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Practitioners of Shallow Occultism
Result = After review, adopted as the Feature Occult Constraint.
Request/Design
Source: Rocky Bliss 6/2024 + 7/7/2024
(Request) I am interested in playing a wizard that gets back prepared spells through arcane recovery at a faster rate. Like maybe all back of a certain type on a Short Rest. I see them as kind of a hurried learner, flawed and focused on one school and others are then weaker. Like maybe the saves against it are at advantage or penalty. It would be cool if they could empower the chosen school in some way. There should be some path to evening them out to become a normal wizard, but maybe hold onto a portion of weird way they learned and a minor benefit.
(Analysis) Regardless of benefits and detriments, it needs to be somewhat balanced. Generally offsets are a wider negative application to drawbacks, but not debilitating. In exchange for a focused and boundary benefits with limited application. Overcoming this will result in a character becoming “normal” (from the foundation of PHB and i20) by default, as game balance would otherwise be affected. I can see possible offsets being the use of Mana to regain a minor benefit. That costs Character Points to acquire and develop so its got a different cost and mana can be used for other things.
Shallow Occultism
Class: 5e Wizard (only); applies to i20™
Point of Acquisition: Level 1. This term denotes the point at which the class level is taken. Either at the time of Character Inception or when the initial level is taken as part of multi-classing. These are both moments of Actuated Awareness.
There are many magi that learned their craft in a hurried and expeditious manner. This can stem from a number of causes, but their knowledge is imperfect, lacks practice or proper application, and inhibits them as compared to a full powered magus both in power and a limited perspective. Their learning materials and proving time are neither complete or wholly intelligible. They immerse themselves in one aspect of their craft and their perspective on it is formed primarily through that context. The intensity of the occult faculties are wrapped around an in-depth but myopic understanding. To improve from their current state to one of balance and equity, requires improved learning materials and processes, re-applying the fundamentals, and fully completing the normally long stretch of testing the theory and practice.
Advantages
School of Depth: 1 School chosen by the Magus (this is the emphasis)
Changes to the School Spells/Formulae/Cantrip
- Arcane Recovery: Normal + their Proficiency Bonus but only from School of Depth.
- Starting Spells: Half must be from the School of Depth.
- Learning Spells: One spell learned at a new level is gained in the School of Depth.
- Prepared Spells: Choose one per spell level of the School of Depth; This does not count against the list of prepared spells, but always is. The magus can change one whenever they gain a level.
Disadvantages
Superficial Schools: 2 affected Schools chosen by the Magus (this is the weakness)
Flawed Training Materials: The Occult Primer and Codex reference work can only lead its reader to the same outcome with the same schools; It is not a good general starting point and will have to be re-written as part of the process for the Path to Correct.
Changes to the School Spells/Formulae/Cantrip
- Weakened Spells: No Proficiency Bonus is gained on spell attack or save for spells in affected schools.
- Arcane Recovery: No spell from the affected schools can be regained through Arcane Recovery.
- Starting Spells: No spell from the affected schools can be known at the Point of Acquisition.
- Learning Spells: The cost to learn/transcribe spells of the schools is doubled for affected school spells.
- Ritualized Spells: No spell of the affected schools can be ritualized unless it is Prepared.
Non-Mechanical Detriments/Drawbacks
Personality Trait: Everything is about my limited study of [my school of depth] – it is the best solution to all problems. When given a choice, I will always choose to attempt a solution related to it above others, even if I know it is most likely to fail.
Given their lack of adherence to the normal methods and processes by which a wizard learns (varies by setting and circumstance, but there is a process) they would not likely be the product of formal occult institutions. If they were, they would have run due to some calamity or odd circumstance before their training was complete. Given their unreliable nature, it would seem as if formal institution of magi would generally be reluctant to take in such practitioners without stipulation and added costs to deal with their frustration.
It is pretty regular practice to give all Wizards the spell formulae for Detect Magic without it counting towards any starting spell knowledge. This, along with any standard benefits for institutions they may be part of, would be withdrawn as they would not have finished their training with the same breadth or coverage in their hurry or impeded state.
This is a first pass with the most conservative assessment.
Issues
- Can you take this more than once, as long as Deep and Shallow don’t conflict/overlap?
Not for new players!
- Path to normal but not guaranteed? Checks to make? How to empower – mana?
Path to Acquire
- When assuming the initial Wizard class, a character cannot wear armor they have proficiency with until the next level in the assumptive class.
Path to Overcome/Correct
Some costs may be covered if they are a member of an Occult Institution or Organization.
- Training: 20-Intelligence (min 2) in months. The cost is 1 Cost Portion per month.
- Get a new spell book (Codex).
- Scribe all the spells in their spellbook again, at normal cost no matter the school. The time for this is outside of any time training and follows std. PHB rules.
- Replace their Focus Point Item (Arcane Focus).
NOTES:
Some of this can be generalized and applied to any character assuming a new class.