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I love getting wizard spells and warlock invocations instead of taking a school specialization. The way I RP it is saying that during my mages college I wasn't able to complete my exams to graduate and eventually I was tempted by a being to use their powers to pass. This forced me into a life where I could no longer specialize in my favored school of magic, but instead had to use the powers they gave me (warlock invocations) in order to progress as a mage. Forever bound to that beings whims and power because I wanted to be recognized as a wizard by my college. I still get wizard spells, but unless my character can figure out a way to exit a pact with this being then I will be forever unable to access the Wizard specialization. Since this makes a person actually weaker than your average mage I usually have all the cantrips and get 1 warlock spell per spell level to compensate. Once the character breaks the pact we have a discussion about what I lose and gain based on power level. Normally it's all warlock spells and invocations above level 3.
I once played a Divinination Wizard Noble who was sent to college as punishment because of his reckless behavior and using up too much of his family's money at the tavern. In college he was a major party animal but they couldn't kick him out because he was legacy and his family donated a new wing to the library. He was fun.
@@jmvh59 The bill was not just his own, I wager. Too many, "the next round's on me!" Maybe he liked gambling and destructive bar fights a little too much. There are many ways to lose large sums of gold in a tavern if you're trying hard enough.
I like to think about the economics of magic and how that would influence spell casters in my world. For example, ray of frost is a simple cantrip that can be taught to young apprentices with a bit of study. It can be used to freeze things, but it can also be used to keep things frozen. Boom, refrigeration. Wealthier households in cities hire Apprentices to come around once a day and cast ray of frost on an iceblock in the pantry. Imagine a young wizard, promised glory and apprenticeship under a powerful wizard only to run errands around for years with a gaggle of other apprentices, always kept too busy with a daily cantrip and customer list (mold earth, prestidigitation, mending, etc) to learn anything. Maybe one day, they steal a look at their Masters' spellbook and copy some first level spells, and either run away with the knowledge or perhaps steal the book, desperate for the glory they were promised.
I play a wizard who’s very particular about the types of magic he’s willing to use, because he’s seen what happened to people who delved too deep into necromancy and evocation magic. He’s a halfling divination wizard, and so using a combination of luck and magic to ensure all his illusions, charms, etc are successful so he can avoid having to mess with life and death or burn people alive is super fun. Plus, as he’s pushed to do worse stuff (detect thoughts is an objectively terrifying spell) he’s constantly grappling with the ethics of even using magic. It’s a ton of fun. After all, if manipulating reality to raise the dead or burn people alive is wrong... is invading their minds really any better? Where’s the line?
So he draws the line at killing, but he's perfectly willing to subvert other people's will and autonomy with Charm and other mind control spells? Interesting.
I've always gravitated towards sorcerers largely because they're the fantasy equivalent to super-heroes/villains. They didn't study, they didn't train and just because of the whims of fate and chance they're just better than most people. I've played them as arrogant a-holes that somehow feel entitled to their power. I've played them as people who are afraid of themselves and what they could do by accident. Regardless, it feels like a deep well to draw from for roleplay.
Maybe not the place for this but my favorite character to date is an inquisitor rogue who was from a high profile mage family. Profenciencies in arcana,history ect and the ritual caster feat. He was just such a shitty mage it took him an extra 10 minutes to cast spells. But he used his knack for sussing out information and knowledge to read people and learn secrets and lore.
As a person that dove deep into City of Mist last year, it is truly something pretty fun! I'm glad Wed DM got an ad for it. Plus its such a perfect video to have it on because coming up with character concepts for City of Mist is some of the most fun character building I've gotten to explore in a ttrpg because its so flexible and how characters work in and of themselves lead to a lot of fun ideas! Would love to see some kind of video on it from you guys if y'all see there's enough interest.
Going around the circle talking about backstories, dead loves, burning passions, guidance from their God, and then Ted the wizard fighting against the crushing weight of compound interest. A rogue might want to steal the gems for a night on the town, the wizard sees them as three months worth of payment plan and they will fight far more viciously to secure it.
I was going to make this comment because I came up with this last week for a new campaign. A Baldur's Gate wizard who needs to go into the adventuring life because he is -keenly- aware happens to people in Baldur's Gate who don't pay off their loans.
If you watch American Ninja Warrior, it reminds me of Mathis Ohwadi. Guy tried to run up an 18 foot warped wall for a $10,000 reward. They asked him why he went for it, and he just said "I've got college loans, man!"
Honestly, it would be kind of amusing if you had a whole campaign where instead of inventing dramatic or complicated backstories, the players had to come to the table with an explanation for why their characters need a lot of money very fast. Maybe even explicitly say "your characters all have debts they need to pay. Explain to me what those debts are. That's your backstory".
I'm playing that with a healer celestial warlock. He's all brain stats and absolutely hates adventuring but his patron made him go to pay off the debt of his magic, which is basically a loan for medical school. He wanted to be a doctor but couldn't cut it as a Cleric so he sold his soul
sorcerers are my favorite because of the variety of concepts baked in. played a divine soul sorcerer where the divine soul came from my dead paladin's soul being pushed into a "soul less" body in barovia
Goliath mage, the runt of the litter, found out about rune magic and started studying magic. now he wanders the land with his trusty stone slab inscribed with magic runes as his spellbook.
A story Arc on the ideas that all magic costs something to balance the weave: Killing has a metamagic weight and conviction. What if casting foci re-consume the mana cast back into itself after casted. So anyone killed by that magic is sort of imprinted onto the focus in a sort of oppressive influence. Wizards would have to go thru Focuses constantly to not have to deal with the memories and voices influenced by their test animals and conjures and victims, however, one wizard killed his/her lover by accident in a botched test, and so, keeps/uses a single focus to hold on to the lover's memory in hopes to one day extract its essence. The more he/her kills, the more crowded it gets in his/her head, as every kill becomes a ghostly NPC in his/her mind. lol. Kind of like "the bowler" in "mystery men" but with more edge and insanity over time. lol
One of my all time favorite characters I played was based on Jackie Estacado from The Darkness. He was a warlock whose patron was 'the darkness' which possessed him and all my casting was just him letting it out a little bit, which he was always trying not to have to do. Very satisfying to play a character who is trying to find a way to cure themselves of their power source.
Question How do you deal with paranoid players at the table ? What I mean is I have not done anything to them yet there acting like the guy from the second mummy. This place is Cursed the floor is Cursed The book Is cursed my friend is Cursed. Okay my not that bad but the won’t explore and investigate because he is scared of losing the character could you please do a video or post an article or a paragraph dealing with paranoid players please the games I’m running are dnd dark heresy and call of Cthulhu (this one makes sense) please and thank you web dm
Sounds like you need to have an out of game talk with this player. Have they been gotchaed before? Either by you or another GM. Gotta talk to them at some point about how if you don't explore then the game doesn't really happen. and if you're playing CoC in particular...the point is to get messed up!
Since I've started watching you guys two years ago, the way I think about character creation and d&d in general has continuously evolved. Keep this shit up!
-A traveling merchant takes shelter from a storm in an old ruin that was the site of an arcane ritual in the distant past. Residual arcane radiation imbues him with magical powers he struggles to control, destroying his cart and all his wares, driving him to bankruptcy. He has taken up adventuring to pay off his debts. -A young woman with modest magical aptitude spends her days as a shop assistant helping to enchant minor magical novelties. Jaded by the routine, she spends far too much time in the tavern. She drunkenly takes the stage one night and realizes her talents have a particular effect on crowds. She dumps the day job to become a bard, hoping to find a better life.
The logical endpoint is a cast system, like the Red Wizards of Thay, pure spell casters at the top, then half-casters, then 3rd casters, then everyone else.
@@washada Casters as servant's of the state? I can see that, a series of books had something similar, but it was a religion, only members of the clergy could use magic. If anyone else did they were "demon spawn" and hunted down by the holy inquisition (who either "converted them" or killed them.
One thing I really like from Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive is that there are things called Soulcasters, which convert something into another something (stone to grain, air to smoke, etc), though each Soulcaster can only do one type of conversion. The cool part is that as one attunes to and uses a Soulcaster, their body is slowly corrupted by whatever material the Soulcaster creates: Someone who converts things to smoke has their body perforated with wisps and clouds, someone who converts to grain has vines growing under and out of their skin, so on and so forth. It's a really cool idea of the cost of power.
