Magician Spell List

[ryancaveney]

chuck all Divine caster classes (get rid of clerics and druids and use the non-spell variants for rangers and paladins. Also allow the shape shift ranger to compensate for the druid), then don't use the division between divine and arcane magic. The bard will be completely rewritten so it won't have any spell casting at all (making the bard what it should be, a bard that sings,tells stories and entertains. If the bard wants illusions he can take a few levels of wizard).

This is the approach I have long used myself. In fact, I go even further: IMC, rangers are fighter/rogues, and paladins, priests and bards are all some combination of fighter, rogue and magician or wizard; I also enthusiastically employ the "no more than half your levels in spellcasting classes" rule. I have utterly abandoned the arcane/divine distinction, but I have greatly reinforced the blooded/unblooded distinction, which I think makes my system an even better model of what I think Birthright represents. In my system, there is much more difference between a blooded priest and an unblooded one than between a blooded priest and a blooded wizard, which I think enhances the theme of the setting even more.

Blooded casters cast spontaneously; unblooded must memorize in advance. Blooded casters don't need material components for any spell; unblooded need them for every spell. Blooded casters determine bonus spells, max spell level castable and save DC from the higher of Int and Wis; unblooded casters determine them from the lower of Int and Wis minus two. Bloodline score divided by ten and rounded down gives an extra caster level of effect and point of save DC, as does every level of source the caster holds in the province. Regent wizards can also spend RP instead of xp any time they are required (by spell or for magic item creation); my feelings on best ratio vary, but I generally favor 1 RP to 100 xp.

The only classes left will be the magician, sorcerer and wizard. All three spell lists will be rebuild and the wizard will be rewritten so more specialization is possible (for example, able to drop the familiar or scribe scroll to use elemental channeling (turn/rebuke undead (negative/positive energy), fire-, water-, earth- or air energy) and able to specialize in a domain instead of a school).

In my model, blooded casters are capable of learning any spell at all (assuming I haven't banned it from the campaign), but unblooded casters can only learn those allowed to 2e wizards specializing in both divination and illusion: that is, only Divination, Enchantment, Illusion and Transmutation; Conjuration, Necromancy, Evocation and Abjuration are barred to them utterly. Blooded priests could learn the whole PHB, but they don't: each religion has a standard spellbook, which consists of those things they were allowed under 2e rules. Turning is also a spell, researchable by wizards if they desire, and taught by some religions; actually, it's three spells, because Turn Undead is Abjuration, Destroy Undead is Evocation, and Command Undead is Necromancy (so NO unblooded priests can learn any of them). All priests are taught all of those spells of their sect which they can learn, but all of the religious spellbooks were essentially set in stone centuries ago; only in temples of Ruornil, and to a lesser extent Avani, is any magical research conducted by priests -- in which case they do it exactly as wizards do. In fact, IMC, many wizards are descended (in a master-to-apprentice sense) from priests who left the temples of Ruornil a millenium ago in order to spread the study of magic for its own sake rather than as part of a religion.

Where do Sidhelien fit into this, you ask? IMC, the 3e PHB Druid class is precisely the Sidhelien racial class. Some of the powers are reordered; for example, in 2e BR, all Sidhelien had Trackless Step, so I moved it from Druid 3 to Druid 1, while moving Animal Companion to 3rd. They are not restricted to the druid spell list, but many of them mainly choose to cast things from it. This class is not open to any other race, including half-elves, though half-elves still count as blooded for spellcasting purposes (but they don't get additional bonuses to DC, etc. unless they have an actual bloodline of their own). Druid (or Sidhe, as I now call it) is also a spellcasting class, and I don't want all elves to be identical, so they can also take at most half their levels from it -- unless they are blooded, in which case they may be half-Druid and half-Wizard if they wish (like Laeddra and Siebharrin), but are not required to be (like Rhuandice Tuarlacheim).


Ryan

[ryancaveney]

Elves lost not because Divine magic can heal, but because human gods dampened Sidhelien magic capability altogether.

I concur. I also think the human gods intervened directly, fighting side-by-side with their tribes in (powerfully spellcasting) avatar form.


Ryan

[EstebanDragonwing]

Blooded casters cast spontaneously; unblooded must memorize in advance. Blooded casters don't need material components for any spell; unblooded need them for every spell. Blooded casters determine bonus spells, max spell level castable and save DC from the higher of Int and Wis; unblooded casters determine them from the lower of Int and Wis minus two. Bloodline score divided by ten and rounded down gives an extra caster level of effect and point of save DC, as does every level of source the caster holds in the province. Regent wizards can also spend RP instead of xp any time they are required (by spell or for magic item creation); my feelings on best ratio vary, but I generally favor 1 RP to 100 xp.

My personal setting has a distinct low magic feeling and I am limiting caster even further. Any spellcaster that is not blooded must pay 1 regency per level of the spell cast every time they cast a spell (note, this is -any- spell, not realm spells). Only 0th level spells can be cast for free. In this I am using the variant rule that non-blooded characters can use their level as their blood score. Needles to say that this makes spell casters extremely rare.

