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Actually, in many cases, if it's a magic check at all, it could be any Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion.
Right. But Divine and Nature are obvious. So I wasn't asking about them. I was asking about the artificial distinction between arcane and occult.
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Right. But Divine and Nature are obvious. So I wasn't asking about them. I was asking about the artificial distinction between arcane and occult.Actually, in many cases, if it's a magic check at all, it could be any Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion.
The division is actually extremely similar.
What previous editions called Divine has been divided based on its focus : tangible for Primal, intangible for Divine.
The same has been done to what previous editions called Arcane : focus on tangible for Arcane, on intangible for Occult.
It is good that the first divide makes obvious sense to you, but really it's just the same in both cases.
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It is all about the essences. Occult and Arcane tap into different essences. I think that can be difficult to see as a player because wizards had such a wide range of spells in past traditions that they get a lot of spells in their list that probably shouldn't be there due to tradition, but looking beyond the spell lists and the little ways the spell lists break the rules, for understanding which skill you would use for understanding a specific phenomena in game, you should look at what the essences are.
Which can be tricky if you are only consulting archives of Nethys because the essences idea is a new, world specific lore addition of PF2 that is inherently different than past games, even if it wobbles around the expectations of past games. If you were extrapolating on this for content you were making for yourself, you would be fine for your own house game, but if you were making resale content based on it, you would probably need to be careful because a lot of that is specific lore content to Golarion. Otherwise, you are probably better off creating your own loose interpretation for your own game world/content of the differences between occult and arcane magic based off of what is listed within the specific skills.
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Had to go read through the article in Secrets of Magic to see what people were talking about.
I think it helps me with my understanding of what they meant, although I don't think it changed a whole lot of my understanding as I think much of what I was operating on was along its lines.
Both Arcane and Occult deal a lot in respect to Information or Knowledge. I agree that Arcane is the more structured, systematic easily categorizable, systematic knowledge. Not necessarily simple knowledge. I think some people said arcane magic is simple and reproducible, and I doubt they meant that to its extreme, as they make it clear most people "can't" seem to comprehend the arcane mysteries. There are some very hard to absorb/understand facts and concepts a spellcaster needs to know to be able to wield such power. Now being able to recognize aspects of arcane magic isn't necessarily that unknown, but despite the Arcane being more about material and reproducible processes that anyone with the same perceptions, knowledge, and resources should be able to reproduce, so basically being very closely related to the modern concept of the Scientific Method, but applied to those cosmic abilities that are called Magic. It is about processes, formulae, and reproducible systems, and the knowledge of these things.
Occult is intended to be a mystery of mysteries. It is built on knowledge, but rather than knowing how to preform addition (an analogy of a concept one might attribute to a more arcane type process) it instead is knowledge of numerous dates of founding of various nations. Dates of the deaths of various people. Knowledge that could prove useful, but isn't really formulaic in nature, it seems more arbitrary points on a graph of questionable purpose. Occult is being able to look at all that arbitrary data and see the mystery (spiritual potentially force) that is hidden within all that knowledge that they have consumed. So the Tradition talks of teh 'systematic' methods those practitioners use to access their occult abilities, but the occult itself isn't so much a natural 'system' that everyone accesses the same systematic way. Instead it is more of a personal journey/process of learning to access your ability to use the knowledge you acquire over time to affect and gain the power you are seeking.
I think a key thing for me is that 'learning' and diving into the Occult, peering into and acquiring occult knowledge is more like looking at a giant 'Where's Waldo' image, and if you're lucky you spot something, and learn something new and hidden that was hiding there in (maybe not so) plain sight. But someone else could look at the very same information, and not be able to see or make out what you see. Maybe if you have shared knowledge of Occult, you might be able to help them come to spot what you think you saw, but it is hardly a given. (and they might honestly see something, but something different than what you saw) I think, however a KEY aspect of true Occult knowledge is that Occult knowledge isn't really something you just know. True occult knowledge by its nature actually changes the learner, affecting how they see future things. Although a little too practical to be truly an Occult example, the knowledge of what Soilent Green is made of may change a person. It changes how they will then ever interact with it. Occult knowledge is a web of such seemingly obscure facts that are interconnected and provide the practitioners who have learned the ways, the ability to affect things, but manipulating these fundamental pieces of knowledge they have acquired.
So yes, in the more Cthulhu related mythos, various knowledge can drive someone insane, and that sort of knowledge, I would argues falls into the Occult variety, and the persons couldn't stand the changes it caused to themselves. Arcane knowledge does not inherently change the person as much as it may eventually enable them to wield power that might affect the person. But in such cases, it was secondary process that eventually caused the change. So, yes an odd wizard could go insane without dabbling in the occult, due to anything senility, or pursuit of specific types of power that just aren't perhaps completely morally right, and drifting their nature to socially unacceptable nature, as an eventual side effect.
