The Campaign Builder's Guild

I've always thought of magic as manipulating reality through force of will. This is how I've interperted D&D magic, but the existence of psionics as distinct from arcane magic pretty much shoots that theory full of holes and buries it.

(until it risese again, a shambling grotesque mockey of it's former self! The undead-theory! Muahahaha *ahem*)

I've always found alignment to be problematic as well. While pondering what to do with the Paladin class if I've removed any externally defined objective good and evil from the game, it seemed a lot cooler that the Paladin would derive their abilities from the strength of their conviction to do good, or their will in other words.  

Well, I'd like to extend that to other classes as well, but truth be told I've grown fond of having magic existing as an external force as well. Not wanting to make any mechanical changes to the classes, I also can't merge the sorceror and wizard like it feels should be done, but having magic exist as a seperate force turns out to be a handy solution to having some fluff distinction between them.

So magic exists. Magic exists everywhere, in equal amounts. Think of it as the tendency for heat to diffuse until it's uniform in whatever system it's in (I don't know if that's accurate physics). You can't interact with magic physically or through the material plane, but you can interact with it through force of will.

Wizards and sorcerors take different paths to achieve the same end result. A sorceror simply applies his force of will to reality and slaps it silly around the face until it conforms to something more pleasing. No interaction with magic here, just application of will on universe.

The wizard takes a more subtle approach. The wizard studies the force of magic prevalent in the universe, and realizes that when it's not uniform and has higher densities in some areas, it tends to have adverse effects on the material plane as it shifts and diffuses to be equal. The wizard then learns how to push around magic into shapes that he knows will produce certain effects in the material plane as it works back to it's normal state.

So both wizards and sorcerors use their will to bring about the result they desire, but the methods are different. In this sense, the wizard is all about economy of energy; they can achieve the same results a sorceror does with just a little nudging of magic, while the sorceror has the more ardous task of shaping reality directly.

This allows the wizard a greater versatility, the effort to shape magic might not take a lot of energy, but the shapes are varied, complicated and each effect takes a different shape. This is a lot of research to be done, and accounts for why wizards have int as their main spellcasting stat.

The sorceror, having gone the other route, trains his mind through repeated use to have a greater endurance (more spells per day) but with a limited number of effects since he has to learn how to do each of them individually.

The Paladin goes the route of the sorceror, but largely unconsciously. Rather than learning how to force their will on the universe, their will is focused and directed by their convinction in their principles. The abilities they gain are the effects they would like to see; ie, a paladin has a very strong conviction in easing the suffering of innocents. This might lead him to value cures for diseases, and so he gains the ability to cure diseases through his desire to do good.

This of course, leaves what good is up to the individual Paladin, which is fine by me. Fantasy literature if rife with good paladin type characters who go insane and believe that the only salvation for the world is it's destruction. They usually don't lose their powers in the stories either. Paladins would turn to blackguards when their convictions changed for the worse, and they'd only lose their powers when their conviction was shaken. This allows for a greater variety of Paladin codes; the old question of "kill a baby to save a several hundred people" then has different consequences depending on the Paladin in question. The Paladin who believes that killing the baby is justified might have a crises of conviction when he contemplates the fact he killed an innocent, and the paladin who thought killing an innocent was never justifiable no matter the cost might have a crises of conviction when he ponders the hundreds he could have saved.

The other classes I have little issue with, as I have no complaints against divine magic. Psionics I don't know what to do with yet, seems like they'd be similar to the sorceror.

Interesting.

Back when I used the original classes, I always worked it as everybody having a magic within them - their soul - and the world around being inherently full of magic - reality. Gods have an enormous supply of soul energy, granted to them through worship, and sorcerors have more than the usual amount.

Wizards work on formulae, tweaks of the universe, to manipulate reality - they use their soul energy to guide the world around, making their calculations reality.

Sorcerors manipulate the world around through applying their soul directly - becoming, in fact, beings of soul energy. The world rips itself apart at their command, but they have little versatility - what they can do is their limit, unless power is granted in other ways.

Clerics and paladins use their conviction as a pathway for the gods' soul energy, and work alike to sorcerors (apart from the fact that they do not risk their own harm through the use of their energy.

Druids work completely differently from all the other classes. They become one with nature, one with the world around, and nature becomes their soul. Reality - within a certain scope - is what they tell it to be.

