D&D 3E/3.5 Spontaneous Casters in Dark Sun

[Raduin711]

Ultimately, the problem with spontaneous casters isn't the extra spell slots, or their freedom in spending them it's how they learn their spells. Arcane magic on Athas only comes from study- no creature has inherent magical ability. Psionics, yes. Magic, no. So how to rectify a Sorcerer who learns his magic through study, but is fixed in how many spells they know?

So my answer is... Spell tattooing.

When a wizard memorizes a spell, he commits a little bit of his own life energy to hold that spell in his mind, a bit like a virtual scroll. If he wants to cast a spell multiple times, he invests twice as much energy into the memorization so that it can be used that many more times. Then, when it is time to cast the spell, he needs to take that internal life energy and makes it real with external life energy, either through Preserving or Defiling.

But there is another method. Sorcery is the arcane practice of tattooing oneself with magical formulae. These formulae are both obviously magical (to even the daftest Half-giant) and legible to a wizard. In fact a wizard can copy a spell to his spell book from a Sorcerer's tattoo much like another wizard's spellbook. But this is more than just a novel way of writing down a spell.

By tattooing the spell onto their bodies, that "virtual scroll" is forever burned into their minds- but not in the short-term memory, like a wizard. Instead, it is held, permanently in the cortical homunculus- where the mind "senses" the various parts of the body. Once there, the Sorcerer only needs to think about the particular location on the body, and the arcane formula just appears there in his mind. No need to look at the tattoo at all. The spell is a part of him now. Because of this added efficiency, a Sorcerer gets more uses out of his spells than a Wizard does before he becomes mentally exhausted.

There are a few downsides, obviously. The cortical homunculus is an awful place to store a spell. It's not really made for information storage. If you write down spells in the wrong places or before you are ready to cast them, you are going to do damage to your mind. Sorcerers have developed a system, a sort of magical path, that they learn their spells by. Where Wizards have the freedom to add any spell they come upon to their spellbook, provided they can cast it, Sorcerer's paths are much narrower. And while Sorcerers can use scrolls and other spell completion items just like a Wizard, their particular path excludes the standard "spell memorization" techniques that Wizards use (unless they want to be wizard/sorcerers...)

Oh, and there is also that problem of arcane magic being illegal and feared across the tablelands and Sorcerers looking like walking spell books. The tattoos can be hidden with Disguise skill checks using clothing or dyes (with gradually increasing DC's as the sorcerer learns new spell levels) or hidden with spells like Disguise Self or Hide Tattoo.

So. there's my solution. I think it's pretty setting-friendly. I am debating whether I should change the Sorcerer's spellcasting attribute to INT instead of CHA, but I think CHA works fine. They do still need to study, though.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

The differences between sorcerers and wizards are already difficult to explain, especially in 3rd Edition. And the ways that magic really work are not really explained in any edition beyond spell slots, spell lists, and if a creature has any. Dark Sun does even less by convoluting it with ideas of defiling and preservation, but without any substantial mechanics or consequences for choice.

But the question shouldn't be "How does Arcane magic work in Dark Sun?" It should be "Why does it need to exist as an option for players?" This is Athas, a world brought to the brink of annihilation because of Arcane magic. And yet, we continue to shoehorn more DnD-isms like vancian magic and alternate wizards because it's in the core rulebooks with little or no consequences for it.

Arcane magic is supposed to be reviled. It is the dominion of the Dragon, the Sorcerer Kings and Queens, the templars who serve them, and the defilers who care for nothing but their own power. Preservers and resistance groups understand the dangers of wielding such powers and use it sparingly to preserve what is left of the world, and to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

This is one of the things that makes Dark Sun such a unique and interesting setting for me. But when it is pushed towards the norms of a typical Dungeons and Dragons game, the setting itself feels diminished. Is the need for a sorcerer class warranted in a setting that was never designed with it in mind? Would it be easier to simply excise it from the world, as it would only cause more confusion as to why Sorcerer Kings are not actually sorcerers?

Or just plug them in as written, tattooed or otherwise. In truth, no one on Athas is going to care how you use magic. You can't cast a cantrip without raising eyebrows and potentially setting off alarms around you.

Anyway. A sorcerer that uses ink on its body as a spellbook is essentially a wizard hiding in plain sight. Just food for thought.

 

[Raduin711]

I understand the criticism of shoehorning in sorcerers. One of my potential players brought up a character concept that was a spontaneous caster, and I said as much as you probably would have; that they weren't part of the setting and we left it at that.

And then last night I was playing Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and rolled up a preserver. In that game, preservers don't work in the standard Vancian format. You have your spellbook, but you spend spell slots freely. And... it kind of made me feel like a hypocrite, almost? Except for the fact that you can add new spells to your spellbook, the Preserver in that game functioned a lot like a sorcerer. The fact that the game so readily discards Vancian magic but is still officially Dark Sun made me wonder if there wasn't room for the sorcerer after all. And this is what came out of that.

I'm certainly not on any kind of quest to include everything in the game... in fact I'm considering taking an axe to the Psionics Handbook and try to make it feel more like 2e psionics and less like an alternate wizard class.

But I appreciate your thoughts.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

It's been a long time since I played through the computer games, but I remember simultaneously loving and hating them. I think the idea of Dark Sun is often better than what we've seen in practice. That's why I believe it is sometimes difficult to get it to work effectively within the constraints of standard DnD rules, no matter what edition it is.

I also believe that Dark Sun should have its own game system with mechanics that support the ideas and the narrative better than any d20 derivative. But that's just me.

 

[cbwjm]

I do like the concept of spell tattoos though that might make them easily identified as arcane casters in the setting.

Depending on when you set the game of dark sun, I think that there could be a couple of sources for sorcery. The sun, and the cerulean storm. I think only one spellcaster was a sun mage in the novels, but you could expand on that. Otherwise, if you have the 2e players option spells and magic book, I'd suggest combining the ideas behind preserving/defiling and channelling magic. That is, you can prepare your spell list and cast the spells as needed, however you have to draw upon the energy of the natural world to cast your spells. I think this should be able to be adapted to 3e easily enough.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My suggestion is to cast primal/elemental spells instead arcane.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If I wanted to make Sorcerers more Athasian, I wouldn’t make magical tattoos the method of choice. As @Jacob Lewis said, “A sorcerer that uses ink on its body as a spellbook is essentially a wizard hiding in plain sight.”

I’d keep the spell knowledge of Sorcerers as PHB standard. They just know what they can cast. For them it is natural. But casting? On Athas? I’d make each Sorcerer make the same preserver/defiler decision, but with slightly different stakes.

Sorcerous defilers would risk taking damage each time they cast. It could be HP, it could be temporary ability score damage, it could be fatigue based- you decide what woks do for your campaign. The higher the spell slot used, the greater the risk.

Sorcerous preservers? Perhaps when they cast, they emanate life energy to EVERYTHING in a radius from them, causing a minor healing effect. The higher the spell, the greater the distance. It shouldn’t be much- less than a healing spell- but you can’t target it or omit beings from this benefit. Cast while your foes are too close, and you may make your combat a little bit worse. (Undead, of course, would be damaged by this radiating energy to the same amount.)