Set and Setting is a series of posts intended as aid in fleshing out a world by way of setting-specific rule design and reinterpretation.
Introduction
And lo! Here we come to a thorny but massively
looming subject, a fraught and murky first sweep that merited being waited out
for the first fifty-odd posts from the blog’s inception. Before even thinking
of tackling any of the classes proper there is groundwork that needs to be laid
as concerns the whole of magic use.
If we’re being honest, this may
effectively count as rewriting a significant chunk of each of several classes
in one sitting. I've cast the net of influences far and wide, so gathering my whole thinking in one post helps me keep clear
what I’m doing and will aid in maintaining a more cohese, referable and
transparent approach designwise.
Given the nature of the fantasy
game, even for what is to be a low-magic setting lensed through to a low fantasy
style of play, magic is a special subject that casts a huge pall over the
proceedings. Shoving its connection to the fundamentals of a setting’s cosmogony
aside for the moment, it is the enthroned nature of its importance in the minds
of players that lends the topic such weight.
Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t happy
with the rules as presented, being that I’m fully against the idea of magic
as something stable, asseptic and reliable, reduced to the status of mere
technology. To add some dirty fuel to this fire, it soon became apparent that
game balance would be fast becoming a mirage in the rearview mirror the more I
tinkered with things. Yet tinker I did, so that, more than just getting my
design rocks off, I hoped to follow through with aiming them square at hornets’
nests.
The Colours of Magic (now in Technicolor)
DnD across its miriad
incarnations never made too much fuss out of diverging spellcasting
methodologies, aknowledging various methods, sources of power, domains or
subtypes on paper, but being perfectly content to let a simple unified system
bear the load, with differentiation shipped to the activating stat, fating all
spellcasters to be similarly efficient, seeing as no matter the mental stat
being used for spellcasting, all would be equally attributed a high number and,
no matter the class’s underlying principles, it would always come down to slots
and the spells to fill them. It’s never really made clear how the common man
might set Wizard apart from Cleric and why one might be reviled where the other
is revered.
Mechanically speaking, “Vancian”,
too, is no longer a term that comfortably describes the system, as a number of
developments were introduced, all of them gravitating in the direction of more
magic, more casually, more of the time, shifting from the traditional “nuclear”
magic-user with few but decisive slots to the “bag of tricks”, curbed from hitting the high notes in power
but endowed with a dizzying (and reliable) versatility that puts the
magically-impaired to shame, cantrips in particular becoming such offenders
that a creative player can extract enough uses out of them to fill in for a
whole party’s worth of monkey wrenching.
Whereas Fourth edition found no
other way of reconciling the quadratic with the linear than to leash both to
the same length of rope, Fifth edition’s approach was to develop the
post-Vancian paradigm even further, with the special daily use abilities of
certain classes being repurposed as spells and also accessed through slots,
further devaluing the concept of magic by generalizing its access to most all
classes bar the few remaining holdouts of a couple of martial archetypes.
This post comes to initiate a
veer in direction. Instead of reducing everything to the same generic system,
Magic (and the classes that wield it) can be turned into a bit more compelling
a concept by way of some uniqueness, reintroducing notions of magic as
something treasured, daring and finite and of wizards being willing to swing a sword if pressed into it.
The plan was not to raze everything
to the ground as, despite the subject matter, there is no need to turn the
process into something arcane and have players solve rubik’s cube to blind their
foes with kabbalistic numerology. Rather, to add some branching gradation to classic
methodologies and mechanics without upturning the raft whole, being aware,
even in my relative geek naïveness, that magic systems are a pinnacle of
heartbreaking of sorts and have run the gamut through the ages with possibly
little if anything to gain from being overbearing and abstruse. Repeating my oft-lapsed mantra, I don’t honestly look at having complexity be the answer,
I just want to escape the dull grey swamps of sameness even if I have to take a
few design risks to pull it off.
In the end, what kindles my
interest is usability and flavour. Balance, too, may come eventually along, daintily
dragged by rope and bruised at the knees, if anything.
Spell lists and descriptions - what this post isn’t about
What is contained herein is a
litany of practices explaining the setting’s different spell-using classes.
Each class’s proprietary list as well as the individual spells themselves,
though both deserving of revision, are off the limits of today’s effort and the
same going for the classes proper. Such a time will be heralded once a player
actually decides to pick a magic user as an avatar and the associated wormvessel
is duly shattered.