Occult knowledge on the other hand might drive them crazy as an integrated and primary part of its process, depending on what they are looking for. Note, not all occult secrets are bane and destructive driven, so not all occult delving is going to drive people to become murderous lunatics. Turn the table, and you could have an overenthusiastic occultist who believes everyone should be free and happy, who in pursuit of power to help achieve this very prospect, they might lose sight of people's ability to deceive them and have malicious intent. This sort of loss of could certainly endanger them, and so could be an example of one of any number of potential side effects of going over a sort of deep end of their immersion in the occult beyond perhaps their capacity to contain it.
And again, we don't define how much Occult knowledge any particular individual can have/contain. So a PC doesn't have to be subject to any such idiosyncrasies unless the player wants them to. (or your are playing some sort of horror genre where such knowledge/effects get defined past the core)
So Arcana is knowledge based on the systematic use of knowledge to enact reproducible magical results. They would typically cast very systematically, and think very systematically. They might have to adjust for important factors that might keep things from always being identical, but they would probably tend to argue you need to know the things they know to properly cast the spell, because it is a system.
Occult is knowledge of seemingly arbitrary facts and the ability to see mystical truths underneath these facts, and to leverage these mystical truths to find an otherwise arbitrary reasoned path to implement the needed a mystic result in their current situation, based on their confidence in their own knowledge and their ability to get to the needed result. Not specifically because a singular specific set of identical steps should produce it, but that they know they have enough points of knowledge to be able to as a 'art' craft the necessary we of knowledge to achieve what they need. An occult caster would take the perspective another caster doesn't need to know what they know, they just need to know similarly useful knowledge to unlock the ability, not the same specific information.
Oooh... another way of potentially looking at it.
Arcanists would probably say they possess/own or the information they use to drive their magic, so they collect their knowledge, and they build their processes, and that in the end builds their power.
Occultists link themselves to these occult secrets, but from a more purely occult standpoint, they don't own the knowledge, but partner with the knowledge. (many evil occultists become very jealous of their knowledge and actually start treating some of their knowledge more like it is arcane, and I think the more pure Occultists would probably argue, that is why their spells go astray and they get wrapped in tentacles and taken away in the end so often.) This kind of goes in hand with witches having patrons. Whom help them access this occult power, but it may not really be coming from that power, just that the patron acted as their catalyst who helped them get in touch with this occult abilities.
Divine practitioners of course don't really feel they own the knowledge or power they receive, instead they share the faith in their divine patron. They don't focus on the details of the knowledge at all, instead focusing on maintaining their relationship to their patron, allowing the patron's knowledge to enact the true magic.
Primal practitioners don't so much feel like they are building a specific relationship, as they are already a part of something greater, a gestalt force that they are a part of. They rely on the gestalt, and focus on its overall needs, and insuring that they maintain themselves as a healthy part of that greater whole.
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Lost the plot for a bit there, but I wanted to touch on just one or two things.
Right. But Divine and Nature are obvious. So I wasn't asking about them. I was asking about the artificial distinction between arcane and occult.Actually, in many cases, if it's a magic check at all, it could be any Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion.
Oh, certainly, your OP did say that you were not concerned with those skills and traditions, but the post which I responded to posited that the Arcana skill covered anything that fell under 'normal D&D magic' in contrast with Occultism. At the risk of applying pedantry to hyperbole, I felt it may be useful in the name of posterity to clarify the true breadth of 'magic' skills. After all, I would consider much of divine magic to be classified as the magic of a standard D&D game, yet relatively far from the Arcana skill, and I imagine for some it is all too easy to forget that Nature is equally viable to Arcana at identifying magical phenomena. I don't mean to divert discussion away from the mental traditions in focus.
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The other thing which brings me back is that I don't think this point has been entirely addressed:
Recall Knowledge about ancient mysteriesAre wizards no longer the ones that study ancient mysteries? Are they not the ones that study obscure references in ancient tomes written in dead languages that they must seek out to uncover the truth? Are they no longer the keepers of the subtle arts and guardians of dangerous knowledge that would terrify most people? This is now the purview of the bards, the ones that sing and magic happens? yes?
Alfa/Polaris' excellent primer from the previous page touches on the foundation of the answer as I now understand it, but to apply that logic directly to the question, it's a matter of what we mean by 'ancient mystery'.
