| #1Goblin_FlectomancerDec 29, 2011 23:24:05 | Hey, it's been awhile. A long while. And yet a few, very tiny pieces remain - but I digress.
I read the Legends & Lore PDF earlier tonight. I found it rather fascinating and incitful. I've played every edition of D&D and ran games since 2e for the last 20 years. I left when 4e came out because I wasn't willing to convert 20 years of writing to a new system, and I wasn't about to nuke the setting a 'la Forgotten Realms. But I digress.
Something that caught my eye in the article series was the skill ranks idea.
Novice, Journeyman, Expert, Master, Grandmaster.
To review and sum up the article, if you had Expert level skill you could perform novice and journeyman tasks without chance of failure, expert tasks at DC 15, master and grandmaster tasks outright fail.
I like this setup in principle, but was wondering how it could be applied to spells. After all, isn't the use of spells a skill.
Consider the cantrips and the nine spell levels as a group of skills (In my opinion, 4e's decision to drop the spell levels was a catastrophic blunder because it damages the heritage of the game for little to no gain). To use a spell level at all you have to have novice skill with it. You can't have greater skill with a spell level than you have with the lower level.
Hence if you had journeyman knowledge of 1st level magic, you had to have expert knowledge of cantrips and you are eligable to have novice knowledge of 2nd level spells.
Presume the game is changed so that you can act or move but not both on your turn. The greater your knowledge of a spell level, the faster, more often, and reliable your casting.
The level of skill with a spell level affects to some degree all spells of that level. For example, A novice caster takes a full round to cast a spell. That is he starts the spell on one action, then finishes and releases it on the second. If he's struck, the spell is spoiled. Further the spell isn't guaranteed - it's a DC 15 check using the relevant casting ability modifier. Such spells can be used daily.
As skill improves with the level the speed of the casting could improve; range, area of effect or chance to hit could improve; damage could be improved; and frequency of use could improve (daily, to encounter, to at will)
Which brings up another point - I don't think 4e is entirely bad. But its designers showed no respect for the history and heritage of the game. A great many settings had taken rules conceits such as spell levels and schools of magic and explained them in the story. Removing those attributes plays havoc with these explanations.
At will, encounter and daily use is a great idea with the sole exception that the at wills eclipse the option of "just swing the darn sword" in the first place. When basic actions are never idea at any level, something has went wrong in my opinion.
I've been away from the D&D scene nearly 2 years now, and away from this site for nearly 4 I think. For the moment I'm using Pathfinder, but its starting to wear at me. I've toyed with building a new system - but that's more work then I care for.
The articles are encouraging to me. Mearls and Cook are asking the right questions I think.
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