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| If you do a blog post about magic you're contractually obliged to use this picture. |
Vancian Latitudes
As design options go, the core
book’s biggest sins regarding the magic system are that it’s either boring,
uninspired, lazy or boring. Magic comes across as this streamlined, all-figured-out
kind of thing whose design was clearly more concerned with neatness and a sense
of playground-fairness than with ever even hinting at the feel of unbridling
that magic ought to evoke.
Bounding past the choice of not breaking
with the past and settling for the classic Vancian spellcasting as my major
design constraint, I wish to lay out the system’s constituent elements. The
following will touch on both fluff and crunch but the whole of it ought to be of use in
defining a caster’s place in the setting, on what amounts to a series of branching
paths, flowing down from the power’s source and taking final shape in one of
the established caster traditions.
Considering the Source – the Divine, the Primordial and the
Arcane
First to be considered must be
the prime movers of magic, emanating from three archetypical sources of power:
Divine magic emanates from full-fledged Deities, who by dint of
whim, interest or passion have cast their lot with mankind’s fate, sometimes being
outright entwined with it. Contained herein are the very forces that shape the wheeling ways of the
world and that enforce everything that will ever matter, from the eternal turn
of the seasons to the cycles of life and death.
Primordial energies flow from a removed “thou”, that despite possibly commanding sufficient
power to integrate a pantheon and suscitate structured worship simply
transcends the concept entirely, either by definition or by being antithetical
to humankind. Entities like Demons, Titans, Nature Spirits or even transplanar
Others. Untinged by civilization, impervious to human understanding, unfettered
by moral considerations and utterly indifferent to the shallow trials of
mortality. These profane energies fuel those aligned, knowingly or
otherwise, with entities wholly given to entropy, chaos or the aloof indifference of nature.
Arcane power is extracted from the unbounded potential within the
self, the barriers that contain it broken down through whichever accidental combination
of fortune and entropic trauma. It is at once the most crude by origin and sophisticated by design, the most tightly reined and
the most spectacular. Its existence by itself testimony of a profoundly
upsetting shift of a world’s inherent balance, as it embodies the usurpation by
mankind of the wherewithal of greater powers.
Channeling the Source
Beyond the three mystical
wellsprings, there is an overlying duality explaining the mediation of access
to each of them: a divide of methodologies, the first based on
revelation, humility and submission to higher power, the other on discovery,
appropriation and solipsist hubris, such are the differences between Conduits
and Shapers.
Conduit
Power.
A Conduit has it but it is borrowed. And the borrowing’s the thing.
Drawn by calling, feverish search
or inscrutable whimsy, a character can become conversant with the supernal. For some, even this summit may be scaled past as one sees oneself fall into an entity’s unknowable good graces, becoming chosen as a recipient to its power, a
mouthpiece to its glory and made to ingress upon the great cosmic chessboard.
The benefit of interpreting the second-hand
dreams of an invisible metaphysical superfigment and passing them onto edict,
lending the thing its reality and hoping it doesn’t forfeit yours comes at a price. Settled along monomania’s inner border, the patron becomes a palpable
and undeniable part of the character’s worldview, if not his sole reason for
living, whatever use reserved for its surrogated energies loud and unabashedly
proclaimed as furtherance of its cause. A bargain deal, if ever one.
Shaper
The direct harnessing of
magical energy, with no demiurgic mediation, is the state of orphaned
self-sufficiency that defines a Shaper.
In a world where magic actually
exists, the crucible of mortal obsessions and fickle godly disputes ere long
guided the next step past the stealing of fire and deposited into the questing
hands of mystical pragmatists the means to tamper with the province of greater
powers, caressing the elements, warping reality and ruffling the feathers of
fate, all at the tip of the digits and at the behest of one’s usurping pride.
Yet, a Shaper’s strength is built
from weakness, a focus on the lacking implied by left-handed use of power
purloined from upon high: no guidance on how to leverage it, no cushioning for
the falls that may come.
As temporal power corrupts mortal
hearts so must magical one – at the best of times – elicit similar debasement, paving a causeway to utter and absolute perdition of mind, body and
spirit. Whereas those espousing the glories of heavenly bodies keep humanity safely chained in perpetuation of the cycle and acting within its bounds, the few dabbling soothsayer primates who would break it wilfully risk loosing all the evils into
the world in exchange for spurious knowledge and tawdrier power.
