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Hey Folks!
Just thought I would do a quick break down of the raw number of spells open to each tradition now that we have SoM up on the archives.
It's an interesting look at the traditions and how they generally scope out. More spells generally equals more utility, so its an important part of how we understand the different traditions kits, and the impact it can have on "pick a list" casters.
Arcane: 489
Occult: 441
Primal: 357
Divine: 282
While we all knew that SoM didn't set out to change any of the trends we saw in the core, with Arcane at the top and Divine at the bottom, I am a little suprised to see Occult so close to Arcane in general. Obviously 40 odd spells is nothing to be sniffed at, but they are much closer in number than I would have guessed.
Primal is actually a suprise as well. Perhaps its because I favour both arcane and primal casters over other classes in general, but I always felt that primal was roughly on par with Arcane. But I guess not.
Just some numbers for thought!
Honestly, I feel like this just further devalues the arcane list if occult can do just about everything it can. I'd bet AoE blasting is a solid chunk of that 50 count too. Wasn't there a tool somewhere that could pull out all the spells on arcane but not on occult?
I would also prefer if Occult had less spells (probably closer to Primal), so that Arcane's niche can be "everything under the sun, except healing). Right now its hard to claim that title as well when Occult is close in total # of spells, plus gets Soothe.
Turns out the tool was excel lol
So some quick filtering from nethys tells us that there are 174 arcane spells not on the occult list. A much better number. That said, of those 174, 151 of them are also primal spells.
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I actually think it is very appropriate that Occult has almost the same number of spells as Arcane. It is on the same side of the coin Arcane falls onto, compared to Primal and Divine. Being formed of Mind and Spirit Essense, it has strong ties to just as many Schools as Arcane does (being 6 or the 8). If you ask me, I feel like Occult should probably have more spells than Arcane at some, since the latter covers a niche study of magic while Occult basically covers literally everything else that Arcane could never hope to fully understand without falling to madness. Gone are the days of Arcane believing itself the supreme discipline. Occultist shall inherit all magic! Hahahaha!!
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Hey Folks!
Just thought I would do a quick break down of the raw number of spells open to each tradition now that we have SoM up on the archives.
It's an interesting look at the traditions and how they generally scope out. More spells generally equals more utility, so its an important part of how we understand the different traditions kits, and the impact it can have on "pick a list" casters.
Arcane: 489
Occult: 441
Primal: 357
Divine: 282While we all knew that SoM didn't set out to change any of the trends we saw in the core, with Arcane at the top and Divine at the bottom, I am a little suprised to see Occult so close to Arcane in general. Obviously 40 odd spells is nothing to be sniffed at, but they are much closer in number than I would have guessed.
Primal is actually a suprise as well. Perhaps its because I favour both arcane and primal casters over other classes in general, but I always felt that primal was roughly on par with Arcane. But I guess not.
Just some numbers for thought!
I think you've double counted some spells somewhere, or included some focus spells?
I get:
Arcane: 469
Occult: 411
Primal: 336
Divine: 262
which is a slgihtly bigger lead for arcane.
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If I'm right, part of the reason Occult is there along with Arcane in terms of having so many, is because neither has prepared casting without a spellbook (whereas Druids and Clerics have access to their whole list when they prep)-- the player pays for not having the whole list when they prep for the day, in order to gain access to a greater possible variety of spells in their building and more potential combos for what their character does learn (and of course, if you learn a lot of spells in the course of writing them in your spellbook, your prep list could be massive)
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I doubt it has too much to do with balance concerns, really. Arcane is "everything that isn't healing" and Occult is "everything that's weird or mysterious", both of which are much broader categories than nature and holy magic.
I don't see it as balance really (its going to matter less and less as more spells come out, and the absolute number of spells on every list blows up) I think its a texture thing with how you play and think about using them. Occult and Arcane have esoteric spells that you have to unearth, but way more there to discover where Divine and Primal are more immediate, but don't have that same level of depth.
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There definitely is some list-access based balancing going on.
For example both the Wizard and the Magus are the only two exclusively Arcane based prepared casters. The Magus now joins the Wizard in having 1 less starting skill trained than every other class. Prior to SoM I assumed this was just a dumb quirk of the Wizard, like their lack of simple weapon prof, but now, with the Magus, it looks be to some sort of balancing decision.
Their only real commonality being that they are prepared arcane-only casters.
Why pick-a-list prepared casters, like the Witch, also don’t lose this skill is beyond me.
Interesting food for thought. Anybody have time to determine how many unique spells each list has? That being spells that don't appear on other lists?
I may take a crack at it later, but don't have time atm. And that could be another interesting bit of data. It's been my impression that the Divine list has the most "unique" spells while the other three tend to be more homogenous with each other.
Divine being more unique would make sense. Theoretically, one could argue that many of the spells are those created by Deities themselves. Would likely be hard to replicate I'd imagine. I would actually quite enjoy a system where every Deity has a few spells that are almost entirely exclusive to them. But, that would likely never happen. Seems more the realm of Focus Spells, Domain Spells in particular.
