Spellcasting disciplines [Help Wanted]

[Seraph]

I am having a bit of trouble with Magick in Avayevnon.  I am currently using Nemesis from One Roll Engine as the base system, and while I may add or subtract specific details, the core of the mechanic is established.

In Nemesis, Spells are essentially self contained.  A character makes a Mind+[appropriate skill] check to learn the spell.  Once learned, a spell is cast by making an appropriate skill check, and succeeding at a madness check.  If both are successful, the spell is cast with its own dice pool.

Now, this is all well and good, but here is my issue:  I have different groups and different kinds of characters who can either do some form of magick or some form of miracle (in the saintly legends sense, not in the D&D miracle spell sense)

Orators: Closest in theory to the D&D cleric, but I am leaning towards the idea that they speak the word of their god, in a way that is linguistically unintelligible, but produces magickal effect.

Witch: Pagan spellcasters who serve the moon goddess Lugra.  Uses magick from a protective magick circle.

Druid: Pagan priests.  Capable of changing shape, bestowing geasa, and influencing the forces of nature.

Bard: Deriving their art from pagan tradition, but not necessarily pagan themselves, bards are familiar with the magickal songs

So, a number of these are the names of (or are analogous to) PC classes in D&D.  However, since the Nemesis system is skill based and has no classes, there is a certain difficulty in differentiating the magick of each discipline.  How do I maintain some sense of different magickal arts, without implementing a class system?

My other thought considers the setting of Avayevnon as renaissance-inspired.  Renaissance thought tended to allow for only two types of magic-users: one was the witch, the other was the Faust/John Dee type of magician.  So far, I have not included a ceremonial magic-user type of character and magick.

If I were to add a ceremonial magician, there would be 5 "classes" of magick user in a classless, skill-based system.  How separate should spells for each kind of magick be?  What are the implications of characters being allowed to know magick originating with certain "classes" of people?  If Magick is a trait, it becomes rather like a class system.  If magick is a skill (or multiple skills), are the different types of magick enough of an issue maintain in a proper form?  How much fluidity should there be in learning magick and spells?  Should I leave the open-ended skill system alone, having spells of all sorts be open to anyone bright enough to learn them, appealing to the ideal of the Renaissance Man?  Or should magick be different from faith to faith?

[Ghostman]

How separate should spells for each kind of magick be?  What are the implications of characters being allowed to know magick originating with certain "classes" of people?  If Magick is a trait, it becomes rather like a class system.  If magick is a skill (or multiple skills), are the different types of magick enough of an issue maintain in a proper form?  How much fluidity should there be in learning magick and spells?  Should I leave the open-ended skill system alone, having spells of all sorts be open to anyone bright enough to learn them, appealing to the ideal of the Renaissance Man?  Or should magick be different from faith to faith?

It all comes down to what kind of flavour you wish to enforce. Consider that all the types of magick need not necessarily be similar in terms of mechanics. You could have one dicipline be skill-based, another one trait-based, some that are dependant on faith and some that aren't. This could be a powerful way to drive the point that the different kinds of magicks are not different sides of the same coin, but entirely distinct things. It might be more difficult to design and balance this way, however.

[LordVreeg]

Just surprised you have not included alchemist/cabalists, as AV is Ren. inspired.

And I will alsways lean towards magic being more of a skill, and many of these, indeed.

[Seraph]

Just surprised you have not included alchemist/cabalists, as AV is Ren. inspired.

And I will alsways lean towards magic being more of a skill, and many of these, indeed.

Ah, well, cabalists essentially fall under the heading of ceremonial magick that I am toying with.

I had for a while considered having alchemy be its own class of semi-magick.  Right now I have it as a skill, but I was considering making it be a part of one of the others--most likely the ceremonial magician if any.  Alchemy will most definitely be present, I am just not exactly sure whether it will be it's own complete discipline, or fall under the heading of something else.

[Seraph]

From a purely "Renaissance" standpoint, of the forms of magick and their associated occupations that have been proposed so far, Druidism is the least fitting. All of the rest have at least some ties to the renaissance.  Druidism fits in to a secondary aspect of the setting.  The exact importance of that secondary aspect is something I have gone back and forth about.

Much of the current setting is based in large cities.  Druids exist outside this usual setting.  The fact that they are so much, both geographically and idealistically removed from the majority of society makes for difficulties in believable character relationships that I am having trouble justifying.  If most adventures will be taking place in mainly soleist city-states where druids, by virtue of being pagan, would be unwelcome at best and hunted at worst, having one in a party makes little sense, and next to none if one of the characters happens to be a priest of the religion that outlaws them.  

