Themed wizards

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by Anomylous

I just made a post about a similar idea, over here:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...49#post2196649

But I like the greater flexibility of your "tag" system.

A "tag" system is just overlapping lists by another name. Mostly it takes up less space to add a symbol or five next to a spell in the normal spell list. So your system was very close.

The big difference I see is that you don't specialize in one "school" but you get a bonus if you keep to the schools you already have. And the more you specialize, that is the more spells (or possibly talents) you have from the same schools the cheaper it gets.

And soon you will have an interesting choice, should I get this very cheap, but not top priority fire spell or should I go for this a little bit cheaper void spell since I have a lot of void spell tags too, or should I take this really good spell that I have no XP bonus for? Some would go the generalist route and pay a little more, but only have the usual suspects - the best spells and combos, while others would go with one or more distinct themes and develop a little faster. And if spells and talents are going to cost XP it is easy to give a rebate in several steps. If they cost one memory slot, it is very hard to differentiate the cost.

And even if we don't know exactly what we will use the spell tags for, having them can open up possibilities later on in further supplements and house rules. Some symbols could be put in just for decorative purposes, but have some thought behind them. And it could be useful for the GM when he makes wizard NPC. Instead of writing down a complete spell list, he just writes Fire and Void spells and then that NPC has all of those spells up to the wizards IQ. And by combining two or three themes every wizard will feel different, play different and probably look and act differently, even though they are template builds. :-)