I attempted to sort 5e D&D's spells per color philosophies rather than per classes. That's what it looks like.
Please tell me if you see anything that should or shouldn't belong where it is.
This is mostly a thought experiment; I'm not sure if it would be fun or playable.
'findel
[edit] I didn't know what to do with prismatic spray and prismatic wall... Polychromatic?
Well there are multicolored cards so I guess it could be multicolored. There are also colorless cards so maybe a category for them?
Prismatic light stuff is usually white in old school MtG (Prismatic Circle etc).
Weather control doesn't have to be red; green and blue can also do it to some extent.
Prismatic light stuff is usually white in old school MtG (Prismatic Circle etc).
Weather control doesn't have to be red; green and blue can also do it to some extent.
But those do decidedly different things from Prismatic Spray and Wall.
These spells deal direct damage over anything else and the Spray variant has a high degree of randomness to it. That sounds super red to me. Poison Damage is green or black, the petrification effect is more of a black trait and blinding and banishing to another plane is rather white.
I guess you could argue that cold damage could be associated with blue since blue often deals with freezing and ice related spells even outside the Snow-covered cycles.
So perhaps you could just make it a five color spell.
I also made a short rough guide on how you could associate magic (as well as various creatures and alignment) with the MtG colors right here
(...) So perhaps you could just make it a five color spell.
I also made a short rough guide on how you could associate magic (as well as various creatures and alignment) with the MtG colors right here
yes, I've used your guide and it was quite helpful. In retrospect, I notice that I've associated psychic damage to black more so than blue.
I'm hesitant about the prismatic spray/wall spells. Folding them into white magic would be easiest. Forcing the caster to provide five mana colors would be thematic but inconvenient in play (require prism-type artifact?).
The other solution would be to go toward the sunburst route - you only get the effects available to the mana color you invested. Sunburst would become a new tag specifying that in order to deal fire, lightning or thunder damage, you need to fuel red mana, in order to deal acid damage, you need to fuel black mana etc. Should we go with that, a few more spells could also have that tag; chromatic orb comes to mind.
Updated doc. Spell lists are *a bit* more balanced. Red and Green are still a bit short, and Blue is still disproportionally large, but it’s a bit better.
Good idea for Sunburst mechanic, I think I'm going in that direction for prismatic spray/wall, and for a few other spells where the effect would depend on the mana color used to fuel the spell (like chromatic orb or gate). It's just unfortunate that there's also a sunburst spell...
I need your opinion on the following spells (bonus point if you can back-up your reasoning with an existing card)
Storm of vengeance - green yay or nay?
Phantasmal force, weird etc - available to black and blue or just black (blue already has many spells)
Wish - blue, blue and white, each color, sunburst?
Earthquake - red and green, red only?
Mind blank - blue and white, blue only?
Flesh to Stone - green and red, green only?
Forbiddance - white and green, white only?
Destructing wave - white and red, red only?
Legend lore – white, black and blue; blue only?
Passwall – red and green, red only?
Raise dead – white and black, white only?
Scying – blue and black, blue only?
Divination – blue and white, blue only?
Guardian of faith – white and black; black only?
Locate creature – white and blue; blue only?
Remove curse – white and green; white only?
Produce flame – red, redundant with flame bolt; give it to green?
I think red should have Eldritch Blast as the best direct damage color. I'd also consider Hellish Rebuke white as damage to attacking creatures (and black for No Mercy effects).
(...) So perhaps you could just make it a five color spell.
I also made a short rough guide on how you could associate magic (as well as various creatures and alignment) with the MtG colors right here
yes, I've used your guide and it was quite helpful. In retrospect, I notice that I've associated psychic damage to black more so than blue.
Psychic damage for black makes sense to, now that I think about it more. There are black spells attacking the mind, so it would make sense too.
I'm hesitant about the prismatic spray/wall spells. Folding them into white magic would be easiest. Forcing the caster to provide five mana colors would be thematic but inconvenient in play (require prism-type artifact?).
