BRCS Chapter 1 - the Magician Class

[ConjurerDragon]

Dr. Travis Doom wrote:

>think the two "snips" above illustate one of the trickiest
>decisions. 3e bards "suddenly" have healing spells. (Priests also
>suddenly have a very differnet and more diverse selection of
>high-level divine spells).
>If we _keep_ the bard list intact then, elven bards can cast healing
>spells that are _not_ divine. Likewise magicians should be able to
>cast healing spells (since it is the same branch of magic).
>If we "nerf" the bard spell list then we basically competely hose the
>Bard class without offering anything in return. We decided to go with
>a "do as little harm as possible" approach here and just incorporate
>minor healing magic into the magician (which is just a BR class
>in any case) rather than attempting to "fix" a standard class by
>"removing" spells from its spell list.
>I`d like to here more opinions on this topic and see what the
>majority favors. Either way works, but they have very different
>side effects.
>
Another viewpoint on Magicians from me:
A Magician is foremost a specialized wizard.

In 3E as before in 2E a wizard who spezializes in a school is forever
and completely barred from at least one other school or more. A Diviner
in 3E has to select 1 prohibited school and an Illusionist either
Divination and Necromancy or any other one as prohibited from the eight
schools of magic from the PHB.

A Magician is a specialist wizard in BOTH Illusion and Divination and
thus it is only right that he has more than double the prohibited
schools than a specialist wizard who has and can only ever have one
special school.

However the 2E Magician retained mastery of spells of level 1 and 2 of
ALL schools which is an advantage compared to the specialized wizard,
who gives up all spells of his prohibited school.

In addition the Magician has the same (small) advantage as the Sorceror
of having a wider selection of weapons than the Wizard, and he can wear
light armour.

Furthermore he has more skills as he can not rely only on his magic
which makes him similar to the rogue.

That alone sounds balanced to me to let the Magician be as he was in 2E
and not give him access to more schools more hitpoints or even healing
(argh!) - if he needs the Magician can spend his more skill points to
buy Alchemy ranks and create Healing Salve to get the healing he needs!

But one more thing is to consider: A Magician is unblooded and can if
rolled use his best rolls for his abilitys or can if you use the buy
point system buy higher abilitys than the wizard, who has to build a
bloodline.

So there is no need to change the 2E Magician - he is even in my eyes
superior to the Wizard in some aspects:
In campaigns where the players start with low-level characters the
Magician will rule: At low levels he has the same access to spells as
the wizard and is a specialist in 2 schools. Additionally he has highers
ability scores because he has no bloodline.

In short-lived campaigns (sadly that are many) the Magicians will learn
more spells in the limited time as his twofold specialization allows him
better chances to succeed the spellcraft checks than his wizard
counterparts.

Only in high-level campaigns or in campaigns where the players are
regents the wizard has the advantage, as Magicians lack 3+ spells of 6
schools and can never be regents (unless they somehow aquire a bloodline).
bye
Michael Romes

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[Birthright-L]

From: "Bjørn E. Sørgjerd" <bjorn.sorgjerd@C2I.NET>

> Then you have a very playable PC magician, without the need for dealing
> with healing magic, or even worse, 9th level conjurations.
>

Are we in agreement on that we want a playable magician? I for one do not. I
want a magician calibrated versus the other NPC classes, like warrior and
adept.


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[Lord Grave]

>
> If we _keep_ the bard list intact then, elven bards can cast
> healing spells that are _not_ divine. Likewise magicians
> should be able to cast healing spells (since it is the same
> branch of magic).
>
> If we "nerf" the bard spell list then we basically competely
> hose the Bard class without offering anything in return. We
> decided to go with a "do as little harm as possible" approach
> here and just incorporate minor healing magic into the
> magician (which is just a BR class in any case) rather than
> attempting to "fix" a standard class by "removing" spells
> from its spell list.
>
> I`d like to here more opinions on this topic and see what the
> majority favors. Either way works, but they have very
> different side effects.
>

Bardic healing powers are nothing compared to clerical, but in
Birthright setting Clerics who are high-level enough to feel that
difference are very rare. I suggest that you make all healing spells for
Bards and Magicians one level higher, but give them something to
compensate. For example, they could use their Cha bonus instead of other
bonuses for saves. This would represent the fact that Bards can use
their physical attractivness to disrupt the concentration of their
enemies. For example, a male wizard who thinks about attractiveness of
female person while he casts deadly spell at her is more likely to fail.

