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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felix" data-source="post: 3246796" data-attributes="member: 3929">I see the bard as the liberal arts guy; he minors in magic, plays intramural sports to up his HD and BAB, and goes to enough parties to be able to talk his way into anyone's bedroom but still have the skill to survive a 2-storey jump-and-tumble through a window when the boyfriend comes back.Meanwhile, at 10pm Friday night, the wizards are shut away in their rooms toiling over thaumaturgic readings. Or playing DnD.I could see room in the campaign for a bard that was a spellbook-caster to represent dabblers, or simply allow multiclassing into Wizard as a generalist only after 1st level and only allow 5 levels in the class. This would keep dabblers to low-level spells and present a pay-off to those who decided to study hard and focus.May I ask why?One of the descriptions of magic I loved in Mongoose's Conan RPG was the rules of sorcerery, the Rule of Obsession in particular. It means that sorcerers obsess over their magic and anything that gets in the way, a love affair or acting as vassal to a lord, impedes their casting effectiveness. They may remove this penalty by somehow bringing the distraction around to further their own power: they ritually sacrifice their lover or slay the lord and become master over his kingdom, that sort of thing. These actions serve to increase the sorcerer's magical ability beyond even what it was originally.Not that I would put this into my game, but I love the idea that magic warps the practitioner; they are attracted by the power it offers; they are fascinated by their potential advancement; they are drawn inexorably into their chosen school like moths to a flame, and are unable to stay emotionally unattached to their school. What can I say? I like my wizards eccentric. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The restriction against generalist mages is part of the nature of magic, and as such NPCs are subject to it as much as any PC would be. Most likely NPC wizards will be more focused in their repitoire than will PCs; they don't get out too much, and in a school full of enchanters, you'll have a time finding a diverse selection of Transmutation spells. Of course, that will mean that the wizards the PCs run into are focused in what they do, and so will be very good at what they do.</blockquote>

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