Speaking of reluctant mage or cursed caster... I have this character concept of a Lore Bard, who is noble born, but his family way cursed and each person's curse is unique to the individual. His is that he can ONLY communicate through song lyrics, whether he is speaking, writing, or even telepathically. So, in order to communicate effectively, he has learned as many songs as possible. He has also gone out and learned as much esoteric knowledge out there that he can, in order to find a way to remove this curse. So he has become a Lore Bard, but not so much by choice. I would love to see this character multi class if a being offers a way to remove the curse for him, in exchange for his services. Like he could become a paladin, and now as long as he follows his oath, he can communicate normally. Or he makes a pact with an other worldly being to become a warlock, and his patron allows him to communicate normally, but of course it comes at a cost.
I've got a Kenku Pheonix Sorcerer who goes to college to learn magic, since he doesn't know he's a Sorcerer. Spell-wise, I've limited myself to the themes of Wind and Fire, and their combined form Lightning, for MAXIMUM FLAVOR
One element I always liked to think about was how spellcasters like to view other spellcasters. From the perspective of the Sorcerer I always thought Wizards were nerds, Warlocks were wannabes, and Bards were nuisances.
From a Warlock's point of view: Wizards: "This guy eventually will be very powerful, and will work hard to get there. I might want to keep an eye on them, lest they become competitors against my patron" Sorcerers: "This motherfucker is a spoiled brat that got magic handed over to them. Their ability to change and modify magic is curious, but they'll never know the hardships of working to get their power" Bards: "Fucking Jocks"
My idea is a human warlock with a fiend patron. He was very intelligent, so his parents decided to send him to train in wizardry with an uncle who was a wizard. The fiend killed the uncle and impersonated him. He tricked the kid into signing a contract in blood to serve him in exchange for magic lessons. He became a pact of the tome warlock instead of a wizard and started adventuring to learn more magic and to see if he could break the pact.
I have a High Elf Hexblade lined up for a future campaign that was pressured due to family to become a Bladesinger like her siblings. And in a futile attempt to learn arcane knowledge in the Forbidden Library, they stumbled into a magic sword that spoke to her, and in exchange for signing a Pact, the sword would give them the knowledge they need to become a ‘wizard’
Used the wizard class to make an Earth-Bender. Earth Genasi Chronurgist. His 'book' was a string of prayer beads, took mostly Earth spells, and his ability to alter outcomes with Chronurgy was often flavored as him bending earth to adjust someone's stance for better or worse.
Im playing an illusion wizard in a waterdeep campaign that im playing as a roguish mastermind who moonlights as an author, lots of Charles Dickens references
One of my favorite variants of the Battlemage is the Siegecaster. These aint the down and dirty type, these are the guys hidden at the back of the formation, casting a long ritual that can decimate the battlefield or fortification if they manage to finish it. One Siegecaster can break a formation. A team can break a castle.
I have an order of scribes wizard coming up who is a free spirited child prodigy who couldn't bring himself to specialise in a school of magic because he likes them all too much. His awakened spellbook is an ebberon spellshard with a fragment of a far realm entity's consciousness in it which fell from the skies and he scribes in his spells using a jewelers kit. Very excited to play him :)
I wonder about a mage that’s bad at magic. They’re disorganized, don’t know they’re spells, always wish they could undo the effects of their spells... basically a character that acts like me at the game table...
A character like that would probably multi-class into something more physical. Or be a ranger/arcane rogue that feels uncomfortable with the spell part of their class. Or be literally the only magic user in a party that needs them. So they HAVE to keep using magic even tho they hate it.
A mage character concept I've been fiddling with recently is a resercher who found the wrong book of eldritch lore. He was driven to the brink of madness by the book, eventually fleeing his library and going into seclusion to train both his mind and body to withstand and channel the power of the book. The secrets of summoning creatures from his own nightmares into the waking world and having them fight for him. His class build will be Echo Knight fighter with at least 2 levels of War Wizard.
The witcher has always been my favourite inspiration for mages, they've still got the classic books and towers and some even have beards and pointy hats, but then you add one like a layer of scientist, conniving politician and a big heap of luxury.
I like to mix things. With the huge variety of casters in D&D, you can use practically every thematic archetype there is, for different types of casters, and different factions of those forms of casters. Flavor them to your world, and you're golden. . Personally, I tend toward the classic tropes. Wizards are stoic and bookish, and their magic is a tool they learn how to use, and little else. Since it's just a hammer they pick up to hit nails, it doesn't fundamentally impact them, personally. I actually prefer to have a mix of old and new school wizards. Usually it's a cultural divide, but sometimes a generational one. One group does the secretive Master/Apprentice style, while the other has an academy where all aspects of magic are studied and shared. . Sorcerers are boistrous and unpredictable, and magic is part of them that changes them as they use it. A sorcerer that kills with their magic is going to WANT to kill more. At first it might just look to be the easiest thing, but eventually they'll crave it. Usually Sorcerers are treated with suspicion and mistrust, because you never know when you're getting a killer, or if they're yet just waiting to finally snap. . Warlocks are made to kill and spread misery. Even in the hands of "good" patrons, they're intended to be controlled versions of sorcerers, living weapons. It doesn't change them the way it does a sorcerer, because it's a tacked-on power, not innate to their being, but it haunts them anyway. Nobody really cares for them, but nobody is really afraid of them. They're the assassins of the magical world, but they serve higher powers, and aren't just apt to kill for its own sake. When someone dies at their hand, it's for a reason. . Druids are a lot like sorcerers, in that while their power isn't innate, they still bond to it in a way that changes them. They bond with nature on a fundamental level to do what they do, and over time, they come to emulate nature. Depending on how things go, their mood could be as gentle as a spring meadow, or they could be a fucking hurricane, because that's how nature is. Where sorcerers are doomed once they slip down the dark path, druids wobble from any one to another constantly, but slowly, like the seasons. A winter or storm druid is ruthless and even a bit cruel, while a Summer druid might be helpful to a destructive fault. . Clerics are just divine wizards, but where instead of actually learning anything, they just turn inward ever more to find their connection to the gods. The most powerful clerics are mostly hermits or vagabonds, living under harsh vows and devoting themselves to their faith exclusively. Priests and such in the temples and churches have almost no magic at all. The only way to touch your god's power is to have such total and blind devotion that you almost can't do anything else. They see through illusions, not because they know the truth, but because they literally can't see anything but what they believe about their god. The more faith they have, the less they see anything that doesn't perfectly match that faith. Any mere mortal illusion could never compare. . The "half-casters" of each of those archetypes are the same, but less extreme in most cases. Eldritch Knights are wizards who basically split their time between learning magic and warfare. . Arcane Tricksters are rogues who've stolen enough from wizards or schools, and put effort into trying to learn it. . Paladins are clerics whose sense of action is too great to simply live as a hermit. . Rangers are druids who walk the line between nature and civilization. . Hexblades, by contrast are instead fully realized magical assassins. The John Wicks of D&D...the Boogeymen. While others use their powers more broadly when possible. A hexblade disables and kills, and does almost nothing else. Imagine a hexblade with Devil's Sight, casting Darkness on a secluded area, using Disguise Self to lure a target to the area, and Misty Visions to make the OUTSIDE of that zone of Darkness look unchanged. You lead them in, and as soon as they cross into the Darkness, they're completely disoriented and you Hex them, to strike your killing blow. Then you change your disguise, lay the body just out of the way, putting another Silent Image over it to make it seem as if there's no body there, dropping it only once you're a safe distance away.
Raistlin's commanding officer grizzled old wizard sargeant guy was called Horkin, a guy who never took the test and wasn't powerful enough on paper to have to, but was practical as heck with what he knew.
I was listening to another dnd UA-camr named AJ Pickett and on his wizard videos somethings that I try to remember is this: what does that magic do to you, what drew you to your school, and two what does that look like for non-adventuring wizards. Somethings he brought up were things like abjurers might tend to be overly paranoid or enchanters might become excellent therapists or conjurers and diviners might work together as detectives. Those videos really got me thinking about ways to enhance not just wizards but any casters.
I would say that level 1-3 is still apprentice level. You don't even know what your specialization will be until 3. You become a journeyman after that until about 10 here your the stock standard mage you see out in the world. Most NPCs plateau (save for villains and other heroes) here. At 11 to 15 you become heroic. People hear about you, you have a reputation. Your magic is strong. 15-20 your the stuff of legends. The things you can do rival gods. It's no wonder they're Legends since most players never hit that level. All the same 15 through 20 people start to doubt that you even exist, the legend is so large.
