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So I've been toying with the notion of making my own campaign from scratch for my next semester in the fall and kind of wanted to build off of the dynamic between sorcerers and wizards, while at the same time exploring a less advanced stage of society than I am used to.
So my reasoning for this goes as such. Wizardry is based on highly complex academic pursuits and would likely have been extremely hard to figure out when it was being pioneered, it would require your civilization to already have writing for instance. Sorcery on the other hand is intuitive and hereditary. So what my idea is is that the campaign will take in a society still in the midst of nomadic or maybe early villages, think perhaps Ancient Britain or maybe League of the Iroquois. However these loosely affiliated nomadic tribes would be ruled over by sorcerers and in fact were not allowed to have nonmagical leaders lest they be absorbed into another tribe. Unfortunately sorcery has been mostly confined to two or three large clans while the rest of the clans are almost entirely without sorcerers of their own to claim leadership.
However, roughly one century before the campaign begins literacy begins popping up amongst the tribes. The sorcerers begin to use it and eventually discover ways to create scrolls to better augment their power. This leads one tribe leader to hire a thief to steal some powerful scrolls from a rival tribe leader. The thief is able to obtain the scrolls but instead of taking them to his employer keeps them for himself. After studying the scrolls for a while he begins to understand the magic somewhat and eventually discovers a way to mimic the sorcery using some semi magical herbs he had found (first material component) He then steals many other scrolls from other sorcerers and begins learning the spells after constant trial and error. After many years he is eventually proficient enough to demonstrate his powers, using them to impersonate a sorcerer and claim a tribe of his own to govern. Decades later he dies, upon this occaision many of the tribesman find his notes on "false sorcery" and begin showing them to the others. Many of whom begin learning it themselves. The players will be among those in this tribe.
Unfortunately the new learners fail to keep the methods of their magic a secret from the other sorcerers. Fearing the oposition that this new form of magic may give them the attempt to kill the tribe in it's entirety.
That's the basic premise I'm toying with anyway.
Some things to consider
As there is no wizarding network the players must learn spells from stolen sorcery scrolls.
All players will have at least one level of wizardry, none may be sorcerers.
All weapons will be of bronze age quality.
Players must find their own material components.
There will be little if any magical equipment. I tend to view item enchanting as a very methodical pursuit and imagine it as something wizards would pioneer over sorcerers.
If you guys could give me feedback that'd be great. I don't have a plotline yet but I like the premise at least.
Balance is the key issue. I would grant everyone UMD as a class skill, and a free rank, and then say no one can start as a wizard. 2nd level is where the wizards and magus's set in.
No gunslingers, maybe alchemists, summoners yes (call it a kind of special blood magic where the eidolon has to represent your heritage). Magus is a subtype of wizard.
The real question is witches and divine magic. Druids are a must if you go for a tribal feel. Also note that if you limit their magic and their tools they will have a lower APL. Tell your party this and make sure they like it. Divine magic could only come from the invading crusaders that come from more civilized lands (But that would pretty much be channeling the North America feel completely). The best move might be to say no magic at first level. At second you can start to branch.
Love the idea.
For divine magic I was gonna go with the following.
Witches are hated as demon worshipers and ostracized and hunted.
There is not enough of an organized religion for clerics to exist
Oracles are considered a type of sorcerer in this culture, as are summoners.
Druids and shamans will exist but be considered separate from the sorcery cabal, proto separation of church and state I'd guess.
I'm not gonna allow alchemist as I see them as even more academic and "fantasy STEM" than the wizards.
Lowering the APL seems fair.
That's a little tight don't you think? Id posit that the following classes wouldn't be out of place
Bloodrager
Hunter
Magus
Shaman
Skald
Oracle
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What I Wonder is at what point is this set. If its the bronze age, then there would be likely pockets of civilization, and it is in these civilizations that elements and ideas start to come into being. Naturally sorcerers are among the most powerful, being likely from grand and noble lines where their most powerful ancestors courted powerful magical beings, like the fey, dragon-kind, demons and so-on.
While these sorcerers rule, many small groups are forming, with scholars uncovering the secrets behind the ways of magic(wizards), small cults turn to worshiping powerful divine beings in return for magical power(the first clerics), and some are chosen to act as messengers of the divines(oracles, though most consider them to be the same as the sorcerers).
While in the fringes of these civilizations, older magics are used. spirits of nature called up by shamans and druids to benefit their tribes, while isolated iconoclasts, exiles and those that care little for where power comes from, make pacts and deals with forces beyond comprehension (both fair and foul), gaining power enough to strike fear into the hearts of the civilized world.
And between the 2, some(bards and skarlds) discover their knack for magical talent, and spin it to their advantage for material gain, rather than develop the talent. And some(magi) gain a touch of the magical power that their masters once though only theirs.
Most of those would fit. I'm less sure about the Magus. They would eventually show up, but probably down the road.
ErisAcolyte-Chaos jester
Well isn't that well put. I'm gonna steal that. I am a little uncertain at what point to put this. I wavered between stone age and bronze age but I ultimately chose bronze age to better equip the players.
Evan Tarlton
I suppose that is fair enough.
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That's what I imagined, with the background magics used in the war leading to some gaining magical power very suddenly. It then takes years for magi to actually develop into an actual cohesive element within the world, during which time things are changing, altering the dynamics of the worlds political and social elements.