If by 'ancient mystery' we mean (as you clearly do) the unknown lore about the past, the esoteric knowledge coveted by those learned in the subtle ways of the world, tracing clues from this tome to that tome, assembling the facts until there is a gleaning of the truth that has been cleverly encoded or hidden, that is still absolutely the field of Arcana. Arcana is the science part of magic; of carefully piecing together the mysteries one by one until a grand design forms. All wizards are trained in Arcana because Arcane magic is empirical and rational, not because there is nothing mysterious about it--certainly, it would be foolish to say that there are no mysteries or wonder to science merely because it deals with rational analysis of evidence.
On the other hand, if by 'ancient mystery' we mean mysticism and pseudo-scientific systems, the secret lore of such ancient and irrational beliefs such as astrology, numerology, and the laws of attraction and sympathy (like attracts like/like affects like), those are the field of Occultism. Both Arcana and Occultism are 'rational' in their attempt to categorize and explain, but Arcana applies this to the fundamentally empirical (if incomprehensibly vast) aspects of material existence, while Occultism applies this approach to the much more nebulous and self-contradictory realm of spirits. Arcana will attempt to understand numerology and Tarot by recording numbers and suits with empirical meanings and conclude that it must be hogwash, but the truth (as far as this fantasy setting goes anyway) behind the meanings of those cards is not rooted in fact, it's rooted in fiction. This is why bards must know Occultism to learn their style of magic--narrative is an elemental force in their magic, and gleaning subtle meanings by weighing tenuous relationships is how they cast spells.
Of course, there is nothing at all preventing a wizard from learning to understand these ancient mysteries, too. As others have pointed out, wizards have more than high enough intelligence to excel at both Arcana and Occultism, but the mysteries of one are rational and can be uncovered and nailed down through assemblage of facts, while the mysteries of the other will melt your brain or end in tentacles if you try too hard to see only what is factually true and not what is only metaphorically true at its most definite (and as somebody who once long ago spent a lot of time trying to learn the symbolic meaning of Tarot cards from a rational this-equals-that perspective, I'm not kidding about the sensation of brain melting).
In summary, bard magic is Occult because it is the magic of telling a story and discovering the hidden truth in a web of lies or creating powerful emotions with little more than a combination of notes in the right order and an understanding of how fiction affects reality. Nothing stops wizards from learning the theory, but when it comes to their own magic, the mysteries they focus on are uncovering the fundamental truths on which underpin reality, and to them a fact which one day creates fire but the next day sprouts flowers is useless. Worth studying for some hidden variable which, when accounted for can reliably produce flowers or fire on command and why, but a failure of a fundamental law of reality.
... Now I want to play a Wizard character...
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What previous editions called Divine has been divided based on its focus : tangible for Primal, intangible for Divine.
The same has been done to what previous editions called Arcane : focus on tangible for Arcane, on intangible for Occult.
It is good that the first divide makes obvious sense to you, but really it's just the same in both cases.
Excellently succinct explanation here, IMO!
Here's my analogy, in terms of medicine.
Arcane is aspirin, ibuprofen, chemotherapy, antibiotics, reconstructive implants, and all the medicine that works and produces effects in a decently predictable fashion through chemical and physical means.
Occult is stuff like the placebo effect. It's strong enough that virtually all credible tests of new drugs have to be done as a double-blind, because convincing somebody you're giving them medicine will have an effect. (Heck, even occult's healing spell, Soothe, works along these lines with some magical reinforcement.) Occult is stuff like how your happiness influences certain medical outcomes.
The analogy is imperfect, given occult magic can produce effects every bit as "real" as arcane magic in a way that doesn't line up exactly with the placebo effect, but it's similar.
For the sake of a playable game, occult magic is presented in a very neat and tidy fashion. You play a bard or a witch or a sorcerer or a summoner, you pick out your spells, and you cast them. In-world, occult magic is probably less neat.
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I… still don’t understand what a haunt, a hag, an aboleth, a psychic, and a bard have in common. It really feels like it lacks an inherent rule of thumb compared to the other three. I know the meta-explanation - “spooky stuff” - but not the internal logic within the setting.
Why are oozes occult, anyway? Aren’t most of them made by ostensibly-arcane wizards?
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I… still don’t understand what a haunt, a hag, an aboleth, a psychic, and a bard have in common. It really feels like it lacks an inherent rule of thumb compared to the other three. I know the meta-explanation - “spooky stuff” - but not the internal logic within the setting.
Why are oozes occult, anyway? Aren’t most of them made by ostensibly-arcane wizards?
A haunt is a lingering spirit, a hag is a humanoid but has an affinity for occult witchcraft (so actually Society but peripherally Occult), an aboleth is one of those unknowable tentacle monsters from beyond the bounds of reason nested in the liminal realm of illogic and the dark between stars, bards are storytellers whose trade in weaving the fabric of the spirit and imagination. Psychics I don't know why they have to be occult but most psychic phenomena where emotional weight gets tied to an object's spirit or laden in the symbolism and collective unconscious power of narratives.