I have a Githyanki Graviturgist Wizard. His spell book is a spellshard, which is set in the band of his dead fiancées engagement ring. Once a pirate of the astral sea, he came to the material plane to experience true living. His time in the astral plane didn't prepare him for the gravity of the material plane & he sought to normalize it for himself which led to his studies with graviturgy. Eventually meeting an elven woman he thought he'd settle down with her & nearly did, until he was pulled through a gate (as in the spell) and brought back to the astral plane by an old enemy. He defeated his foe & rushed back to the material plane only to find that his enemy had sent marauders to destroy the home and kill his fiancée. His focus has now turned towards the study of time, and bringing his love back to him.
Ive been slightly obsessed with the Spellmonger book series by Terry Mancour. Magic has a very interesting relationship with humanity where those with magic are often treated as 2nd citizens with many restrictions on things like land ownership and living in constant fear of the iron fist of the Censorate (Magic police) placing interesting limitations on magic.
Just starting a game and my DM's letting me play an adapted Knowledge Theurgy Wizard, looking forward to how the bookish wizard tinkering with the divine is gonna play out! Great episode guys!
I like the idea of a heavily regulated society where certain schools of magic are forbidden, essentially the rules of magic from the Dresden Files. And make a Wizard who skirts the line.
Interesting concept, your caster would have to choose their spells carefully. The 7 laws are: Thou Shall Not Kill another Human with Magic. Thou Shalt Not Transform Others, forbidding the shapeshifting of other beings. Thou Shalt Not Invade the Mind of Another, and Thou Shall Not Enthrall Another, forbidding the use of most Enchantment spells. Thou Shalt Not Reach Beyond the Borders of Life, forbidding the use of necromancy. Thou Shalt Not Swim Against the Currents of Time. Thou Shalt Not Open the Outer Gates, forbidding the summoning or contacting of Outsiders (Far Realm Creatures).
In the first campaign I ever ran I had a player who literally just made Corvo. I had no idea it existed he literally just copy and pasted the main character of this game that I had never heard of and I was none the wiser. He wasnt even subtle. He had the same name and everything.
I love this. Let's see, Corvo definitely is a Great Old One or Lurker in the Deep warlock that has the Ghostly Gaze, Dreadful Word, Bewitching Whispers, Gaze of Two Minds, and Misty Visions, one with Shadows, and Sculptor of Flesh Invocations, and a few levels of Rogue for sneaking and stabbing.
I had a warlock character once that didn't want their power, great old one patron was crawling into their brain and using their magic would spread the infection until The Thing Beyond could use the foothold to crawl into reality. So they had to adventure to find a cure and adventuring forces them to use magic in a horrible cycle.
I really like this! However, I think you’re overlooking the fact that NPCs grow up in a world where the town priest down the road has magic, adventurers come through a lot, and even a local acolyte or a black market drow trader can cast *something.*
I always play my mages as being somewhat crazy, the degree depending ont he character. Magic is fundamentally chaotic and simple... _Other_ it cannot be explained logically, no matter how seriously you study it, after all, how do you explain how you can change a chair into a living creature, or transform a 200 lbs man into a 20 lbs rabbit? Where does all that excess mass go? How do you wrap your head around instantly transitioning from one point of the world into another without taking into effect the curvature of the world and the constant spin it goes through as it roates around its host star? How can you conjure mass from nothing? And how can you dismiss it? It's a frightened concept. Which is why most non-mages are extremely wary of them, and for good reason. A mage, especially a high level one inevitably develops some sort of psychosis, the most common being megalomania simply due to the fact that a being capababe of altering reality to fit their whims grows to like and enjoy it, and the lives of the "small people" seem so insignificant in comparison, who cares that Farmer Joe broke his plow? With a snap of my finger I can create a new one, better yet I can create an entire world for myself where food is literally provided for me by my whim alone. A mage that has not imposed some sort of restriction on hmiself, be it moral or even physical is a danger not only to themselves but to the entire world. Just look at what happened to Karus in the Forgotten Realms lore, a man so arrogant he attempted to become a God! And for his hubris millions died and magic became restricted by the very goddess he attempted to subvert. "Do not try the patience of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." - Elric, Techno-mage of Babylon 5.
A book that I absolutely love for Old School, weird, and interesting concepts for Magic-Users is _Folk Magic of the Haven Isles_ . You can see a review of this book on Questing Beast's channel.
When you were talking about the spells specifically designed to end lives, I contrasted that with my bards spell list, where the only thing I considered when choosing her spells is how awesome they would look in a performance.
The thing that is roiling around in my mind right now is "What happens when a wizard doesn't know he's a wizard?" I'm brewing up a sorcerer origin that is based on having, once upon a time, been a powerful wizard. Maybe you were a clone who, by magical accident, received a soul that wasn't the wizard who created it. Maybe through some catastrophe you've forgotten your life as an archmage until you accidentally immolate a neighbor. Now you're learning all that magic through a new light. Sort of the Wizard version of the Divine Soul.
Or could just be reincarnation, though I guess that would depend on how the afterlife works in a setting, though a wizard of sufficient power should be able to find or develop some kind of reincarnation spell if becoming a lich seemed like a less than pleasant option for immortality.
Or a wizard botched a spell and accidentally bonded his mind/soul/memories to another random person. In other words the character has an experienced wizard living in his head, without him even knowing it.
Other magic systems that warp the user out side of Warhammer: Star Wars, My Little Pony, and EVERYTHING in the Brandon Sanderson Cosmere. Each have somekind of feedback effect that use or overuse physically and mentally changes the user.
I currently play a wizard who is an astrophysicist, where the Weave is used as an analogy for spacetime, so manipulating the Weave is manipulating spacetime, therefore Graviturgist wizard astrophysicist!
I ran 2E for two groups many, many years ago, but got to play once... enter, Truetime the Unkillable, my 1st Lvl Gnome Mage. I made that DMs life a living hell by abusing the daylights out of Cantrip! He gave up DMing that campaign once I got Invisibility, and DEX-saved a fireball he was convinced would finally end his torment. I laugh when I toy with the thought that Truetime is still out there somewhere...
They are missing the point. I haven't drank in 12 years till this week. I grew up in NYC in the early 90's. We used to do coke and play d and d. J cannot express how much fun this was. I just discovered this channel, and I wouldn't condone anything like that...but hey. Be young, go nuts, best memories ever. Nonstop screaming a-dnd 2nd edition. Hard drugs. Holy shit.
A Sorcerer with an 8 INT who is CONVINCED that he is actually a Wizard, but his “spellbook” is filled with scribbles and he just says nonsense and so on. Double down on this by taking Wild Magic so that even he is surprised by what he can do, but “I meant to do that!”
An order of scribes wizard who has a 1 level dip in the genie warlock for the bottle sanctum. It’s Completely STOCKED and filled with spread out parchment, containers of scrolls, inks, stacks of books etc. Once you hit the level in which you can take a long rest in it, stay in almost indefinitely and become a full on hermit recluse. Only ever sending your familiar, homunculus or simulacrum out etc.
A quick way to make your wizard unique is to make their "spellbook" something other than an actual book If you want something lighthearted, give them pockets full of flashcards and post-its. Something more dramatic? Give them a puzzle box covered in arcane runes that they reconfigure every day to shape spell sigils. They don't spend money on paper and ink, but on wood and metal to make the box more complex.
I like the idea of Wizard characters starting with 50.000 gp debt in student loans, that's a great motivator for going dungeon delving. You do NOT want to miss your monthly payments to the Wizards' Guild, their debt collectors have their ways of finding you and making you regret your life choices.
I find the idea that "Mages" are not respected in D&D society odd, anyone that can wield that kind of power would have respect, power and money, Mages would be highly sort after specialists, building a road, magic, dredging a harbor, magic, lighting your mansion, magic.
Regarding 'Murder Spells': Yes, you're learning spells specifically designed to take a life. Imagine carrying a gun for self-defense today. With a sword, a knife, or almost any melee weapon (great weapons notwithstanding), you can usually choose not to kill because one attack has a high chance of not killing with one hit. A mugger jumps out and you stab or cut him and he freaks out and runs away. Pull a gun and there's a pretty good chance that he WILL die. I see the mentality of magic as the same. Especially for a Wizard. You weren't born with power. You didn't hunt for it and agree to some arcane contract for it. You don't pray to the gods for it. You spend countless hours stooped over a book TRYING to learn it. You're reading about how a column of fire will descend from the sky and hover over a point for a few seconds. You CAN'T read something like that and not understand 'Someone will die if they get hit with that.'