That depends on how you intend to implement the color system. Or mana in particular.
My own idea would be to not really create a resource, but rather a specialization system including an incentive to specialize on a select few colors. With a better bonus the fewer colors you specialize in. A WUBRG caster being basically a regular caster.
In this system a spell associated with multiple colors would simply count as your color, if you specialize in one of the spells colors. (for example cure wounds is green and white, so a mono green or mono white caster both get full benefit)
What this bonus would be I don't know yet.
I need your opinion on the following spells (bonus point if you can back-up your reasoning with an existing card)
Storm of vengeance - green yay or nay?
Phantasmal force, weird etc - available to black and blue or just black (blue already has many spells)
Wish - blue, blue and white, each color, sunburst?
Earthquake - red and green, red only?
Mind blank - blue and white, blue only?
Flesh to Stone - green and red, green only?
Forbiddance - white and green, white only?
Destructing wave - white and red, red only?
Legend lore – white, black and blue; blue only?
Passwall – red and green, red only?
Raise dead – white and black, white only?
Scying – blue and black, blue only?
Divination – blue and white, blue only?
Guardian of faith – white and black; black only?
Locate creature – white and blue; blue only?
Remove curse – white and green; white only?
Produce flame – red, redundant with flame bolt; give it to green?
Storm of Vengeance - Lightning, thunder, acid, cold AND physical damage seems more of a red thing. Lightning Storm makes a case for weather spells on red. There are plenty of other storm related red cards as well. A green storm spell would be more of a wind storm that is dangerous for flying creatures in particular.
Phantasmal Killer, Weird etc. - Drawing on the fear of enemies is a very black thing to do. Not really blue.
Wish - I'd make this one all colors, just because it can do pretty much anything. Wishes exist in all colors
Earthquake - Red.
Mind blank - Were this spell a debuff or or offensive effect I would've immediately said blue. It's intention is a more protective one though so I see why you considered white. I'm still going to go with blue, because of the mind tricks involved. I see it more as a preemptive counterspell.
Flesh to Stone - Black or black and green. Mostly black though. Petrification does not really have anything to do with Red.
Forbiddance - I'd say white. It's a bit like Circles of Protection. Green protects places rather through physical barriers such as massive walls of tree-sized poisoned, thorny vines or big beefy monsters that will punch an intruder.
Destructing Wave - I don't know that spell, couldn't find it in the SRD.
Legend Lore - Knowledge is one of the main domains of blue. Has nothing to do with white and in the case of black it usually doesn't come without a sacrifice.
Passwall - I'd definitely say this is red, but I don't have a case against it also being green, with the spell also affecting wooden surfaces, I'd say green is a fine fit too. Keep it both colors.
Raise Dead - Green actually. The black version of returning creatures from the grave is animate dead/create undead, and white doesn't actually deal that much in reviving the dead, they mostly just return artifacts and enchantments from the graveyard, the few creature resurrections out there are mostly creatures resurrecting due to their own ability to do so.
Scrying - This is a similar case as legend lore. It would qualify for black if some sort of sacrifice was involved, otherwise it's blue.
Divination - There's a sacrifice, though not nearly as gruesome as is typical of a black spell, I doubt we will see any such spell before a 5e remake of the Book of Vile Darkness. So it's as black a divination spell as we're likely to see for a while. I'd say keep it both colors.
Guardian of Faith - What exactly is your thought process behind making it black in the first place? It deals radiant damage and summons a defender, sounds very white to me.
Locate Creature - This one's a difficult one, locating hidden or missing creatures is not really a thing I can think of as having been represented in the card game. The closest thing i can think of is the vigilance creature ability, which is chiefly white.
Remove curse - I'd say, just like dispel magic this has a right to be green, as well as white.
Produce flame - It has no place with green. And it is not redundant, as it can serve as a light source in addition to its marginally lower damage. As such, if you have to give it to another color, give it to white, where it can be justified as related to sunlight or something. But i'd leave it red.
