One-College Magery and Druidic spells

[Anders]

I'm talking now about the alternate colleges from Thaumatology, and not druids as in Dungeon Fantasy.

There are 18 colleges, which lands me in the -40% range for limitation value... but some colleges contain 40+ spells while other contain three or four. Putting the same value on them both seems unfair. So the obvious solution is to make One College Magery value depend on how many spells the college contains. Off the top of my head:

3 to 5 spells -60%
6 to 10 spells -50%
11 to 30 spells -40%
31 to 50 spells -20%
51 to 70 spells -10%
71 spells or more is not a significant limitation.

In a perfect system you would also take into account how diverse the spells are, but that seems like work.

Seem reasonable?

[Black Leviathan]

Not all spells are of equal value, and there's a lower game-world value to knowing a college of magic that everyone else does. Just having some ability to manipulate the world that not many others have is powerful.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

Not all spells are of equal value, and there's a lower game-world value to knowing a college of magic that everyone else does. Just having some ability to manipulate the world that not many others have is powerful.

Remember, the default is that you know all colleges. Knowing a college with 40 spells seems to be more useful than knowing one with three spells. And yes, spells are of different value, but that's why the energy cost varies from spell to spell. They should still be roughly balanced (except Recover Energy, which is a strange holdover from an older system.

[Ejidoth]

The most straightforward approach would probably be to figure out what percentage of total spells are in a given college and plug that number into the Accessibility calculation from Power-Ups 8 on pages 4-5.

I wouldn't worry about unlisted not-created-yet spells, since those are probably going to be paid for with a perk each for Secret Spell or something anyway. Just the spell list provided per college should be enough for this.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anders

Remember, the default is that you know all colleges.

Actually, that varies with magery. Having only Magery 0 locks you out of the Meta spell college.

Originally Posted by Anders

Knowing a college with 40 spells seems to be more useful than knowing one with three spells.

You're confusing quantity with quality. AD&D 1-2 did this with cantrips. You could get 4 cantrips in place of one 1st level spell. The problem was they were so low powered as to be effectively useless.

Originally Posted by Anders

And yes, spells are of different value, but that's why the energy cost varies from spell to spell. They should still be roughly balanced (except Recover Energy, which is a strange holdover from an older system.

But you clearly state were are dealing with "alternate colleges". Compare the spells of the Slayer anime to those in GURPS Magic. Lina's fireball is on par with the old AD&D 1-2 which was ~33,000 cubic feet of flaming destruction and her Dragon Slave is effectively 'tactical nuke'. Giga slave is a 'I am so insanely desperate that I will risk destroying the world' spell.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Anders

Remember, the default is that you know all colleges. Knowing a college with 40 spells seems to be more useful than knowing one with three spells. And yes, spells are of different value, but that's why the energy cost varies from spell to spell. They should still be roughly balanced (except Recover Energy, which is a strange holdover from an older system.

I've been going through Thaumatology trying to figure out what you were getting on about, and finally figured out it was about the "Wood College". Which is a case of "Doctor it hurts when I do this!" "So don't do that!" Don't create a college with only three spells. When a book's advice is bad, or at least your interpretation of it would produce bad results, just don't take it. If you are going to have a "Wood College" then add spells like one giving your body the consistency of a living tree, or one that causes spears of wood to shoot out of wooden objects and wall, or made them explode into razor sharp splinters.

Or alternatively forget about the "Wood College" and just give your druids a nature college that includes both animal and tree spells. Because you can do that.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I've been going through Thaumatology trying to figure out what you were getting on about, and finally figured out it was about the "Wood College". Which is a case of "Doctor it hurts when I do this!" "So don't do that!" Don't create a college with only three spells. When a book's advice is bad, or at least your interpretation of it would produce bad results, just don't take it. If you are going to have a "Wood College" then add spells like one giving your body the consistency of a living tree, or one that causes spears of wood to shoot out of wooden objects and wall, or made them explode into razor sharp splinters.

Or alternatively forget about the "Wood College" and just give your druids a nature college that includes both animal and tree spells. Because you can do that.

Considering "Wood Collage" says "Defining a completely new Wood college is unnecessary. Simply use the Plant college and delete any spells that don’t fit the setting’s metaphysics." I don't understand how you two only see three spells.

Replace "Plant" with "Tree" (ie Seek Tree, Identify Tree, etc) and you get way more then just three spells. Sure it isn't the same breadth as Tree magic (T42-47) but is clearly more then three spells.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

Considering "Wood Collage" says "Defining a completely new Wood college is unnecessary. Simply use the Plant college and delete any spells that don’t fit the setting’s metaphysics." I don't understand how you two only see three spells.

Replace "Plant" with "Tree" (ie Seek Tree, Identify Tree, etc) and you get way more then just three spells. Sure it isn't the same breadth as Tree magic (T42-47) but is clearly more then three spells.

That's why I said "interpretation". He was clearly just deleting every spell that didn't already restrict itself to "wood".

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Anders

I'm talking now about the alternate colleges from Thaumatology, and not druids as in Dungeon Fantasy.

There are 18 colleges, which lands me in the -40% range for limitation value... but some colleges contain 40+ spells while other contain three or four. Putting the same value on them both seems unfair. So the obvious solution is to make One College Magery value depend on how many spells the college contains. Off the top of my head:

3 to 5 spells -60%
6 to 10 spells -50%
11 to 30 spells -40%
31 to 50 spells -20%
51 to 70 spells -10%
71 spells or more is not a significant limitation.

In a perfect system you would also take into account how diverse the spells are, but that seems like work.

Seem reasonable?

Doesn't work for me because colleges don't have a fixed number of spells. You can always add more spells.