Monday, 25th April 2011, 23:37 by ElectricAlbatross
In my opinion, restricting spell slots for multischoolers or changing around the magic schools does not address the real problem in the magic system, which is that the availability of a spell currently depends on the caster's experience level. This makes it possible for experienced casters to pick up lower-level spells in any other school; everyone ends up with the same spells because anyone can get them. And to me personally, it is unintuitive: it feels like a spellcaster's ability to learn spells should depend on their skill in casting, or their skill in casting the type of spell they are trying to learn. (Side note: does it really make sense that a level 5 warrior with no experience in magic has a better chance (very low chance) to learn a lvl5 spell than a level 4 wizard (zero chance)?)
So instead, why not make ability to learn spells depend on the caster's level in the relevant schools? Each spell would have not only one school or more, but levels associated with each of those schools. If your caster is not at each of those levels in the spell's listed skills, then he cannot learn the spell.
e.g. (numbers off the top of my head; the numbers, as well as the schools that spells have, would require significant tweaking)
Swiftness - lvl2 Air, lvl1 Enchantment
Repel Missiles - lvl2 Enchantment, lvl1 Air
Mephitic Cloud - lvl3 Air, lvl2 Conjuration, lvl2 Poison
In this case, Swiftness would require the caster to be at lvl2 in Air and lvl1 in Enchantment, while Repel Missiles would require lvl1 and lvl2 in these skills respectively, and so on.
Then we have an intuitive and fair penalty for learning spells from a variety of schools: you would need experience in these skills, which would hinder your getting higher experience in fewer schools. The player can then decide whether practicing these skills to get a certain spell would be worth foregoing practicing his main spellcasting skills to get more powerful spells there.
I believe that determining the availability of spells not with XL but through experience in the school of the spell is the most direct solution to the problem. With appropriate balancing, it will provide a simple, transparent system that offers players equally viable choices between specializing and multischooling. Fiddling around with spell slots seems like an arbitrary, confusing hack compared to emphasizing the strengths and drawbacks intrinsic to being a jack of all trades or a master of few.