My favourite caster to date is either my very first or the one I'm currently running, lol. The first was in 3E, a sort of magical combat jester. He was a Deep Gnome sorcerer with a Splash of Bard who was a little gone in the head; as a child he'd been captured by drow and sold to a nasty surface world noble who forced him to be his court jester. Once his sorcerous powers manifested he escaped. The time left an impression, though, so the audible and visual effects of his spells reflect that- Magic Missiles that look like pies, Stinking Cloud makes a fart noise, etc. I leaned into the cliches as hard as I could, and had a lot of fun playing him. The caster I'm currently playing is a Fey Pact Warlock with a splash of Rogue. She was an Elf street urchin who was taken into a thieves guild; the guild ensured life-long loyalty with a magical brand. When she got older and got a few skills she tried to escape; while from a hit squad she encountered an Archfey who offered her a deal: work for him for five years protecting a section of wilderness from poachers and the like, and he would take care of her troubles. She accepted, and he took care of things, all right... by jerking her consciousness and soul out of her body and putting them into the empty shell of a Warforged, and wiping most of her memories of the thieves guild. We started the campaign at the point where she'd just finished her five years of service, and was at total loose ends. I've been playing her as semi-child-like and awkward due to her having no real experience aside from her interactions with the Archfey during her service to him, and she's been a blast.
I'm building a thief rouge who works as a teacher for a magical college, but is in actuality a complete conman with no magical capabilities. he gets away with this because he's 1.) Incredibly Charismatic 2.) Basically something akin to an IRL magician. One of the coolest things about this is that at later levels we'll be able to use scrolls without having to be a spell caster, as well as other class exclusive items which is badass. He's a bit opposite of what Jim's "mage pretending to be mundane" is in that he openly makes anything he does via pure skill or physical training appear as magical as possible, wearing typical wizard clothing and all :)
If there's one inspiration for the concept of mage that defined how I played scholarly spellcasters its Skyrim's Tolfdir an elderly yet supportive and wise mage who teaches in abjuration-type magic. He also is cautious abou the study and even use of magic (not gonna tell why due to spoilers). Nowadays whenever im going for a mage type character im leaning towards a wandering scholar/teacher willing to teach those curious and/or having the ability to use magic. They believe that anyone can learn magic as long as they have the desire to learn in earnest to understans the world. Edit: Oh yeah, have a subscriber.
one of my favorite rpgs ive never gotten to play is unknown armies. it's a late 90s rpg based on the idea of a post-modern occult underground. it's like CoC mixed with Mage: The ascension for people who are into chaos magick and grant morrison comics and shit. In the gameworld people who use magic are adepts and they all are non-neurytpical in some way because the nature of magic as the manipulation and transformation of reality through will and technique induces mind altering cosmic horror in the practitioner, to say nothing of resulting supernatural encounters or conflicts. The ability to perform magic is intrinsically tied to an individual's obsessive worldview and the restrictive taboos they follow in relation to this obsession. So your magic might come from the power of Jesus and you maintain spell slots by abstaining from violating the ten commandments, or your magic might come from the infernal power of the coca cola corporation and you lose your spell slots if you go without the devil's nectar. You have a sanity meter in UA and using any magic, even for someone practiced, forces sanity checks of varying degrees. If you pass enough sanity checks of a certain kind you become hardened and if you fail enough your lack of sanity becomes even greater. You have access to the power to make the world what you choose, but can you make full use of that power before you lose touch with consensus reality? The game takes this idea very seriously: what if our universe is actually run by powerful magicians but they are all living as crazy homeless people because that is the inevitable result of using high level magic; you can't go back to being normal. great show as always, love yall
My diviner plays very well into that "adventurer" type. Magic school dropout who immersed himself in the local culture and went out into dungeons and ruins in order to educate himself, using his spellcraft to run confidence tricks and schemes in order to make money and rub shoulders with those that would make that life more lucrative. Portents were his main selling point. He was a sure breadwinner for crooks. He's a scoundrel, through and through. His magic is scrappy and a little bootlegged; informed by formal teaching but mastered out in the real world.
I played sorcerer who was thinking he is just a wizard in a one shot. Int of 8 a total frat boy from powerful dynasty of wizards, expelled from all schools for bad academic results and misbehavior. A complete disgrace to his family adventuring as a shitty wizard that makes bad formulas and fumbles fireball into lightning ball.
One of my favorites was an Arcane Trickster whos background was charlatan. He basically scammed a mage's assistant out of his spell book and rather than sell it, he figured he could study it to learn spells to aid in his scams. As you can imagine the mage he stole from was hunting him. So joining a party was a way for him to not only hide from his pursuers but gain safety in numbers. The other was a Monk/Wizard. The concept was his monk order of the 4 elements who watched over an ancient obelisk that had runes which is how they learned their magic like abilities. However, he was the one who discovered a powerful evil was hidden inside so he took a piece of the obelisk that acted like a spell focus, resembled a rubik cube. He began learning magic by changing the position of the sides. He too was chased by his former monk order.
Great show!! I love these concept shows. My current charcter was born into her Warlock pact as part of the original deal her ancestors made. Her whole family has the gift. She rejects the power because she's seen it poison the hearts of her family members so she became a monk. Each level my DM and I discuss which class she embraced more throughout that level and I grow in that class as I try to balance my calming monk skills with my dark demonic powers. She has been a blast to play.
I have this idea for a chef wizard. They have the chef feat and the linguist feat. Their spell book is written as a cook book, under a cypher. He has a familiar, an unseen servant and used mage hand to help him cook, while reworked grease to be frosting, have a strength save, and cause the creatures to be restrained.
In my current game our dm has it where wizards are typically power hungry bastards, but i am trying to be a benevolent wizard. Its hard when no one trusts you.
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I love getting wizard spells and warlock invocations instead of taking a school specialization. The way I RP it is saying that during my mages college I wasn't able to complete my exams to graduate and eventually I was tempted by a being to use their powers to pass. This forced me into a life where I could no longer specialize in my favored school of magic, but instead had to use the powers they gave me (warlock invocations) in order to progress as a mage. Forever bound to that beings whims and power because I wanted to be recognized as a wizard by my college. I still get wizard spells, but unless my character can figure out a way to exit a pact with this being then I will be forever unable to access the Wizard specialization. Since this makes a person actually weaker than your average mage I usually have all the cantrips and get 1 warlock spell per spell level to compensate.
Once the character breaks the pact we have a discussion about what I lose and gain based on power level. Normally it's all warlock spells and invocations above level 3.
It took years, but finally the beards have changed faces
They cast Transbeardification.
Still convinced the beard is a warlock patron and Jim fell out of favor, so it moved on to Pruitt
As someone who just discovered these guys and have only seen older vids, this comment almost made me fall out of my chair laughing 😂
I liked Adventure Time’s idea that those who wield magic always have two traits in common: madness and sadness.
So good
"Before there was nothing, there wetr monsters"
A lot of times smart people are sad so that checks out.
RIP the magickers.
Betty payed dearly for her dabbling in the dark arts.
A wizard that used to be a ships cartographer. His spellbook is a bunch of maps he made of the Bermuda triangle.
Badass!
Sounds neat!
My last character was very inspired by Ged from the earthsea series. He was basically a charter divination wizard for ships in the moonsea region.
I always love hearing your guy's takes on character archetypes, I always walk away with a ton of character ideas! 😁
Glad to help inspire!
I once played a Divinination Wizard Noble who was sent to college as punishment because of his reckless behavior and using up too much of his family's money at the tavern. In college he was a major party animal but they couldn't kick him out because he was legacy and his family donated a new wing to the library. He was fun.
Sounds fun.
How much did this college cost that buying a building for it was cheaper than going to the bar?
@@jmvh59 The bill was not just his own, I wager. Too many, "the next round's on me!" Maybe he liked gambling and destructive bar fights a little too much. There are many ways to lose large sums of gold in a tavern if you're trying hard enough.