Why make the players do spellcasting? Is this thematic, mechanical, or an effort to tie everyone together in terms of narrative? Having a character who doesn't use magic while fighting magic-users who are supposed to be incredibly powerful is a useful character archetype: it's the Han Solo hanging out with Luke and Obi Wan, or the sorcerer-hunter tired of being pushed around. You'd likely even have completely non magical groups unimpressed with both the sorcerer and wizard sides, since either way they're the ones getting oppressed.
The Superstition Barbarian rage power line could be an entire tribe, with shamans and divine casters instead of arcane magic. I'd also recommend some kind of wounds/vigor thing since magic is rare. The way I do it is have wounds curable only through magic and rest, while vigor can be healed fully by rest or by Heal checks 1/encounter.
Cool idea. Might check out Steven Brust's Jhereg books, they have an interesting "Sorcery vs Witchcraft" thing going that could provide some inspiration.
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Lazar, you could make it so they sail around and visit places with different magic systems that have these things... Make a whole world! With different styles of casting for each place!
I don't know why people are saying Magi would be out of place. It makes sense to me that in a world where magical knowledge has to be stolen, there would be people who focus on using weapons along with magic if only because they don't know when the next time they would get a scroll would be.
At the very least, I could see Eldritch Scion Magi as being "less talented" members of the Sorcerous families, having the train with weapons because their bloodline isn't as "pure" as the rulers. Same with Bloodragers, now that I think about it.
Arcanists could be the Sorcerer-Chieftans who think that the wizards are actually on to something, rather than just knee-jerk trying to shut their whole practice down.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean they won't hunt down wizards. They'll just do it using their own methods of using magic against them.
I've been working with the idea that the BBEG of the campaign will after seeing the might the wizards can produce with their nearly infinite number of spells may try to apply the discoveries of wizardry to his mastery of sorcery becoming an arcanist, more powerful than either. He will then attempt to spread his knowledge of the arcane to those still loyal to the cabal and try to reassert their power as the newly improved arcanist cabal.
Another Idea I've been toying with is what to do with elves.What I'm toying with is the elves and humans have not yet made contact. They'd be the Colombus to the humans native Americans. That could be a way to feed the players enchanted equipment. I'd also thought that maybe the elves already have wizardry but use power words. Perhaps the elves and humans would have no way to communicate as the languages would be completely unknown and they'd treat the elves like aliens.
I would suggest putting a cap on spell level access, at least until something in-story that opens up the new more powerful spells. Say cap it at 5th level and they only open up 6th or higher with the release/escape of a demigod of magic or something like that.
For elves, you could totally steal the whole "Elves are from another planet" thing from Golarion. I also think the idea of Elves already having access to advanced wizardry since they are such an ancient race, especially if they are also extra terrestrial.
I plan on doing a pre-magic campaign also where the first wizards and sorcerers are born and developed.
In this world the only casting that exists is Alchemy.
It would be a short lived campaign but neat imo.
I don't know why people are saying Magi would be out of place..Because Magi are essentially an offshoot of an advanced form of wizardry. Sophisticated enough to blend in with an advanced form of combat. (Fighter is considerably advanced compared to warrior)
If Wizardry is just starting out, it simply has not developed enough to evolve Magi.
Keep in mind that a world defines itself more by what it leaves out than what it includes. It's like sculpture, you chip away what you don't need to unveil your final creation.
But why do Magi have to be wizard offshoots? Why couldn't an order of magi have arisen at the same time as an order of wizards. They're both stealing the same scrolls; the magi order just decided to incorporate stabbing dudes into it as well, at the expense of casting some of the truly big spells.
I would probably do it like this...
Sorcerers can get all the way to level 20 single class, and get access to thematically plausible spells, but make higher level sorcerers be extremely rare, like maybe 2-3 existing in the whole campaign world.
Wizards have to be multi class, with every other level being something else, cap out at thematically plausible 5th level spells. Multiclassing into rogue or fighter would be alright, maybe give them access to magical item creation feats to give them a bit of a power boost against the big bad sorcerers.
Rangers/Barbarians/Rogues/Fighters/Bards/Skalds should be fine as is, again with thematically plausible spells(where applicable).
Rework Clerics/Druids to have powerful spirits they channel, with thematically plausible domains/spells, possibly limit to 5th lvl spell casting with the same multiclassing restrictions as wizards.
Monks might be acceptable with the right archtypes if reworked a little thematically.
If you have Dreamscarred Press's Ultimate Psionics, the Feral Heart Soulknife would be a good for Non-Pure Blood Sorcerer kin/Good multiclass option for Druid(fits with the whole shape shifting aspect)
If it is just a single tribe that has discovered this thief's notes then they would probably be limited to advancing along the way that he did. This seems perfect to become a Rogue/Wizard/Arcane Trickster build. Wizards wouldn't even exist among humans beyond this tribe yet, and all would be treating the dead chieftain's spell books as holy scripture. This tribe would end up being persecuted by the sorcerers like the Christians were by the Romans. The players would most likely end up as missionaries spreading the word of wizardry to the masses. Tribes without sorcerers would flock to them wanting power, while the tribes with sorcerers would start a jihad to suppress the knowledge. Our history is full of examples of this happening over religions, ideologies, bigotry, etc. Any players in this game would be in for a rough ride.
I would run a sandbox, detail large parts of the world, and say that everyone starts martial and has to be mentored on magic by someone to learn it. If bloodline magic, then you must do a quest to discover your heritage. The other part would be that the gods have just appeared and some are walking the world, starting churches. You can only learn divine if you start to follow a god and impress them. Apart from that its a sandbox that might go into ultimate campaign kingdom building if the players get around to that.