Slimes... I've got nothing. Anything I did come up with would be grasping at justifications even more than anything else.
Addendum: mind you, aberrations are Internally diverse enough to make this explanation falter--it's hard to say what makes aberrations Occult when it's hard to say what makes an aberration. It clearly includes two major branches in the 'alien to reality itself monsters from beyond the stars' and 'flesh warped examples from other creature types' groups. It seems like there's possibly a third for creatures that seem like they could just be extra unusual humanoids except for the unusual biology.
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Or, to put it another way with a little tongue in cheek--if we carry over our explanation from earlier, the Occultism skill is the study of everything which the Arcana fellows tried to categorize rationally, then eventually threw their hands in the air and declared it nonsensical or irrational. Numerology, astrology, harrow, eldritch beings from the dark tapestry, spirits, and apparently protoplasmic life forms.
Though on the other hand, truth be told I probably actually struggle to define what unites Arcana more than Occultism. In 1e it was kind of 'the study of magic' and now that there's 4 skills for that, I'm not sure what else Arcana is for aside from being 'the study of the study of magic' (it's the skill that will give you an overview of all traditions, after all, even if it can't explain what that tradition knows about magic from their perspective). The skill description doesn't really go further than arcane theories and creature ID.
It almost feels like the main reason dragons and beasts are Arcana is because they're sapient but otherwise could as easily be nature (and Beasts are both). Arcana is the magic science skill, which makes sense, but every other magic skill has a clear theme parallel to the magic--even if, as we're discussing here, Occultism feels a bit of a grab bag of paranormal and weird science themes, at least it has those themes.
This is something I'd love to flesh out further.
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Occultism deals with the dark places and their denizens. The dark places in the world and those inside our minds.
There are denizens of dark places such as fiends and undead that do not fall under the purview of Occultism. I think that is because those are directly linked to the soul, hence Religion.
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The wizards that make oozes tend to be eaten before they can take notes. Most of our knowledge comes from the shuddering tales of adventurers that destroyed them.
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One in fiction divide you can point to is that occult creatures cast occult spells and arcane creatures cast arcane ones.
Doesn't really inform the meta reasons, of course, which are more based around "if there are bard spells that wizards can't cast and wizard spells that bards can't cast, why do we say it is the same kind of arcane magic?" And that begs the question of why one skill should govern expertise in all forms of magic. And once you've gotten that far, you need to divide up the relevant monsters for that sort of magic.
If may help to think of bards as to abberations as clerics are to fiends. The classes are both the most suited to wielding and combatting the power of their respective monsters. Clerics do this through their various alignment based spells, and Bards do it through being able to both inflict and shield from various Lovecraftian mental warping.
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I… still don’t understand what a haunt, a hag, an aboleth, a psychic, and a bard have in common. It really feels like it lacks an inherent rule of thumb compared to the other three. I know the meta-explanation - “spooky stuff” - but not the internal logic within the setting.
Why are oozes occult, anyway? Aren’t most of them made by ostensibly-arcane wizards?
Oozes are a bunch of things. Alchemy, magical accidents, things from the dark corners of the world or beyond, coalesced dreams, etc. They're probably in occult rather than arcane because it's rare the intention was to make an ooze, and it's generally not a terribly repeatable process.
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I know it's an entirely different game system, but all of this is at the core of the White Wolf/Onyx Path game Mage: the Ascension. The different paradigms and how they help define how the varied ideas of magic/reality work is fascinating (and the source of endless discussion).
Applying this to the PF2 magical traditions is not a perfect fit (necessarily, depending on your interpretation), but it can help with the Arcane/Occult divide.
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Occult is about connections. Connections to those around you, connections to parts of yourself that you didn't even know where there, connections to things that... ok, honestly, you probably shouldn't connect with.
It is the flirty bard of magic traditions, with all the smoozing and strange eldritch STDs that come with it. Others (wisely) choose not to make those kinds of connections, but you can't help yourself from offering them a drink and trying to chat them up.
And given the scope of the cosmos, the majority of bars in the universe have tentacle monsters in them.
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I… still don’t understand what a haunt, a hag, an aboleth, a psychic, and a bard have in common. It really feels like it lacks an inherent rule of thumb compared to the other three. I know the meta-explanation - “spooky stuff” - but not the internal logic within the setting.
Why are oozes occult, anyway? Aren’t most of them made by ostensibly-arcane wizards?
I think this is a fair point, but I also think it extends beyond Occult.
What's the connecting thread between a golem, a unicorn, a blue dragon, and an efreet? Or between an angel, a skeleton and the various rites and rituals practiced by the church of nethys?