[Ghostman]

But that is not an argument against druids existing within the setting, complete with their heathen magicks. All it is is an argument against Player Characters being allowed to be druids.

[Seraph]

But that is not an argument against druids existing within the setting, complete with their heathen magicks. All it is is an argument against Player Characters being allowed to be druids.

This is true, which complicates the dilemma.  Furthermore, if the setting is skill-based, I don't fully see the justification in allowing a skill to exist, but forbidding certain people from learning it.

[Steerpike]

You may well have considered this already, but have you thought about a strain of magic based around Rosicrucian mysticism?

[Superfluous Crow]

For one, you should of course only be able to learn spells belonging to a specific discipline if you yourself belong to that discipline.
Orators seem to be not so much spell-based as they are entirely skill-based. Using their thaumaturgical/oratory skill they can influence the gods and the world itself. In a way, I'd say it would work almost like bluff in D&D; the more believable the miracle, the easier the skill check. But if they succeed on their skill roll, any miracle could be possible.
Witches and bards seem to more spell-based, learning each spell indvidually and then invoking them in different ways. So they could be differentiated just by giving them access to very different spells.
Druid, on the other hand, seems like it might work best as trait-based. It has some powerful abilities, but only a limited variety. At least the geasa and wild shape abilities could be traits, while the controlling nature could be skill- or spell-based.

[Seraph]

How separate should spells for each kind of magick be?  What are the implications of characters being allowed to know magick originating with certain "classes" of people?  If Magick is a trait, it becomes rather like a class system.  If magick is a skill (or multiple skills), are the different types of magick enough of an issue maintain in a proper form?  How much fluidity should there be in learning magick and spells?  Should I leave the open-ended skill system alone, having spells of all sorts be open to anyone bright enough to learn them, appealing to the ideal of the Renaissance Man?  Or should magick be different from faith to faith?

It all comes down to what kind of flavour you wish to enforce. Consider that all the types of magick need not necessarily be similar in terms of mechanics. You could have one dicipline be skill-based, another one trait-based, some that are dependant on faith and some that aren't. This could be a powerful way to drive the point that the different kinds of magicks are not different sides of the same coin, but entirely distinct things. It might be more difficult to design and balance this way, however.

I am thinking more about this.  My hesitation in making different forms of magick function differently is mostly about complexity.  To begin with, I started having a lot of the magick be trait-based, at least in part.  Bards took traits for each magickal song they had, and then they could use them with a simple skill check any time.  I guess it was almost like buying access to a skill, or to an application of a skill.

Now I am thinking that they will most likely all involve taking one or more traits.  From that point, however, different forms of magick diverge.  Some may be strait-up spells, others may function like regular skills, and just do something magickal.

[Seraph]

For one, you should of course only be able to learn spells belonging to a specific discipline if you yourself belong to that discipline.
Orators seem to be not so much spell-based as they are entirely skill-based. Using their thaumaturgical/oratory skill they can influence the gods and the world itself. In a way, I'd say it would work almost like bluff in D&D; the more believable the miracle, the easier the skill check. But if they succeed on their skill roll, any miracle could be possible.
Witches and bards seem to more spell-based, learning each spell indvidually and then invoking them in different ways. So they could be differentiated just by giving them access to very different spells.
Druid, on the other hand, seems like it might work best as trait-based. It has some powerful abilities, but only a limited variety. At least the geasa and wild shape abilities could be traits, while the controlling nature could be skill- or spell-based.

Orators I am thinking of as being very skill-based, but as I am working on them, I am thinking that they may not be completely in control; that by being the mouthpiece of their god, they are as much a vessel as an active participant.  But this distinction is mostly just fluff.  The fact that Orators are priests of their god means that they have more insight into the mind of their god than the lay person, but sometimes what they mean to achieve by channeling is not the will of their god.  Rules-wise however, this could be depicted as a failed roll.

Bards and Witches you pretty much got on nose.

For Druids, I was trying to base their powers on legendary abilities of Druids.  But the placing of Geasa and taking animal form seem to be the only attested magickal abilities that I have found.  Taking animal form seems a bit too flashy and overt for a setting I technically want to be low-magic.  I had put it there, but I am reconsidering.  It might be better to have them not be available to players.