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[DanMcSorley]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Milos Rasic wrote:
> Bardic healing powers are nothing compared to clerical, but in
> Birthright setting Clerics who are high-level enough to feel that
> difference are very rare.

Bards were balanced against clerics by the 3e designers, to be able to
heal, but not as well as clerics. This can be easily seen since bards
don`t get first level spells at all until second level.

Magicians, unlike bards, are a version of wizards, and should not use the
3e bard spell list. No healing for magicians.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[doom]

On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 05:28:55PM -0500, daniel mcsorley wrote:
> Bards were balanced against clerics by the 3e designers, to be able to
> heal, but not as well as clerics. This can be easily seen since bards
> don`t get first level spells at all until second level.
>
> Magicians, unlike bards, are a version of wizards, and should not use the
> 3e bard spell list. No healing for magicians.

I don`t necessarily agree with this statement. 2e BR Magicians were
their own class. Certainly they cast wizards spells, but their spell
lists were limited. Likewise, 2e BR bards cast wizard spells (with
limited spell lists). I don`t see that magicians should be "wizards"
in 3e anymore than bards should be wizards in 3e. Both have unique
advantages/disadvantages which differentiate them.

If the premise that they are a unique class is accepted (opinions will
clearly differ here) then their spell list is "up in the air", but
there are certainly advantages to said list being consistant with that
of the bard (the other class that practices lesser magic).

________
/. Doom@cs.wright.edu

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[DanMcSorley]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Dr. Travis Doom wrote:
> If the premise that they are a unique class is accepted (opinions will
> clearly differ here) then their spell list is "up in the air", but
> there are certainly advantages to said list being consistant with that
> of the bard (the other class that practices lesser magic).

That would be OK, if bards really practiced lesser magic, but they have
divine healing spells that should be reserved for clerics. This works out
kind of for bards, since they have delayed spellcasting, but with
magicians you`d get 1st level wizards casting healing spells like they
were clerics. Not good.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[Shade]

At 10:49 PM 2/7/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>From: "Bjørn E. Sørgjerd" <bjorn.sorgjerd@C2I.NET>
>
>> Then you have a very playable PC magician, without the need for dealing
>> with healing magic, or even worse, 9th level conjurations.
>>
>
>Are we in agreement on that we want a playable magician? I for one do not. I
>want a magician calibrated versus the other NPC classes, like warrior and
>adept.

I second this wholeheartedly. I do not want a playable magician. I want a
magician on power with NPC classes.

I don`t know if this is coming down to a vote but there`s no consensus as
of yet.

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[geeman]

At 06:20 PM 2/7/2003 -0600, Lord Shake wrote:

> >Are we in agreement on that we want a playable magician? I for one do not. I
> >want a magician calibrated versus the other NPC classes, like warrior and
> >adept.
>
>I second this wholeheartedly. I do not want a playable magician. I want a
>magician on power with NPC classes.
>
>I don`t know if this is coming down to a vote but there`s no consensus as
>of yet.

If I get a vote... I want a playable magician class. I`m not real keen on
the NPC class concept to begin with, but aside from that a non-blooded
arcane spellcaster that one might actually want to use would be very
appropriate to my campaigns in general--not to mention that I think the
magician was originally meant to be a playable class, not a precurser to
the 3e NPC class concept.

Gary

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[ConjurerDragon]

Dr. Travis Doom wrote:

>On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 05:28:55PM -0500, daniel mcsorley wrote:
>
>>Bards were balanced against clerics by the 3e designers, to be able to
>>heal, but not as well as clerics. This can be easily seen since bards
>>don`t get first level spells at all until second level.
>>Magicians, unlike bards, are a version of wizards, and should not use the
>>3e bard spell list. No healing for magicians.
>>
>
>I don`t necessarily agree with this statement. 2e BR Magicians were
>their own class. Certainly they cast wizards spells, but their spell
>lists were limited. Likewise, 2e BR bards cast wizard spells (with
>limited spell lists). I don`t see that magicians should be "wizards"
>in 3e anymore than bards should be wizards in 3e. Both have unique
>advantages/disadvantages which differentiate them.
>
Magicians in 2E were Wizards in my opinion. Closely resembling
specialist wizards in two schools. Balanced somewhat by gaining more
weapons than the wizard and having better access to
nonweapon-proficiencys, but basically their core is a specialized wizard.