All of these choices are a bit arbitrary, it's just some of the arbitrary is older and therefore arbitrary we're more used to. It's a concession to not slicing up knowledge checks into two dozen different specialties.
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It's worth considering that, assuming these four skills are even somewhat diegetic categories, they were probably settled over generations of mortals loosely deciding what subjects were appropriately themed around each of the four magic traditions.
Gods, Angels, undead, and divine magic all fall under religion because they're (mostly) all related to the question of 'where did I come from and what happens to me after I die?' -- Divine magic being the obvious outlier, but also keyed in to the others. Gods give it, Angels and undead use it, and at high levels, it holds power over life, death, and souls.
Of course, as previously discussed, Religion is easy mode for describing what unifying themes tie skills or their corresponding traditions together, both in universe and from our player perspective. Judging from the essay on Occult magic, it's not very well known even in-universe why eldritch beings that defy logic and explanation keep showing up wherever the inexperienced dabble in occult rituals.
On a related note, I wonder why certain creatures have the innate magic traditions they do. Sorcerers can have innate divine magic because they were born with demon blood, but where do demons get it? Its innate so they don't have to worship for it, they're just supernaturally charged with whatever the raw essence of divine magic is. Again, demons are easy mode, because obviously angels and demons are divine, but who made dragons be such that they are born with arcane instead of primal? Fae having primal power with a twist for illusion and enchantment rather than arcane or even occult?
Of course there are some interesting insights to be gleaned cross referencing data. For example, rather uniquely among fiendish outer denizens, qlippoth do not have divine magic, they have occult. This makes sense since they are somewhat antithetical to the divine and do not benefit from mortal faith. Also it puts them somewhat in line with outer gods who likewise are occult and plausibly predate the creation of the multiverse.
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Something that kind of just occurred to me: The fuzzy borders between the knowledge skills in some places makes it feel like these categories aren't entirely settled in-universe. There is still some mystery to magic.
Given that I've said elsewhere that I want rules to reinforce the setting, this is some fun headcanon. Also fits with my preference for allowing my players to be more flexible with what skills they are able to use for some tasks, so that's neat.
Put another way: To me, I don't need the skills to be rigid in their application. I prefer more narrative logic that connects things conceptually, if sometimes loosely.
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As the last two posts suggested, delineations might be more a matter of Golarion citizens drawing them rather than the cosmos itself. They are called magic traditions, and traditions are constructed rather than discovered.
So creatures w/ weird physiology? That's mostly under Occult since that's where the first ones landed and they kept piling on more, including oozes which have species from across the spectrum (yes, even Divine with that "blood of a deity" example) and Rust Monsters which have nothing otherworldly about them.
Hags use Occult magic? People studying the Occult should study how Hags work, how their casting works, and what spells they've developed.
Primal and Divine fall into place while Arcane covers the more classic mysteries, the first wave of knowledge which once upon a time likely including some Occult topics and concepts until teachers had too many students going insane or summoning eldritch horrors. So instructors split the more empirical/demonstrable from the Lovecraftian wiggly-woo-woo that was difficult to write a treatise about, yet somehow could be captured better with song, poetry, and ravings; the other side of the brain as it were.
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It's worth considering that, assuming these four skills are even somewhat diegetic categories, they were probably settled over generations of mortals loosely deciding what subjects were appropriately themed around each of the four magic traditions.
Gods, Angels, undead, and divine magic all fall under religion because they're (mostly) all related to the question of 'where did I come from and what happens to me after I die?' -- Divine magic being the obvious outlier, but also keyed in to the others. Gods give it, Angels and undead use it, and at high levels, it holds power over life, death, and souls.
Of course, as previously discussed, Religion is easy mode for describing what unifying themes tie skills or their corresponding traditions together, both in universe and from our player perspective. Judging from the essay on Occult magic, it's not very well known even in-universe why eldritch beings that defy logic and explanation keep showing up wherever the inexperienced dabble in occult rituals.
On a related note, I wonder why certain creatures have the innate magic traditions they do. Sorcerers can have innate divine magic because they were born with demon blood, but where do demons get it? Its innate so they don't have to worship for it, they're just supernaturally charged with whatever the raw essence of divine magic is. Again, demons are easy mode, because obviously angels and demons are divine, but who made dragons be such that they are born with arcane instead of primal? Fae having primal power with a twist for illusion and enchantment rather than arcane or even occult?
Of course there are some interesting insights to be gleaned cross referencing data. For example, rather uniquely among fiendish outer denizens, qlippoth do not have divine magic, they have occult. This makes sense since they are somewhat antithetical to the divine and do not benefit from mortal faith. Also it puts them somewhat in line with outer gods who likewise are occult and plausibly predate the creation of the multiverse.
Also AFAIK Qlippoth are not made of mortal souls, as opposed to demons, devils, angels and even undead.
