Re: Spell categories
 

Updated with wizards at tax collection.

Re: Spell categories
 

I thought that a Wizard's Guild Classification of Magic Users might brighten up some of the GM storylines. These aren't necessarily the "Magic" dictionary terms and its not meant to be a jobs list.

• Magic User - Generic Term
• Magician - ?
• Warlock - Military Arts magic user
• Sorcerer - Dark Arts specialist
• Witch - Small time solo "hedge" magic or Big Time Group magic
• Wizard - Book Learned magic user
• Alchemist - Deals with the compounds, elements & the magic that is inherent in physical matter [The alchemist philosopher ultimately deals with Elementals for his Great Work]
• Prestigitater - Illusion Magic
• Rune Master - Glyph and Rune magic
• Mage - Deep knowledge of magic manipulation
• Elementalist - Controls Elementals
• Necromancer - Death or Dead/Undead magic
• Shaman - Religions that uses "Earth" spirits for magic
• Demonologist - Uses demons to make magic [Need to alter rules for this]
• Satanist - Religion uses corrupted witch coven to worship demon who does magic [Need to alter rules for this]
• ? - Thieving Magic
• ? - Healing magic
• ? - Construction magic
• ? - Detective magic
• ? - Protection magic
• ? - Persuasion/Sales magic
• ? - Trap magic

These could be used as conversation clues:
"He's strictly a warlock, has no idea how to unlock the door other than blasting it open."
"Our Finder noted they have a Sorcerer and a Necromancer, but no Demonologist. Rugar our Shaman, should be able to handle the Necro, and the Mage will need some time to set up defense against the Sorcerer."

Re: Spell categories
 

You could lay out the spells in a 2D grid, with "distances" between each reflecting how similar they are to each other (basically create a self organizing map by hand), so you'd have spells in overlapping "neighborhoods". You could select a spell from each of two or three groups, and select the other spells by spending points corresponding to the "distance" between a spell and the nearest spell the wizard already knows. If you want an eclectic wizard spend a lot of distance points, and for a very focused wizard spend fewer.

Re: Spell categories
 

^ That is a an interesting new-to-me idea!

Re: Spell categories
 

Rather than making this a wizard-only thing, I think it's better to have categories that might be accessed by wizards or heroes, and then let the categories take the place of the distinction. So instead of a druid category have an outdoorsy category with Alertness, Naturalist, Woodsman, Animal Training, etc. and maybe some spells. A hunter has taken a ranged or thrown weapons category and the outdoorsy category. A druid is a character who has taken a magic category and the outdoorsy category. And so on. It might lead to more variety of characters.