Spell-Casting Classes and Sub-Types: Introduction

Now that we’ve developed a schematic cosmology for how magic works in the D&D world, we can start to categorize the sorts of beings who traffic in such things.

Every spell-casting character has to begin with three basic choices:

1. Which type of magic will the caster specialize in?
   (Animation/Invocation/Conjuration/Alteration/Illusion/Enchantment/Divination/Abjuration/Generalist)
2. Which inflection of magic will influence the caster
   (Light/Dark/Both)
3. What is the source of the magic the caster utilizes
   (Arcane/Divine/Both)

Why should a caster need or want to specialize by type? Remember that some types of magic are incompatible or antagonistic to each other. To the extent that a caster specialized in one type, he or she will gain advantages using that type along with disadvantages using the antagonistic type. Generalists don’t get the disadvantages, but they don’t get the advantages either. Plus, generalists still have to deal with the incompatibilities as they come up. Generalists will have fewer overt weaknesses, but will progress in experience at a slower rate (much like multi-classing characters in the core rules).

Why choose an inflection? Partly by necessity: the inflection of a character’s magic use should closely match the character’s alignment in ways that are consistent with the campaign (the GM should rigorously enforce this). Also, light and dark forms of magic are somewhat antagonistic to one another. Specializing in one gains advantages and disadvantages versus the other.

The need for choosing a source of the character’s magic use should be obvious, since this is already built into the core rules via the distinction between clerics and magic users. We’re gong to tweak that a little bit here and throw in some curve balls, so I’m handling that same divide via the choice of source rather than exclusively by class.

Once these three choices are made, they are represented on the character sheet with the appropriate symbols and notes (the symbol for a Generalist caster, by the way, is an eight-pointed star…for reasons which ought to be obvious at this point). Which way these choices have gone then determines what the character’s class will be (of course, a player can just choose a class, which be default answers these three questions).

The first distinction we can make right off is one of general character class according to source of magic, like this:

ARCANE MAGIC
General Class: WIZARD

DIVINE MAGIC
General Class: PRIEST

DEEP MAGIC
General Class: MYSTIC

Okay. Hold on a second. “Wizard” is obviously the same as “Magic User,” and “Priest” is obviously the same as “Cleric,” but what the heck is “Mystic” all about? This is starting to look suspiciously like 3.5e D&D, and them’s fightin’ words!

Fear not! I am not leading you astray. I pulled a bit of a fast one on you there, but believe it or not, we’re still within the scope of an Oe/1e campaign with a partially-customized magic rule set.

I’ll continue by looking at each one of these, and the variations within.