[D&D] Non-class based magics

[Foxwarrior]

Prak_Anima: Kaelik is right, from a game balance perspective.

That's not really the perspective that matters the most here, though: you should be balancing against these Methods of Immortality.

[Caedrus]

Entrails Reading: (Kn. Nature) The soothsayer kills an animal, usually a chicken, cuts its stomach open, and pokes around at the guts that spill out. Somehow, this tells him that the orc clan will attack next week, and the harvest will be a bad one.

Possibly helpful tidbit: Entrails reading is often called "Haruspicy" (or hepatoscopy or hepatomancy) and is performed by a "Haruspex" (or sometimes, such as in the case of the videogame Pathologic, Haruspicus). Organ reading in general is "Extispicy."

[Chamomile]

Organ reading in general is "Extispicy."

I prefer my divination mild.

[Prak]

...huh. I was thinking of it as part of (greater) alchemy, since that's what alchemy was actually about. Primitive napalm was just a side effect.

On the other hand, it's just weird to have alchemy grant immortality at 4th level. Looking at the Methods of Immortality, it looks like the average is about level 14.

Now the only question is whether that application of alchemy should actually be a class.

[Winnah]

Your could probably do both to an extent.

The skill as a fantasy chemistry with some high DC bio-chem/gene therapy tasks.

A short prestige class that can achieve heightened effects utilising the 'hidden wisdom of the ancient masters'. Enhanced wealth creation via transmutation, controllable minions via accelerated cross breeding with an immortality capstone. Reduced or negated penalties for failed skill checks. Whether you want the immortal master alchemist to be akin to Joseph Curwen or Wolverine is something worth thinking about.

[Prak]

Well, historically, alchemy was about purifying base materials into higher forms, which is why it didn't work, because gold isn't just the pure form of elemental metal, of which lead is a corruption. However in a fantasy setting with guys setting peasants on fire with their mind, and flying reptiles that can generate fundamental elements, it's rather reasonable to say things do work that way. Or at least not completely absurd.

So basically "Greater Alchemy" would be about the quest for the philosopher's stone which can do that kind of purification on the highest level. I see it allowing you to make various curative elixers, from healing hp, to neutralizing poisons, to curing disease, removing parasites (such as slaad eggs, vrock spores, etc), healing deformities (including lost limbs), healing gross alterations (permanent magical transformations of the body or it's parts), breaking enchantments and mental compulsions, and finally granting immortality, possibly making the drinker an actual outsider. Along the way you would probably pick up some ability to turn materials into better materials too.

[Winnah]

I was thinking of folk tales about Alchemists hatching cockatrice on their quest for the philosophers stone and intergrating that into a D&D mythos filled with bizzare chimeric creatures, like owlbears and flail snails.

The basic concept would just be a base homonculous creature you would apply special traits to.

Focusing on the philosophical element of the Alchemist tradition would be a perfectly valid class concept too.

[Prak]

I've been thinking about such as well, recently.

Hatching a basilisk/cockatrice has a fairly clear, and simple, formula that would probably be well represented by a knowledge check. Strictly this should be Arcana, but I'm starting to like the idea of adding a knowledge category suggested by Sword and Fist, Hearth Lore, which would cover a lot of these minor magics. That said, I think while Hearth Lore could totally let a character know that extispicy is possible, I think actual performance of it, or augury, horoscope, astrology, and other such minor magics which could be considered disciplines should generally remain different skills. I see Hearth Lore as more of a case of knowing that a given natural phenomena can be a part of minor magic, such as knowing that quartz alleviates pain, or that a basilisk can be hatched from a toad or serpent egg sat on by a cockerel, and a cockatrice vice versa.

For lifeform creation, I've been thinking about spells based on Astral Construct.

[Prak]

Ok, so I gave lifeform creation some more thought.

I definitely want wizards to have a way to create all those creatures they are said to have created.

But, there is also a definite link, in philosophy/concept between alchemy and the hatching of a basilisk. Enough that I think one could say a sort of "natural alchemy" also exists, which is what one is practicing when they follow the methodologies one goes through to hatch a basilisk, owlbear, cockatrice, etc.

