These are ideas for specializations based on ways of practicing magic, rather then spell schools. Haven't worked out any powers yet, I'm just throwing them out as ideas:
Spiritualist: gains magical energy and knowledge from spiritual beings, not necessarily gods.
Mentalist: a nod towards psionics, magic comes from the power of your will manipulating energy around you.
Elementalist: Draw power from the raw building blocks of creation. I'd like to throw in the Chinese Elements and shadows as an option too.
Enlightened Reason: Magic is a science, follow a formula and you get a certain result.
Namer: Call forth power by speaking true names.
Blood Magic: Draw energy from the power of life and, often, sacrifice. Practitioners are often really good (self sacrifice) or really bad.
Channeling: Pull energy from their surroundings into themselves, shape it, and then send it out.
Savant: Have no idea what they are doing, wierd formulas pop into their head that they have no idea where it came from or what it means. They just instinctively follow it.
Specialisation is mainly a matter of favoring one school of spells over another.
With what your'e looking at, it really seems that you're aiming at designing new classes altogether.
Not really, in fact Paizo has said they wanted to do things with wizards to move away from the traditional spell schools. The idea is that the wizard specializes in a different way of casting, rather then a particular school.
Specialisation is mainly a matter of favoring one school of spells over another.
With what your'e looking at, it really seems that you're aiming at designing new classes altogether.
A school of magic doesn't have to be a school of philosophy (abjuration, enchantment etc). As a matter of fact, 2ed player's option: spell and magic had schools of effect and school of thaumathurgy, each with their opposed schools of philosophy.
Schools of Thaumaturgy
A school of thaumaturgy defines a specific method or procedure of spellcasting that varies from the standard execution of a spell’s components.
- The School of Alchemy: In this approach to magic, spell effects are achieved through the combination of unusual material components. Spells such as affect normal fires, glitterdust, and cloudkill can all be cast through the use of strange powders and reagents, and belong to the school of alchemy.
- The School of Artifice: This is a new school introduced here for the first time. Artificers are weak in the direct command of magic and instead use various devices and magical items to focus their energies. Spells such as Melf’s minute meteors and magic staff are included in the school of artifice.
- The School of Geometry: Geometers use diagrams, symbols, and complex patterns to cast their spells. Naturally, any spell involving some kind of writing, marking, or pattern belongs to the school of geometry, including spells such as explosive runes, sepia snake sigil, and symbol.
- The School of Song: While alchemists rely on material components and geometers rely on somatic components, a song mage uses the power of his voice to summon and shape spell energy. Any spell that involves speaking, singing, or some other use of the caster’s vocal powers belongs to the school of song. Sleep, charm monster, and Otto’s irresistible dance are all examples of spells of this school.
- The School of Wild Magic: Some wizards have learned to make use of the principles of randomness in their magic, giving rise to the school of wild magic. Wild mages shape the raw, uncontrollable stuff of magic in the hope that something resembling their intended spell will appear. A number of wild magic spells such as vortex and waveform appeared in the Tome of Magic; if you do not have access to that book, you should probably ignore this school.
Effect Specialist Requirements
Specialist Race Abilities Opposition School(s)
Elementalist H Standard Special
Dimensionalist H, 1/2E Int 16 Ench./Charm, Necro.
Force Mage H, 1/2E Int 12, Con 15 Alteration, Divination
Mentalist H Int 15, Wis 16 Invoc./Evoc., Necro.
Shadow Mage H Int 15, Wis 16 Invoc./Evoc., Abjuration
H: Human; 1/2E: Half elf
Schools of Effect
Schools of effect differ from schools of philosophy in that the spells of the school all share one common result or ingredient. For example, the spells of the school of fire all involve fire in some way, without regard for what the spell accomplishes. Divinations, the direction and control of energy, and the summoning of elementals can all be linked by the common effect of fire. The schools of effect are described below:
- Air: The elemental school of air naturally includes any air based spell or effect, including spells that control or affect wind, breathing, falling and flight, air elementals, and other elemental phenomena. Gust of wind or cloudkill are examples of air spells.
- Earth: Spells of elemental earth are based around stone , earth , or mineral based effects. Dig, stone shape and stone to flesh are earth spells.
- Fire: Any spell involving the manifestation of flame or heat is a spell of elemental fire. Not all fire spells are attack spells; fire charm and affect normal fires are examples of fire spells that don’t cause direct and immediate damage to the wizard’s enemies.
- Water: Last but not least in the elemental schools, spells of the school of elemental water involve water in some form or another, including spells of ice and cold, since these are linked to the element of water. Water breathing, ice storm, and part water are all included in the school of elemental water.
- Dimensional Magic: This is a new school introduced in Player’s Option: Spells & Magic. While all AD&D spells draw power from outside the mage, dimensionalists go one step further—they draw their power from another dimension. Like most schools of effect, the school of dimensional magic overlaps several pre existing schools, including alteration, conjuration/summoning, and invocation spells.
