Well, theyre back. In Dragon 309, Sean K Reynolds has an article published on "War Spells". Theyre rather like battle spells- upgraded
versions of regular spells. You need a feat, “War Magic Study”, to cast
them (prereq: Great Fortitude, Iron Will, spellcaster level 3rd).
Casting time usually a minute, and you must have surveyed the terrain for
at least a minute before you can cast them (making them effectively
useless for normal adventuring). Concentration checks if you are
interrupted during the minute of casting are 10 higher than normal. The
spells can be learned once you have the feat, and are typically 1 level
higher than the non-war version. There are guidelines for creating battle
spells, and then a bunch of examples. Material components (always
required) are typically spell level * minimum caster level * 100 gp.
Not a terrible version of them for 3e, I suppose, especially if you liked
the originals. Still not the way I would have done them.
I’ve been wondering if Sean would get around to writing up anything BR-related for Dragon or the WotC website. He’s said before that he’s a big fan of the setting and wouldn’t mind (if he had the time) having a go at writing a 3rd edition BR Campaign Setting.
As an aside, I had planned on looking at Red Wizard circle magic from the FRCS and the Co-operative Spell feat (can’t recall off-hand what book that is in) to see if I could come up with a workable system of my own as I’m not terribly fond of the battle magic system in the boxed set. Now I’ll consider using Sean’s work as well … once I get my hands on that Dragon mag.
Kalien wrote:
> As an aside, I had planned on looking at Red Wizard circle
> magic from the FRCS and the Co-operative Spell feat (can`t
recall off-hand what book that is in) to see if I could come
up with a workable system of my own as Im not terribly fond > of the battle magic system in the boxed set. Now Ill
consider using Sean`s work as well … once I get my hands
> on that Dragon mag.
Our -wonderful- local store has not got #308 yet :
Wheeeeee :
–
John Machin
(trithemius@paradise.net.nz)
“Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All.”
Athanasius Kircher, Ars Magna Sciendi.
In Monte Cook’s new Arcana Unearthed he is implementing a spell-template system. One of the templates he mentions is a war spell template. I’m not sure how its going to work, but it could be interesting.
