D&D General Signaling Spell Signatures

[steeldragons]

When I started running my second 5E game with people who had played before, I was shocked to learn the party wizard did not take detect magic. Not sure why, but in my mind every wizard should get detect magic, to the point of considering just house ruling it that every wizard has it. It turned out the player's previous DM allowed people to detect magic with an arcana check (and he was annoyed that I didn't).

I'm with you, in that it strikes me as something that every wizard would/should know. I've played, predominantly, mage/witch/wizard/magus type characters (and druids and clerics, but spells. Always some kind of spells) and always, always, always, Detect Magic gets taken and usually prepared.

Back in the day, I think we played that everyone got Detect Magic instead of Read Magic. 'Cause Read Magic was just a stupid concept (to our prepubescent minds). You had to study your spells, of course you could "read magic"...and if you couldn't, then how did you learn the Read Magic spell in the first place!?

In my homebrew system/setting, I've made Detect Magic a cantrip. But that's still a "slot" for the day, even if it's something you do at will.

Making it something wizard-types just "get/know," though not something as menial as an arcana check, is definitely worth thinking about.

 

[Krachek]

It look very WoW. fire mage, frost mage, arcane mage.
The actual game don’t favor spell specialist. there is too much resistance and immunity for monsters to risk a specialist strategy.

 

[the Jester]

Just a quibble- there was actually a "universal" wizard school in 2e, but IIRC it only had read magic and detect magic in it.

EDIT: No, I was wrong- I'm thinking of "lesser divination". Basically because of read magic, all mages in 2e had access to low level divination spells, even if divination was normally an opposed school.

 

[Nefermandias]

Just a quibble- there was actually a "universal" wizard school in 2e, but IIRC it only had read magic and detect magic in it.

Yes, that's pretty much the case in 3e too, but you can't really specialize in "Universal"

 

[R_J_K75]

Yes, that's pretty much the case in 3e too, but you can't really specialize in "Universal"

I don't recall 2E having universal wizard spells but that may just be my memory failing. In 3E I thought they introduced universal school and allowed for specialists to cast they didn't have access to in 1E & 2E? I'm on 2 hours of sleep so sorry if I'm misremembering or repeating myself. Were spells like read and detect magic, identify universal in earlier editions?

 

[Rabulias]

In AD&D 2e, I think the cantrip spell and the Lesser Divination school (lower level divination spells, which included read magic and detect magic) were open to all wizards.

 

[Shiroiken]

When I started running my second 5E game with people who had played before, I was shocked to learn the party wizard did not take detect magic. Not sure why, but in my mind every wizard should get detect magic, to the point of considering just house ruling it that every wizard has it. It turned out the player's previous DM allowed people to detect magic with an arcana check (and he was annoyed that I didn't).

I've seen 5E wizards not take Detect Magic, since the Cleric had it as a Domain spell. Rather than spend one of his few spellbook spells on it, he let the Cleric take that duty (taking Alarm instead). I've seen a warlock without Eldritch Blast, pre-Hexblade, simply because he was planning Pact of the Blade instead. Not everyone spends their resources on things everyone feels they "should" have.

 

[Stormonu]

Back in 3E, I used to argue fervently that wizards should be required to be specialist wizards and the arcane list should go through the sort of divisions that the divine spells went through, with a handful of wizard spells (read magic, detect magic) becoming universal.

However, with the 5E wizard subclasses in place and enticements for picking spells in your “school” - as well as the overall smaller pool of spells, I don’t feel this is necessary any more.

Though it would be nice to have the spells somehow notated for other wizard subclasses, were they to make something like pyromancers, geomancers, numerophiles and so on.

(Utility, informational, attack, defense tags wouldn’t be bad either for all spells for tagging effects or abilities attached to these tags)

 

[el-remmen]

I've seen 5E wizards not take Detect Magic, since the Cleric had it as a Domain spell. Rather than spend one of his few spellbook spells on it, he let the Cleric take that duty (taking Alarm instead). I've seen a warlock without Eldritch Blast, pre-Hexblade, simply because he was planning Pact of the Blade instead. Not everyone spends their resources on things everyone feels they "should" have.

I mean, sure. . . but it feels so basic.

Rest of the Party: You're the wizard, we count on you to know about magic things. . .

Wizard: Um. . . which magic things?

Now, I am not saying a wizard has to do that or even have that spell, but it is shocking to me!