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Forums: Rules
As much as I love the site, I've looked everywhere for exactly what it is that's different about a "Greater Path" mage. Is it a flavor thing? How is it different mechanically? Just wondering. Thanks.
| Greater Path? |
| Posted on October 12nd, 2005 at 1:27PM CST by Sulerin |
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"Greater Path" magic is a spell-point system of magic which I developed and wrote a book manuscript for about ten years ago. The premise of Greater Path magic was that in the early days of magic there were two divided groups of wizards, one which led to the popular D&D version of magic. These wizards were called structuralists for their spells and studies divided magic into artificial and logical groups: necromancy, conjuration, enchantment, and so on. A second group pursued researching magic in its most primitive forms. This second group were often referred to as puritans, though they referred to their magic as the Greater Path as it used magic in its greater natural divisions rather than in smaller artificial divisions.
At its core, there are five natural divisions of magic in the Greater Path, each spell partakes of one or more of these "pools" of magic. As they grow in power, a Greater Path mage chooses which pools to improve their skill upon. Thus each Greater Path mage is a little different from the next in which kinds of magic they are good at and which they are less so. Mechanically, when casting a spell, the mage deducts its cost from the one or more magical pools that it draws upon. As a matter of flavor, Greater Path magic is less enduring than that of a structuralist's magic, but more flexible.
With the advent of third edition, Wizards of the Coast introduced the concept of a Sorcerer. Greater Path magic and sorcerers shared a lot in common: Both used magic intuitively and they did not require spell books. However, while a sorcerer was restricted to a few spells known and yet have a great volume of spell castings per day, a Greater Path mage instead had a great volume of knowledge and a limited number of castings per day.
In the end, the sorcerer class provided that "other strange way of using magic," and in my own campaigns it came to take the place of Greater Path magic since its mechanics were both familiar and easier to learn. We did have numerous long term Greater Path mages in our campaigns though and they seemed to fit in well alongside more traditional wizards, as well as beside other adventuring companions.
I've long debated whether or not to simply put the Greater Path system up on the Sulerin site for everyone to see. It is a bit dated; many long time players will note that it was developed with 2nd edition D&D rules in mind, though it would be rather easy to convert to 3rd edition.
It's about 20 pages of flavor text, concepts, rules, expansion ideas and so forth. So it would be a bit of work for me to format into a proper web document, but if people are interested enough then I can see that this happens sooner than later. |
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