Monks work in the same type of way - they have no 'Ki' or 'Chi' as such, but instead become one with the world, their bodies following their every command beyond what a normal man could achieve. A monk can slam his hand through a brick wall, move his hands in an unnatural blur or drop sixty feet without harming himself - not because he has particular strength, speed, or toughness, but because of his conviction and self-belief. His one-ness with the world allows him to do these things and more.

Quote from: Minait tends to have adverse effects on the material plane as it shits and diffuses to be equal.

emphasis mine, you may want to edit that. ;)

I like the idea. It seems like a logical justification for the mechanics, and it's interesting to boot.

BTW, that is logical physics; you've made magic like heat, and that makes sense.

Fixed  x.

QuoteBTW, that is logical physics; you've made magic like heat, and that makes sense.

That thermodynamics of aeronautics class I sat in on wasn't a total waste then  :-p

Quote from: GolemBack when I used the original classes, I always worked it as everybody having a magic within them - their soul - and the world around being inherently full of magic - reality. Gods have an enormous supply of soul energy, granted to them through worship, and sorcerors have more than the usual amount.

Actually, that's really what mana originally represented, before RPGs got their hands on the term.  It was a Polynesian word to represent the amount of spiritual lifeforce a being possessed.  It came into more general use after one fantasy writer used it in his work.  It's really almost identical to concepts found in many cultures, e.g. chi, ki, qi, seid, numen.  Possibly the same as dynamis, though I draw a distinction between them for my setting.

Ka, animus... yes, I know. Ancient Egypt, in fact, was where the original idea came from - and why I called the inward force Ka and the outward Tiet (which actually means a gem of some sort, but still, it's Egyptian).

Golem - Go$#@%&^%^&$$!!!it - WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I WAS TRYING TO THINK OF NAMES FOR THE PRINCIPLES OF MY MAGICAL SCHEMA?  Tiet sounds so much more precise, more elegant, then the cobbled-together term 'veritige.'

Quote from: GolemKa, animus... yes, I know. Ancient Egypt, in fact, was where the original idea came from - and why I called the inward force Ka and the outward Tiet (which actually means a gem of some sort, but still, it's Egyptian).

It would be a leap to try to localize an idea like that which has evolved in so many cultures (so anthropologists might argue every culture) which have little to no contact.  Yes, ka is on the list, and one of the older ones.

Do you believe the Egyptian concept created the Australian Aboriginal concept of maban?
How about the Inuit (Eskimo) inua?  I doubt Ancient Egyptians had much contact with the ancient Inuit.

No-o. But Ka is one of the oldest ones, as you said, and Egypt is one of my most-loved cultures.

thread necromancy!!!!!!!!! arise!!! awaken!!! get the flying :censored: up!!!!

Isn't ka the name for a person's spirit double rather than a magical force?  Or am I understanding this wrong?  It seems that ka should be seen more like a spirit than what we consider "magic".

Hmmmm.  So what separates Wizards from normal folk is the ability to sense concentrations of magic?

What separates Sorcerors from common folk?  Practice?

What I did for my standard campaign setting was have the entire universe like a great quilt, all tied together in different ways. So, somewhat like the string theory, but less stringy.

   In other words, like a quilt in the way that everything is connected and works together to form one greater picture, but unlike it in the way that there is no exact outcome to the look of the quilt, the quilt representing the universe. There are some strands of the universe that have an energy of a powerful kind that allows them to manipulate what they call their "bodies". These are threads of life, woven into every creature and animal in the universe that lives. Undead have threads woven into them that have been mutated with a different kind of energy, somewhere between life energy and blackness.

   A long time back there was a mutation in the life thread, in certain beings. It allowed them to harness and create special effects from their own bodies, releasing blasts of raw energy from inside of their bodies. It is hard to control, and at first this mutation of the thread was rare and inbetween, but as genes passed down through generations, it started to spontaneosly show up in places. This internal energy is called, in the common tongue, Magic. This use of magic is raw and considered to be reckless.

    Highly trained Wizards and Magicians purposely mutate the threads of the universe around them and bend them to their own will. For example: a Wizard can use his own NORMAl life energy and focus it on something like a rock, and bend their own life energy to mutate the threads that are the rock, and then lift the rock up into mid-air from many yards away.

          That's a more vague description, but do you get the underlying idea?

So Wizardry is a combination, then, of genetic access to one's internal power and the ability to sense the threads in other objects?

And Sorcerors have, what, no need of the threads in other objects?

Quote from: Gnomish Cheetosthread necromancy!!!!!!!!! arise!!! awaken!!! get the flying :censored: up!!!!

Win.