often had other training so they weren't completely useless when their spells ran out.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I'm sorry for any misery you are experiencing

The mages in the first three books had no more than 4 total spells they could keep in their heads at one time (legends said up to 6 for some?) - and so the paperwork to keep track is a lot less. They would also have the ability to recover them with some studying during a short rest, although imagine there would be an exhaustion effect. The only tricky part would be on how you keep track of what the highest level spells they could get are.

The mages also seemed to be the ones most likely to have fantastic and magical devices, and often had other training so they weren't completely useless when their spells ran out.

so they have flash cards instead of a book then?

mages being useless with running out of spells did feel like an odd dndism so having options beyond it would have helped but we have cantrips for that now.

 

[Cadence]

so they have flash cards instead of a book then?

mages being useless with running out of spells did feel like an odd dndism so having options beyond it would have helped but we have cantrips for that now.

They have lots of books if they've taken time to collect them, and so they can pick out something particularly useful to memorize if they plan in advance.

If I were doing it I'd smoosh together Dying Earth and Lord Darcy and have a small number of memorized bigger spells, more time taking rituals, and cantrips (with the rituals and cantrips, and remembering spells using some energy pool).

 

[Blue Orange]

It's a little weird, to be sure--they don't really match anything else I've seen. Clerics (as of 2e and 3e) used to slice them much more finely into more-obvious spheres like Life, Death, and Knowledge (though having pseudo-academic, abstract, abstruse categories for wizard spells does fit the fluff of Wizard as Fantasy-World Scientist-Equivalent).

Other games do their own things--Mage: the Ascension has Correspondence, Entropy, Life, Forces, Matter, Mind, Prime, Spirit, and Time. Mage: Dark Ages actually has different traditions that divide magic up in their own ways, so the nature-y Old Faith have them organized by the seasons, the standard fantasy wizard-ish Order of Hermes has four of the spheres from the later Mage, and the Spirit-Talkers (proto-Dreamspeakers) have them organized by the various spirits they call on. (I kinda like it, personally--the universe is what it is, different cultures understand it different ways.)

Shadowrun had detection, illusion, healing, damage, and manipulation if I remember right.

Video games will often use the four elements, often adding in light and dark; Final Fantasy started out with white and black (a pretty clear cleric/mage port with Dragonlance flavor) and added in blue (steal from monsters), summoning, time/space, and dancers, bards, and 100 other things I've probably forgotten.

Master of the Five Magics was a big influence on Magic: the Gathering if you accept Wikipedia, which is more or less Good, Nature, Mind, Energy, Evil.

I'm not sure there is a 'natural' order for the supernatural, since it's whatever the author wants to make it.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It's a little weird, to be sure--they don't really match anything else I've seen. Clerics (as of 2e and 3e) used to slice them much more finely into more-obvious spheres like Life, Death, and Knowledge (though having pseudo-academic, abstract, abstruse categories for wizard spells does fit the fluff of Wizard as Fantasy-World Scientist-Equivalent).

Other games do their own things--Mage: the Ascension has Correspondence, Entropy, Life, Forces, Matter, Mind, Prime, Spirit, and Time. Mage: Dark Ages actually has different traditions that divide magic up in their own ways, so the nature-y Old Faith have them organized by the seasons, the standard fantasy wizard-ish Order of Hermes has four of the spheres from the later Mage, and the Spirit-Talkers (proto-Dreamspeakers) have them organized by the various spirits they call on. (I kinda like it, personally--the universe is what it is, different cultures understand it different ways.)

Shadowrun had detection, illusion, healing, damage, and manipulation if I remember right.

Video games will often use the four elements, often adding in light and dark; Final Fantasy started out with white and black (a pretty clear cleric/mage port with Dragonlance flavor) and added in blue (steal from monsters), summoning, time/space, and dancers, bards, and 100 other things I've probably forgotten.

Master of the Five Magics was a big influence on Magic: the Gathering if you accept Wikipedia, which is more or less Good, Nature, Mind, Energy, Evil.

I'm not sure there is a 'natural' order for the supernatural, since it's whatever the author wants to make it.

maybe it is a question of what are common uses of magic that is more than just one spell ones that can clearly be a topic as a starting point?

 

[Blue Orange]

TV Tropes has divination, elemental magic, necromancy, transmutation, equivalent exchange, mentalism, nature magic, summon magic, white magic, black magic, and blood magic as common varieties.

 

[Mind of tempest]

TV Tropes has divination, elemental magic, necromancy, transmutation, equivalent exchange, mentalism, nature magic, summon magic, white magic, black magic, and blood magic as common varieties.

right, white and black magic tends to be more about morality and taboo than anything else, equivalent exchange is a rule for magic and nature magic is druid's area so not really supposed to take that.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Has D&D ever really made a run at a cast from hitpoints blood mage?

I remember the blood magus jumping through people via their blood and I think there was blood metamagic, but I don't remember blood being a direct castings resource.

 

[Undrave]

right, white and black magic tends to be more about morality and taboo than anything else, equivalent exchange is a rule for magic and nature magic is druid's area so not really supposed to take that.

in Final Fantasy, the Black Mage has all the damage dealing moves, more precisely the Fire, Blizzard and Thunder line of spells. White Magic is all the healing and status condition removal and revives. The Red Mage would have access to both Black and White magic, but not at their maximum level.

Later games included the Blue Mage, who copied the special powers of monsters who attacked him (REALLY hard to pull off) and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 added the Green Mage who specialized in inflicting status condition!