Wizards And Sorcerers

[Osprey]

I was [re]reading through the BRCS section on Arcane Magic today. And when I got to the section on Khinasi, I was rather surprised to read that sorcerers are preferred over wizards there. What possessed the writers of this to go that road? The only reason I could think of was a purely mechanical one - because Sorcerers use Charisma as their primary attribute, and many Khinasi mages are nobles.

Bit Khinasi is a region whose parton goddess, Avani, is the lady of Reason and logic, insight and knowledge. She's Lawful Neutral, the "default" alignment of the Khinasi people IMO.

Don't all of those qualities scream "Wizard!" rather than Sorcerer? The Wizard is the one who learns through applied reason, research, knowledge, and formulas...hence their tendency toward the discipline of lawful alignments, and what I would consider a natural affinity to Avani's portfolio and the precepts of the Khinasi people.

Sorcerers, on the other hand, are intuitive and look for inspiration and "Aha!" moments to expand their powers (simulated by levelling up and gaining new spells with experience). They have a tendency toward individualism, are obviously less structured, and less dependent on reason and research in their chosen path. A definite tendency toward the chaotic alignments [as mentioned in the PHB].

So why, again, would the Khinasi favor the sorcerer's path over the wizard's? Isn't this something we ought to rectify in the revised BRCS?

Otherwise, I really enjoyed the discussion of magic in that section (Ch. 3 or 4? I forget), and thought the writing was excellent. Good work, to whoever wrote that section!

On a similar note: I would assume less scholarly cultures to also favor sorcerers over wizards...this is mentioned under goblins, and I would guess that sorcerers are more common than wizards among the Rjurik and Vos, too, and definitely among the individualistic Brecht. Not so much for utilitarian reasons, but for preferred cultural tendencies...magic must be an extremely personal and internal experience, and the choice between the wizard or sorcerer driven as much by pyschology (and the cultural baggage tied to it) as anything else.

-Osprey

[Green Knight]

Well, there aren’t any sorcerers in Cerilia (last I checked they were

all wizards) so that must be an error on the writers part ;-)



Seriously, I can see a place for sorcerers in BR. Anyone with a

supernatural heritage might qualify, be they of elven blood, descendant

from dragons, scions or whatever.



However, from that to preferring sorcerers over wizards in

Khinasi...that’s a pretty big change from canon BR. And a change that

seems very ill considered (Osprey has a lot of good reasons below).



Is this another lets just change things for the sake of changing

thingies?



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Subject: Wizards And Sorcerers [36#2073]



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Osprey wrote:

I was [re]reading through the BRCS section on Arcane Magic today. And

when I got to the section on Khinasi, I was rather surprised to read

that sorcerers are preferred over wizards there. What possessed the

writers of this to go that road? The only reason I could think of was a

purely mechanical one - because Sorcerers use Charisma as their primary

attribute, and many Khinasi mages are nobles. Bit Khinasi is a region

whose parton goddess, Avani, is the lady of Reason and logic, insight

and knowledge. She's Lawful Neutral, the "default"

alignment of the Khinasi people IMO. Don't all of those qualities

scream "Wizard!" rather than Sorcerer? The Wizard is the

one who learns through applied reason, research, knowledge, and

formulas...hence their tendency toward the discipline of lawful

alignments, and what I would consider a natural affinity to Avani's

portfolio and the precepts of the Khinasi people.Sorcerers, on the other

hand, are i

ntuitive and look for inspiration and "Aha!" moments to

expand their powers (simulated by levelling up and gaining new spells

with experience). They have a tendency toward individualism, are

obviously less structured, and less dependent on reason and research in

their chosen path. A definite tendency toward the chaotic alignments

[as mentioned in the PHB]. So why, again, would the Khinasi favor the

sorcerer's path over the wizard's? Isn't this something we

ought to rectify in the revised BRCS?Otherwise, I really enjoyed the

discussion of magic in that section (Ch. 3 or 4? I forget), and thought

the writing was excellent. Good work, to whoever wrote that

section!On a similar note: I would assume less scholarly cultures to

also favor sorcerers over wizards...this is mentioned under goblins, and

I would guess that sorcerers are more common than wizards among the

Rjurik and Vos, too, and definitely among the individualistic Brecht.

Not so muc

h for utilitarian reasons, but for preferred cultural

tendencies...magic must be an extremely personal and internal

experience, and the choice between the wizard or sorcerer driven as much

by pyschology (and the cultural baggage tied to it) as anything

else.-Osprey



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[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Osprey@Nov 6 2003, 06:16 PM
I was [re]reading through the BRCS section on Arcane Magic today. And when I got to the section on Khinasi, I was rather surprised to read that sorcerers are preferred over wizards there. What possessed the writers of this to go that road? The only reason I could think of was a purely mechanical one - because Sorcerers use Charisma as their primary attribute, and many Khinasi mages are nobles.