Storm of Vengeance can be Wrath of God or Damnation as well. Locate Creature is green and black, per green's gather the pack type spells and black's general tutoring effects.
I didn't keep a changelog, but here are the highlights
Remove curse is white and green – there are several green cards that remove an aura. Likewise with greater restoration.
Swift Quiver is now green and white – cause white = protection and green needs spells…
Guardian Spirit is now white and black and guardian of faith is white only – I had the two spells confused.
Shield is now white only – blue has enough spells.
Dispel Good and Evil is now white and black only - they are too thematic to be green or blue
Eldritch blast is now red only – although I wonder if it could fit black…
Clone, astral projection and power word stun are now black spells. Should demiplane be white and black or black only?
I’m keeping radiant-dealing spells with white (although red now has flame strike as well). White does not deal damage but has a few cards where creatures are removed from play. Let’s pretend its trhough those spells.
Magnificient mansion an Mordenkainen sword are now white
Blue has some (wind) fae cards, hence conjure fey.
Fireshield has the cold version, hence blue (now has sunburst tag)
Modify memory is now black
Raise dead is now green only. Green has several cards bringing back creatures from the graveyard, white has… none that I know of, but my knowledge is limited. I left resurrection to white however.
Phantasmal Force/Killer and weird are now black. Despite a few of Jace’s spells, I see it mostly as a black thing.
I'm going to use the Elemental Evil spells to complete the otherwise spell-starve red spell list
Updated document - including Elemental Evil spells
Finally, red has a decent list...
If you still need to shorten the blue list a bit here are a few ideas
- Mending - restoring artifice is more of a white thing to do
- Dominate Beast - Being animal focussed would perhaps fit green. Though direct take control is not actually their forté
- Animate Objects - I would make this one colorless because artifacts as a rule (which only got exceptions fairly recently) are colorless.
- Creation - same as animate objects
- Hold Monster - You already have Hold Person on the white list and not on blue. Hold Monster is basically Hold Person +1 so perhaps this is just an accidental holdover from an older version of the list?
And while I'm at it since white is also a fairly long list in comparison to others and/or if you want to rebolster green and red lists
- Compelled Duel - "Creature X and Creature Y fight each other" spells are red and green spells Example 1 Example 2 Example 3
- Create/Destroy Water, Purify Food and Drink, Create Food and Drink, Heroes Feast - They aren't unfitting for white, but green is about sustenance so they fit there too
- Flame Strike - Red for obvious reasons
- Control Weather - Red, Green and Blue all have weather related spells. White less so.
- Resurrection, True Resurrection - Green for the same reasons I had for Raise Dead
Good suggestions all around
I gave revivify and raise dead to green because as they are lower level, they are more accessible.
White has few graveyard return spells but it has a few, mostly as abilities of angels with high casting cost; hence the high-leveled res and true res. It isn't much of an argument, but that was the reasoning
One central issue is how to think about summoning creatures should work. After all, it is a very strong theme in Magic. Any suggestions?
Summoning spells in 5th are conveniently sorted by creature type/theme so it's not actually that difficult
Conjure Animals G
Conjure Celestial W
Conjure Elemental R (fire, earth) U (water, air)
Conjure Fey G
Conjure Minor Elementals R (fire, earth) U (water, air)
Conjure Woodland Beings G
Animate Dead B
And one of the unearthed Arcana also has fiend conjuring spells for more black options
If you mean getting a breadth of options similar to the many many creature spells in the card game, I wouldn't worry about it. While it's a central mechanic in the game, if you read the novels characters rarely actually use magic to summon anything outside of the occasional spirit or other supernatural being. The characters who do have others at their disposal usually lead hosts aquired by mundane means.
Many faeries are blue, so one could defend conjure woodland beings/fey as blue and green
also, what of mending/creation/fabricate. IIRC, red has a few "artificer" cards and white as a few interaction with equipment cards.
thoughts?