In an rpg where magic skills are divided in schools ala Elder Scrolls, what kind of spells would be available to the Destruction school for the different expertise level (Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, Master)
Considering that each elemental control is already a single spell (IE fire control/pyrokinetic)
Apprentice: Touch spells only.
Journeyman: Short-ranged "ray" spells (in Pathfinder these are the 25ft ranged touch attacks).
Expert: Long-Ranged projectile attacks, some slow multi-target/area denial spells. (Magic Missile, Rolling Flame Sphere, ect.)
Master: Huge multi-target spells with long range. (Fireball, Ice Storm, ect).
>>44356665
The elemental spells are already kinda including all of these effects. I'm trying to find different effects related to destructions like Wound and Rend, anything else thats not directly related to elemental spells?
>>44356774
The Destruction school, by Elder Scrolls standards IS pretty much just elemental magic.
Coding-wise, in Skyrim, the wound and drain health/stamina/magic effects are counted as Destruction, but in previous games I think they were Mysticism (which is now Alteration).
Destruction is the manifestation of magical energy as other forms of energy (and Frost which is "negative" energy?).
>>44356851
You are right about how the elderscrolls standard is but I'm wondering about something thats not necessarily in line with the ES lore.
>>44356594
*cough* DEPENDS ON THE FUCKING SETTING.
That is all.
Seriously. Consider how the spells are cast, what amount of effort goes into each at each level, what implements are needed and so on.
Maybe a novice can cast Trogdor's Omnicidal Burnination but it takes them a month, a billion gold in materials, implements, and mana stones, and maybe help from twenty mates.
Whereas maybe a master just shouts the spell and the countryside evaporates.
>>44356774
Decay, Force Effects, Sound
>>44356954
Water, Air, Thunder
>>44356851
Reducing health and untyped damage were destruction magic in Morrowind. Only the vampiric ones were mysticism.
>>44356950
Generic fantasy setting. just for the sake of the system.
>>44357005
Can't have that. Magic is an inherent part of the world, and your setting defines how it's divided and studied.
Example: The school of Destruction may progress from the concrete to the abstract.
Apprentices learn to manipulate pre-existing elements, and hurl surrounding objects to break apart the target by applying outside force.
Journeyman-level spells can create the objects needed, like a lightning bolt.
Experts progress to affecting the target directly, but still crudely, for example by applying telekinetic force or vibrating walls apart.
Master spells concern themselves with the abstract principles, and allow the caster to simply disintegrate their target outright with no side effects.
>>44356594
>ala Elder Scrolls
The worst example.
See Mysticism.
>>44356594
Dark Sun's Defiling as a spell effect
>>44357230
It's somewhat retroactively clever in universe once fluffed out.
Mage's haven't got the school system right. They're doing the equivalent of using four elemental theory or trying to work out where phlogiston comes from.
Destruction really shouldn't be a school, but instead just a group of spells from every real school that battlemages should know. The fireball slinging is probably all just alteration at the end of the day.
Mysticism would be cut and parcelled up to other schools like in Skyrim, but without knowledge of the Divination School a lot of it still doesn't quite make sense to mages in-universe.
Plus I'm pretty sure that turn undead spells are more conjuration than restoration but eh, necromancy is still taboo. It really should be a sub-school that's in between conjuration and restoration but linked to both, instead the mages of Tamriel tore it into rough thirds, shoving one third into each companion school and outlawing the rest.
>>44356594
But the schools in TES are just something cobbled together to put some arbitrary limits on studying magic.
They don't really mean shit, and the dream would be better off without them
>>44357346
That's a better approach than having magic arbitrarily divided into neat schools.
GURPS path and book magic does a similar thing, dividing spells into, well, books and paths as taught and practiced in-universe. So a guild wizard will learn and practice the spells his guild teaches, and if he finds something like the Book of Eibon he needs to 'multiclass' (take a new path) to learn the spells in it. Spells that may be 'forbidden' or 'forgotten' or just not available anywhere else.
This results in mages having mechanical reasons to seek out other mages, look for sorcerous tomes, and so on, since every new tome or guild is a whole new 'class' of magic to explore.
>>44357230
>See Mysticism.
What's wrong with Mysticism? Elder Scrolls had a solid system before it became FPS: The ARPGening.
>>44357809
Not the same Anon, but mysticism is literally all the spells that mages had no fucking clue how to define. It is the "Misc." school.
Depending on how you like your magic systems, that's neat as all get out or dumb as shit.
>>44356774
Elder Scrolls Destruction is basically the manipulation of elemental forces. If you want to Wound, you're setting on the territory of Mysticism, Alteration or even Restoration; the same goes for Rend.
Destruction is things like fireballs and shit like that.
>>44357055
I would say that Disintegrate is Alteration, since you're changing an object (live or dead) and disintegrating it. You're not actually applying a destructive elemental force, which is what Destruction has always been about.
>>44356594
Effects like Disintegration, utilizing magical energy to wound, injure or kill, breaking limbs/shattering structures with a thought, burning through minds and annihilating abstract concepts like souls or emotions in addition to physical things.
>>44357820
I always understood Mysticism as manipulating all the unseen forces of the universe, whether we're talking telekinetics or the soul. Basically manipulation of the soul and related subjects.
Soul Trap, Detection (of anything), Absorb life-forces (Health, Mana, etc), Mark/Recall (portals, basically).
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mysticism_%28skill%29
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Magic
>>44357809
>before it became FPS: The ARPGening.
>before
TES has always been a first-person RPG.
>>44357845
Telekinesis is an odd Alteration spell, souls are in necromancy/conjuration's domain and the school'sphilosophy is Illusion and the changing of the Dream.
Absorb is Restoration for obvious reasons Detect is Illusion as it changes how you percieve life without actually changing the life to glow or anything and Portals are Conjuration because yes.
I swear there's s book in Oblivion that directly states that all hard to define spells are just shoved into Mysticism.
It's the bastard child of Divination and Illusion with baggage from Conjuration.