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Of course there are some interesting insights to be gleaned cross referencing data. For example, rather uniquely among fiendish outer denizens, qlippoth do not have divine magic, they have occult. This makes sense since they are somewhat antithetical to the divine and do not benefit from mortal faith. Also it puts them somewhat in line with outer gods who likewise are occult and plausibly predate the creation of the multiverse.Also AFAIK Qlippoth are not made of mortal souls, as opposed to demons, devils, angels and even undead.
Indeed! While they are made of the same spiritual essence, they were created (or naturally spawned) out of the raw quintessence of the planes same as other proto-outsiders probably were before Pharasma kickstarted the cycle of souls.
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I think some of the confusion comes from the fact that, for the most part, occult is the old arcane. Before druids and clerics both used divine magic. But it was clear that they were different sources. Arcana and Occultism were one I the same, with arcana checks being used as anything non-divine. That lead to weird otherworldly magics using the same check as figuring out understand how a magic gateway worked. Yes, they feel similar in the way nature and divine did, but they're still different flavorings. Arcana mostly got manufactured magic, while occultism got the naturally occurring non-native magic
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I know it’s technically a separate canon, but it’s worth remarkingon here - Starfinder doesn’t have magic traditions, right? It’s all just magic?
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If it could be explained, then it wouldn't be occult. ;)
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I know it’s technically a separate canon, but it’s worth remarkingon here - Starfinder doesn’t have magic traditions, right? It’s all just magic?
Not to spam, but as far as I understand it, by the time of Starfinder, technology has advanced to the point where society relies less on magic, thus the distinctions between different types of magic are less significant to the people than they are in olden times. They are aware there are different traditional classifications of magic, and that those traditions used to be a lot more important than they are in modern times. Those classifications still exist and Starfinder magic may come from any of the previous traditional sources, but it's glossed over. For example, the magic a mystic uses might original from divine grace, be based on study of fundamental forces, or come from latent psychic potential, but the distinction between those sources of power folds together before the mystic's intuitive understanding of how the universe is connected.
I think some of the confusion comes from the fact that, for the most part, occult is the old arcane. Before druids and clerics both used divine magic. But it was clear that they were different sources. Arcana and Occultism were one I the same, with arcana checks being used as anything non-divine. That lead to weird otherworldly magics using the same check as figuring out understand how a magic gateway worked. Yes, they feel similar in the way nature and divine did, but they're still different flavorings. Arcana mostly got manufactured magic, while occultism got the naturally occurring non-native magic
Was that ever true? To my memory all magic was identified using either spellcraft or knowledge arcana, and using all items were ativated with Use Magic Device. You'd use knowledge religion to identify and knowledge nature for the same monsters you do now, and so is arcana. The occultism monsters were mostly knowledge dungeoneering.
Starfinder Senior Developer
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I was also confused and a little frustrated by what the heck occult magic was when Pathfinder's second edition was in its early stages. Unraveling and understanding those differences was a big reason I volunteered to write the occult magic introduction in Secrets of Magic, which other folks have summarized early in the thread. My own bias aside, it's worth a read (and not just a summary), as are the other three magic tradition articles. We packed a lot of flavor into those few pages!
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I was also confused and a little frustrated by what the heck occult magic was when Pathfinder's second edition was in its early stages. Unraveling and understanding those differences was a big reason I volunteered to write the occult magic introduction in Secrets of Magic, which other folks have summarized early in the thread. My own bias aside, it's worth a read (and not just a summary), as are the other three magic tradition articles. We packed a lot of flavor into those few pages!
It is great that you did so, John.
I truly believe it helps other people who share your initial frustration/confusion better understand Occult by following the path you yourself found.
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A wizard uses geometry to build a pyramid and a city.
A bard uses geometry to draw impossible stairs and compose an intricate painting.
They both have a grasp on the geometrical theories, but have wildly different ways to apply them.
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I think some efforts to define these differences this way are going to confuse people. Illusion magic is still very much in the arcane wheel house and wizard illusionists can easily do astonishing things with it. Focusing on the outcome instead of the process feels inverted to me, because outcomes of spellcasting don’t actually vary that much from tradition to tradition. The essences loosely control what spells can be cast, but there are enough ways to break the rules that it works better to think of in world motives and approaches, some of which are certainly more subjective then universally definable.
Lore about dragons is mostly held in Arcane libraries and repositories of magic because wizards and arcane scholars have been studying them this way for millennia. The issue here is really that recall knowledge in combat is still a nebulous and confusing hybrid action of remembering things your character knows and synthesizing them with material observation. How fair is it to see a red scaled creature and assume either fire resistance or fire abilities? That seems like a nature or medicine connection as much as an arcane or society connection(for kobolds, for example), and yet many GMs reading of the rules would require one specific check to learn anything at all about a creature, even though that is a mechanical oversimplification of the way stories would be told in world.
