A modification of the Gygaxian paradigm

[Wyntrewolfe]

For my upcoming game, I'm making some important changes to the Pathfinder roleplaying system, and as such need to fully consider the implications of such changes. I hope that the good members of this forum will assist me in this venture.

Divinity
The first change I have made is to assume that the gods have little, if any, influence on the campaign world, thereby bringing the religious and political situations a bit more in line with real-world history (which, while not my original intent, is an interesting side-effect). After careful consideration, I have decided that this effectively nullifies divine magic. The most direct result of this change is, off course, to nerf the Cleric class; I have decided to remove it form the class list completely. This of course raises the problem of access to Cure spells; I explain how I repair that flaw in the next section. "Clerics" still exist as church officials, like bishops; their character classes, though, will probably mostly be Sorcerers or Wizards specializing in Abjuration or Necromancy.

Druids stay largely unchanged; I have simply switched their magic type to "arcane". More details may be found in the following section.

I have not decided how to modify the Paladin yet, in order to balance out the lack of divine magic; any suggestions are welcome.

Rangers, instead of drawing from a divine spell list, will gain use of Magic as defined in the next section.

As a side note, I have also determined that it would fit well into the setting to remove all resurrection spells (e.g. Raise Dead) from the corpus.

Magic
The first change comes from needing to allow access to the Cure spells. While these are, in the normal Pathfinder game, under the Conjuration school of magic, I feel that adding them in with the other Src/Wiz Conjuration spells will overload that school. Therefore I have decided to move all spells of the Healing subtype to the Necromancy school, turning said school's modus operandi into more of a "manipulation of life energy" than a "perversion of the sanctity of death", thereby giving the school more credence and applicability for non-evil users. (As an aside, it may be noted that this also allows for an easier path to corruption for magic users; the delineation between good and evil becomes a bit more fuzzy when the same school is used both for giving and taking away life.)

The second change I have made has nothing to do with the absence of gods, which may come as a breath of fresh air. I am trying to introduce another system of magic into the world, wherein spells are "cast" through miniature rituals involving the drawing of runic diagrams. This type of magic, to which I am temporarily attaching the uncreative appellation "Magic" (as distinct from Wizardry or Sorcery; see below), is rather useless in a combat situation (unless advance planning is a factor), as in its current incarnation it takes a full minute to draw out the requisite diagram for a single "spell", but it makes up for its shortcoming in that area by being infinitely more versatile than the other two types of magic; Magicians are not bound by a limited number of Spells per Day (because the power of their magic comes not form themselves, but as an inherent quality of the diagrams), and spells can be "linked" together, one casting after the others in sequence, or affecting the others it is linked to.

Magic is viewed as three major groups, or types:

• Wizardry is magic which is studied by wizards, written in spellbooks and prepared daily; a structured and scholarly approach available only to those with connections to the academies of the world.
  
• Sorcery is magic which is inherent to a creature (person), coming from a taint in the bloodline or other some such aberration, volatile and mysterious.
  
• "Magic" (I need a better name; my inspiration came from Fullmetal Alchemist, but 'Alchemy' describes something much different from what I'm attempting here) is almost a type of "folk" magic; in its most basic form it's accessible to almost anyone, since it takes no study or special ability to use; just copy a fancy shape and speak an incantation.
  

Druids are grouped (in the public eye, though not in the rules of the game) in with sorcerers, since their magic manifests in a similar fashion.

Magicians
The Magician class runs roughly as follows, I think:

BAB is 3/4 HD, at the rate of the Cleric; I figured that, since the special ability of the class isn't combat-oriented (or even particuarly combat-applicable), the BAB should be greater than that of the other two main spellcasters.

Good Reflex and Will saves; the good Will saves are a staple of the spellcasting class, and the good Reflex save comes from the constant scrawling of symbols and shapes. Or something.

Hit Die d8; I stole this and some of the following from the Cleric without any thought; I don't know if it's a good match or not. Playtesting will tell, I guess.

Starting Wealth: 4d6 x 10gp

Skill Ranks per level: 2 + Int

Proficiency with all simple weapons and light armor.

Magicians don't have to worry about Spells per Day, but they do need to track which "spells" they know, similarly to how wizards expand their spellbooks as they grow in level and experience, and/or by stealing spells from other wizards' spellbooks.

I have not yet created a spell list for the Magician; likely it will be the same or similar to that of the Sorcerer/Wizard.

I also had the idea that Magicians could gain the class ability to imbue weapons, armor, rings, etc. with spells, at the level that they would (were they Wizards) become eligible for the Craft Magic _____ feat. They won't actually be able to smith the sword, but they'll be able to take a Masterwork sword and imbue it with the markings to turn it into another version of, say, a Vorpal sword.

I am debating whether or not the Magician should gain a familiar.

That's all I have so far; any commentary or advice would be appreciated!

- Arandur

[Katt De Grey]

Idea for your "magic name". how does "GLYPH MAGIC" strike you?

Just a thought.

[Wyntrewolfe]

Eh, that works, I suppose. :3 Better than the alternative.

[Are]

How about if Druids and Rangers use "Nature Magic" or "Wild Magic"?

[Wyntrewolfe]

Well, as far as the game mechanic goes, druids will be using "nature magic". It's just socially that the line between sorcery and druidism is blurred: they're both powers that seem to come from within, that don't require study; the hoi polloi will view druids as simply a distinct branch of sorcery.

