User talk:MisterSinister/TOToM (3.5e Sourcebook)/SRP4

Spell Lists

You wanted these to auto-generate right? In a format similar to the PHB? Do you want them grouped by school and then complexity, or by complexity and then school? Also, you'll need to add some categories to your spells, like Category:3.5e, Category:User, and Category:TOToM Spell so we can pull them without getting other things. - Tarkisflux 19:03, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, auto-generation was definitely something I wanted - just wasn't sure how to do that. Grouping is by complexity, then school. As for categories - I'll get right onto those. MisterSinister 21:59, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Categories are now done.

Automagical generation is somewhat convoluted, so I basically stole the one I wrote before to do the same thing with regular homebrew spells. Feel free to go down the line with this, and then just refresh the page (on the page, not on the browser) after you add any new spell and it'll show up in line. The weird spacing will either be fixed later (I have a few ideas after playing with Havvy's sandbox this morning) or will actually just go away on it's own as more schools get added in. If you want different formatting in general, let me know. - Tarkisflux 00:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

One more thing, right now it's not going to display schools that don't have any spells in them. If you want them all shown all of the time, I can simplify things quite a lot, fix spacing, and probably drop a couple of template calls. - Tarkisflux 00:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Displaying all of them all the time is best, actually. MisterSinister 00:58, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Class vs. Magic Type

Perchance, would it not make more sense to replace the 'class' section of the spell block with instead a 'field' or some other term to describe whether the spell is 'arcane', 'divine', or 'natural'. Then, when creating classes, we say that characters may choose spells from X schools, and gain Y benefit for choosing spells with tag Z. It makes the idea that spells are natural, arcane, or divine more prominent. Could probably add universal into that category, for spells that would be on all three lists. Probably also include a 'None' or 'Special' for spell like abilities that are not manifested through classes, if any are like that.

Defining what is specifically natural, arcane, and divine means that magical antagonisms can occur more easily, and help show people what spells should be given to whom. Also, it begs the question, what is different between arcane, divine, and natural necromancies. New material can easily be written by asking these questions.

Having it so that there are banned abilities in the types of magic means that others will have a higher chance of being able to do something. Urban and society based spells being banned for natural magic for example. But that might be too strong, since many campaigns occur solely in urban realms. Healing being banned from arcane magic is 3.5e canon. Divine magic...probably should not be able to shapechange.

Classes can then either be of three types: Full-List, Partial-List, and School-List. Full lists choose the field of magic. Partial lists are given a list of spells. School lists are given a specific school of magic as its choices. Then each class diversifies by giving boosts to spells. For example, a bard would get the enhanced effect of any [Language-Dependent] spells cast. This way there are already 11 full spell lists to look at.

While giving some guys access to all [x] spells might be a good design thing, I don't think removing the class line is a good option. It removes a lookup option, which is admittedly somewhat diminished in value because of level standardization, but I still would rather be able to tell what classes have access to a spell than have to search through a class list. I'd also prefer the flexibility to give them most [x] spells by leaving them off of the occasional one. - Tarkisflux 16:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Healing Spells

It is of my humble opinion that healing spells being stuck in conjuration is a bad idea. Why? Well, mainly because of the idea that healing is something that practically every character should have a bit of. Since it is possible to ban conjuration as a school more easily than it is to ban all healing spells minus immunity to Soul grouped tags, healing spells should be dispersed to the various schools. Two to four per level with no overlap of schools would be best. Preferably, every school of every level would have a healing spell. If need be, I can go and make them. Ideally I can make each one different enough to make healing spells a tough choice.

Though a discussion on the balance of healing spells would be useful. As far as I can tell, the linear scaling of healing spells is not useful. The way I see it, healing 1 HP should be 0th level, and both natural and divine. Healing all HPs (a.k.a. "Heal") should be given at the equivalent level as a save or die, or at a lesser level. Mass healing (in battle) should be an 8th level spell, since a cure-all would be the 9th level spell. Mass healing outside of battle should be of the same level as a save or die. Healing at all up till 3rd level spells should be up to half maximum HPs. 4th level spells can heal in-battle past half maximum HPs.

Before 3e, healing was all necromancy, and I could see a shift back there maybe (or just moving the vigor line there if it isn't already). I could maybe even see a duplication of healing into both schools (though I'm opposed to more than the two for differentiation reasons)... but I'm not sure it's necessary or even useful. Arcane casters are currently the only ones who even get banned schools (except for the planned sorc, who I don't care about for this discussion), and they're also the only ones who don't have healing spells on their lists so this isn't actually a problem for any class with them presently. I'm basically fine with that because I don't care about giving them healing from a thematic standpoint and I don't agree that every character needs healing (and also because MS has expressed a strong desire to work this with ToP and the Healing skill is both more powerful and more available to groups there, and group availability is something I care about), but if you wanted to add healing to them you'd still be fine with healing in just two schools. More than that I think is just a waste.

In combat healing is a separate thing that I don't have strong ideas on. I'm curious about vigor though... with the lack of durations in this work, is it something that you 'recover' from? - Tarkisflux 16:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Healing is necromancy as far as TOToM is concerned. As for vigor, I'm not really sure - I suspect I'd make it a transferable Slot buff which grants FH 1 or something. - MisterSinister 19:39, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Healing can be flavored as necro or conj pretty easily, vigor seems pretty clearly necro. If there's any desire to split their schools, and I think that's actually a good thing, you might want to bite the crappy bullet and leave cure spells in conj and just re-fluff them.

Vigor as transferable might work, as long as infinite healing from level 1 is totally fine in the system. If the recipient of a transferable spell can pass it on again, or the caster can take it back and then pass it along again, then it only works if infinite healing for the entire party if you have 5 minutes from level 1 on is totally fine in the system. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that, and would lean towards a boosted FH that you 'recovered' from. - Tarkisflux 21:21, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Unchanged Spell Category

I question the need for such a category. If a spell hasn't been substantially changed, why list it in a dedicated list? - MisterSinister 20:01, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

To help people know what is not substantially changed, instead of looking for it in three other lists. --Havvy 20:47, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

• hits self on head* Yeah, point taken. Will implement ASAP. - MisterSinister 21:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)