Making this a separate methodology from "Create Lifeform I-IX" also has the benefit that it can explain away discrepancies between folk lore and the creatures as they are in the monster manual. Essentially, the monster manual creatures are the creatures created by wizards just fusing parts together, while natural alchemy essentially uses "mundane" "natural processes to mimic the processes of alchemy and actually transform base animals into magical beasts. Thus a Basilisk is different from a True Basilisk, which has a death aura and gaze and breath, etc, rather than just a petrifying stare. I could see dwarves actually hatching true basilisks for mining purposes, given that they were supposed to be able to crack rocks by their very breath.

[Antumbra]

The 3rd party Encyclopaedia Arcane series had a few books that might interest you on this topic: "Crossbreeds" and "Constructs".

Can't check them right now, but Crossbreeds was petty much about methods of making your own Owlbears with a variety of rituals.

[Prak]

Right, I remember those.

If I recall, they kinda sucked. But I'll look them over again.

[codeGlaze]

I'm not sure what kind of joke that is supposed to be, but it wasn't funny. I hate you, you go on ignore.

Haha xD Someone's fuse is short this week.

What about the ability of ingredients (and resulting mixtures) to compete with certain types/levels/something of casting?

I guess it mirrors a Wizard's material components requirement; but it could be turned into something actually worth having! (A circle of salt really DOES keep away witches!)

[Prak]

If I understand what you mean, ie, the ability of mundane items or substances to ward off or otherwise effect magical creatures, then yes, it is something I would like to implement to a greater extent than D&D currently does (read: at all). It can be tricky, however, but I'm sure it could be taken somewhere. Ie, your example of salt warding of witches, or iron dealing extra damage to fey, etc.

[codeGlaze]

If I understand what you mean, ie, the ability of mundane items or substances to ward off or otherwise effect magical creatures, then yes, it is something I would like to implement to a greater extent than D&D currently does (read: at all). It can be tricky, however, but I'm sure it could be taken somewhere. Ie, your example of salt warding of witches, or iron dealing extra damage to fey, etc.

My reasoning behind if is that components are used for a reason. Right? (Ignoring the actual reason they were implemented.)

Given that, they must either channel, hold or some how manipulate the arcane. Given that, as long as you know what they do before hand, and combining them in X manner will get you Y result... anyone should be able to use arcane material components to get some sort of result... like chemistry. >_>

[Prak]

Ok, that I'm not so on board with. Fighters mixing up alchemists fire=good.
Fighters getting fireballs by mixing up the material components=not so good.

(unless, you completely remove the magic classes and make all magic skill based, which I also don't think is good.)

[Ice9]

What about if the components do produce the result (or something similar), but at a much slower rate without a spell acting as catalyst. So for example, if you mix the right components, you can cause a 20' radius to burst into flame. But it won't be an instant thing - you've got to brew the stuff together for a few hours, and then once placed it heats up and starts burning over the course of at least several rounds, and will deal it's damage over the course of a minute or so. The spell just compresses that entire process into six seconds.

Not sure that's the way you want to go universally - for some spells, it would be barely a disadvantage, for otherwise it would make them pretty useless. But as a starting point for a specific list, it could work.

[codeGlaze]

Ok, that I'm not so on board with. Fighters mixing up alchemists fire=good.
Fighters getting fireballs by mixing up the material components=not so good.

(unless, you completely remove the magic classes and make all magic skill based, which I also don't think is good.)

I wasn't necessarily trying to say mundanes could be whipping up fireballs with satchels of bat shit. But I suppose what I was trying to say is that an alchemist and wizard would both use similar/same materials for similar purposes (fire). Maybe more rare/expensive mats could provide better results for longer periods of time, or less time invested, or in larger quantities. Bat shit vs the heart of a fire elemental.

[Winnah]

I don't have an issue with fighters producing incendiaries that are the equivelant of a Wizards fireball.

I do have issues with the various forms of deployment. Magic should have superior deployment to alchemy, with a few exceptions.

A barrel of a refined Alchemists Fire is not going to have anywhere near the range at which a wizard can accurately lob a fireball.

To this end, you may want to draw up some basic size/weight comparisons for various effects. Then have a few suggested methods of deployment.

This can be tiny capsules, clay pots/glass bottles, large drums or barrels, or clusters of of barrels or large boiler/tank vessels.