I went to college with that guy
I like to think about the economics of magic and how that would influence spell casters in my world. For example, ray of frost is a simple cantrip that can be taught to young apprentices with a bit of study. It can be used to freeze things, but it can also be used to keep things frozen. Boom, refrigeration. Wealthier households in cities hire Apprentices to come around once a day and cast ray of frost on an iceblock in the pantry. Imagine a young wizard, promised glory and apprenticeship under a powerful wizard only to run errands around for years with a gaggle of other apprentices, always kept too busy with a daily cantrip and customer list (mold earth, prestidigitation, mending, etc) to learn anything. Maybe one day, they steal a look at their Masters' spellbook and copy some first level spells, and either run away with the knowledge or perhaps steal the book, desperate for the glory they were promised.
I play a wizard who’s very particular about the types of magic he’s willing to use, because he’s seen what happened to people who delved too deep into necromancy and evocation magic. He’s a halfling divination wizard, and so using a combination of luck and magic to ensure all his illusions, charms, etc are successful so he can avoid having to mess with life and death or burn people alive is super fun. Plus, as he’s pushed to do worse stuff (detect thoughts is an objectively terrifying spell) he’s constantly grappling with the ethics of even using magic. It’s a ton of fun. After all, if manipulating reality to raise the dead or burn people alive is wrong... is invading their minds really any better? Where’s the line?
To cast, or not to cast? That is the question.
So he draws the line at killing, but he's perfectly willing to subvert other people's will and autonomy with Charm and other mind control spells? Interesting.
I've always gravitated towards sorcerers largely because they're the fantasy equivalent to super-heroes/villains. They didn't study, they didn't train and just because of the whims of fate and chance they're just better than most people. I've played them as arrogant a-holes that somehow feel entitled to their power. I've played them as people who are afraid of themselves and what they could do by accident. Regardless, it feels like a deep well to draw from for roleplay.
Maybe not the place for this but my favorite character to date is an inquisitor rogue who was from a high profile mage family. Profenciencies in arcana,history ect and the ritual caster feat. He was just such a shitty mage it took him an extra 10 minutes to cast spells. But he used his knack for sussing out information and knowledge to read people and learn secrets and lore.
As a person that dove deep into City of Mist last year, it is truly something pretty fun! I'm glad Wed DM got an ad for it. Plus its such a perfect video to have it on because coming up with character concepts for City of Mist is some of the most fun character building I've gotten to explore in a ttrpg because its so flexible and how characters work in and of themselves lead to a lot of fun ideas! Would love to see some kind of video on it from you guys if y'all see there's enough interest.
Thank you Lamar!! We really enjoyed CoM and we are so happy to work with them!
A magic-user who starts adventuring to pay off colledge debt ... THAT's motivation!
Going around the circle talking about backstories, dead loves, burning passions, guidance from their God, and then Ted the wizard fighting against the crushing weight of compound interest. A rogue might want to steal the gems for a night on the town, the wizard sees them as three months worth of payment plan and they will fight far more viciously to secure it.
I was going to make this comment because I came up with this last week for a new campaign. A Baldur's Gate wizard who needs to go into the adventuring life because he is -keenly- aware happens to people in Baldur's Gate who don't pay off their loans.
If you watch American Ninja Warrior, it reminds me of Mathis Ohwadi. Guy tried to run up an 18 foot warped wall for a $10,000 reward. They asked him why he went for it, and he just said "I've got college loans, man!"
Honestly, it would be kind of amusing if you had a whole campaign where instead of inventing dramatic or complicated backstories, the players had to come to the table with an explanation for why their characters need a lot of money very fast. Maybe even explicitly say "your characters all have debts they need to pay. Explain to me what those debts are. That's your backstory".
I'm playing that with a healer celestial warlock. He's all brain stats and absolutely hates adventuring but his patron made him go to pay off the debt of his magic, which is basically a loan for medical school. He wanted to be a doctor but couldn't cut it as a Cleric so he sold his soul
This is my birthday gift. Thank you guys
Happy birthday!!!!
"Indiana Jones w/ Magic" describes one bard I've played exactly.
sorcerers are my favorite because of the variety of concepts baked in. played a divine soul sorcerer where the divine soul came from my dead paladin's soul being pushed into a "soul less" body in barovia
Goliath mage, the runt of the litter, found out about rune magic and started studying magic. now he wanders the land with his trusty stone slab inscribed with magic runes as his spellbook.
A story Arc on the ideas that all magic costs something to balance the weave: Killing has a metamagic weight and conviction.
What if casting foci re-consume the mana cast back into itself after casted. So anyone killed by that magic is sort of imprinted onto the focus in a sort of oppressive influence. Wizards would have to go thru Focuses constantly to not have to deal with the memories and voices influenced by their test animals and conjures and victims,
however, one wizard killed his/her lover by accident in a botched test, and so, keeps/uses a single focus to hold on to the lover's memory in hopes to one day extract its essence. The more he/her kills, the more crowded it gets in his/her head, as every kill becomes a ghostly NPC in his/her mind. lol.
Kind of like "the bowler" in "mystery men" but with more edge and insanity over time. lol
Edgier than Edward Scissorhands. I love it.
Brilliant
One of my all time favorite characters I played was based on Jackie Estacado from The Darkness. He was a warlock whose patron was 'the darkness' which possessed him and all my casting was just him letting it out a little bit, which he was always trying not to have to do. Very satisfying to play a character who is trying to find a way to cure themselves of their power source.
Question How do you deal with paranoid players at the table ? What I mean is I have not done anything to them yet there acting like the guy from the second mummy. This place is Cursed the floor is Cursed The book Is cursed my friend is Cursed. Okay my not that bad but the won’t explore and investigate because he is scared of losing the character could you please do a video or post an article or a paragraph dealing with paranoid players please the games I’m running are dnd dark heresy and call of Cthulhu (this one makes sense) please and thank you web dm
Sounds like you need to have an out of game talk with this player. Have they been gotchaed before? Either by you or another GM. Gotta talk to them at some point about how if you don't explore then the game doesn't really happen. and if you're playing CoC in particular...the point is to get messed up!
Not yet that’s why I’m confused I think my friend is that paranoid
Since I've started watching you guys two years ago, the way I think about character creation and d&d in general has continuously evolved. Keep this shit up!
-A traveling merchant takes shelter from a storm in an old ruin that was the site of an arcane ritual in the distant past. Residual arcane radiation imbues him with magical powers he struggles to control, destroying his cart and all his wares, driving him to bankruptcy. He has taken up adventuring to pay off his debts.
-A young woman with modest magical aptitude spends her days as a shop assistant helping to enchant minor magical novelties. Jaded by the routine, she spends far too much time in the tavern. She drunkenly takes the stage one night and realizes her talents have a particular effect on crowds. She dumps the day job to become a bard, hoping to find a better life.
Priest concept discussion next?
Something like that might be coming up!
Imagine being a normie in a high magic setting. Oof. Lol
Batman in the justice league
Thats how you get Warlocks
😂 that's a mood
The logical endpoint is a cast system, like the Red Wizards of Thay, pure spell casters at the top, then half-casters, then 3rd casters, then everyone else.
@@washada Casters as servant's of the state? I can see that, a series of books had something similar, but it was a religion, only members of the clergy could use magic. If anyone else did they were "demon spawn" and hunted down by the holy inquisition (who either "converted them" or killed them.
One thing I really like from Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive is that there are things called Soulcasters, which convert something into another something (stone to grain, air to smoke, etc), though each Soulcaster can only do one type of conversion. The cool part is that as one attunes to and uses a Soulcaster, their body is slowly corrupted by whatever material the Soulcaster creates: Someone who converts things to smoke has their body perforated with wisps and clouds, someone who converts to grain has vines growing under and out of their skin, so on and so forth. It's a really cool idea of the cost of power.
Speaking of reluctant mage or cursed caster... I have this character concept of a Lore Bard, who is noble born, but his family way cursed and each person's curse is unique to the individual. His is that he can ONLY communicate through song lyrics, whether he is speaking, writing, or even telepathically. So, in order to communicate effectively, he has learned as many songs as possible. He has also gone out and learned as much esoteric knowledge out there that he can, in order to find a way to remove this curse. So he has become a Lore Bard, but not so much by choice. I would love to see this character multi class if a being offers a way to remove the curse for him, in exchange for his services. Like he could become a paladin, and now as long as he follows his oath, he can communicate normally. Or he makes a pact with an other worldly being to become a warlock, and his patron allows him to communicate normally, but of course it comes at a cost.
