Monday 15 August 2011

Give Me Three Spells ...

Last summer I expanded on all those color magic spells. This summer I'm considering stripping them down.

What's the thickest part of any D&D edition or clone? Easily the spell listings, followed by the magic item listings. Does it have to be that way? Hell no. Especially not as I gear up for the 49 Page Rules Project  ... an entire clone-like adventure game presented in modular, "one page rules" format that you can rip and plunder for your own games.

After all, we all know what the "staple" spells are at each level, the ones you keep memorizing over and over again. Then there are the "weird" specialist spells like Spider Climb and stuff ... but maybe those could be bought on scrolls, or found as treasure. After all, what you do is just hoard them up anyway.

Imagine there's only 6 spells at 1st level and 3 at each level thereafter.

And picking up a good idea from 4E, that was ridiculously overextended to character classes it shouldn't have reached: you start with one of the two weakest 1st level spells as an at-will power, then one of the next two as a power you need to rest 10 minutes to recover, then one of the two strongest as a power you need to sleep on. At 2nd level you get another 10 minute power. At 3rd you get one of the three 2nd level spells, and at 4th you get another, at 10 minute or overnight levels depending on their strength. And so on.

6 pages. For everything.
Are there other spells out there? Hell yeah. In the hands of nerd wizards with more time to do scholarship than adventure. But they will have to be found. They're in the DM's treasure section, not the players' handbook, which now has a grand total of 24 magic-user spells through 7th level, or 12 spells if you're writing a "Basic" book that only goes up to character level 5. That's just 6 pages, or 3 pages for Basic, at 4 spell descriptions a page.

So, participation time. Pick a magic-user spell level (any edition D&D, really, because I have a suspicion the answers across editions are going to look very much the same).

If it's first level, pick 6 spells. If it's any other level, pick 3. Those would be the only spells any adventuring magic-user had at that level. What would you pick for power and interest value? And are these any different from what players pick in your game, especially if it enforces pre-memorization?

7 comments:

  1. I think your blog is excellent.

    Part of the parsing spells down to that low amount is that they all tend to be combat focused. I've put 'combat spells' as alternates in ().

    1st
    Alarm (or sleep)
    Magic Missile (or color spray)
    Shield
    Mount (or Burning Hands/Shocking Grasp)
    Enlarge Person
    Feather Fall

    2nd
    Spider Climb (or Web)
    Levitate (or Invisibility)
    Magic Mouth (or Mirror Image)

    3rd
    Fireball (or Lightning Bolt)
    Haste (or Fly)
    Dispel Magic

    4th
    Stoneskin
    Dimension Door
    Wall of Fire/Ice

    5th
    Cloudkill
    Teleport
    Transmute Rock to Mud

    6th
    Antimagic Field (or Disintegrate)
    True Seeing
    Stone to Flesh (Flesh to Stone)

    7th
    Banishment
    Plane Shift
    Limited Wish

    8th
    Mind Blank
    Maze
    Clone

    9th
    Wish (or Time Stop)
    Imprisonment
    Power Word Kill (or Meteor Swarm)

    ReplyDelete
  2. "an entire clone-like adventure game presented in modular, "one page rules" format"

    I'm actually heading that way myself. One page or less for: potions, poisons, monster special abilities, etc. Cool, seems natural once you know that & is so similar to start looking at the component parts.

    I'll think about the spells, but I actually have little higher level experience with them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have a set of rules that trims down the spell list to a lowly 20 at first level, so this seems like an interesting exercise. My naming may be a little idiosyncratic, as I have combined and expanded spells a little, but here goes:

    1st:
    Magic Missile
    Light
    Prestidigitation
    Charm Person
    Comprehend (comprehend languages/read magic)
    Shield

    2nd:
    Detect (detect magic/see invisible)
    Mirror Image
    Levitate

    3rd:
    Dispel Magic
    Fireball
    Lesser Monster Summoning

    4th:
    Dimension Door
    Elemental Storm
    Polymorph

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm going by 3.5 as that's the edition I know best

    Cantrips:
    Detect Magic
    Light
    Prestidigitation

    1st:
    Charm Person
    Feather Fall
    Identify
    Magic Missile
    Shield
    Sleep

    2nd:
    Flaming Sphere
    Invisibility
    Spider Climb

    3rd:
    Dispel Magic
    Fireball
    Invisibility Sphere

    4th
    Animate Dead
    Charm Monster
    Wall of Fire

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a nice thought experiment, though I don't know if I'd actually run it this way. I might; I have been hoping to push players to do magical research....


    1st Level:
    1. Charm Person
    2. Detect Magic
    3. Hold Portal
    4. Light
    5. Shield
    6. Sleep

    2nd Level:
    1. ESP
    2. Invisibility
    3. Knock

    3rd Level:
    1. Dispel Magic
    2. Fireball
    3. Fly

    4th Level:
    1. Charm Monster
    2. Polymorph Other
    3. Remove Curse

    5th Level:
    1. Animate Dead
    2. Contact Other Plane
    3. Teleport

    6th Level:
    1. Geas
    2. Enchant Item
    2. Reincarnation or Stone to Flesh

    7th Level
    1. Cacodemon
    2. Limited Wish
    3. Simulacrum

    8th Level
    1. Mass Charm
    2. Permanency
    3. Symbol

    9th Level
    1. Prismatic Sphere
    2. Shape Change
    3. Time Stop

    ReplyDelete
  6. Culling the Ad&D lists to 6 and 3 I'd go with
    1st.
    Charm Person
    Featherfall
    Holdportal
    MagicMissile
    Sleep
    ReadMagic

    2nd.
    ESP
    Invisibility
    Web

    3rd.
    Clairvoyance
    Dispel Magic
    Fireball

    4th.
    Charm Monster
    Ice Storm
    Polymorph (shove both spells into one)

    5th.
    Animate Dead
    Conjure Elemental
    Teleport

    6th.
    Anti-magic shell
    Geas
    Stone to Flesh

    7th.
    Cacodemon
    Limited Wish
    Power Word Stun

    8th.
    Mass Charm
    Power Word Blind
    Trap the Soul

    9th
    Astral Spell
    Meteor Swarm
    Wish

    This exercise shows how easy it is to change the role of MU's in a campaign with spell availability.

    ReplyDelete
  7. 1
    Safe Fall
    Read Magic
    Command
    Call Animal
    Familiar
    Cantrip

    2
    Hold Person
    ESP
    Invisibility

    3
    Dispel Magic
    Clairvoyance
    Adaptation

    4
    Ice Storm
    Remove Curse
    Legend Lore

    5
    Creation
    Raise Dead
    Chaos

    6
    Anti-magic
    Contingency
    Quest

    7
    Petrify
    Regeneration
    Succor

    8
    Polymorph Anything
    Permanence
    Clone

    9
    Disjunction
    Wish
    Contract Demon

    ReplyDelete