Most magic items don’t really have a tradition because the magic can be made to work in many different ways. It is probably mostly in world casters and scholars arguing about which discipline x spell belongs in, when PCs are often able to break those rules once they become powerful enough.
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A wizard uses geometry to build a pyramid and a city.
A bard uses geometry to draw impossible stairs and compose an intricate painting.They both have a grasp on the geometrical theories, but have wildly different ways to apply them.
My analogy is similar.
A Wizard uses geometry for architecture and mechanical engineering.
A Bard uses geometry for Riemannian manifold and extends into Algebraic Topology.
If a thing cannot exist according to the rules of physical reality, but you can still think about it, that's very much occult.
I think some of the confusion comes from the fact that, for the most part, occult is the old arcane. Before druids and clerics both used divine magic. But it was clear that they were different sources. Arcana and Occultism were one I the same, with arcana checks being used as anything non-divine. That lead to weird otherworldly magics using the same check as figuring out understand how a magic gateway worked. Yes, they feel similar in the way nature and divine did, but they're still different flavorings. Arcana mostly got manufactured magic, while occultism got the naturally occurring non-native magicWas that ever true? To my memory all magic was identified using either spellcraft or knowledge arcana, and using all items were ativated with Use Magic Device. You'd use knowledge religion to identify and knowledge nature for the same monsters you do now, and so is arcana. The occultism monsters were mostly knowledge dungeoneering.
Right. Sorry, I kind of mixed referring to the magic traditions for spellcasting and themes of monsters (divine vs arcane) with the skills (k arcana and k religion). I was referring more to how the new traditions feel, and kinda forgot about Dungeoneering lol.
I suppose a better way to put it would be Arcana had some of it trimmed and fused with Spellcraft. That trimmed part mixed with dungeoneering to make occult. I was only thinking of it originally in terms of the traditions and idnt consider the skills fully
I really think that the simplest and easiest way of understanding this is as such.
Arcanists seek to understand magic and the universe through logic and reason.
Occultists seek to understand magic and the universe through emotion and narrative.
Divinists seek to understand magic and the universe through humility and subjugation of the self.
Primalists seek to understand magic and the universe through harmony and togetherness.
There is a world that me and my friends have been building for a while where we have sought out how and why magic is specifically different than physics. If magic exists in the world and it can be quantified, measured, and understood, then is it not just a type of physics that exists in that world?
The distinction I made was simple. The language of physics is math. With enough math, you define everything in physics. The language of magic is semantics. It is because the story says it is. And if the mind can find a connection, it will be there, and it is there because you found the connection.
Occult magic is more how I defined magic, while Arcane magic is closer to wonderous physics.
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Is an arcane Sorcerer at all analytical, though?
Is an arcane Sorcerer at all analytical, though?
This, to me, is one of the flaws that comes with presenting each of the traditions with a personality type, if you will. It's one thing to say Arcane magic is founded on the intersection of Mental and Material essences, and so deals with higher cognitive functions and physically observable reality. It's conceivable that magic which focuses on reason and physicality would foster empirical approaches to magic such as those seen in wizardry, but I don't think we can necessarily assert that Arcane magic is or must be the rational study of material forces.
There may be some fundamental truth to Arcanism yielding better results through rational categorization because it concerns itself with mental forces (how come mental/vital are always described as the methodology, never the forces actually under scrutiny?), I feel like the shorthand description of each tradition is most true of the most iconic/common classes which use that tradition. Arcane is defined as using logic and rationality to categorize the magic inherent to the world around them because that is how Wizards operate. So too with Clerics placing their faith in unseen powers beyond, Bards categorizing the bizarre and accessing ephemeral forces in a systemic (primarily musical) way, and Druids finding instinctual connection to the cycles of the natural world.
To me, a Witch with a Divine patron is still using their intellect to comprehend their patrons lessons about the magic of instinct and spirit. They may find that understanding their magic requires a familiarity with instinct and faith, perhaps even having faith in their patron's guidance, but on the other hand they're just as likely to mistrust their patron's motives and prefer logic. The same goes with a Sorcerer who can control the forces of the Arcane with instinct.
The description in the book suggests that Arcane Sorcerers study the secrets of their blood rather than arcane grimoires, which would suggest that each tradition somehow responds best to certain mindsets. On the other hand, the description of the other three are less particular. In fact, the Arcane Evolution feat mentioned above (the one that gives Arcane Sorcerers a spellbook) suggests rather the opposite--that having an innate connection to the Arcane actually fosters a natural aptitude for academia, irrespective of study.