I've got a Kenku Pheonix Sorcerer who goes to college to learn magic, since he doesn't know he's a Sorcerer. Spell-wise, I've limited myself to the themes of Wind and Fire, and their combined form Lightning, for MAXIMUM FLAVOR
One element I always liked to think about was how spellcasters like to view other spellcasters. From the perspective of the Sorcerer I always thought Wizards were nerds, Warlocks were wannabes, and Bards were nuisances.
From a Warlock's point of view:
Wizards: "This guy eventually will be very powerful, and will work hard to get there. I might want to keep an eye on them, lest they become competitors against my patron"
Sorcerers: "This motherfucker is a spoiled brat that got magic handed over to them. Their ability to change and modify magic is curious, but they'll never know the hardships of working to get their power"
Bards: "Fucking Jocks"
My idea is a human warlock with a fiend patron. He was very intelligent, so his parents decided to send him to train in wizardry with an uncle who was a wizard. The fiend killed the uncle and impersonated him. He tricked the kid into signing a contract in blood to serve him in exchange for magic lessons. He became a pact of the tome warlock instead of a wizard and started adventuring to learn more magic and to see if he could break the pact.
I have a High Elf Hexblade lined up for a future campaign that was pressured due to family to become a Bladesinger like her siblings. And in a futile attempt to learn arcane knowledge in the Forbidden Library, they stumbled into a magic sword that spoke to her, and in exchange for signing a Pact, the sword would give them the knowledge they need to become a ‘wizard’
That is a great background. I can hear the character talking about their *Uncle* and all the wonderful things their *Uncle* does for them.
@@spiritchannels Wonderful and horrible.
Used the wizard class to make an Earth-Bender. Earth Genasi Chronurgist. His 'book' was a string of prayer beads, took mostly Earth spells, and his ability to alter outcomes with Chronurgy was often flavored as him bending earth to adjust someone's stance for better or worse.
Im playing an illusion wizard in a waterdeep campaign that im playing as a roguish mastermind who moonlights as an author, lots of Charles Dickens references
Whatever happened to your planes series? Do you ever plan to expand on it? Right now there are only two videos and one of them is private.
One of my favorite variants of the Battlemage is the Siegecaster. These aint the down and dirty type, these are the guys hidden at the back of the formation, casting a long ritual that can decimate the battlefield or fortification if they manage to finish it. One Siegecaster can break a formation. A team can break a castle.
I have an order of scribes wizard coming up who is a free spirited child prodigy who couldn't bring himself to specialise in a school of magic because he likes them all too much. His awakened spellbook is an ebberon spellshard with a fragment of a far realm entity's consciousness in it which fell from the skies and he scribes in his spells using a jewelers kit. Very excited to play him :)
I wonder about a mage that’s bad at magic. They’re disorganized, don’t know they’re spells, always wish they could undo the effects of their spells... basically a character that acts like me at the game table...
A character like that would probably multi-class into something more physical. Or be a ranger/arcane rogue that feels uncomfortable with the spell part of their class. Or be literally the only magic user in a party that needs them. So they HAVE to keep using magic even tho they hate it.
A mage character concept I've been fiddling with recently is a resercher who found the wrong book of eldritch lore. He was driven to the brink of madness by the book, eventually fleeing his library and going into seclusion to train both his mind and body to withstand and channel the power of the book. The secrets of summoning creatures from his own nightmares into the waking world and having them fight for him.
His class build will be Echo Knight fighter with at least 2 levels of War Wizard.
The witcher has always been my favourite inspiration for mages, they've still got the classic books and towers and some even have beards and pointy hats, but then you add one like a layer of scientist, conniving politician and a big heap of luxury.
I like to mix things. With the huge variety of casters in D&D, you can use practically every thematic archetype there is, for different types of casters, and different factions of those forms of casters. Flavor them to your world, and you're golden.
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Personally, I tend toward the classic tropes.
Wizards are stoic and bookish, and their magic is a tool they learn how to use, and little else. Since it's just a hammer they pick up to hit nails, it doesn't fundamentally impact them, personally. I actually prefer to have a mix of old and new school wizards. Usually it's a cultural divide, but sometimes a generational one. One group does the secretive Master/Apprentice style, while the other has an academy where all aspects of magic are studied and shared.
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Sorcerers are boistrous and unpredictable, and magic is part of them that changes them as they use it. A sorcerer that kills with their magic is going to WANT to kill more. At first it might just look to be the easiest thing, but eventually they'll crave it. Usually Sorcerers are treated with suspicion and mistrust, because you never know when you're getting a killer, or if they're yet just waiting to finally snap.
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Warlocks are made to kill and spread misery. Even in the hands of "good" patrons, they're intended to be controlled versions of sorcerers, living weapons. It doesn't change them the way it does a sorcerer, because it's a tacked-on power, not innate to their being, but it haunts them anyway. Nobody really cares for them, but nobody is really afraid of them. They're the assassins of the magical world, but they serve higher powers, and aren't just apt to kill for its own sake. When someone dies at their hand, it's for a reason.
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Druids are a lot like sorcerers, in that while their power isn't innate, they still bond to it in a way that changes them. They bond with nature on a fundamental level to do what they do, and over time, they come to emulate nature. Depending on how things go, their mood could be as gentle as a spring meadow, or they could be a fucking hurricane, because that's how nature is. Where sorcerers are doomed once they slip down the dark path, druids wobble from any one to another constantly, but slowly, like the seasons. A winter or storm druid is ruthless and even a bit cruel, while a Summer druid might be helpful to a destructive fault.
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Clerics are just divine wizards, but where instead of actually learning anything, they just turn inward ever more to find their connection to the gods. The most powerful clerics are mostly hermits or vagabonds, living under harsh vows and devoting themselves to their faith exclusively. Priests and such in the temples and churches have almost no magic at all. The only way to touch your god's power is to have such total and blind devotion that you almost can't do anything else. They see through illusions, not because they know the truth, but because they literally can't see anything but what they believe about their god. The more faith they have, the less they see anything that doesn't perfectly match that faith. Any mere mortal illusion could never compare.
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The "half-casters" of each of those archetypes are the same, but less extreme in most cases.
Eldritch Knights are wizards who basically split their time between learning magic and warfare.
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Arcane Tricksters are rogues who've stolen enough from wizards or schools, and put effort into trying to learn it.
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Paladins are clerics whose sense of action is too great to simply live as a hermit.
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Rangers are druids who walk the line between nature and civilization.
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Hexblades, by contrast are instead fully realized magical assassins. The John Wicks of D&D...the Boogeymen. While others use their powers more broadly when possible. A hexblade disables and kills, and does almost nothing else. Imagine a hexblade with Devil's Sight, casting Darkness on a secluded area, using Disguise Self to lure a target to the area, and Misty Visions to make the OUTSIDE of that zone of Darkness look unchanged. You lead them in, and as soon as they cross into the Darkness, they're completely disoriented and you Hex them, to strike your killing blow. Then you change your disguise, lay the body just out of the way, putting another Silent Image over it to make it seem as if there's no body there, dropping it only once you're a safe distance away.
Raistlin's commanding officer grizzled old wizard sargeant guy was called Horkin, a guy who never took the test and wasn't powerful enough on paper to have to, but was practical as heck with what he knew.
I was listening to another dnd UA-camr named AJ Pickett and on his wizard videos somethings that I try to remember is this: what does that magic do to you, what drew you to your school, and two what does that look like for non-adventuring wizards. Somethings he brought up were things like abjurers might tend to be overly paranoid or enchanters might become excellent therapists or conjurers and diviners might work together as detectives. Those videos really got me thinking about ways to enhance not just wizards but any casters.
Quite like shannaras magic where the use ages you and you essentially loose years. They have to pay the price and use the druid sleep to counter it.
I would say that level 1-3 is still apprentice level. You don't even know what your specialization will be until 3. You become a journeyman after that until about 10 here your the stock standard mage you see out in the world. Most NPCs plateau (save for villains and other heroes) here. At 11 to 15 you become heroic. People hear about you, you have a reputation. Your magic is strong. 15-20 your the stuff of legends. The things you can do rival gods. It's no wonder they're Legends since most players never hit that level. All the same 15 through 20 people start to doubt that you even exist, the legend is so large.
By the gods, how far this channel has come. Five years. Five long years.
Yes indeed!
I love how low level magic feels in low fantasy settings
I have a Githyanki Graviturgist Wizard. His spell book is a spellshard, which is set in the band of his dead fiancées engagement ring.
