So, I was watching some old Disney movies with my aunt's kids when a disturbing question struck me: why are animate objects and awaken not on the sorcerer/wizard list? I know Merlin was technically a druid in the Celtic source material, but it still feels wrong watching The Sword in the Stone or Fantasia with the wizard's pots, pans, and brooms moving of their own accord and knowing that a wizard in Pathfinder can't do that.
So, was there a reason wizards didn't get animate objects and awaken (or word of recall, repel metal or stone, repel wood, heat metal, sunbeam, spellstaff, glyph of warding, air walk, etcetera) on their spell list? Is it a 1e/2e legacy thing? I wish I'd been old enough to play the game back then... so many things would make more sense...
On a relatively unrelated note, was the archivist from 3.5 broken? I know he couldn't DMM-persistent spell or use wild shape, but I heard that he could cast basically any spell in the game between the cleric list, druid list, and the umpty-billion domains he could copy scrolls of into his book.
The class itself was not broken, but like any other class it could become broken if certain things were allowed.
I'm actually playing a rebuilt version of the Archivist class in my Pathfinder game. You can check out my version here. It is basically the same class with much of what made it overpowered toned down. We've found it to be very well balanced so far, though I've not really tried to break it.
So, was there a reason wizards didn't get animate objects and awaken (or word of recall, repel metal or stone, repel wood, heat metal, sunbeam, spellstaff, glyph of warding, air walk, etcetera) on their spell list? Is it a 1e/2e legacy thing? I wish I'd been old enough to play the game back then... so many things would make more sense...
Probably mostly legacy thing. Looking through the spell lists of various incarnations of (A)D&D one can see that some spells are available to certain classes just because so (don't get me started on "why, the hell, only divine casters can heal wounds..." - or about why the hell cleric class instead of priest or about the whole arcane versus divine division).
Probably mostly legacy thing. Looking through the spell lists of various incarnations of (A)D&D one can see that some spells are available to certain classes just because so (don't get me started on "why, the hell, only divine casters can heal wounds..." - or about why the hell cleric class instead of priest or about the whole arcane versus divine division).
That's why my group uses 3.5's UA generic spellcaster class. Works well for smoothing out that nonsense.
In one edition (I don't remember which, maybe D&D orginal of late '80s) magic users had spell that healed all hit point damage... I think it was 9th level spell but they were capable of actually healing. It hadn;t appeared in other iterations, however.
i know not many people catch this but im currently playing a sorcerer and i love that ive found this since sorcerers basically think up the spells effects they want and learn to cast it.
These new spells can be common spells chosen from the sorcerer/wizard spell list, OR they can be unusual spells that the sorcerer has gained some understanding of through study.
EDIT: This is under sorcerer spells in the rules description.
Hrm. Do the new wordcasters allow arcane healing? Dang it, now I'm curious enough to actually READ the darn thing...
But yes, I could stand for more blurring of the arcane/divine line. ESPECIALLY in (I think) Nex or Rexxor or some country where the "living god" is actually a wizard.
Oh man, my brain just snapped. I don't want to do a Living Golarion, but I just had a flash of multiple AP running in Sandbox mode, keeping track of equal numbers of days in all the running AP, and letting cross-polination just occur (Scarecrow lives through the tower in Runelords, and just wanders over to see what he can earn in Korvosa...)
But honestly, I don't see a lot of spells for animating objects. I could easily wing a Summon Monster spell into one, but honestly animated objects seem to be more a ritual enchanting, like making magic items or golems.
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In this case I think I'd personally just add the spell to the sorcerer/wizard list (And probably alchemist and witch if it isn't already there) in my game as a house rule.
I don't do a lot of house rules, but naturally there are things that I disagree with and thus change when I run a game. Nothing against the system. Rules are meant to be malleable in the GMs hands. I'm also lucky enough to not have any hardcore rules lawyers in my game.
Of course I'd probably kick them out if they were pissing me off enough. I'm there to run a game, not to be someone's rules b&$%+.