Art and Tradition
The end result of pairing each of
the three metaphysical power sources with one facet of the channelling diad thus
shapes the different magical traditions and explains the setting’s ensemble of
spellcasting character classes, some of them Conduits for a higher power,
others independent Shapers of raw energy, where we get:
- The Bard, a Divine Shaper
(spellcasting attribute: Charisma)
- The Cleric, a Divine Conduit
(spellcasting attribute: Wisdom)
- The Witch, a Primordial Shaper
(spellcasting attribute: Wisdom)
- The Druid, a Primordial Conduit
(spellcasting attribute: Wisdom)
- The Wizard, an Arcane Shaper
(spellcasting attribute: Intelligence)
- The Sorcerer, an Arcane Conduit
(spellcasting attribute: Charisma)
The main thing to be impressed
upon players is that magic has a jagged edge and its performance cannot be
taken for granted. Given this, there was a need to balance this design thrust
with the pitfalls of the system becoming a complete lottery. The crucial point
is for a referee to clearly and consistently communicate the wagers to the
player and to keep the decision in his hands. Both source of power and
channeling method have implications on certain basic aspects of a class’s
spellcasting technique, with some
of the features present in Fifth edition being preserved, such as concentration, ritual
casting and spell enlargement by slot.
1. All in the Mind – Mental Attributes and Spellcasting
Instead of boiling down the efficacy
of a given magic tradition to one single attribute the decision was made that all
three mental stats should be concurrently involved in the making of an optimal caster.
Intelligence: focus, memory function and the cerebral part of casting, influencing
the capacity to learn and retain spells in the mind, represented by spell slots.
- Intelligence impacts a
spellcaster’s slot capacity, explained for ease of reference by the following
table, with the benefits or penalties being cumulative; slot additions or
deductions are applied only once the character is of a high enough level to
access the corresponding spell tiers:
-4
|
-3
|
-2
|
-1
|
No mod.
|
+1
|
+2
|
+3
|
+4
|
One less level 4 slot
|
One less level 3 slot
|
One less level 2 slot
|
One less level 1 slot
|
N/A
|
Additional level 1 slot
|
Additional level 2 slot
|
Additional level 3 slot
|
Additional level 4 slot
|
- Concentration
is a function of Intelligence (see “7.1 Concentration”).
Wisdom: the more empirical and prosaic aspects
of casting, defining how at ease the caster is with the practice of his
tradition and how deftly he can manage the ritualization required to both
reacquire spells as well as to bring their effects safely into existence.
- Slot recovery and spell preparation time are both impacted by Wisdom (see “4. Preparing Spells”);
- Miscasts generate magical
backlash (see “6.2 Sour Magic”), which can be avoided by way of a Wisdom saving
throw.
Charisma: the instinctual qualities of the caster’s inherent resolve,
important for beseeching the divine and, for Shapers, outright defining the
sheer force of will imparted to their molding efforts upon the fabric of
reality.
- Influences, directly or
indirectly, the save difficulty of a caster’s spells (see “2. Spellcasting Attribute”).
2. The Spellcasting Attribute
As determined by each class, the attribute
employed by a spellcasting tradition resumes its role in determining the
modifier applied to magical attack rolls and the difficulty of saving throws
made by targets against the caster’s spells:
Spellcasting Roll:
- D20, plus spellcasting
attribute modifier, plus proficiency modifier
Spell Save Difficulty:
- Conduit: DC of [(variable*), plus spellcasting attribute modifier,
plus proficiency modifier]
- Shaper: DC of [(halved Charisma total), plus spellcasting attribute
modifier, plus proficiency modifier]
* base number varying by divine favour or strength of supernatural
patronage, typically in the 5-9 range (see “4.1 Preparing Spells - Divine Sanction”);
3. Learning and Acquiring Spells
A character’s starting spells are
always randomized for any caster class. From that point on, Conduits continue
acquiring spells as dictated by the will of the gods (which is to say randomly determined),
unlocking new boons as they advance in class levels, whereas to Shapers spells
function more like equipment, meaning levels grant only increased slot capacity
but none of the contents with which to fill it with, research and exploring effort
having to be put into their development or acquisition.