Once a pirate of the astral sea, he came to the material plane to experience true living. His time in the astral plane didn't prepare him for the gravity of the material plane & he sought to normalize it for himself which led to his studies with graviturgy. Eventually meeting an elven woman he thought he'd settle down with her & nearly did, until he was pulled through a gate (as in the spell) and brought back to the astral plane by an old enemy. He defeated his foe & rushed back to the material plane only to find that his enemy had sent marauders to destroy the home and kill his fiancée. His focus has now turned towards the study of time, and bringing his love back to him.
Every time I hear Mage I always imagine Everquest elemental summoner. Was my first fantasy association with the word
The alienist prestige class is one of my favorites
New concept: T-Rex Wizard
Tiny hands can still hold a wand.
I am currently making a homebrew subclass for sorcerer thats a ancient bloodline, a Dinosaurcerer if you will. Haha
@@kelpied.phantom533 I want to play that it sounds amazing
@@MP-in3yn when i get it done ill send you the stuff! Its an option for my players in my next campaign.
@@kelpied.phantom533 This sounds rad as hell.
Nice take on mages et al. The oracle in pathfinder has some cool rules for magic having a cost and a burden to its power
Ive been slightly obsessed with the Spellmonger book series by Terry Mancour. Magic has a very interesting relationship with humanity where those with magic are often treated as 2nd citizens with many restrictions on things like land ownership and living in constant fear of the iron fist of the Censorate (Magic police) placing interesting limitations on magic.
My bard simply loves magic, even if it doesn’t serve a purpose. Magic is like music to her, neither need a purpose to have value.
The stinger is back!!!!
Love Web DM stingers, so good.
"Do you know magic!?!"
I appreciate that pruitt and jim have essentially traded beards over time.
Jesus, Pruitt is really starting to look like Gary Gygax.
Anyone els sees it to?
always excited when wednesday rolls around. never stop being awesome guys! :)
Thanks Dylan!
Just starting a game and my DM's letting me play an adapted Knowledge Theurgy Wizard, looking forward to how the bookish wizard tinkering with the divine is gonna play out! Great episode guys!
I like the idea of a heavily regulated society where certain schools of magic are forbidden, essentially the rules of magic from the Dresden Files. And make a Wizard who skirts the line.
Interesting concept, your caster would have to choose their spells carefully. The 7 laws are:
Thou Shall Not Kill another Human with Magic.
Thou Shalt Not Transform Others, forbidding the shapeshifting of other beings.
Thou Shalt Not Invade the Mind of Another, and Thou Shall Not Enthrall Another, forbidding the use of most Enchantment spells.
Thou Shalt Not Reach Beyond the Borders of Life, forbidding the use of necromancy.
Thou Shalt Not Swim Against the Currents of Time.
Thou Shalt Not Open the Outer Gates, forbidding the summoning or contacting of Outsiders (Far Realm Creatures).
Love the beards and your videos about classes and concepts
Thank you
Warlock except it’s Corvo Attano from Dishonored
In the first campaign I ever ran I had a player who literally just made Corvo. I had no idea it existed he literally just copy and pasted the main character of this game that I had never heard of and I was none the wiser. He wasnt even subtle. He had the same name and everything.
I love this. Let's see, Corvo definitely is a Great Old One or Lurker in the Deep warlock that has the Ghostly Gaze, Dreadful Word, Bewitching Whispers, Gaze of Two Minds, and Misty Visions, one with Shadows, and Sculptor of Flesh Invocations, and a few levels of Rogue for sneaking and stabbing.
City of mist is super fun
It's so awesome!!! Check it out y'all.
Thank you for another video. I'm loving your new format.
I had a warlock character once that didn't want their power, great old one patron was crawling into their brain and using their magic would spread the infection until The Thing Beyond could use the foothold to crawl into reality. So they had to adventure to find a cure and adventuring forces them to use magic in a horrible cycle.
Baldur's Gate 3 is you royalties.
I really like this! However, I think you’re overlooking the fact that NPCs grow up in a world where the town priest down the road has magic, adventurers come through a lot, and even a local acolyte or a black market drow trader can cast *something.*
I love these, they can be so useful to help me think of cool NPCs
I always play my mages as being somewhat crazy, the degree depending ont he character. Magic is fundamentally chaotic and simple... _Other_
it cannot be explained logically, no matter how seriously you study it, after all, how do you explain how you can change a chair into a living creature, or transform a 200 lbs man into a 20 lbs rabbit? Where does all that excess mass go? How do you wrap your head around instantly transitioning from one point of the world into another without taking into effect the curvature of the world and the constant spin it goes through as it roates around its host star? How can you conjure mass from nothing? And how can you dismiss it? It's a frightened concept. Which is why most non-mages are extremely wary of them, and for good reason.
A mage, especially a high level one inevitably develops some sort of psychosis, the most common being megalomania simply due to the fact that a being capababe of altering reality to fit their whims grows to like and enjoy it, and the lives of the "small people" seem so insignificant in comparison, who cares that Farmer Joe broke his plow? With a snap of my finger I can create a new one, better yet I can create an entire world for myself where food is literally provided for me by my whim alone.
A mage that has not imposed some sort of restriction on hmiself, be it moral or even physical is a danger not only to themselves but to the entire world. Just look at what happened to Karus in the Forgotten Realms lore, a man so arrogant he attempted to become a God! And for his hubris millions died and magic became restricted by the very goddess he attempted to subvert.
"Do not try the patience of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." - Elric, Techno-mage of Babylon 5.
A book that I absolutely love for Old School, weird, and interesting concepts for Magic-Users is _Folk Magic of the Haven Isles_ . You can see a review of this book on Questing Beast's channel.
When you were talking about the spells specifically designed to end lives, I contrasted that with my bards spell list, where the only thing I considered when choosing her spells is how awesome they would look in a performance.
The thing that is roiling around in my mind right now is "What happens when a wizard doesn't know he's a wizard?" I'm brewing up a sorcerer origin that is based on having, once upon a time, been a powerful wizard. Maybe you were a clone who, by magical accident, received a soul that wasn't the wizard who created it. Maybe through some catastrophe you've forgotten your life as an archmage until you accidentally immolate a neighbor. Now you're learning all that magic through a new light. Sort of the Wizard version of the Divine Soul.
@@washada neat. I might try to look into that for inspiration. Thanks!
Or could just be reincarnation, though I guess that would depend on how the afterlife works in a setting, though a wizard of sufficient power should be able to find or develop some kind of reincarnation spell if becoming a lich seemed like a less than pleasant option for immortality.
Or a wizard botched a spell and accidentally bonded his mind/soul/memories to another random person.
In other words the character has an experienced wizard living in his head, without him even knowing it.
my mage may very pulverizify .. “ [ ive wrastled giants bruhdhr “] [“ I have wrestled with G-Ds “] -_Hogan et WW respectively
Great episode. Thanks.
Pruitt, you're thinking of Electro lol. Shocker uses vibrations. Think lightning damage vs thunder damage.
Electro's the lighting guy/gal (Lightning Lad/Lass or Live Wire/Spark for DC fans). Shocker's the vibration guy (yeah... it's weird. Blame Stan Lee).
Other magic systems that warp the user out side of Warhammer: Star Wars, My Little Pony, and EVERYTHING in the Brandon Sanderson Cosmere. Each have somekind of feedback effect that use or overuse physically and mentally changes the user.
I currently play a wizard who is an astrophysicist, where the Weave is used as an analogy for spacetime, so manipulating the Weave is manipulating spacetime, therefore Graviturgist wizard astrophysicist!
I ran 2E for two groups many, many years ago, but got to play once... enter, Truetime the Unkillable, my 1st Lvl Gnome Mage.
I made that DMs life a living hell by abusing the daylights out of Cantrip! He gave up DMing that campaign once I got Invisibility, and DEX-saved a fireball he was convinced would finally end his torment.
I laugh when I toy with the thought that Truetime is still out there somewhere...
They are missing the point.
I haven't drank in 12 years till this week.
I grew up in NYC in the early 90's. We used to do coke and play d and d. J cannot express how much fun this was.
I just discovered this channel, and I wouldn't condone anything like that...but hey.
Be young, go nuts, best memories ever.
Nonstop screaming a-dnd 2nd edition. Hard drugs. Holy shit.
What is your favourite magic school and/or magic using playstyle?
(I.E Grey Necromancer, Meta gaming Chronomancer, etc.)