Bit Khinasi is a region whose parton goddess, Avani, is the lady of Reason and logic, insight and knowledge. She's Lawful Neutral, the "default" alignment of the Khinasi people IMO.

Don't all of those qualities scream "Wizard!" rather than Sorcerer? The Wizard is the one who learns through applied reason, research, knowledge, and formulas...hence their tendency toward the discipline of lawful alignments, and what I would consider a natural affinity to Avani's portfolio and the precepts of the Khinasi people.

-Osprey

You are absolutely correct. I have no idea how that crept in there. In one of the early workings we toyed around with 'prefered classes' for cultures not making them 'favored classes' but to give something to point to a cultural affinity. At that time Khinasi 'prefered' wizards or magicians (if non-blooded) basically due to the ties of both of those classes to study and learned vice 'natural talent'. In the workings the notion of 'preferred classes' got dropped and somehow rewritten in the format it is in now.

As for the relative commonality of sorcerers in other cultures, well they should be pretty rare except for the elves.

The Rjurik and Vos tend to shun arcane casters and most wizards/sorcerers/magicians would remain underground in those cultures or be 'stoned'. The Vos aren't really that found of Bards either and only tolerate them for their storytelling, while the Rjurik tend to give them great honor.

[The Jew]

As my DM pointed out in a pbem, the red wizards are perfect as a prestige class for khinasi. One of the five oaths requires an arcane magic user never to use necromancy, a red wizards requirement is to be specialized. They also derive their greatest strength from working with other red wizards, therefore a prestige class with lawful tendencies. One more reason that the Khinasi would be wizards.

[OsricIlien]

As I understand Sorcerers they can come from any culture or background simply by the spontaneity of their powers. However weather or not there talents would be harnessed and used or suppressed is really the question. I agree with Osprey in that in seems more appropriate for the Kinasi to favor wizard over sorcerer. And it seems this was a mistake in editing. However I dont belive we should discount sorcerers from Cerilia at all. My personal thought with them is that Mebhealie(I cant spell the word) has the potential to choose a blooded individual, normally at puberty, and grant them with magical potential. The land itself reaches out to the blooded scion and presents them with an even stronger potential of power. Arcane magic is simply a human interpretation of the twisting and altering of the flow of Mebhaelie. Sorcerers are given a door into this power from the land itself, Wizards seek it out and bend it to formula and rote. You could even go a little farther and say Sorcerers are really an extension of the land.

[RaspK_FOG]

I believe that saying that Sorcerers have an intuitive connection to Mebhaigal, that is, a way to perceive the world's magical flows and understanding how to manipulate them without necessarily comprehending them, would be fine.

[enanidah]

New to active posting on the site although been a member for years so hello all first!

When I was looking at the new D&D Birthright was the first thing I looked it as it was always my favourite setting and some of the new books were really useful for it.

While I personally prefer Wizards to Sorcerers I thought that making the Elven racial affinity to Sorcerer rather than Wizard made sense as it is an innate talent, which fits in more with the style of sorcery. Unfortuntely you can't just miss out Wizards altogether because Magicians need specialization and that can only be done as a Wizard. The actual Wizard class itself doesn't fit in that well to the setting in my opinion though. I treated basically as a mini Prestige class which required either being an Elf Level One Sorcerer or Regent Level One Sorcerer - basically having to develop the innate talent enough to base the Wizard and it's non intuitive learned skills approach on.

[RaspK_FOG]

Err, quite not got what you mean by Magicians needing specialisation the dropping the Wizard hint...

[Kzintosh]

Hello! Finally getting a hang of these forum things.... :P

Osprey's line of logic is very reasonable (and seems to be confirmed by the developers...always a plus). I see Sorcerors as being a preferred class for the Elves, and possibly Goblins (not to belittle the Goblins their efforts at civilization, but their racial personality seems to better fit them with the Sorceror class, having lesser predilication to study than their human neighbors). This line of logic may be supported by the history of Elf and Goblin...if the Sorceror is the preferred class for Elf, then their ancient Goblin foe would most likely have attempted to imitate their "betters" (in effect, a magic arms race). I also concur that magic-users amongst the Vos, in general, would be a rare thing, with only a few more amongst the Rjurik (who concentrate on Druids and Bards, IMH opinion).

[RaspK_FOG]

Very well put, if I may say so...