Friday, June 7, 2013

Divine Elves - Proposed Spell List



Well, this was going to be a post on this thread, but autarch's forums are 504'ing me again, so it's going here instead.  As context, there's been some discussion of cherry-picking spells for custom divine classes, and how it may cause the Divine value, particularly from a +divine race like divine elves, to be too small for what the class is getting.  Hence, for the development of my own divine elf classes, I wanted to build a list which captured 'elfy' divine spellcasting and would constrain me from going out and stealing arcane spells.

Thematically, this list captures the following capabilities:
  • Elves are good at fixing people.  Stabbed with a morgul-iron blade?  They have a spell for that.
  • Elves know things beyond human kenning.  The list has a lot of divination as a result.  Also read languages, glyph of warding, ESP, speak with plants and animals, eye of the eagle, and tongues.
  • Elves are enchanting in their natural beauty, and as a result can charm, enthrall, and inspire others.  However, they prize free will, and as a result lack access to 'direct' enchantments like Command and Hold spells (some academics hold that it is not moral opposition but their essentially fey and fickle nature; a prank is no good if the target lacks the agency to bring about their own downfall)
  • Elves are attuned to nature and natural forces, and are at home in the wilderness.  They can speak with, summon, enbiggen, and command animals and plants, as well as controlling the winds and creating fog.  They're also sneaky in the wilderness.  They avoid fire and lightning, however, as these threaten their natural habitats, and they find indiscriminate destruction distasteful and lacking in finesse or grace.
  • Elves are the favored firstborn children of celestial powers, and as a result have power over light and can repel creatures of darkness and provide protection to others.
And so it comes out as a sort of bard/ranger/healer list.  No pillars of fire in the sky, but a lot of party support capabilities.  And it doesn't need to be a hugely flashy list, since it's something that can be added on to another full class's worth of abilities.

1s (need to prune a few of these to get down to 15):
  Cure Light Wounds
  Delay Disease
  Detect Danger
  Detect Evil
  Detect Magic
  Faerie Fire
  Fellowship
  Light
  Locate Animal or Plant
  Pass Without Trace
  Predict Weather
  Protection from Evil
  Purify Food and Water
  Read Languages
  Remove Fear
  Resist Cold
  Sanctuary ('Elbereth')
  Salving Rest (the canonical 'hang out in Rivendell for a week and you feel much better' spell)

2s:
  Augury
  Bless
  Charm Animal
  Chameleon (gotta have some way to make those cloaks and boots...)
  Cure Moderate Wounds
  Delay Poison
  Detect Charm
  Divine Grace
  Enthrall
  Holy Chant
  Obscuring Mist
  Resist Fire
  Silent Step
  Speak with Animals
  Warp Wood

3s:
  Charm Person
  Continual Light
  Cure Blindness
  Cure Disease
  Cure Major Wounds
  Detect Curse
  ESP
  Eyes of the Eagle
  Glitterdust
  Glyph of Warding
  Growth of Animals
  Locate Object
  Prayer
  Remove Curse
  Sphere of Visibility

4s:
  Command Animals
  Create Water
  Cure Serious Wounds
  Death Ward
  Dispel Magic
  Divination
  Fate
  Neutralize Poison
  Prot Evil Sustained
  Speak with Plants
  Spirit of Healing
  Sticks to Snakes
  Summon Animals
  Tongues
  Vigor

5s:
  Atonement
  Commune
  Control Animals
  Control Winds
  Cure Critical Wounds
  Create Food (sprinkles seeds on the ground and asks them politely to grow)
  Fear
  Growth of Plants
  Quest
  Reincarnate
  Restore Life and Limb
  Scry
  Strength of Mind
  Summon Weather
  True Seeing

4 comments:

  1. I like this, and might use this for the Changeling in my ACKS: The Dark Project setting.

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  2. Nice take on the idea, though I think calling my lists 'cherry picking' is a bit harsh (I had my own themes behind the choices I made). I also see you still ended up with arcane spells on the list. It's hard to avoid, really.

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    Replies
    1. As I said on the autarch thread, I'm as guilty as anybody else with my Valkyrie and Assassin-Priest lists. Did try to keep my arcanes within what was available on the Witch and Shaman lists, though - think the only other one was Chameleon, and that was because they needed a way to make cloaks.

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