As far as rangers go, I always liked the idea of having them be naturally adept at what, until I find yet a better name for it, I shall indeed deem "glyph magic". I'm not sure whether to replace their arcane (not divine anymore!) spells with said magic, or to augment them with it, or what. x3 As they stand now, again, they would be viewed as specialist sorcerers by the general populous, at least in magical terms, though they would obviously also be "rangers", people who wander the earth and track creatures.

[Charender]

You can still have divine magic while having a world where the gods are not directly involved in the world.

I do this all the time, and it doesn't require you to nerf clerics and/or paladins into oblivion.

The part of the old D&D paradigm you have to get rid of is that the power of a diety is directly proportional to their number of followers, and the power of a diety's clerics is directly proportional to the power of the diety. That paradigm has been dead since 3.0.

By the PF RAW, you can have a cleric that has faith in the power of helping others. This person would be able to wield divine magic as well as any diety based cleric. The key to a cleric's power is the sincerity of their faith. If a cleric believes that Banjo the Puppet grants then divine power, then they get power.

In the worlds I DM, true faith is pretty rare. Most of the clergy are experts with ranks of knowledge(religion). They love to sit around a debate about the nature of the gods, and study books on the subject, but they lack the faith to take the plunge and put their lives on the line for what they believe. Many of them are outright hostile to actual clerics of their own faith, because they see their divine powers as a threat to their comfortable status quo. I find this to be very realistic as it is very similar to the biblical accounts of how Jesus and the Jewish priests got along.

Finally, spellcrafted is a trained only skill. The average commoner simply cannot tell the difference between divine and arcane magic. Further, in a world where wizards, druids, and sorcerers exist. How would someone know the difference between a cleric casting cure light wounds, and a rogue faking it with slight of hand and cure light wounds potions.

[Wyntrewolfe]

Charender wrote:

You can still have divine magic while having a world where the gods are not directly involved in the world.

I do this all the time, and it doesn't require you to nerf clerics and/or paladins into oblivion.

The part of the old D&D paradigm you have to get rid of is that the power of a diety is directly proportional to their number of followers, and the power of a diety's clerics is directly proportional to the power of the diety. That paradigm has been dead since 3.0.

By the PF RAW, you can have a cleric that has faith in the power of helping others. This person would be able to wield divine magic as well as any diety based cleric. The key to a cleric's power is the sincerity of their faith. If a cleric believes that Banjo the Puppet grants then divine power, then they get power.

In the worlds I DM, true faith is pretty rare. Most of the clergy are experts with ranks of knowledge(religion). They love to sit around a debate about the nature of the gods, and study books on the subject, but they lack the faith to take the plunge and put their lives on the line for what they believe. Many of them are outright hostile to actual clerics of their own faith, because they see their divine powers as a threat to their comfortable status quo. I find this to be very realistic as it is very similar to the biblical accounts of how Jesus and the Jewish priests got along.

Finally, spellcrafted is a trained only skill. The average commoner simply cannot tell the difference between divine and arcane magic. Further, in a world where wizards, druids, and sorcerers exist. How would someone know the difference between a cleric casting cure light wounds, and a rogue faking it with slight of hand and cure light wounds potions.

Hrrm. That's a good idea... I'm not quite sure if it'll fit into the game I have in mind, but it's certainly an option, and a good one at that. I'll certainly take it into consideration, thanks!

When I was referring to what the average commoner would think, I was referring to the differences between Sorcery, Wizardry, and "Glyph Magic", which should be evident to anyone who watches and has knowledge about magic. (Though the difference between Wizardry and Sorcery may take quite a bit of observation, and may not actually be known to the commoners.)

[Charender]

Wyntrewolfe wrote:

Hrrm. That's a good idea... I'm not quite sure if it'll fit into the game I have in mind, but it's certainly an option, and a good one at that. I'll certainly take it into consideration, thanks!

When I was referring to what the average commoner would think, I was referring to the differences between Sorcery, Wizardry, and "Glyph Magic", which should be evident to anyone who watches and has knowledge about magic. (Though the difference between Wizardry and Sorcery may take quite a bit of observation, and may not actually be known to the commoners.)

There are also a bunch of things in 3.5 that let you fake spellcrafting. Bards had a feat that let them make their casting look like something else. That summon monster could look like they were casting silent image. "Don't worry guys it is just an illus.... oh god it's eating my face!"

Still/silent spell, bluff/slight of hand checks, etc. While not strictly RAW, there are lot of fun things you can do to let players and NPCs disguise their spells. With those kind of rules in play it becomes almost impossible for anyone to know the true source of someone's magic.

[Wyntrewolfe]

... I must be failing my understanding check. That's a good idea and all, but I'm not sure what relevance it has. What are you trying to fix in my setting? o_o;

[Charender]

Wyntrewolfe wrote:

... I must be failing my understanding check. That's a good idea and all, but I'm not sure what relevance it has. What are you trying to fix in my setting? o_o;

You were talking about how spellcasters would know the difference between divine and arcane magic. I was pointing out way in which you could make even that difficult. Allowing spellcasters to disguise their spells is another way to muddy the water and make it so that no one can really be certain about who does or does not have a god's favor.

[Wyntrewolfe]

I don't think I was. >_>; In the setting as I had initially described it, there is no divine magic, so there is no difference.

[Charender]

Wyntrewolfe wrote:

I don't think I was. >_>; In the setting as I had initially described it, there is no divine magic, so there is no difference.

and I am specifically talking about how to have divine magic in a setting without everyone with a spellcraft skill knowing it is divine magic.

[Wyntrewolfe]

... oh. :3 Okay. That works. Thanks for the input!