- Known spells are drawn from a class’s proprietary list and acquired
by characters in a way consistent with their spellcasting tradition:
- A Conduit’s spells are randomly determined.
- A
Shaper’s spells are acquired through play.
4. Preparing Spells
The spell preparation process
goes back to basics, abolishing the difference between prepared spells and slots,
as the act of preparing a spell directly fills an available slot and rigidly
fixes the level at which it will be cast (retaining the possibility of spell
enlargement).
As one of the most tangible
measures of spellcasting power, slots define the number of times casters may
avail themselves of the mystical power to alter reality before the mind gives
out. Multiple slots bearing the same spell representing an abstraction for a
reinforced idea of the same magical
knowledge being etched deeper in the mind of the spellcaster and, with the last
slot expired, the particulars of a spell deserting the caster’s mind like so
many grains of sand between outstretched fingers.
Preparing spells is a term that sums up an
array of metacognitive mnemonic processes that, once committed to memory through
the preparation rite, allow the spells to be triggered at a moment’s notice.
- A spellcaster recovers half of his total spell slots with each daily rest, modified by Wisdom (minimum of one), starting with those of lower level.
- Preparing spells requires a mind fresh from a night’s rest and takes a number
of hours equal to the highest level of spells being prepared minus the
character’s Wisdom modifier (minimum of 1 hour).
4.1 Divine Sanction
Conduits (except for the Sorcerer) furthermore must beseech their
deity for power, which has momentous repercussions beyond spell preparation:
- To enact a beseeching, the
character must devote at least an entire day to his deity, observing and
participating in rites, engaging in contemplation, prayer and study. The
following morning, the player makes a Reaction Roll modified by the character’s
halved Charisma modifier, the result determining his base Spell Save
Difficulty. This bond will then slowly fade by one point for every undedicated
day gone by, until a new beseeching takes place.
5. Requirements for Casting
Wizards may be subtle but
spellcasting is, if anything, rather obvious. Like a prelude to lightning, paying
witness to someone tapping into arcane forces will dry the mouth, tingle the
spine and raise the hairs on end before a character’s even fully cognizant of
what is happening.
Spells are cast in a way
consistent with each class’s magical tradition, necessitating first and
foremost that the caster enter a state of near-trance, of intense and absolute focus, facilitated
to a degree by fetishistic aid ranging from manual tracing of patterns and vocal
intonations to the use of materials that, through their mystical significance,
propitiate the desired effects.
- Spellcasting requires both
hands free, the only exceptions being afforded to items classed as components or focuses.
- Casting requires freedom of
movement, such that a character cannot be Encumbered
and, in order to cast while wearing armour, must be proficient with its use.
- Vocal components require that
the caster be able to speak freely, Somatic components require that the caster
have freedom of movement, Material components require that the necessary
materials be held in the caster’s hand during the act of casting.
- Conduits must cast by loudly
adressing their patron and their nature can be ascertained by onlookers, as
they invocate changes upon the natural world, the more overt effects, if any, appearing to come from a source other than the caster himself.
- Shapers must speak in at least
a normal tone of voice while performing their incantations. The glinting motes emitted
by their gesticulation rendering their glamouring efforts plain and obvious to
all.
6. Spellcasting
6.1 The Spellcasting Roll
Translating force of will into
conjured flame is a delicate and exacting practice and not an easy one to
reconcile with the vicissitudes of adventuring. Rigorous hypno-meditative
concentration is required not just to maintain lingering magical effects but
must also be achieved, along with precision of gesture, to enact the casting of
a spell, the act being prone to disruption when attempted in adverse
conditions. A spellcaster aspiring to adventure must be able to deal with far
more than the average white plastered room, steeling the mind to everything
ranging from being jostled in a crowd to the vigorous motion of riding a mount,
the rigours of weather or being grappled, all of these being things that can and will impact a casting’s inherent
risk, the fallout of which can sour into mischanneled magic that, depending on
the stability of the source of its power, will generate a gamut of diverse
reactions as natural law is reasserted and reality reknits itself from the attempted
disruption, sometimes seamlessy, oftentimes violently.
- The act of spellcasting is always
mediated by a Spellcasting Roll, whose base standard difficulty is that of the spell’s level.