Small stuff can embedded in special arrows, teeth or carefully placed in a pouch for retrieval, or to be scattered or thrown.

Larger stuff can be thrown further, used to coat a blade, or pumped via an atomiser.

Barrels can be rolled, lauched from a catapult or carefully positioned and set up with a fuse. Maybe you're crazy enough to strap it to your back and use some kind of pump spray apparatus.

Bigger stuff needs crazy engineering to position accurately and is probably only used in seige warfare, death traps or large battles where one side has time to prepare.

High level skill checks should allow various alchemical stuff to be refined somewhat, so it becomes more effective for its volume. This should help keep alchemical attacks level appropriate, without stepping on a spellcasters shoes too much.

It also leaves open a few possibilities for situational mundane overkill, such as rocking up to the entrance of a goblin nest, rolling a large barrel of poison down the steps, waiting an hour for the vaporization to condense and continuing the adventure. Or just cast cloudkill, whatever.

[Hicks]

Dude, fireball already has a long preparation period. As a wizard, you seriously mix up some gunpowder when you prepare a fireball spell, and later in the day you take a few seconds to set the gunpowder on fire and huck it at a foe where it explodes.

Melf's minute meteors (2e) seriously required a specialy prepared tube that shot a number of projectiles based on your level; you built a gun and shot a dude in the face with it.

Scrying (Magic Mirror for Shadzar) has you build a TV and power it with a battery, the higher level you are the longer the TV lasts.

THE POINT: taking many long hours of preparation to MacGuiver up a magical effect is what wizards already do and have done for over 40 years.

[codeGlaze]

THE POINT: taking many long hours of preparation to MacGuiver up a magical effect is what wizards already do and have done for over 40 years.

But that's the point.... that's NOT what they do anymore. Maybe in ADnD.... but I never experiencedd a 2e game that ran anything close to that.

[sabs]

mostly because the very first thing playing groups got rid of were the spell components.

[Prak]

Which is really kind of a shame, I think, because it's deeply thematic that wizards, at least, need to have specially prepared physical components for their magic. The problem is that designers treated the entire thing as a joke, and didn't make an easy way to handle it while also keeping it relevant. If just one or two spells had joke physical components, that would be ok, and would "actually be a joke, and a ha ha joke" (thank you Lewis Black). If it was just said "Wizards require an alchemy lab to prepare the physical components for their spells. The ingredients for this cost Xg per month, generally speaking (see equipment list for full list of ingredients). Often times substitutions can be made to affect certain parameters of the spell (eg, Wyvern blood substituted for bat blood in fireball component, increase damage to d8s)." that would be ok, because the wizard has to actually devote time to prepping components. Even if this were subsumed into spell prep time, it's better than "Spell Component Pouch, 5g: Ignore the Material Component entry of your spells until 7th level."

[Winnah]

If you're going to let one guy induce blindness and seizures, by throwing a handful of coloured sand in someones face and screaming "Colour Spray!"

...Then why shouldn't any random person be able to achieve the same effect by throwing sand in someones face?

What about that particular action is significant enough to justify role protection in the form of a Class?

I get the need to protect something like invoking arcane energy in order to blast people with psychadelic rainbows, but sand?

Fart jokes aside, I think the move away from overwrought humour is a good thing. It might put a smile on your face the first time you notice it, but it gets stale pretty quickly.

[Prak]

Well, the entire thing about the wizard class is that they are basically studying the universe's exploits. It's kind of like playing a reality hacker. The fact that a hacker sits down at a computer and presses keys for an hour, and winds up in the Pentagon server doesn't mean that anyone can do that. But anyone could conceivably, take a modified dollar bill and get free soda from a vending machine.

Mixing a few things together and getting an advantageous magical effect is what anyone could do. Like say, make alchemist's fire, which for all intents and purposes is magical. Taking the same ingredients and casting fireball requires a deeper knowledge of how to exploit the universe, and that's what makes it a class. It's like "well anyone can stab a fucker in the kidneys, but rogues have special knowledge that lets them make the fucker explode."

[Prak]

So, new question on this.

Should the use of alchemy which allows one to make immortality elixirs require a feat, or should it just be the domain of people with a lot of ranks in Craft (Alchemy), no feat needed?