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Using AoN spiffy new table filter, this is what I got (give or take):
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Arcane: 15
Divine: 34
Occult: 35
Primal: 58
These are the number of unique spells they each have.
If you look at it negatively, sure. Arcane is still the broadest and most well rounded of the four.
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Perpdepog is basically saying it isn't telling of anything. Having less distinctive spells than Primal doesn't take anything from Arcane Tradition. No more than Arcane having a larger sum total of spells takeling away from the other three Traditions. They are all capable of excelling where they are meant to.
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Looking at the raw numbers isn't telling anyone anything useful. "Occult has almost as many spells as Arcane now" is not nearly as relevant as "ah shit, Occult has form spells now".
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Gogiteth Form is something I never knew I wanted.
Man things have gotten so much worse for Arcane hasn't it.
Primal having 4x more unique spells really does tell you more than Arcane having more overall spells.
Sometimes spells provide multiple excellent effects too.
Dragon form is basically a fly spell, martial attack spell with reach, specialized senses spell, and AoE attack every 1d4 rounds all for a single spell that is flexible enough to exploit creature energy weaknesses. This covers a lot of bases.
It's why I don't complain much about battle form spells. Summons are pretty lame, but battle form spells are pretty good, especially dragon. A druid can use the battle form spells better than other casters most of the time. It's a low resource cost to something useful every battle.
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Ok. Because I got bored, some more numbers
Overall:
Arcane: 469
Divine: 262
Occult: 411
Primal: 337
Arcane Only: 15
Divine Only: 34
Occult Only: 35
Primal Only: 58
Arcane+Divine: 7
Arcane+Occult: 160
Arcane+Primal: 140
Divine+Occult: 55
Divine+Primal: 31
Occult+Primal: 10
Arcane+Divine+Occult: 64
Arcane+Divine+Primal: 11
Arcane+Occult+Primal: 27
Divine+Occult+Primal: 15
All: 45
Points of interest:
Summon spells are usually tradition specific, depending on exactly what is being summoned (Dragons for argane, Plants and Animals for Primal, Outer planar creatures for Divine, etc)
Primal only spells are primarily those that affect Plants and Animals, and some of the more extreme elemental options.
Divine only spells are primarily those that deal with a specific deity or are the high level healing effects like Raise Dead and Breath of Life
Occult only spells are those that would have been Bard spells in former editions, so dealing with sonic or linguistic effects.
Arcane only spells are Summons, Power Words, and a grab bag of others such as Disintegrate or Spell Turning that don't quite fit others (And some that, honesty I thought would also be occult like Entrancing Eyes or Befuddle).
The crossover between Primal and Arcane is primarily Elemental, Evocation spells, so the blasting options.
The crossover between Occult and Arcane is primarily Enchantment or extradimensional based. So basically the powers of mind and non-euclidean spaces.
The crossover between Primal and Divine is mostly the healing spells.
The crossover between Occult and Divine are Chaotic, Evil, Sonic spells and, for some reason, Disease. Apparently Occult spells are not bastions of Law and Good.
The crossover between Arcane and Divine are the Demon, Devil and Daemon form spells (but not Angel form which is Divine specific), and a couple of others that fit each tradition iaccomplished in different ways such as Admonishment or Drop Dead.
The crossover between Primal and Occult are fey related, or those that use illusions and nature like Lose the Path.
The spells common to all are the basic, building block spells that every caster needs, Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, True Seeing and the like.
I have a whole spreadsheet of this stuff, and I'm not afraid to use it if people want to know strange stuff, like Occult Casters have more Force spells than Arcane, or that Necromancy is the least common school among the Arane traditions (presumavbly owing to a lack of healing spells) and is also the only school where Arcane doesn't have the top spot or second place.
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I have a whole spreadsheet of this stuff, and I'm not afraid to use it if people want to know strange stuff, like Occult Casters have more Force spells than Arcane, or that Necromancy is the least common school among the Arane traditions (presumavbly owing to a lack of healing spells) and is also the only school where Arcane doesn't have the top spot or second place.
I'm not going to lie, if you could host that spreadsheet on google docs or something similar, I'd be interested in perusing it. Great work!
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I have a whole spreadsheet of this stuff, and I'm not afraid to use it if people want to know strange stuff, like Occult Casters have more Force spells than Arcane, or that Necromancy is the least common school among the Arane traditions (presumavbly owing to a lack of healing spells) and is also the only school where Arcane doesn't have the top spot or second place.I'm not going to lie, if you could host that spreadsheet on google docs or something similar, I'd be interested in perusing it. Great work!
Something like this Spreadsheet?
Notes:
It's derived from the Nethys spell table, so remember to thank and tip them.
It's set up for me as creating it rather than general use, but most of it is fairly obvious. If not, ask and I'll explain my dubious reasoning. For example, before row 710 is the raw data, so scroll down a lot before getting to my works.
There are macros, but those were to automate the trait calculation, so you can save it as standard xls if you're concerned about security.
