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.

Alternative Magicks: The Sources of Magic

Following on the last post, in which I laid out my thoughts on the spectrum of spellcasting types in a Oe/1e context, there are some immediate implications for spellcasting character classes that directly follow.

One last note on the Octagram I showed you as a handy graphic reference to the relationships of the various flavors and inflections of magic in this schema before I start talking about character classes. In addition to the magic types arranged radially in a spectrum, and the inflections from light to dark to indicate value, we must also consider the source of the magic in the world.

The core D&D rules contemplate two fundamentally different sources for magical power: the Arcane and the Divine. Those who deal in arcane magic are magic users, who study magical forces accessible in the world and learn technical methods for manipulating them. Those who deal in divine magic are clerics, who pledge personal obedience to divine sources of power and receive magical abilities in return, channeling the divine magic. This is a fundamental divide that represents a profound difference in approach.

However, the source of the magic doesn’t affect the types or value of the magic as I’ve already outlined them. Some spells are purely wizardry – accomplished by a sort of technological means and tapping into deep underlying forces – while others are purely miraculous – accomplished by commune with the divine. But there are many spells that will derive from either source, and some substantial areas of overlap.

So there is one last distinction that is symbolically recorded in the Octagram above:  Arcane vs. Divine:

ARCANE MAGIC

Signified by a square.

 

DIVINE MAGIC

Signified by a diamond.

 

Which, of course, combines in the Octagram like this…

 

 

 

…to represent the source of all magic (the Octagram being the symbol for magic of all kinds in this system I’m cooking up). Look familiar?

Now, this probably seems like a lot of effort to go through for some dubious reasons, and far off the track of superimposing a mana-based magic system on D&D. In my next post, covering spell-casting character classes and variants under this system, it will become a little more clear why I’m doing all this cogitating and diagramming. However, there are several aspects of the exercise of creating all this symbolism that should not be underestimated.

1. These symbols can be used by a GM to add a lot of flavor to a campaign. In fact, any GM could use this magical cosmology without any of the mana-based rules and it would work just fine. The players won’t necessarily know what all of this means when they’re first exposed to it. Spell-casters should be given some of the basics, but not all of it. They will know the meaning of symbols associated with their own realm of magical contact (and should treat them as profound secrets), but little else. Every piece of knowledge associated with it should be a puzzle (it being arcane knowledge, after all). Scrolls and magic items will almost certainly have some of this symbolism integrated into them. Having learned about while campaigning, players will learn how to begin decoding some of the mysteries of their world and take pleasure from doing so.
2. Visual symbols are a very efficient way to communicate a lot of information in a very economical way. Once the players learn that wizards wearing yellow are prone to conjuring horrors from mid-air or that a faint magenta glow likely means some sort of protection spell at work, they will start to pay attention to details in their environment and pick up a lot of information by doing so.
3. One of the biggest problems with many game mechanics is that they are conceived as game mechanics first, and don’t always have the sort of logical, holistic consistency and integrated complexity to them that we expect from a fully realistic world. They’re fundamentally arbitrary, and this is especially problematic when it comes to inherently non-realistic areas like magic. By having a clear cosmological framework for how magic works in the game world, especially when this can be summarized consistently in some symbolic ways, with add to the realism and satisfaction of the game.