Lets start with a fair warning, there's quite some potential for this thread to turn into yet another martial-caster disparity debate. This isn't my intent but due to the nature of the topic I'm practically obliged to refer to it for a variety of reasons. I don't want that to overshadow the thread's true purpose. When it does I'm out because those debates are tiresome. The debate does have merit so feel free to continue when that happens. I just don't want to get into it myself.
So! On to the actual purpose of this thread! The idea is to give spells prerequisites, like feats. This can take many forms. Here's the possibilities I thought of so far.
First off, the number of spells we give prerequisites to should be defined. All spells except cantrips, all spells except 1st level spells etc. Another is to give a select few spells prerequisites.
Personally, I like the idea to give all spells above 1st level prerequisites.
Second, what are these prerequisites going to be from the generic to the specific. For instance, spells could simply require a certain amount of lower level spells from a specific school based on the spell's level in order to be learned. This is quick and easy and wouldn't take up much space if it were ever to be printed in a book. In the same vein, we could use descriptors so that Lightning Bolt needs a particular amount of Electricity spells. This would require more space, though not that much if it would be a general rule. The most space-intensive method is to give spells individual prerequisites. This method has the greatest range of options available from the same generic prerequisites to feats, skills, abilities, BAB, Base Saves,Class features, races, you name it.
Personally, I'd love to give each spell individual prerequisites and use all the options available. I realize this is messy and unfriendly towards new players trying to grok it all, which is sad and I'd really rather not but I cannot have my cake and eat it too.
So why do this? There's quite a few reasons, really. First off, and here it comes, it can help limit the ease by which casters step on other classes' toes. For example, if Invisibility would require a certain amount of ranks in Stealth it makes it that much harder but not impossible. In some cases you could even use class features that these classes do not inherently possess forcing them to diversify and multiclass in order to access certain spells.
Next, in the same vein, because many resources, like skill ranks, are limited, it makes it harder for casters to 'do everything'. It forces them to make meaningful choices. I don't think it will, or should, make 'God-Wizards' a thing of the past, but it will diminish their ubiquity. A nice bonus, in my mind, is that it gives many casters more of a theme or flavor.
Third, an oddity of such restrictions is that it actually creates more design space. Currently spells should conform to a powerlevel according to their spell-level, but now you can create spells with an eye towards the difficulty of attaining their prerequisites. As an alternative, or maybe in addition to, having more room for spelldesign it can give room to design feats, classes, features, archetypes or races with these requirements in mind. Take gnomes for instance with their penchant for illusion magic. What if they could ignore (some) requirements for spells in that school?
I made this thread with wizards in mind. I think it shows. It makes a lot of sense, to me anyway, to require them to fulfill certain conditions representing them unlocking some arcane secret through, well, whatever it is the prerequisite requires, be it knowledge, devotion, experience or whatever. Its harder to justify spellrequirements for many other classes, especially those who are already limited in one way or another. I would suggest giving most classes some way to circumvent certain requirements, via their bloodlines, deities, patrons etc.
So, there you have it. So far anyway, thoughts are still cooking. What do you think?
Interesting idea, but caster level and components already give spells a prerequisite...
I don't think adding more to EVERY SPELL IN THE GAME is required, but if you have the time and inclination, go nuts.
:D
Thematically I think it's a cool idea... but would not take a project like this upon myself unless being paid to do so.
I did that in a homebrew version of 2nd edition.
I removed class levels from the game and turned EVERYTHING into "skills". Wanted to get +1 to your AC - take the Dodge skill. Wanted to get +1 to your THAC0 - take the Attack skill. Want to learn Fireball - take the Fireball skill. Etc.
Every skill had prerequisites. You couldn't take Fireball until you had a certain number of lesser spell skills.
(I borrowed a lot from Rolemaster at the time).
It all made sense and we had fun playing it for a few years.
The benefit, as you expect, was to slow down spell progression a little. Too keep the casters (they were all full casters) from getting their game-breaking super spells too quickly (they had lots of prerequisites so getting one was an achievement, getting lots of them was impossible).
Another benefit was that spellcasters made more sense. They were almost specialized. This guy was a firelord, that guy was a stormwarden, etc.
A downside in Pathfinder might be that makes it very difficult to be a blaster. That's already a sub-par option in the actual rules, but at least the actual rules let you take Fireball at 3rd level, Cone of Cold at 5th level, Chain Lightning at 6th level, etc., to spread out the elements a bit. The prerequisites you're talking about pretty much force a blaster to focus on one element and get lots of those spells to meet prerequisites of higher level spells - which is the opposite of what most blasters want to do.
That same downside applies to pretty much all casters - being able to focus in one thing by taking some spells in that, plus feats, traits, or other abilities to enhance that one thing, is a nice idea. But you can still take other things to fill in the gaps. But forcing casters to NOT take those other gap-fillers because they can't easily meet the prerequisites would be a big blow to caster versatility.
