Spell Sequels
December 12th, 2011
These days, it’s pretty rare that I actually spend that many Dark Designs articles talking about our design process here at Necromancers of the Northwest. There’s a variety of reasons for this: for one, articles are written further in advance than our .pdf products, meaning that by the time an article I write about a given book sees print, the book itself will be old news. For another, since we put out one book every two weeks, and we also have a theme week every two weeks, and Dark Designs is a weekly article…if I spent one article talking about each book we released, all of my articles would be spoken for. Finally, while I look over and sign off on all of our books, and usually do a fair amount of design work for each of them, there are some books that I barely even touch, only making a few minor adjustments to. In fact, because the books are so small, it’s really not uncommon for me to find myself unable to come up with anything interesting or entertaining to say about the design behind a given book. “I basically envisioned it how it turned out, and everyone thought it was good, so we did it,” isn’t a very exciting article.
Recently, though, we released a book called Advanced Arcana II. I say “recently,” and for you it was relatively recently, but at the time that I’m writing this, way back at the end of October, Advanced Arcana II is still being written. It’s a big project, much larger than the original Advanced Arcana, and I’ve already sunk a lot of time into it. Much like its predecessor, it’s a very exciting thing to work on, and so I want to talk about it, even if I know that you won’t be able to read it for quite some time.
So, what is there to say about the sequel to our most popular and critically-acclaimed book of all time? Obviously, when we finally began work on Advanced Arcana II, we knew it was going to have big shoes to fill. One of the guiding principles of the original Advanced Arcana is that we wanted to make it more than just a compilation of however-many random, unrelated spells. Most such spell “splatbooks” seem to go out of their way to have as great a variety of spells of possible by having their spells have nothing to do with one another. There’s nothing wrong with that approach: I doubt anyone would really want to pick up “101 fireball variants,” but it tends to leave the book lacking a cohesive theme.
So, as I outlined in a previous article about Advanced Arcana, we decided to try something a little different: we modeled it after a Magic: the Gathering expansion set, choosing 3 – 4 versatile mechanics that we could experiment and play with, creating multiple spells using each mechanic, but in a variety of different ways and at various levels. In the case of Advanced Arcana, these were fountain spells (which allow you to regain lower-level spell slots in addition to their effect), quick spells (which can be cast either as a swift action for a lesser effect, or a standard action for full effect), and segmented spells (which are spells so big they require multiple spell slots, and can be cast more easily in groups).
To make Advanced Arcana really focused, though, there was a single, over-arching theme that each of those three mechanics tied into. In Advanced Arcana’s case, that theme was “what does a spell cost?” Each of the three mechanics played around with the “cost” of a spell, either in spell slots (less in the case of fountain spells, more in the case of segmented spells) or in casting time (in the case of quick spells and segmented spells).
While I don’t think that that theme was fully explored by any stretch of the imagination, I wanted to have a different theme for Advanced Arcana II, to help differentiate it and give it its own identity. There were a lot of different options to choose from, but eventually we decided that the most interesting space to explore would be “spells that do multiple different things.”
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that, boiled down into a single statement like that, “spells that do multiple different things” is not quite as sexy and exciting as “what does a spell cost?” After all, there are lots of spells that do multiple things already, aren’t there? For example, black tentacles deals damage and grapples people! Solid fog obscures vision as well as slowing foes down!
Yes, all right, I’m being facetious. A better example would probably be plant growth, which can either increase crop yields, or else cause sudden and instantaneous plant growth. Or maybe fire shield, which can protect its caster from either heat or cold, chosen as the spell is cast. You get the idea.
That kind of spell is definitely an example of the sort of thing that this book explores. Though the mechanic is a lot less inventive than, say, fountain spells were, it’s a very rich design space that has a lot of room left to explore, and one that I think particularly rewards clever and creative spellcasters. Do you prepare your spells? If you prepare one spell that can do two different things, you have a lot more versatility, and can better prepare for whatever eventuality comes your way. Do you cast spells spontaneously? Better still, because with your limited list of spells known, having spells that can do double-duty allows you a much wider range of utility not just for one day, but for every day.