Also, I use a regency cost for any XP costs as well. I am using the following formula: 1RP = 1XP * Character Level * 5
(In fact, I have removed XP from my campaign entirely. If you need to expend XP you -must- use RP. I simply tell my players when they go up a level. I hated the level system anyway in any case.)

[cccpxepoj]

My personal setting has a distinct low magic feeling and I am limiting caster even further. Any spellcaster that is not blooded must pay 1 regency per level of the spell cast every time they cast a spell (note, this is -any- spell, not realm spells). Only 0th level spells can be cast for free. In this I am using the variant rule that non-blooded characters can use their level as their blood score. Needles to say that this makes spell casters extremely rare.

Also, I use a regency cost for any XP costs as well. I am using the following formula: 1RP = 1XP * Character Level * 5
(In fact, I have removed XP from my campaign entirely. If you need to expend XP you -must- use RP. I simply tell my players when they go up a level. I hated the level system anyway in any case.)

if you have a low level priest of some temple who is brewing potions for some military campain etc,etc.. Haw does he earn RP to brew it ?

[EstebanDragonwing]

if you have a low level priest of some temple who is brewing potions for some military campain etc,etc.. Haw does he earn RP to brew it ?

He doesn't. First off, priests in my setting are just that, priests... no magic at all. A military campaign will have normal doctors and surgeons with the Heal skill. Magic healing is reserved for the very rich and important.

Now, in case someone absolutely wants to be a priest that brews potions he will have to take the Wizard Class with the Brew Potion feat. Then that priest either needs to become a regent to get the RP to actually make the potions, or (and this is the best way to go about it, especially if that priest is not blooded) the priest must seek a regent patron that will give him regency through a vassalage ritual (an unusual way to use a vassalage, but there is no reason why a master can't use it to give subordinates RP for specific tasks or as a high form of payment for services).

Of course, if the priest in question isn't blooded he must also spend RP in my setting to even cast the spells for the potion... which will make it a very expensive endeavor.

In short, if you want to have magic of any shape or form you need to be either very rich or very important.

[irdeggman]

Back in 2nd edition when the idea of non-diety inspired divine magic was addressed by forces, the list was very hostile to forces. The setting, it was explained, didn't support forces, only dieties. So where, precisely, does this non-diety inspired divine power come from?

I suspect this is just a post hoc explaination for the fact that the PHB describes the ranger as a divine spellcaster. Elves, as profoundly rejecting the divine, ought to have arcane rangers.

Because in 2nd ed ranger and paladin spells weren't classifed as "divine" and wizard spells weren't classified as "arcane" - those were terms introduced widely in 3.0.

In 3.x rangers and druids can get their spellcasting directly from nature or from deities.

The Sie (the pregenerator for the elves) could cast all clerical and wizardly magic. When they split to form the elves and faeries this magic was split. The elves retained mastery of wizardly magic and the faeries retained mastery of clerical magic. This, IMO, also provides an important tie. The elves still retain some "divine" casting ability due to this ancient tie and can do so via thheir connection to the land itself and the forces of nature. While, IMO, the faeires should have a lot of druidic magic - no deities but nature itself. Now one could interpret this elven tie to the land/nature as a connection to Mebhail and thus "arcane" in nature, but IMO this really would muck up a lot of game mechanics where unnecessary. Arcane rangers would have ASF when casting spells and a lot of other things that would go along with separating the spells (like arcane ranger scrolls instead of divine ones).

In 2nd ed you had:

clerical magic and wizardly magic.

[irdeggman]

Elves lost not because Divine magic can heal, but because human gods dampened Sidhelien magic capability altogether.

This is not per cannon.

The cannon reads they lost due to "preistly magic" something new to them.

There is no writing alluding to deity intervention here. IMO this would dilute the signficance of Deismaar if they did.

[kgauck]

In 3.x rangers and druids can get their spellcasting directly from nature or from deities.

But we're not talking 3.x, we're talking about the BR setting, which adds additional restrictions. D&D can be played for settings with all kinds of cosmologies. BR has a specific cosmology.
Rangers cast divine spells because they are the chosen of Erik. Other kinds of rangers who cast arcane spells do so because of their connection to the land, the other source of magical power.

[ShadowMoon]

This is not per cannon.

The cannon reads they lost due to "preistly magic" something new to them.

There is no writing alluding to deity intervention here. IMO this would dilute the signficance of Deismaar if they did.

Also a cannon...

Taken from Atlas of Cerilia (AD&D Birthright):

... the old gods favored humans to such extent that elves found themselves practically powerless.

[irdeggman]

But we're not talking 3.x, we're talking about the BR setting, which adds additional restrictions. D&D can be played for settings with all kinds of cosmologies. BR has a specific cosmology.
Rangers cast divine spells because they are the chosen of Erik. Other kinds of rangers who cast arcane spells do so because of their connection to the land, the other source of magical power.

Nothing in the setting makes rangers "the chosen of Erik".

This can be done as a table rule or game specific way of looking at things - but nothing in the setting rules/background itself has such equivalency.

In fact (IIRC) in 2nd ed rangers could likewise draw power from deities of nature or from nature itself.