Maybe that's the point. Undermine their versatility.
My gut instinct is that it would make me not want to play a caster, and that means it's going too far (for my taste which may not be representative of anyone else's taste).
The spell lists and skill system in Rolemaster handle this idea quite well without removing levels from the game.
D20 Everquest did this with the concept of spell lines, so if you're looking to one approach at this suggestion, you might want to look into that.
Interesting idea, but caster level and components already give spells a prerequisite...
True, but they're not really meaningful, if you ask me. Spell-level progression is automatic. A Wizard at level 5 can learn any and all 3rd level spells from that point onward. Spellcomponents are automatic too, if you have a spellcomponent pouch you have whatever it is you need. If not, such as the diamond required for Raise Dead, well, its just money. That said, spellcomponents would certainly serve well as prerequisites for spells if they're given a different treatment.
I don't think adding more to EVERY SPELL IN THE GAME is required, but if you have the time and inclination, go nuts.
:D
Thematically I think it's a cool idea... but would not take a project like this upon myself unless being paid to do so.
It certainly isn't required but I do feel it is an option that might alleviate some of the problems people often cite with spellcasters. To be honest I'd rather not do it either :p Not that that is going to stop me ;)
I did that in a homebrew version of 2nd edition.
I removed class levels from the game and turned EVERYTHING into "skills". Wanted to get +1 to your AC - take the Dodge skill. Wanted to get +1 to your THAC0 - take the Attack skill. Want to learn Fireball - take the Fireball skill. Etc.
Every skill had prerequisites. You couldn't take Fireball until you had a certain number of lesser spell skills.
(I borrowed a lot from Rolemaster at the time).
It all made sense and we had fun playing it for a few years.
That sounds interesting! How did you handle acquiring skills without class levels? As it isn't the topic for this discussion (not entirely anyway) would you mind PM'ing me the answer rather than post it here?
The benefit, as you expect, was to slow down spell progression a little. Too keep the casters (they were all full casters) from getting their game-breaking super spells too quickly (they had lots of prerequisites so getting one was an achievement, getting lots of them was impossible).
I don't necessarily want to slow down spellprogression. Most spells should be available at the same point you would normally get it. If a third level spell required skills it wouldn't ever require more than 5 ranks of a specific skill for instance. What I do want to do, as you seem to allude to as well, is decrease the amount of (different kinds of?) spells due to increasing difficulty to fulfill their requirements.
Another benefit was that spellcasters made more sense. They were almost specialized. This guy was a firelord, that guy was a stormwarden, etc.
This I really like. The generic godwizard should still be a possibility but the majority of casters would have more defined, recognizable identities.
A downside in Pathfinder might be that makes it very difficult to be a blaster. That's already a sub-par option in the actual rules, but at least the actual rules let you take Fireball at 3rd level, Cone of Cold at 5th level, Chain Lightning at 6th level, etc., to spread out the elements a bit. The prerequisites you're talking about pretty much force a blaster to focus on one element and get lots of those spells to meet prerequisites of higher level spells - which is the opposite of what most blasters want to do.
I'm glad you mentioned this because I did neglect to think about this! One certainly should be able to play a blaster under such a system so how would I go about accomplishing this? One idea is to be more lenient with the first idea of a progressive amount of spells with a certain descriptor so Lightning Bolt wouldn't need two Electricity spells for example, but 2 Evocation spells only one of which would need the electricity descriptor, just like with cone of cold which could need 4 blasting spells, only one of which would need the cold descriptor. Keep in mind these are just quick off-the-cuff examples. I need to think a bit more about balancing before I go into detailing it all. Second, Energy Admixture and similar features and feats could just remove the need for descriptor requirements alltogether. I'm not really satisfied with my ideas so far but I'm confident I can think of something!
That same downside applies to pretty much all casters - being able to focus in one thing by taking some spells in that, plus feats, traits, or other abilities to enhance that one thing, is a nice idea. But you can still take other things to fill in the gaps. But forcing casters to NOT take those other gap-fillers because they can't easily meet the prerequisites would be a big blow to caster versatility.
Maybe that's the point. Undermine their versatility.
Sort of. I mean, the aforementioned blaster should still be able to learn teleport if he wants to, I just don't want it to be as easy as it is now. That same blaster should still be able to learn invisibility. And dispel magic. And so on. But the more different things he wants the harder it gets until he reaches a point where he realizes he won't ever learn to cast, say, Summon Monster 7, because he's spread himself too thin. I think thats fine because thats a choice the player makes. Now, the player of a wizard doesn't need to make any meaningful decisions at all when it comes to his repertoire of spells.
My gut instinct is that it would make me not want to play a caster, and that means it's going too far (for my taste which may not be representative of anyone else's taste)
I don't want that! So thats great! Once I finish off the CRB spells I hope you wouldn't mind evaluating my work and help me to make revisions until you do think you would want to play one!