[Lmns Crn]

So, a number of these are the names of (or are analogous to) PC classes in D&D.  However, since the Nemesis system is skill based and has no classes, there is a certain difficulty in differentiating the magick of each discipline.  How do I maintain some sense of different magickal arts, without implementing a class system?

...

How separate should spells for each kind of magick be?  What are the implications of characters being allowed to know magick originating with certain "classes" of people?  If Magick is a trait, it becomes rather like a class system.  If magick is a skill (or multiple skills), are the different types of magick enough of an issue maintain in a proper form?  How much fluidity should there be in learning magick and spells?  Should I leave the open-ended skill system alone, having spells of all sorts be open to anyone bright enough to learn them, appealing to the ideal of the Renaissance Man?  Or should magick be different from faith to faith?

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but these are much the same issues I've grappled with in working on Jade FATE (distinct disciplines of magic in a classless system), and you may find it useful to piggyback on that a little bit. I'm not familiar with Nemesis or One Roll, but maybe some of my basic organization will transfer over.

I'm going to lay out a few basics only (so as not to derail your thread much), and if you're intrigued, I'll be glad to elaborate (or you can truck it on over to the wiki and see for yourself).

Distinguishing and Outlining Disciplines
FATE uses "stunts" as part of its mechanic-- these are special powers that build on top of the general skill/dice mechanic, and every character gets a small handful of stunts of their choice. (It's a common enough idea that has analogues in many systems-- D&D has pretty much the same thing in the form of "feats", frex.) The mechanics of each magic discipline look like a loose tree of stunts that use each other for prerequisites-- that's it.

Each discipline has one single "entry level" stunt, which is a prerequisite for all others. (For example, Kudan Mystics in Jade FATE must take the "Deep Listening" stunt first; all other Kudan Mysticism powers use Deep Listening as a prerequisite.) This very specific entry level power is useful because it lets me say a lot about the essence of the magic discpline: regardless of what flashy extra powers individual mages might (or might not) go on to take, all mages of [discipline] have [these powers] in common.

For this reason, the "entry level" magic stunts are often a potpourri of minor, varied powers (in contrast to later stunts, which are bigger, single-effect abilities). Having a variety of powers lets me use them to sketch out all the aspects I want a particular discipline to be about, and use the mechanics to help delineate that. (For example, I wanted Kudan Mystics to be wilderness-dwelling herbal healers, sensitive to life and the natural world, who can invigorate living things by temporarily infusing them with heightened vitality. So my Deep Listening stunt, which all Mystics must have, is a suite of three powers: a minor ability to sense living things, increased healing ability with natural herbs and remedies, and the power to breathe life into living things. Subsequent Kudan Mysticism stunts develop these minor powers into really impressive ones, or add more.)

Crossing the Streams (or not)
Sounds like in Avayevnon, it'd work fine to let story constraints limit dual-discipline spellcasters naturally. That is to say, rather than decreeing that "Druidism and Oratory just don't mix" (for example), you could let a single character learn both, provided that they adhere to two serious conditions: 1.) they have enough character-building points (or whatever) to cover both sets of powers, and 2.) the player can come up with a reason why the combination makes sense. I get the impression that it's hard, for various reasons, to get someone to teach druidism to someone who's already an orator, or to teach oration to somebody that's already a druid, so you can set the standard of what constitutes acceptable justification as high or as low as you'd like.

[Seraph]

So, a number of these are the names of (or are analogous to) PC classes in D&D.  However, since the Nemesis system is skill based and has no classes, there is a certain difficulty in differentiating the magick of each discipline.  How do I maintain some sense of different magickal arts, without implementing a class system?

...

How separate should spells for each kind of magick be?  What are the implications of characters being allowed to know magick originating with certain "classes" of people?  If Magick is a trait, it becomes rather like a class system.  If magick is a skill (or multiple skills), are the different types of magick enough of an issue maintain in a proper form?  How much fluidity should there be in learning magick and spells?  Should I leave the open-ended skill system alone, having spells of all sorts be open to anyone bright enough to learn them, appealing to the ideal of the Renaissance Man?  Or should magick be different from faith to faith?

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but these are much the same issues I've grappled with in working on Jade FATE (distinct disciplines of magic in a classless system), and you may find it useful to piggyback on that a little bit. I'm not familiar with Nemesis or One Roll, but maybe some of my basic organization will transfer over.

I'm going to lay out a few basics only (so as not to derail your thread much), and if you're intrigued, I'll be glad to elaborate (or you can truck it on over to the wiki and see for yourself).