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The elemental list raises overlap questions for me. I wonder how many primal spells it gives an arcane caster that they wouldn't have otherwise and how many arcane spells the primal caster wouldn't have had. Most of the spells I spot checked were both arcane and primal already.
Have checked in spreadsheet
From the Basic Elementalist List:
Already On Arcane List: 80%
Already On Divine List: 34.81%
Already On Occult List: 31.11%
Already On Primal List: 90.87%
There are 14 spells with Air, Earth, Fire or Water tags that are not on the Elementalist list, mostly from non-core sources. 2 are not on the Arcane list, 1 is not on the Primal List.
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Ok. Because I got bored, some more numbers
Overall:
Arcane: 469
Divine: 262
Occult: 411
Primal: 337Arcane Only: 15
Divine Only: 34
Occult Only: 35
Primal Only: 58
Arcane+Divine: 7
Arcane+Occult: 160
Arcane+Primal: 140
Divine+Occult: 55
Divine+Primal: 31
Occult+Primal: 10
Arcane+Divine+Occult: 64
Arcane+Divine+Primal: 11
Arcane+Occult+Primal: 27
Divine+Occult+Primal: 15
All: 45Points of interest:
Summon spells are usually tradition specific, depending on exactly what is being summoned (Dragons for argane, Plants and Animals for Primal, Outer planar creatures for Divine, etc)Primal only spells are primarily those that affect Plants and Animals, and some of the more extreme elemental options.
Divine only spells are primarily those that deal with a specific deity or are the high level healing effects like Raise Dead and Breath of Life
Occult only spells are those that would have been Bard spells in former editions, so dealing with sonic or linguistic effects.
Arcane only spells are Summons, Power Words, and a grab bag of others such as Disintegrate or Spell Turning that don't quite fit others (And some that, honesty I thought would also be occult like Entrancing Eyes or Befuddle).
The crossover between Primal and Arcane is primarily Elemental, Evocation spells, so the blasting options.
The crossover between Occult and Arcane is primarily Enchantment or extradimensional based. So basically the powers of mind and non-euclidean spaces.
The crossover between Primal and Divine is mostly the healing spells.
The crossover between Occult and Divine are Chaotic, Evil, Sonic spells and, for some reason, Disease. Apparently Occult spells are not bastions of Law and Good.
The crossover between Arcane and Divine are the Demon, Devil and Daemon form spells (but not Angel form which is Divine specific), and a couple of others that fit each tradition iaccomplished in different ways such as Admonishment or Drop Dead.
The crossover between Primal and Occult are fey...
MOST EXCELLENT.
Thanks a lot.
Now, is there a theme to the 64 spells that Primal does not have, and similar for the other Traditions ?
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MOST EXCELLENT.
Thanks a lot.
Now, is there a theme to the 64 spells that Primal does not have, and similar for the other Traditions ?
Well, as you asked, mostly:
NOT Primal: Dimensional and Demoralisers/CursesNOT Occult: Elemental defences and toolboxes (Endure Elements, Create Water, Water Breathing)
NOT Divine: Elemental buffs (Fly, Gaseous Form) and animalistic/elemental curses (Cup of Dust, Bestial Transformation)
NOT Arcane: Remove conditions and necromantic stuff
Divine being more unique would make sense. Theoretically, one could argue that many of the spells are those created by Deities themselves. Would likely be hard to replicate I'd imagine. I would actually quite enjoy a system where every Deity has a few spells that are almost entirely exclusive to them. But, that would likely never happen. Seems more the realm of Focus Spells, Domain Spells in particular.
What might be interesting would be Focus spells with some sort of 'slottable' tag that Deities might offer to their divine casters. In addition to being castable as a focus spell, it might be able to be placed or learned in a slot, allowing greater flexibility of how it is cast, and how quickly it could potentially be repeated.
I definitely like the idea of deities having a list of spells that only their followers have access to without necessarily needing to spend a feat on it, but I know the focus spell option seems more in line with existing mechanics. Otherwise, one could expand Domain spells to include some deity specific spells to the current offerings.
Another thing worth noting as someone mentioned that Druids and Clerics can prepare their spells from the whole list of common spells on their list in the Core book. However, they don't necessarily have immediate access to automatically cast divine spells from other books, without learning them first according to the rules. Not that those spells are hard to find, but they are just not simply free access. That means that number of spells in the entire list isn't as big a balancing factor as the number of core spells. (unless of course people just expand them by default, which some will do, either intentionally or unintentionally)
I've considered the idea of Deity specific Focus Spells. It would be an interesting idea to maybe add just one, if any. Could be a neat thing Clerics get to differentiate themselves from, say, a Champion with Domain access. But, I don't see it happening unless we get a Rulebook on Deities and Divine Magic. Even then, that is a lot of Deities to make Focus Spells for.
On that matter, I would love a followup to Gods & Magic in the realm of Philosophies & Faiths. The non-deific options (and neutral deific options for that matter) are very lacking. I would like to see more from those faiths and philosophies that include Deities at their center. Could use this possible book as a means to expand on Divine magic as a whole.