The spell lists and skill system in Rolemaster handle this idea quite well without removing levels from the game.
Another mention of Rolemaster, eh?! I guess I should check it out!
D20 Everquest did this with the concept of spell lines, so if you're looking to one approach at this suggestion, you might want to look into that.
I'll add it to my list of things to check at once!
Thanks all!
This is the entire set up for magic in 3rd ed GURPS, all but the most basic spells have other spells, and sometimes other skills as pqs.
That sounds interesting! How did you handle acquiring skills without class levels? As it isn't the topic for this discussion (not entirely anyway) would you mind PM'ing me the answer rather than post it here?I did that in a homebrew version of 2nd edition.
I removed class levels from the game and turned EVERYTHING into "skills". Wanted to get +1 to your AC - take the Dodge skill. Wanted to get +1 to your THAC0 - take the Attack skill. Want to learn Fireball - take the Fireball skill. Etc.
Every skill had prerequisites. You couldn't take Fireball until you had a certain number of lesser spell skills.
(I borrowed a lot from Rolemaster at the time).
It all made sense and we had fun playing it for a few years.
Nah, I'll put it here:
Most skills had other skills as a prerequisite. You couldn't learn Medium Armor unless you knew Light Armor, you couldn't learn Power Attack unless you had at least one Melee Weapon skill, you couldn't learn Trick Riding unless you already knew Ride, etc. This formed skills into trees, but there were lots of cross-branches too, so lots of skills had prerequisites in more than one tree, where it made sense to do so. For example, I had a melee weapon tree, and I had a Run tree (improved your base movement rate and allowed things like Bullrush and Overrun skills) and I had a skill like Pounce that let you run and make multiple attacks, but it required skills in both the melee weapon tree and the run tree.
Spells worked the same way. I had a generic "Magic" skill tree that basically gave the ability to cast cantrips. Then more advanced skills in the tree unlocked Apprentice, General, Adept, and Master levels of spells. Each of those had prerequisites that you needed to know 6 spells of the previous level, so nobody got to unlock Apprentice spells without knowing 6 cantrips first, etc. You couldn't learn your first master level spell until you had 6 cantrips, 6 apprentice spells, 6 general spells, and 6 adept level spells, as well as learning the "Magic" skills to unlock each level.
Each spell was it's own skill, so there was a Magic Missile (apprentice) skill, a Fireball (general) skill, a Teleport (adept) skill, and a Wish (master) skill, etc. Many of those spells had additional prerequisites. For example, Fireball required you to know 4 fire related spells, so maybe a fire mage might learn Burning Hands, Flame Dart, Fire Resistance, and Flaming Sphere, and unlock General Magic, and learn enough cantrips and apprentice spells to meet the perquisites to unlock General Magic in the first place, and now he could learn Fireball.
I did the same things with really good combat skills like Whirlwind Attack and Pounce and Improved Criticals, etc., so that most of the really good stuff required lots of adventuring before you could unlock it (just like Pathfinder requires you to be higher level before you can take Improved Critical or learn Teleport). A generalist might have lots of useful low-tier or intermediate skills while a specialist might have fewer of those and a few upper-tier abilities.
Finally, I never gave "experience points" as rewards. Instead, I gave skill points. At the end of the adventuring day, you might get 2 or 3 skill points, maybe a bonus point or two if you finished important objectives that day, plus another bonus point or two if your roleplaying was entertaining. You just applied these skill points to raising your skills. I also had skills for Body Building (gaining HP), Resisting (improving saving throws), Combat Training (improving THAC0), and even Self Improvement (adding points to ability scores), so you could put skill points into that kind of stuff too.
That's the overview gist of it. It worked pretty well. Took lots of tweaking along the way to figure out what was too easy or too hard to get, but ultimately it worked out fine. Nobody missed classes. The really awkward part was that it took much more system mastery for a new player to figure out how to build what he wanted - a new Pathfinder player can just say "I want to be a wizard" and write down the class and its starting abilities and begin playing, but doing it in a skill-based system required him to figure out the top-tier skills he wants and then plant he low-tier skills that will get him there while avoiding skills along the way that don't contribute well to his goals.
Arcana Unearthed had this, I seem to recall. Some spells each level required feats to learn, these were the exotic spells. I suppose it is a decent idea, and one that could really be tuned to what you want. There are disadvantages, of course, mostly dealing with work required.
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Spell prerequisites work well for GURPS, because it was designed with that assumption going in. I'm not sure d20/PF is quite as well suited to that sort of thing, without a lot more spells being added to fill out the trees.
The 'spell threads' concept from an old Dragon article and / or Green Ronin's Advanced Players Manual, was one way of working trees of spells into the game, and, I thought, a pretty decent setup.