I'm rather on-board with the notion that the mental/vital essences are easier to grasp with a suitable mindset, thus subtly encouraging even diverse approaches (witchcraft/sorcery/etc.) to adopt a similar perspective even with different actual methodology. Now I want to know how material/spiritual essences affect the approach, because it low key vexes me that one set of essences is treated as the subject of study and the other as the method of study, rather than having both be to some degree the subject of study, and perhaps a means of understanding.
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Is an arcane Sorcerer at all analytical, though?
They don't necessarily need to be to use their spells, but they do to be any good at the Arcana skill. Sorcerers and oracles can cheat and not actually understand the magic they cast, so they aren't the best example when it comes to their skills.
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Is an arcane Sorcerer at all analytical, though?
Sorcerers in particular (but witches and oracles too) are why I think it is best to think of the traditions of magic more as flawed in world conceptualizations rather than factual laws of reality. All sorcerers’ magic comes from their blood, not from how they approach trying to cast their spells. The traditions are irrelevant to a sorcerer, outside language to describe processes they do with out thinking about them. And they have ways of learning spells that the traditions say shouldn’t be possible.
The traditions of magic are an in world social construct that has a fair bit of influence over the lived experience of most characters in Golarion but will never hold up as a perfect model for all.
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"Divinists seek to understand magic and the universe through humility and subjugation of the self."
LOL. A fraction, yes, but hardly the whole. Deities (and thus Edicts & Anathema) cover the gamut, w/ a similar fraction despising humility or advocating release of the self.
Maybe "through service", with what one's serving differing a whole lot depending on deity, some who want partners and some who want chattel, yet even "service" implies only the divine sources of magic for those who've consciously chosen to seek such (as opposed to Sorcerers/Oracles/occasional Blessed Ones; or those who study Religion for Trick Magic Item). And then there are Monks w/ their many permutations. That said, I'm no longer sure studying Religion as a magic tradition or tapping into divine magic would touch upon service at all.
So maybe "through ideology"? Dogma? Faith? (Yuck) Or how about "tapping into transcendent entities, energies, and essences"? Add a few more qualifiers to distinguish that from other traditions, though they do overlap anyway.
ETA: Is it me or does it feel strange that evil and/or chaotic divine magic can be mastered w/ Wisdom? "Fiends are wise" and similar statements regarding those tapping into those forces seem oxymoronic. Many of those entities are borderline Lovecraftian or want to enslave their own followers or eat mortal souls so following those entities or pursuing their goals seems rather unwise or irrational IMO being so short-term re: consequences. Somehow an evil high priest's "wisdom" led them to joining a cult where internal murder sprees often decide the current leader. "Oh, but I'll simply have to win," doesn't seem to cut it when one could find power elsewhere.
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ETA: Is it me or does it feel strange that evil and/or chaotic divine magic can be mastered w/ Wisdom? "Fiends are wise" and similar statements regarding those tapping into those forces seem oxymoronic. Many of those entities are borderline Lovecraftian or want to enslave their own followers or eat mortal souls so following those entities or pursuing their goals seems rather unwise or irrational IMO being so short-term re: consequences. Somehow an evil high priest's "wisdom" led them to joining a cult where internal murder sprees often decide the current leader. "Oh, but I'll simply have to win," doesn't seem to cut it when one could find power elsewhere.
Not going to pretend that I haven't struggled with understanding the mind set of certain evil cultist types before (besides the 'totally insane' fallback), but I think we should draw a distinction between being wise (in game terms) and being 'right'--or at least not assume that wise creatures would necessarily share our perspective on matters. Rather, I think of wisdom-the-stat as a matter of having a greater ability to consider multiple perspectives, and its association with divine magic as being in tune with one's place in the cosmos and being a receptive vessel. Whether the perspective they choose is correct from our perspective is less a matter of wisdom, I think, and more a matter of personal values and convictions.
Somebody who believes that everyone has a rightful place in the world and everyone should remain in that place might not mind or care that Asmodeus wants the whole world enslaved to his will. Just as long as everybody else adheres to this standard and perhaps as long as their own place in that hierarchy is at least slightly favoured above others--tyrannical middle manager syndrome and all that. On the other hand I concede that I don't really get how or why any thinking creature would devote itself to Rovagug for long, never mind one wise enough or for long enough to become a cleric. There are more than enough alternatives for the 'I just really with to see this shallow farce called civilization burn to the ground and return to a state where everybody is as cruel and depraved as I am and believe they are under the surface' type without necessarily resorting to the omnicidal gods. Like Lamashtu is right there and seems to show favour and even fondness toward monstrosity. If you can be a big enough monster to get Lamashtu's attention, you are almost certainly headed to a better end than a chaotic evil soul would on its own.