Nyarlathotep
Mongoose
A question to both players and GMs - for your PC/NPC scholars - which sorcery styles do you gravitate to and why?
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Comparing Sorcery Styles?
- Thread starter Nyarlathotep
- Start date
I'd say it all depends on how you see your character. Whatever else they may be the sorcery styles are very distinctive.
Counterspells - an oft-overlooked aspect of the Scholar is his defensive power. Scholars make great anti-magic lockdown specialists. Combine counterspells with War of the Souls and Rule of the Sorcorer's soul (for detecting enemy spellcasters) and a single PC scholar can fight the magical opposition to a stalemate thus freeing up his comrades to go pound on the enemy in melee. It may not be glorious but you will be worth you weight in gold under the right conditions.
Curses - Probably most usefull in social situations where the threat of a nasty curse can motivate people. Geled Bones is a cool combat spell. Some other cool curses exist in the supplements. It is a little lackluster for most PC "adventurers".
Divination - in Conan as in other game systems this depends a lot on having a good GM who can make these spells worthwhile. If the GM sees these spells as a way for the player to cheat past his murder mystery then they will suck, if the finds a way to work with them then they can be awsome. Not so usefull in an adventure-of-the-week campaign.
Hypnotism - This is a go-to style for most PC's. The spells are immediately usefull without pre-planning, are good in combat and awsomely usefull out of combat and many are effectively save-or-die. IMO given just the spells in the core rulebook this is the "best" all around style, espically at low levels.
Nature Magic - requires you to be in tune with your surroundings but summoning animals to fight for you is a great strategy. Has a few other usefull misc spells too. An underrated style IMO.
Necromancy - hey, who doesn't wanna be the Dread Lord? :wink: The basic animate corpse is a bit underwhelming but the higher level insta-kills are sweeeeeet. If this style has any failing it is that is is a bit limited in scope. Killing stuff is cool but a smart sorcorer can do a lot with some of the other, more subtle, styles.
Oriental - if you want to take this style you have to make it the centerpiece of your character concept, not a sideline. If you do dedicate yourself to being a kung-fu Dex monkey then you will be rewarded but your overall power as a pure spellcaster will suffer for it. Works well for multi-class scholars.
Prestidigiation - one of my personal favorites. Possibly the most versatile style for your standard-issue "adventurer". Conjuring is endlessly usefull and Telekinesis, when combined with home-made alchemy and herbalism/poison, can let you duplicate in one spell many, many magical effects. Just talk to your GM before hand about having the ability to craft items in game. If you want your character to actually have the ability to perform magic like story-book wizards then you need this style.
Summoning - more than perhaps any other style this one emphasizes that power and flexibility require forethought and planning. With a good GM the ability to summon demons (not just limited to the few in the main rulebook) means you can solve almost any problem simply by calling up the right nasty-bad who himself has the appropriate special ability. But this is not something you can pull off on the fly though. Beware the Diviner-Summoner who strikes from afar! :twisted:
Hope that helps.
Counterspells - an oft-overlooked aspect of the Scholar is his defensive power. Scholars make great anti-magic lockdown specialists. Combine counterspells with War of the Souls and Rule of the Sorcorer's soul (for detecting enemy spellcasters) and a single PC scholar can fight the magical opposition to a stalemate thus freeing up his comrades to go pound on the enemy in melee. It may not be glorious but you will be worth you weight in gold under the right conditions.
Curses - Probably most usefull in social situations where the threat of a nasty curse can motivate people. Geled Bones is a cool combat spell. Some other cool curses exist in the supplements. It is a little lackluster for most PC "adventurers".
Divination - in Conan as in other game systems this depends a lot on having a good GM who can make these spells worthwhile. If the GM sees these spells as a way for the player to cheat past his murder mystery then they will suck, if the finds a way to work with them then they can be awsome. Not so usefull in an adventure-of-the-week campaign.
Hypnotism - This is a go-to style for most PC's. The spells are immediately usefull without pre-planning, are good in combat and awsomely usefull out of combat and many are effectively save-or-die. IMO given just the spells in the core rulebook this is the "best" all around style, espically at low levels.
Nature Magic - requires you to be in tune with your surroundings but summoning animals to fight for you is a great strategy. Has a few other usefull misc spells too. An underrated style IMO.
Necromancy - hey, who doesn't wanna be the Dread Lord? :wink: The basic animate corpse is a bit underwhelming but the higher level insta-kills are sweeeeeet. If this style has any failing it is that is is a bit limited in scope. Killing stuff is cool but a smart sorcorer can do a lot with some of the other, more subtle, styles.
Oriental - if you want to take this style you have to make it the centerpiece of your character concept, not a sideline. If you do dedicate yourself to being a kung-fu Dex monkey then you will be rewarded but your overall power as a pure spellcaster will suffer for it. Works well for multi-class scholars.
Prestidigiation - one of my personal favorites. Possibly the most versatile style for your standard-issue "adventurer". Conjuring is endlessly usefull and Telekinesis, when combined with home-made alchemy and herbalism/poison, can let you duplicate in one spell many, many magical effects. Just talk to your GM before hand about having the ability to craft items in game. If you want your character to actually have the ability to perform magic like story-book wizards then you need this style.