A similar, but somewhat more demanding spell mechanic (but with the potential to be more rewarding, if managed right) are spells with multiple “modes”; these are like the first type, but instead of having two separate effects that the caster can choose between freely, it has two different effects, and the effect it has depends on some external factor. The different modes might be completely separate effects, such as, say, an invisibility or a fear effect, or they might be a “lesser” and “greater” version; for example, with an external factor upgrading a charm effect to full-blown mental domination.
It’s a bit of a complicated concept, so let me try giving a few examples. Off the top of my head, a simple and useful spell that would fall into this category (called “conditional spells,” in playtesting) would function like daylight, if cast at night, but would function like deeper darkness if cast during the day. Another example might be a spell that functions like charm person normally, but if cast on a member of the same race, functions as dominate person, instead. Those are both rather primitive examples, but you get the overall idea, I’m sure.
At first glance, these might not seem very exciting, but I think that once you spend a little time looking at them, you’ll see that they actually have a lot of hidden complexity (well, less so the simple examples above, but the mechanic in general). Obviously, there will be some times when the spell doesn’t do what you want or functions worse than you want it to due to circumstances that are somewhat out of your control, and that can be frustrating. On the other hand, if you are able to work with the spell to bring about the requirement it wants, you have access to powerful and versatile spells that can really give you a lot of mileage. Besides, a lot of players will appreciate and be excited simply by the challenge that the spells present, effectively shouting “find a way to control X, and I will reward you with awesomeness.”
Of course, even with these conditional spells, not all of them really present themselves as a challenge that needs to be overcome. Take the daylight/darkness spell from before. It’s no coincidence that during the day (when it’s bright out) you can make things darker, while at night (when it’s dark) you make them brighter. Obviously being indoors can make it less convenient, and that’s what makes it more interesting, in my book, than if the caster could simply choose. In general, conditional spells require you to pay an “inconvenience” tax, working with them to achieve their condition in order to get their benefit. If you can pay the tax, though, they reward you by either being very versatile, very powerful, or both.
If you’re starting to get worried that Advanced Arcana II isn’t going to have any carryover from the original, I’ve got some good news for you. Segmented spells are back, and in a big way, with two new twists on the original mechanic. The first (called “layered segments” in playtesting) is like the original segmented spells, except that when each individual segment is cast, a specific, lesser effect happens. As an exceptionally simple example, you could have a spell that replicates fireball with each casting, except that the area of effect’s radius increases by 10 feet with each segment that passes. We’ll call it “growing fireball.” When I cast the first segment of growing fireball, it deals 10d6 points of fire damage to each creature in a 20-ft. radius, just like fireball. I can then quit, if I like, or I can cast a second segment, which would deal 10d6 points for fire damage to each creature in a 30-ft. radius, for a total of 20d6 points of fire damage. This might continue until I had cast 7 segments, for an 80-ft.-radius fireball, and 70d6 damage (albeit, over 7 rounds, and using 7 spell slots).
Growing fireball, again, is not the most exciting example, but it’s simple. My favorite layered segment spell is probably a divination spell that provides specific information about a subject in “layers,” so that your first segment gets you, for example, someone’s name, while the second might get you information about their current love interest, or their objectives, or what have you. The possibilities are really endless, and it’s a fun mechanic to work with.
The other twist on segmented spells is something we referred to in playtesting as “X-segments.” Rather than layered segments, which sort of break up the larger effect of a segmented spell into bite-size components, an X-segment spell continues to only have one big effect, but instead allows you to input any number of segments, from one to whatever you can manage, and then has a variable effect that depends on the number of segments you invested. To keep with a fireball theme in our examples, an X-segment fireball might work something like this: you cast your various segments, and then do 5d6 damage per segment to each creature in the spell’s area. In other words, by putting 1 spell slot in, it does 5d6 damage, but if you put 10 spell slots in, it does 50d6 damage, instead.
These obviously can get out of hand really quickly, and require a close eye on them to keep them from doing so. There are only so many things in the game that can handle that kind of open-ended growth, and so there’s only so much design space to play with when it comes to X-segments, but I think we got some gold out of that particular mine, and I’m excited to see what you all think.
So, there you go, a sneak peak at some of the new mechanics that will be coming out in Advanced Arcana II, and an explanation of why they are the way they are, and what I think are exciting about them. I’m afraid I’m quite out of time, so this will have to do for today. Be sure to come back next week, for Wizard Week.
In the meantime, thanks for reading.