Unique about the Magician is not that their class - they´re Specialist
Wizards with some advantages.
Unique is that unlike in other worlds the True Wizard is so rare as he
has to be elven or have a bloodline. Magicians fill the need to have
more arcane spellcasters around (for court magicians, to protect those
who can afford them and as the many who sell spellcasting services as in
the PHB). Magicians in this fill a role very similar to that of the
warrior as already has been mentioned.

Comparing a Wizard with a Magician is not really correct. Better would
be to compare a Specialist Wizard with a Magician and they look much
more equal.

If Magicians are too weak to be considered as a separate class, perhaps
that is because most people do not like to be specialist wizards instead
of being able to learn spells from all schools? Is specialization not
rewarding enough to forfeit a school of magic?
And double specialization not rewarding enough to be banned from all but
two schools and spells lower than level 3 of the rest?

>If the premise that they are a unique class is accepted (opinions will
>clearly differ here) then their spell list is "up in the air", but
>there are certainly advantages to said list being consistant with that
>of the bard (the other class that practices lesser magic).
>
Bards may be practioneres of lesser magic, but even in 2E Birthright
they could not use all spells they were entitled to by the PHB - there
is no reason not to have them have the same limitation in 3E when they
were limited in 2E.

This is however not really a huge disadvantage for the 3E Bard - the 3E
Bard is limited similar to the Sorceorr in the total number of spells he
may know, and thus he could never learn all spells from his own spell
list or even from all schools of magic, not even most of them even if
he has access to more schools of magic.

So he selects the few spells he may know from a list which is not quite
so large - but he still may know the same number of spells as the 3E
Bard, only from a more limited list. That the Bardic spell list in 3E IS
already limited compared to the wizard arcane spell list makes it
complicated as the 2E bard simply used the wizard list. That could be
countered by allowing the Birthright Bard access to the same arcane
spells as the 2E Bard had (= the whole 2E lesser Magic), but more
spells than on the 3E bard list would make it difficult to use that bard
character in another world if the player wants to use his character
elsewhere in a different campaign - which is no reason for a character
only used in Birthright.

However one point in which I differ from my own point of view: I would
not object to have Bards cast healing spells - Music can soothe the
most savage beast and bring comfort to people. A nice Birthright way to
deal with 3E Bardic Healing would be to have formerly divine spells be
one level higher for the Bard (Cure Minor Wounds level 1, Light wounds
level 2, Moderate Wounds elvel 3, Serious Wounds level 4, Critical
Wounds level 5) - as the bard can know only a limited number of spells,
all players would think twice if they really want to know spells which a
cleric has much earlier and unlimited access to.

And a last word: Bards are Fighter/Thief/Mages or perhaps
Warrior/Rogue/Magicians - their spellcasting is not their primary focus
and not the worst problem as their foremost art is bardic music.
bye
Michael Romes

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[ConjurerDragon]

Dr. Travis Doom wrote:

>On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 05:28:55PM -0500, daniel mcsorley wrote:
>
>>Magicians, unlike bards, are a version of wizards, and should not use the
>>3e bard spell list. No healing for magicians.
>>
>I don`t necessarily agree with this statement. 2e BR Magicians were
>their own class. Certainly they cast wizards spells, but their spell
>lists were limited. Likewise, 2e BR bards cast wizard spells (with
>limited spell lists). I don`t see that magicians should be "wizards"
>in 3e anymore than bards should be wizards in 3e. Both have unique
>advantages/disadvantages which differentiate them.
>
>If the premise that they are a unique class is accepted (opinions will
>clearly differ here) then their spell list is "up in the air", but
>there are certainly advantages to said list being consistant with that
>of the bard (the other class that practices lesser magic).
>/. Doom@cs.wright.edu
>
Another important thought on giving Magicians healing what they never
had is the availability of magical healing.
Morg has a very good statement about healing on Aebrynnis on his page
but I do not know if I may post the URL to the public?
bye
Michael Romes

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