Distinguishing and Outlining Disciplines
FATE uses "stunts" as part of its mechanic-- these are special powers that build on top of the general skill/dice mechanic, and every character gets a small handful of stunts of their choice. (It's a common enough idea that has analogues in many systems-- D&D has pretty much the same thing in the form of "feats", frex.) The mechanics of each magic discipline look like a loose tree of stunts that use each other for prerequisites-- that's it.

Each discipline has one single "entry level" stunt, which is a prerequisite for all others. (For example, Kudan Mystics in Jade FATE must take the "Deep Listening" stunt first; all other Kudan Mysticism powers use Deep Listening as a prerequisite.) This very specific entry level power is useful because it lets me say a lot about the essence of the magic discpline: regardless of what flashy extra powers individual mages might (or might not) go on to take, all mages of [discipline] have [these powers] in common.

For this reason, the "entry level" magic stunts are often a potpourri of minor, varied powers (in contrast to later stunts, which are bigger, single-effect abilities). Having a variety of powers lets me use them to sketch out all the aspects I want a particular discipline to be about, and use the mechanics to help delineate that. (For example, I wanted Kudan Mystics to be wilderness-dwelling herbal healers, sensitive to life and the natural world, who can invigorate living things by temporarily infusing them with heightened vitality. So my Deep Listening stunt, which all Mystics must have, is a suite of three powers: a minor ability to sense living things, increased healing ability with natural herbs and remedies, and the power to breathe life into living things. Subsequent Kudan Mysticism stunts develop these minor powers into really impressive ones, or add more.)

Crossing the Streams (or not)
Sounds like in Avayevnon, it'd work fine to let story constraints limit dual-discipline spellcasters naturally. That is to say, rather than decreeing that "Druidism and Oratory just don't mix" (for example), you could let a single character learn both, provided that they adhere to two serious conditions: 1.) they have enough character-building points (or whatever) to cover both sets of powers, and 2.) the player can come up with a reason why the combination makes sense. I get the impression that it's hard, for various reasons, to get someone to teach druidism to someone who's already an orator, or to teach oration to somebody that's already a druid, so you can set the standard of what constitutes acceptable justification as high or as low as you'd like.

This stuff sounds good, and I looked up some of the FATE stuff, and some of it would fit rather nicely.  The Entry Level "Stunt" idea is pretty close to something I was considering already.  I think what I may do is have a trait that opens up access to a certain discipline, but that spells within that discipline do not necessarily require traits to learn.  

[Seraph]

I think I've had a bit of a breakthrough.  Taking a bit of inspiration from some of the FATE/SotC stuff LC has mentioned/linked to, I have come up with some neat ideas and solutions to some of my problems.  More on that later.

In other news, I think I have also made progress on what to do for the sort of Druid-type powers.  The Geas I like, and I will keep.  I will also add in powers relating to runes.  For the concept of Shape-shifting, I have decided not to nix it per se, but to shift to a power that, rather than taking on the literal shape of an animal, temporarily grants the druid-type aspects of the animal.  Instead of becoming an eagle and flying, they take on an aspect of the eagle, and can glide downward from great height without harming themselves.  Instead of turning into a bear and mauling their enemies, they take on an aspect of the bear and feel their strength increase.

[Lmns Crn]

I think I've had a bit of a breakthrough. Taking a bit of inspiration from some of the FATE/SotC stuff LC has mentioned/linked to, I have come up with some neat ideas and solutions to some of my problems. More on that later.

For the concept of Shape-shifting, I have decided not to nix it per se, but to shift  to a power that, rather than taking on the literal shape of an animal, temporarily grants the druid-type aspects of the animal. Instead of becoming an eagle and flying, they take on an aspect of the eagle, and can glide downward from great height without harming themselves. Instead of turning into a bear and mauling their enemies, they take on an aspect of the bear and feel their strength increase. [/quote]This is pretty neat. Seems like a great way to translate less flashy versions of traditional types of druidy powers to a low-magic world.

Since druids are (I gather) sort of "foreign" to the cityfolk of Avayevnon, I think the subtlety of this "animal aspect" magic could do a lot to play into peoples' fear of them (if that direction is where you want to take this). If a druid still looks like a regular person while animal powers are upon them, how could you ever know how dangerous they are at any moment, or whether to watch for a cobra's poison, a lion's strength, a swooping owl's speed, etc.?