A Sorcerer with an 8 INT who is CONVINCED that he is actually a Wizard, but his “spellbook” is filled with scribbles and he just says nonsense and so on. Double down on this by taking Wild Magic so that even he is surprised by what he can do, but “I meant to do that!”
An order of scribes wizard who has a 1 level dip in the genie warlock for the bottle sanctum. It’s Completely STOCKED and filled with spread out parchment, containers of scrolls, inks, stacks of books etc. Once you hit the level in which you can take a long rest in it, stay in almost indefinitely and become a full on hermit recluse. Only ever sending your familiar, homunculus or simulacrum out etc.
A quick way to make your wizard unique is to make their "spellbook" something other than an actual book If you want something lighthearted, give them pockets full of flashcards and post-its. Something more dramatic? Give them a puzzle box covered in arcane runes that they reconfigure every day to shape spell sigils. They don't spend money on paper and ink, but on wood and metal to make the box more complex.
I like the idea of Wizard characters starting with 50.000 gp debt in student loans, that's a great motivator for going dungeon delving. You do NOT want to miss your monthly payments to the Wizards' Guild, their debt collectors have their ways of finding you and making you regret your life choices.
I find the idea that "Mages" are not respected in D&D society odd, anyone that can wield that kind of power would have respect, power and money, Mages would be highly sort after specialists, building a road, magic, dredging a harbor, magic, lighting your mansion, magic.
Regarding 'Murder Spells': Yes, you're learning spells specifically designed to take a life. Imagine carrying a gun for self-defense today. With a sword, a knife, or almost any melee weapon (great weapons notwithstanding), you can usually choose not to kill because one attack has a high chance of not killing with one hit. A mugger jumps out and you stab or cut him and he freaks out and runs away. Pull a gun and there's a pretty good chance that he WILL die. I see the mentality of magic as the same. Especially for a Wizard. You weren't born with power. You didn't hunt for it and agree to some arcane contract for it. You don't pray to the gods for it. You spend countless hours stooped over a book TRYING to learn it. You're reading about how a column of fire will descend from the sky and hover over a point for a few seconds. You CAN'T read something like that and not understand 'Someone will die if they get hit with that.'
My favourite caster to date is either my very first or the one I'm currently running, lol.
The first was in 3E, a sort of magical combat jester. He was a Deep Gnome sorcerer with a Splash of Bard who was a little gone in the head; as a child he'd been captured by drow and sold to a nasty surface world noble who forced him to be his court jester. Once his sorcerous powers manifested he escaped. The time left an impression, though, so the audible and visual effects of his spells reflect that- Magic Missiles that look like pies, Stinking Cloud makes a fart noise, etc. I leaned into the cliches as hard as I could, and had a lot of fun playing him.
The caster I'm currently playing is a Fey Pact Warlock with a splash of Rogue. She was an Elf street urchin who was taken into a thieves guild; the guild ensured life-long loyalty with a magical brand. When she got older and got a few skills she tried to escape; while from a hit squad she encountered an Archfey who offered her a deal: work for him for five years protecting a section of wilderness from poachers and the like, and he would take care of her troubles. She accepted, and he took care of things, all right... by jerking her consciousness and soul out of her body and putting them into the empty shell of a Warforged, and wiping most of her memories of the thieves guild. We started the campaign at the point where she'd just finished her five years of service, and was at total loose ends. I've been playing her as semi-child-like and awkward due to her having no real experience aside from her interactions with the Archfey during her service to him, and she's been a blast.
I'm building a thief rouge who works as a teacher for a magical college, but is in actuality a complete conman with no magical capabilities. he gets away with this because he's
1.) Incredibly Charismatic
2.) Basically something akin to an IRL magician.
One of the coolest things about this is that at later levels we'll be able to use scrolls without having to be a spell caster, as well as other class exclusive items which is badass. He's a bit opposite of what Jim's "mage pretending to be mundane" is in that he openly makes anything he does via pure skill or physical training appear as magical as possible, wearing typical wizard clothing and all :)
If there's one inspiration for the concept of mage that defined how I played scholarly spellcasters its Skyrim's Tolfdir an elderly yet supportive and wise mage who teaches in abjuration-type magic. He also is cautious abou the study and even use of magic (not gonna tell why due to spoilers).
Nowadays whenever im going for a mage type character im leaning towards a wandering scholar/teacher willing to teach those curious and/or having the ability to use magic. They believe that anyone can learn magic as long as they have the desire to learn in earnest to understans the world.
Edit: Oh yeah, have a subscriber.
one of my favorite rpgs ive never gotten to play is unknown armies. it's a late 90s rpg based on the idea of a post-modern occult underground. it's like CoC mixed with Mage: The ascension for people who are into chaos magick and grant morrison comics and shit. In the gameworld people who use magic are adepts and they all are non-neurytpical in some way because the nature of magic as the manipulation and transformation of reality through will and technique induces mind altering cosmic horror in the practitioner, to say nothing of resulting supernatural encounters or conflicts.
The ability to perform magic is intrinsically tied to an individual's obsessive worldview and the restrictive taboos they follow in relation to this obsession. So your magic might come from the power of Jesus and you maintain spell slots by abstaining from violating the ten commandments, or your magic might come from the infernal power of the coca cola corporation and you lose your spell slots if you go without the devil's nectar. You have a sanity meter in UA and using any magic, even for someone practiced, forces sanity checks of varying degrees. If you pass enough sanity checks of a certain kind you become hardened and if you fail enough your lack of sanity becomes even greater. You have access to the power to make the world what you choose, but can you make full use of that power before you lose touch with consensus reality? The game takes this idea very seriously: what if our universe is actually run by powerful magicians but they are all living as crazy homeless people because that is the inevitable result of using high level magic; you can't go back to being normal.
great show as always, love yall
My diviner plays very well into that "adventurer" type. Magic school dropout who immersed himself in the local culture and went out into dungeons and ruins in order to educate himself, using his spellcraft to run confidence tricks and schemes in order to make money and rub shoulders with those that would make that life more lucrative. Portents were his main selling point. He was a sure breadwinner for crooks. He's a scoundrel, through and through. His magic is scrappy and a little bootlegged; informed by formal teaching but mastered out in the real world.
I played sorcerer who was thinking he is just a wizard in a one shot. Int of 8 a total frat boy from powerful dynasty of wizards, expelled from all schools for bad academic results and misbehavior. A complete disgrace to his family adventuring as a shitty wizard that makes bad formulas and fumbles fireball into lightning ball.
Not exactly what I thought of when you said mage concepts. I was thinking more of an ice mage, fog mage, etc. But this works well.
One of my favorites was an Arcane Trickster whos background was charlatan. He basically scammed a mage's assistant out of his spell book and rather than sell it, he figured he could study it to learn spells to aid in his scams. As you can imagine the mage he stole from was hunting him. So joining a party was a way for him to not only hide from his pursuers but gain safety in numbers.
The other was a Monk/Wizard. The concept was his monk order of the 4 elements who watched over an ancient obelisk that had runes which is how they learned their magic like abilities. However, he was the one who discovered a powerful evil was hidden inside so he took a piece of the obelisk that acted like a spell focus, resembled a rubik cube. He began learning magic by changing the position of the sides. He too was chased by his former monk order.
Great show!! I love these concept shows.
My current charcter was born into her Warlock pact as part of the original deal her ancestors made. Her whole family has the gift. She rejects the power because she's seen it poison the hearts of her family members so she became a monk. Each level my DM and I discuss which class she embraced more throughout that level and I grow in that class as I try to balance my calming monk skills with my dark demonic powers. She has been a blast to play.
I don't know why but Jim's Audio seems a bit chopy. Maybe the Mic isn't picking him up properly?
I’m role playing as a teenager who was kicked out of mage college due to an “accident”. Any recommendations?
I have this idea for a chef wizard. They have the chef feat and the linguist feat. Their spell book is written as a cook book, under a cypher.
He has a familiar, an unseen servant and used mage hand to help him cook, while reworked grease to be frosting, have a strength save, and cause the creatures to be restrained.
I play a warlock Goliath who was kicked from his tribe for turning to magic for strength.
In my current game our dm has it where wizards are typically power hungry bastards, but i am trying to be a benevolent wizard. Its hard when no one trusts you.
Does anyone have any compelling ideas for an illusionist wizard? All I can come up with is some sort of entertainer or spy.
man i love mage concepts!
Audio quality on this call was rough. Thanks for the content though.
Toss a coin to your... Wizard! Nice image of the wizard as the power in a town.