| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's been some discussion about spell lists in PF2, particularly a bit of contention between those who want classes to have unique spell lists, and those who want to see them codified based on casting type. Up until now I've been in the latter group, but then I had a thought: what if it was kinda both?
Begin with the Arcane list. Okay, easy, wizards and sorcerers draw from the arcane list. But bards? We'll set bards aside for the moment. Clerics and paladins are going to draw from the Divine list, Druids and rangers will draw from the Nature list. Our 4th list? Well, that's Music. Or Psychic. Or something that suits the bard better. Either way, there's our four spell lists.
Now, let's look forward to the Advanced Player's Guide 2. In addition to all its fun new content, it introduces four new caster classes: the witch, the inquisitor, the summoner, and the psychic. Psychic is, of course, joining bards in the psychic spell list, and inquisitor is going to use the divine spell list. And the witch and summoner will start walking towards the Arcane list... and then veer off through this new door, into the Pact list.
Essentially, instead of your magic type dictating various minutia like what kind of scrolls you can use, whether you need a divine focus or not, or the different components of PF1's psychic casters, your casting type instead dictates what spell list you use. This keeps the spell lists relatively clean and organized, and prevents snafus like, say, continuing to call something the Cleric spell list even though no fewer than three different classes all use that spell list.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I wont be happy unless Bards and later the witch get a taste of all spell lists. Make them the proper adepts they deserve to be.
Magnificent. I really like how you present it, and completely agree.
My money is on Bard still being arcane. They’re pretty big on verbal components, so I don’t feel that psychic casting makes much sense. And I don’t think there are enough musical casters to justify splitting off a unique branch of magic.
I don't really see the flavor of Psychic fitting the Bard. I would much rather see them get there own unique tailored list.
I mean we know there are 4 spell lists in the new edition. And we know that Paizo developers, even back before PF 2E was announced, didn't like having lots of spell lists, so my guess is that the solution will be, at least for this book:
4 spell lists, Arcane (Wizard/Sorceror), Divine (Cleric), Nature (Druid), and Bard.
Alchemists don't really get spell lists anymore (I think this is confirmed, but it's not clear how this will be set up)
the other casters will either be no longer casters at all, or they are going to pull from the Divine (Paladins) and Nature (Rangers) spell lists, but at some sort of lag. Or a combination of the above: maybe Paladins will not be real spell casters, but Rangers still will be.
Bards nature? Get out of here.
Yeah you had to have like 6 levels of druid 4 levels of fighter and like so many levels of rogue to become a bard. so more druid then anything else at that point in time.
Which was kind of funny because all bards had to be pretty high level. So if you met a guy with a lute who wanted to fight you run away fast and far.
actually I kind of meant Bard as in Bard will get there own spell list, not that they would be nature. I honestly wouldn't mind "Music/Performance Magic" being it's own thing, although I suspect it's going to pull spells from Arcane
No trust me I saw and still have the book around here somewhere they required druid levels (and yes thief) at least in AD&D
A music/performance magic group would be awesome. It would open up design ideas for spells based on song, dance, art, musical instruments, and more sonic based ones in general.
Seems like its approaching divine magic to me anyways.
I have always felt that a bard's magic should be it's own type(music, performance, song, etc.) and that druid's magic should be "nature" magic.
I could see that. In a way I can see why druid magic was divine you could call nature a divine force. I remember in 1st talking to my dm about the differences between a druid and a cleric who wanted to follow a nature god. Bard magic is a little odd. I feel like it seems like its learnt closer to arcane the divine. I don't see a bard praying for spells more like studying. However I could see a music god awarding magic to bards for their fine performances.
If you include something like Schools’ or ‘speres’ That allow some further sub sorting of these spell lists for classes it could work. Otherwise it seems like it is liable to impose a certain ‘sameness’ at the cost of flavor.
Nature magic opens up more options for fey/first world based magic and fey rarely are religious and makes sense to be it's own category.
Personally I am sick of everything being arcane or divine. Also it took years for us to get psychic magic in e1 and we only got 5 psychic casting classes.
I'm not opposed to the idea.I see what your saying too. Really I'm kind of neutral to the whole thing. But I could see it being kind of a cool thing if fey had their own brand of magic.
If you include something like Schools’ or ‘speres’ That allow some further sub sorting of these spell lists for classes it could work. Otherwise it seems like it is liable to impose a certain ‘sameness’ at the cost of flavor.
You mean the Spheres of Influence used in AD&D? Romantic. I can see that instead of a "here, cast anything you want, and a plus from my domains".
Pretty unrelated, but I miss Shadow Magic (Tome of Magic). I'll chant hooray if I ever see again the chance to create another dark magician in full flavour.
Romantic?
From Wikipedia: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition
Bards in First Edition AD&D were a special class unavailable for initial character creation. A character could become a bard only after meeting specific and difficult requirements, achieving levels in multiple character classes, becoming a bard only later. The process of becoming a bard in the First Edition was very similar to what would later be standardized in D&D as the prestige class—the First Edition bard eventually became the Fochlucan Lyrist prestige class in the Third Edition supplement Complete Adventurer.[citation needed]
To become a bard, a human or half-elf had to begin with very high ability scores: Strength 15+, Wisdom 15+, Dexterity 15+ and Charisma 15+, Intelligence 12+ and Constitution 10+. These daunting requirements made bards one of the rarest character classes. Bards began the game as fighters, and after achieving 5th level (but before reaching 8th level), they had to change their class to that of thief, and after reaching 5th level as a thief (but before reaching 9th level), they had to change again, leaving off thieving and begin clerical studies as druids; but at this time they are actually bards and under druidical tutelage.
Bards gained a limited number of druid spells, and could be any alignment that was neutral on at least one axis. Because of the nature of dual-classing in AD&D, bards had the combined abilities of both fighters and thieves, in addition to their newly acquired lore, druidic spells, all level dependent druidic abilities, additional languages known, a special ability to know legendary information about magic items they may encounter, and a percentage chance to automatically charm any creature that hears the bard's magical music. Because bards must have first acquired levels as fighter and thief, they are more powerful at first level than any other class.
This version of the bard is a druidic loremaster, more than a wandering minstrel and entertainer, though the bard does have song and poetic powers as well.
Also: http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/char/clas005.html
[Forgot how to format that, sorry]