Today’s topic for Paths of Magic development is spells!
Spells are obviously one of the cornerstones of the Paths series, given each book is centered around a magical theme (shadow magic, artifice, and elemental/natural magic). Having the right spell to fit a theme is SUPER important to me when making a character, and I’m more likely to take thematic spells over optimal ones. As such, filling in those ideas with actual spells goes a long way to making character concepts come to life.
Designing spells is tricky, though. There are already (literally) thousands of existing spells in Pathfinder, and there isn’t a soul alive that knows all of them in detail. So not only do you have to make the spell interesting (and useful) enough to take, but it can’t be redundant with existing content, either. However, it’s a bit easier than feats, at least (which have the same problem in the sheer quantity to parse through). Feats are limited on any character, whereas spells can be more niche due to prepared casters being in the game. Even if your spell is a specific idea like “replace a lost limb with a wooden prosthetic”, a class like druid or cleric can simply prepare the spell once and never have to worry about making a major mistake with their character build. That gives a lot of leeway in spell design, since for most casters a single spell is not a critical investment of resources.
So what’s the process of designing a spell?
Obviously, concept is first. Magic can do…anything (duh, it’s magic). So having a clear idea in mind is the key. I find that most spell ideas fall into one of three broad categories: mechanical, thematic, and referential.
Mechanical spells are to create a specific defined ability or support a playstyle. For example, the expose spell in Path of the Wilds started off as just “a spell to reduce a creature’s elemental resistances, so elemental-themed characters aren’t 100% shafted by resistance/immunity”. These spells are rules-oriented first, and as such while they’re often very useful (like fly, teleport, etc.) they usually aren’t very interesting.
Thematic spells help fill out a class theme or character concept. These often start with a more visual idea, such as “I want to rain down fire from the sky”, instead of a rule you can point to. This is also where class-specific spells, like a bard’s inspiration and finale spells come into play. I did similar with each of the classes in the Paths books: Nightblades get umbral spells, vanguards have discharge spells, invokers have dominion spells, and so on. I feel that having a few unique spells that interact with the class’s mechanics goes a long way to making the spell list feel complete (and not just a subset of a bigger list, like sorcerer/wizard).
…and of course, the Referential spells are just “hey remember that cool thing from X? Let’s make that a spell”.
There are a TON of spells (and magic items, and feats, and…) in my books that are based on other media, if you’re familiar with them. Field of blades from Path of Iron, for example, is absolutely Unlimited Blade Works from the Fate series. The titan’s wrath spell, from the same book, is based on the “Ragnarok” spell from the Golden Sun series. Often times writers feel they have to shun or avoid drawing direct inspiration or making homages to their favorite media, but I’d rather embrace it. It’s more fun that way.
After theme comes the technical part: the rules. Obviously, the best place to start is to compare it to existing content as a baseline. If your spell is an area attack that deals 10d6 damage, it should be comparable to a fireball (assuming your fireball is balanced, unlike a certain other RPG out there…). A spell that grants a fly speed is typically 3rd-level or higher. Ultimate Magic does a pretty good job of outlining many goals for making spells, though it’s not going to cover all cases (those rules, for example, don’t recommend AoE spells for 1st level, but yet we all know burning hands is a thing). A lot of it comes down to gut feeling and experience with the game, and lots of testing. LOTS of testing.
For Paths of Magic, I’m doing a balance pass on many spells, namely in the form of nerfs to a few outliers like shadow field and lightning strike. A good number have been reworked significantly, like the umbral spells for the nightblade which now directly use shadow surges. The addition of a new [shadowmorph] descriptor was also shown in the Paths of Magic playtest, which feature spells that manipulate a creature or object’s shadow.
Another goal is to greatly expand the access to the new spells. Many of the spells in the Path books have been fairly stingy about what classes get access to them, so spreading them out to more spell lists should help. This is also being reflected in the new classes in the book; many of the spell lists were a bit too narrow in scope, so expanding the lists of classes like vanguard, nightblade, and elementer will help give those classes a bit of a broader role choice in a team.
There’s about 40 new spells planned, ranging from spells like conjure siege weapon, viper fang, and darkburst (a shadowy equivalent to sunburst). There’s also a new polymorph line called aberrant anatomy, which as you can guess by the name lets you transform into aberrations (and let me tell you, that ability list is REALLY long). The two new classes of cabalist and shaper get unique spells, as well: the cabalist gains “duality” spells that change effects depending on his current stance, and the shaper has “collapse” spells that close her void to create a burst of power.
To end off, here’s a fun new spell to be featured in Paths of Magic; can you guess what it was inspired by?
Updates will continue every two weeks!
HAND OF THE ABYSS
School transmutation (polymorph) [darkness]; Level antipaladin 4, nightblade 4, occultist 4, shaper 4, sorcerer/wizard 5
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 min./level (D)
Your arm buckles and twists in a gruesome spiral before erupting with a flowing surge of pitch-black substance, coalescing into a massive arm of deadly shadows.
Hand of the abyss replaces one of your arms with a writhing mass of darkness roughly in the shape of a huge, grotesque arm. You choose which arm to replace at the time of casting the spell; any gear being held in that hand is merged into your form (as is typical with a polymorph effect).You can also use hand of the abyss in place of a missing arm, if desired.
The hand grants you a slam attack that deals damage as if you were two size categories larger than your actual size. It is considered a primary natural attack and adds 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier to attacks with it. The slam attack also has the trip, grab (up to one size larger than you) and constrict (1d8 + 1 per caster level) universal monster abilities. When attacking with the hand or performing grapple or trip maneuvers with it, you can use your caster level in place of your base attack bonus if your caster level is higher, though this does not grant you any additional attacks for having a high base attack bonus. The hand’s reach is 10 feet beyond your natural reach, as the shadowy mass extends to strike foes at a distance (typically this means a reach of 15 feet for a Small or Medium creature).
The hand of the abyss is mutable in form, granting you a versatile set of abilities, as follows:
As a full-round action, you can sweep the hand or slam it down in an outstretched line. If you sweep, you hit all creatures in a cone-shaped area whose length is equal to your reach with the hand (typically a 15-foot cone for Medium and Small creatures). If you hit in a line, you hit all creatures in a line up to double your reach with the hand (typically a 30-foot line for Medium and Small creatures). Make a separate attack against each opponent in the area. You cannot grab a creature while performing these attacks, though you can still trip them.
As a standard action, you can reach the hand out up to double its normal reach to attempt a grapple check against a single creature. If you succeed, you can choose to either pull the creature next to you or pull yourself adjacent to the creature.
You can stretch the hand out to reach to any fixed surface and latch on to it, pulling yourself to that space. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. You can scale vertical surfaces and even hold on to ceilings in this way, though you can’t attack with the hand while still latched onto a surface. The maximum distance you can reach depends on the action you use. Doing this as a move action lets you grab a location up to twice the hand’s reach. If you use a standard action, you can grab up to four times the hand’s reach. If you use a full-round action, it can be up to eight times the hand’s reach.