Matic-Users With Style

Summary:

While I, for reasons of dice-rolls and kick-assness, am doomed to play fighters...

Matic-Users With Style

naked samurai 22 Feb 2011 16:07

I know it is uncommon to call out a particularly brilliant blog-post, partly because we read a lot of them already, but this one really struck me, about how to develop a magic-user's image and style within the constraints of a generic spell list.

The example he uses is a lightning/storm/crow-based magic, where Shield causes ethereal crows to flap around the caster; or Light, which crackle out of clouds with faded electricity. An example recently from Glantri is when blizack decided Goldfinch shot magic missiles in the form of eldritch, streaking birds.

We've started developing cool ways clerics turn undead - why not prompt creativity with the basic mage spell list, too?

Re: Magic-Users With Style

Charlatan 22 Feb 2011 16:46

This was actually the kind of thing I was going for in my suggested spell list for Tavis's and James's after-school game: a mix of "elemental" spells, with some of them intended to be skinned for an element (Black Tentacles are rocky instead of monstrous; floating disk rises out of the earth; sleep is a gentle deprivation of oxygen).

I think it's a cool practice. Quendalon has prodded us in this direction sometimes, but I think we need to step up a bit more with it.

Re: Matic-Users With Style

Sternum 22 Feb 2011 18:58

I read about this in OD&Ditties years ago, but I haven't found a creative way to apply it to the holy powers of the Boss. The only spell a low-level cleric ever gets to cast is Cure Light Wounds, and I'm totally lacking in a bold, adventurous description aside from the original Boss-baby appearing in a puff of smoke and punching your wound until it's healed.

Re: Matic-Users With Style

Charlatan 22 Feb 2011 19:01

punching your wound until it's healed.

That's basically how my cleric healed Wintergreen last week. Maybe more doubting-thomas than punching.

Re: Matic-Users With Style

letsdamage 22 Feb 2011 19:10

This is something a lot of us have been trying to do, I think, for some time, but it's still a good blog post. Dyson has been on quite a roll of late.

Re: Matic-Users With Style

naked samurai 22 Feb 2011 19:23

No, I don't mean to say it was original to the idea, but that it encapsulated things very well.