Summoning - more than perhaps any other style this one emphasizes that power and flexibility require forethought and planning. With a good GM the ability to summon demons (not just limited to the few in the main rulebook) means you can solve almost any problem simply by calling up the right nasty-bad who himself has the appropriate special ability. But this is not something you can pull off on the fly though. Beware the Diviner-Summoner who strikes from afar! :twisted:
Hope that helps.
Dont forget about the sorcery styles of The Scrolls of Skelos:
Cosmic - I have never used this. But from what I can see this allows high-level casters to cast spells, without making magic attack rolls (or even cancelling their ability to resist), but at the cost of time (2 weeks - 1 month) and power points (3-4x the spells cost). It sounds like a good spell to have at high levels to help sorcerers casts their more powerful spells, while removing the random factors.
Immortality - This is a great spell for NPCs, it allows for an unassuming witch to tear you apart. When used with PCs, they can gain a lot of power (greater strength and life drain), but at the cost of up-keep (in human blood). Of course, the potential to become a vampire is a plus. :twisted:
Note: I know there are more spells and styles in other books, unfortunately I do not have those books. But, I would like to hear what their benefits are.
Cosmic - I have never used this. But from what I can see this allows high-level casters to cast spells, without making magic attack rolls (or even cancelling their ability to resist), but at the cost of time (2 weeks - 1 month) and power points (3-4x the spells cost). It sounds like a good spell to have at high levels to help sorcerers casts their more powerful spells, while removing the random factors.
Immortality - This is a great spell for NPCs, it allows for an unassuming witch to tear you apart. When used with PCs, they can gain a lot of power (greater strength and life drain), but at the cost of up-keep (in human blood). Of course, the potential to become a vampire is a plus. :twisted:
Note: I know there are more spells and styles in other books, unfortunately I do not have those books. But, I would like to hear what their benefits are.
I don't have my RPG books at hand, but at least two other sorcery styles do exist: Sea witchery and Weather witching in Pirate Isles. I will look at my books (I have not already used those styles in game) and post a little summation about their benefit later (if nobody else does it). I don't remember other sorcery styles right now (but a lot of books add some spells to the rulebook and Skelos).Malcadon said:Note: I know there are more spells and styles in other books, unfortunately I do not have those books. But, I would like to hear what their benefits are.
Sorry it took so long. I was a little bit busy in real life and couldn't do it earlier.
- Sea witchery- it seems only useful on ships for pirate campaigns, where it can be very powerful. It allows the sorcerer to affect the opponent's ship or to make your own ship quicker. There's one poison spell that can be used on land.
- Weather witching-This one seems more useful in different circumstances. You can affect weather with little effects (alter crops, bad weather,...) on a huge scale, or have more powerful effects on one opponent.
As full blown styles Sea Witchery and Weather Witching are useless in anything except the most pirate-focused camapign. They are just too focused on their own element.
However, some of the advanced spells from those styles could easily be ported over to become advanced Nature Magic spells. Thats what I did for my game.
Later.
However, some of the advanced spells from those styles could easily be ported over to become advanced Nature Magic spells. Thats what I did for my game.
Later.
blackenedwings
Mongoose
My favorite is the Summoning style because it reminds me very much of the Elrich books with Elrich calling out to his demonic patron Arioch and summoning elementals and demon spirits in time of great danger. He would exhaust all of his other resources, but when he absolutely needed to get something done he would call some incredible primordial spirit forth. Those scenes always stuck with me, and I have always hated standard Dnd conjuration with 1 rd/level fiendish dire rat summons... it just doesn't have the right feel to it.
I also enjoy Prestidigitation and Hypnotism.. its unfortunate but Curses seems underutilized in terms of published spells. It seems like curses should be more useful and more open ended than just a negative modifer on rolls. There should be curses that smite people with disease and nightmares and such.
In general I like the published spells, but there really aren't very many options for lower level spells as most of the advanced spells have high pre-requisites.
I also enjoy Prestidigitation and Hypnotism.. its unfortunate but Curses seems underutilized in terms of published spells. It seems like curses should be more useful and more open ended than just a negative modifer on rolls. There should be curses that smite people with disease and nightmares and such.
In general I like the published spells, but there really aren't very many options for lower level spells as most of the advanced spells have high pre-requisites.
argo said:As full blown styles Sea Witchery and Weather Witching are useless in anything except the most pirate-focused camapign. They are just too focused on their own element.
However, some of the advanced spells from those styles could easily be ported over to become advanced Nature Magic spells. Thats what I did for my game.
Later.
- I agree with you about Sea Witchery, but Weather Witching can be used during landlocked campaigns. I think I will retain the Weather Witching style and include all the Sea Witchery spells as advanced Weather Witching spells. With twice the former number of advanced spells it will become more interesting...
- I want also to tell you, Argo, that you made a very good summation of the different styles in your earlier post. You have a very good judgement about game balance. It is something I had seen in a lot of your posts when I came as a visitor before registering.
IMO the most useful style is Hypnotism. Most character classes have a poor Will save, so even the strongest warriors can be defeated with one spell from this style. In fights or during other situations it comes in use. A must-have for sorcerers. And in the mysterious East it is even stronger !