- Force: The school of force is a new school of effect presented later in this book. A force mage relies on spells that create or manipulate fields of cohesive energy, such as wall of force, magic missile, or any of the various Bigby’s hand spells. Many spells of this school are borrowed from the school of invocation/evocation.
- Shadow: All the spells in this school are linked by the common effects of shadow and darkness. The shadow mage can make use of a number of illusion spells dealing with the Demiplane of Shadow and shadowstuff, including shadow monsters, darkness 15’ radius, and shadow walk. He also has access to a number of necromancy spells. Although necromancy and illusion are opposing philosophies, schools of effect ignore these restrictions and concentrate on results.
'findel
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Craftsmages: Instead of preparing spells, craftsmages engage in some craft (or art, or even performance type!) to enter a working trance state that brings them higher awareness, during which they gain access to their spells. Depending on their craft type, the items they work on hold the residue of these prepared spells, and must be worn or carried to cast them. Some craft types are delicate or single-use (a spell created through the craft of brewing, or paperfolding, consumes the item). Others, like weaponsmithing or gemcutting or clockwork tinkering simply require some 'touching up' the next day to recharge the item / prepare the spells.
Some one on another thread mentioned using the four humors of greco-roman medicine. Here is a site which explains them.
I enjoyed playing a wizard based Dr Dee, Queen Elizabeth's court magician. A mix of good old fashioned alchemy and Celestial Voices giving him the spells. All in Enochian of course!
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A wizard based entirely on calling up supernatural forces, whose personal magics are limited to abjurations and divinations (and summonings, obviously), could be neat. Sort of a Goetist, who doesn't cast glitterdust, she calls up a swarm of tiny mirror-winged sprites that ebb and flow in the affected area, and doesn't cast fireball, but calls up a squatting tentacled beast from the plane of fire that appears briefly in an area and lashes everyone with tongues of flame, before winking back to it's native realm.
Note: I have no idea what I meant by Goetist. Words pop into my mind sometimes.
These are ideas for specializations based on ways of practicing magic, rather then spell schools. Haven't worked out any powers yet, I'm just throwing them out as ideas:
Spiritualist: gains magical energy and knowledge from spiritual beings, not necessarily gods.
Mentalist: a nod towards psionics, magic comes from the power of your will manipulating energy around you.
Elementalist: Draw power from the raw building blocks of creation. I'd like to throw in the Chinese Elements and shadows as an option too.
Enlightened Reason: Magic is a science, follow a formula and you get a certain result.
Namer: Call forth power by speaking true names.
Blood Magic: Draw energy from the power of life and, often, sacrifice. Practitioners are often really good (self sacrifice) or really bad.
Channeling: Pull energy from their surroundings into themselves, shape it, and then send it out.
Savant: Have no idea what they are doing, wierd formulas pop into their head that they have no idea where it came from or what it means. They just instinctively follow it.
Honestly, in the current system, the Savant you speak of is the Sorcerer, and the Enlightened Reason guy is the standard Wizard, with his book of formulae, standard spell components and easily reproducible results.
The Spiritualist is more interesting, but honestly, the difference between a cleric or druid who serves one great god, one who prays to an entire pantheon, and one who propitiates various small gods, spirits, and household sprites? I could reflavor either of those classes into a Spirtualist with little trouble.
The Mentalist can be done as a Sorcerer the same as the Savant. They're both people who stand there without any props and do miraculous things. The Savant just claims he doesn't know how he's doing this stuff while the Mentalist says he's doing all this via the power of his mind. Same end result, just different shticks. And you can have third Sorcerer who explains what he's doing as Channeling and a fourth who claims to be an Elementalist. Hell, there are even Elemental bloodlines for Sorcerers already in place.
The Namer is also pretty well covered by the traditional Wizard. Once you accept that Naming is one of the principles of magic, it follows naturally as part of the Enlightened Reason school of magic. It may not be a wizard's specialty, but he will acknowledge that it's part of the arts and sciences.
Blood Magic is either Channeling or Spiritualism when you come down to it. Either you're channeling the power of the blood into the spell itself, and thus just shuffling around and transmuting energy, or you're sacrificing it to various spirits and/or gods because that's what they want in exchange for kewl powerz and you could be spilling rotten grape juice for all the difference it makes, assuming you could get the gods and/or spirits to accept that instead, even if that's like telling a merchant that a wooden nickel is a gold piece. Blood as sacrifice has the same value as gold does as money, which is to say, whatever value the interested parties set.
A wizard based entirely on calling up supernatural forces, whose personal magics are limited to abjurations and divinations (and summonings, obviously), could be neat. Sort of a Goetist, who doesn't cast glitterdust, she calls up a swarm of tiny mirror-winged sprites that ebb and flow in the affected area, and doesn't cast fireball, but calls up a squatting tentacled beast from the plane of fire that appears briefly in an area and lashes everyone with tongues of flame, before winking back to it's native realm.
Note: I have no idea what I meant by Goetist. Words pop into my mind sometimes.
This was kinda what I had in mind for the Spiritualist.