DwD Studios
Spellcasting Spell Specialization idea
Thu, 12/06/2012 - 12:51pm | 
OFTHEHILLPEOPLE
Say that five times fast.
Anyway, I wanted to pitch an idea to see what people thought. As you all know spells in BareBones Fantasy are very generalized and often cover a wide variety of usages. For example, the spell "Summon" allows you to summon spirits, conjure elementals, construct golems, animate undead, or call natural animals. But what if a spellcaster focused his or her studies on one particular aspect of that spell and became proficient in summoning, say, Elementals but in focusing their study they aren't as good at summoning the other things that the spell Summon allows you to call forth?
Mechanically I think this would function by either getting a bonus to the Spellcaster roll for the part of the spell you specialize in and a subtraction to the rest of functions of the spell. So in the example before a Spellcaster specializing in Elemental Summoning would gain a +10% to the roll (Maybe per caster level?) while summoning an Elemental, and a -20% for attempting to summon anything else. For other spells like Protection where there aren't any options to choose from because the spell is very straight forward perhaps the specialization could be "Stone" and the spellcaster would get a bonus if they're using the surrounding stone for the spell, but a negative if there's none available nearby.
Just an idea. It might defeat the purpose of the lightness of the existent rules but it was something I thought about while flipping through my Savage Worlds spells with their "Trappings".
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I think +10/-20 is a little harsh. +10/-10 would be fine. Even just a specialization of +10 would get used more often and more creatively than non-specialized uses of the spell. So a negative to other uses of the spell isn't really necessary.
However, I would prefer a more general approach to specialization. +10 to all spells crafted toward the specialization, not just one spell. So you name a specialization, and all the spells for which you use the specialization get the +10 bonus and all spells that do not gets the -10 penalty. (Or no penalty is fine too, just no bonus.)
That's fair. But how would you regulate that with a player so they don't just pick spells and say "Oh, yeah, that's totally part of my specialization because X" just to get the bonus? Would you choose that specialization as a Descriptor perhaps?
Or you could make it a DP bonus. As long as the player uses their specialization consistently throughout the adventure (as long as they are not requested by a NPC to do otherwise), they get 1 DP.
Actually, that's exactly what my suggestion is intended to do. Whatever your spell is, you get the bonus as long as you describe the spell usage in a way that reflects the specialization.
Ah, that very well could work. Though couldn't that really go under the already present DP for good roleplaying of the character?
I'm a fan of the +10/-10 idea you had though by the way but the usage of DP could be a good way to foster simply having the +10.
Well I was thinking of the DP as an alternate idea, but that could work too. It's a bit of a double bonus though. You would be getting both the bonus during play and the extra DP.
The goal is simply to get people to get specific with their magic user.
Thinking of it from that angle, just DP would probably be best, since some might not want to specialize.
The DP I'm suggesting is different than the DP acquired from playing your descriptor. This would be basically "Role-playing Specialization". So you could also provide specialization to other skills as well. I'm not exactly sure yet how.
To be honest, though, I prefer an extra bonus for specialization.
This is a really cool idea. What is the thinking behind having a penalty?
The thinking is that since you put all your efforts into your specialization, you're not as good at those things which you mostly ignore.
Ok, I get that. I could see an arguement could be made for just giving the bonus when the player expresses their prefered element,theme whatever.
or forget the bonus and get a DP instead
descriptors
specialized in fire, (or frost, acid, tenticles (really cold tents?), darkness, blade etc) magic.
Another GM suggested that each level of offensive strike you pick a "trapping". When your level 6 you'll have six different effects like cold blast, fireball, exploding bubbles, writhing shadows, etc.
Even really cold tents? or maybe really cheap ones? Oh, I know. Our season of discount tents.
??? I would have gone for the "ten tickles" approach. But careful calling out spelling. Some may be sensitive. Besides, "tentacles" is not a word that pops up in most conversation.
But it's a great conversation starter. :P
I was the one that spelled it wrong in the first place. I'm self deprecating. Which is better than self decapitating. :)
I want to specialize in a spell called "done".
/me points finger and loud-mouth, "Done."
/me points finger and kitchen garbage container, "Done."
...and so on.
Done and Done undo's the doneness of the original spell. Oh! /me points at steak, "Well Done." /me points at jasales, "Well Done my good and faithless fan." lol
Chocking on coca-cola...I gotta get rid of this when reading these forums. It's a hazard.