- If a spellcaster divides his turn’s
attention by doing anything other than focusing on the spellweave – including
movement – or is subjected to external interference, this will reflect as an
increase on the DC of the Spellcasting Roll, applying only the highest penalty
from the following list:
- Minor disruptions* (5´ of movement, use
of bonus action) will account for a DC increase
of 5;
- Moderate disruptions* (movement beyond
5’, minor physical disturbances) a DC
increase of 10;
- Serious disruptions (physical disturbance,
such as being pressed amid a crowd or trying to cast from a moving chariot)
will account for a DC increase of 15;
- Major disruptions (exposed amid a
snowstorm or on a wave-tossed boat) will imply a DC increase of 20;
* players can move freely or use
bonus actions after casting the
spell, but must communicate to the referee their intent to do so in advance so
as to adjust the DC to account for the rushed casting.
- In addition to the highest
penalty originated by disruptions applying to the casting roll, the following
hurdles must all be separate and cumulatively considered:
- Damage suffered by the spellcaster
between the end of his previous round and his current initiative step will
mean the casting roll’s DC increases by
one per each point sustained of bodily harm;
- Concentration on active spells being
currently maintained adds their spell
level to the DC;
- For Spellcasting
Rolls that are also
Spell Attack Rolls, the
AC of the target is used
instead of the DC if it is higher.
6.2 Sour Magic
Failure to rigorously perform
during the casting will mean the spell’s weave is compromised just as its
power is channeled into being and the conjuring must be brought to a halt.
- A
spell that fails to manifest remains intact in the caster’s memory unless it
was an attack roll.
- Critical success discharges
the spell without it departing the caster’s memory.
- If the caster outright fumbles
during his channeling, magical energies lash about wildly, requiring a Wisdom
saving throw with the same DC as the Spellcasting Roll (or half of that for Conduits) to regain control of the
casting and bring the volatile energies under control. On a failure, a roll
must be made on the Mischanneling Table presented below. Divine casters roll
with a d4, Primordial casters roll with a d8 and Arcane casters roll with an
explodable d12.
6.3 Casting in Combat and Ruined Spells
- Casting a Spell in melee is an
action that provokes attacks of opportunity.
- Being hit by an attack amid the
delicate casting process immediately ruins a spell and strikes it from memory.
- A spell successfuly cast can
still fail for reasons external to the caster, whether due to inadequate
targetting choices or unpropitious external conditions. Invoking spells that
admix inimical elements such as fire and water can have all manner of
unexpected effects but most often results in failure.
- Spellcasters that become
wounded as a result of rolling on the Dismemberment table immediately have all
of their spells wiped from memory, due to shock.
7. Teeth, toes and other trinkets – Concentration, Cantrips, Rituals
7.1 Concentration
Certain spells have enduring
effects that last while the caster affords them his low-level concentration, with a lapse of this mental foothold dispelling all active dweomers with no further
effect.
- A caster can keep a total of
simultaneous effects requiring Concentration equal to his Intelligence modifier
(minimum of one).
- Concentration can be kept
without testing, even in the face of disruptions, as long as the character acts
normally, but it must be tested if the character endures serious physical
disturbance or otherwise divides his attention. This is done by rolling an
Intelligence saving throw of either DC 10, the summed spell levels of the active
effects or the damage sustained in an attack, whichever is highest.
7.2 Cantrips
Spells that, once prepared, are dischargable at either their full power or as a minor manifestation internalized by rote and fuelled by a shard of the spell's power itself (aka a cantrip).
- Cantrip is a keyword;
- Spells with this keyword are
regular spells in all regards other than being castable as cantrips;
- Whenever cast as a cantrip, the
caster must roll an exhaustion die determined by the slot occupied by the spell,
with a ‘1’ result meaning the spell is wiped from the caster’s memory: a level
1 slot rolls a d4, a level 2 a d6, etc, up to a maximum of d12.
7.3 Rituals
Spells that stand to be
replicated in ritualized form can have their effects manifested by alternative
means. These sinuous invocations, being precursors of and not actual spells in
the true sense of the word, rely instead on extensive fetishistic aid,
meticulous preparation and observant repetition, trading immediacy for treasured
stability.
- Rituals dispense with both the
memorization process and a Spellcasting Roll, stressing time and the use of material
components instead;
- The duration of a ritual is twenty
minutes per spell level; If disturbed during its enactment, it must be started
anew.
