Wizards Revamped - A mod to tweak wizard subclasses, spell schools and spells. It strives to be balanced, but fun!

[Buru]

Hey everyone!
I've been working on a mod to spice up wizards. If you're interested, here you can find a list of the changes as they happen. Leave a comment if there's something you'd like to see implemented, if you'd like to help, or for general feedback! I'll appreciate your comment. Striking the perfect balance that this game attemped already is important to me, so I'd like to avoid no-brainers and game-breaking stuff.

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Wizards Revamped changes how spell schools and specialists work.
Each specialist should have an interesting toolbox to tackle adventuring, with clearly distinct flavor but similar access to tools. I feel like the original implementation didn't work too well, because you ended up with redundant spells over multiple levels; there was almost no grimoire you could sensibly use to get a decent selection of spells for most subclasses; power levels disproportionately benefited certain schools; on top of spells not being evenly distributed. 
This is my grand opus... I mean my modest attempt at fixing these problems. Yeah, I take magic way too seriously.

Changes that this mod makes:
- SPELL SCHOOLS
- PASSIVE BONUSES
- SPECIFIC SPELLS
- GRIMOIRES
- TAGS

 

SPELL SCHOOLS
We now have Elements, Hexes, War Magic, Necromancy and Shamanic Magic. Loosely inspired by the Magic The Gathering colors.

Elements                 ->     fire, water/frost, lightning                                                       -> elemental damage
Hexes                      ->     countermagic, mind effects, warping reality                         -> debuffs, interrupts
War Magic               ->     arcane, damage mitigation, weapon mastery                       -> weapons and weapon damage, armor > evasion
Necromancy           ->     malaise, death/darkness, draining                                         -> healing, fear, corrosion damage
Shamanic Magic     ->     animalistic, natural, spiritual                                                   -> summons, evasion > armor, disruption
Find each spell school with its relative spells in the picture linked. I hope you'll find that I've captured the flavor well enough!

I can't seem to manage to upload the picture. Here's the link: https://lensdump.com/i/gSZFQk

 

PASSIVE BONUSES
I personally like the idea of school restrictions to specialist. I'm pretty sure I want everyone to be able to cast elemental magic, so they don't lose completely the ability to do damage. For each school +2 PL and -10% recovery time with spells of the school.
- Hexers               : Elements, Hexes and Shamanic Magic             -> so many illusions left you incorporeal: take -10% weapon damage and +15% spell damage. Escape (rogue) 1/encounter
- Warmages         : Elements, Hexes and War Magic                       -> Inspired Defense from the Paladin tree?
- Necromancers  : Elements, Hexes and Necromancy                    -> some vampirism effect?
- Shamans           : Elements, Necromancy and Shamanic Magic   -> +10% corrode damage on spells; Fleet Feet 1/encounter?
- Elementalists    : Elements, Hexes and Shamanic Magic              -> chance to double cast, as per Evocation class
So each specialist gets Elements, most get Hexes, and only Warmages get War Magic. Here I just wanted to make it so War Magic keeps its mitigation and doesn't get Shamanic spells, more focused on evasion. It should also be interesting for multiclassing purposes! Feel free to suggest another distribution. Help with the passives appreciated!

 

SPECIFIC SPELLS
These are ideas based on my experience with some spells being too strong, and other underwhelming. Others were moved to have the right amount of spells for each level. I probably underestimated some spells and you'll notice that I'm biased towards debuffs > damage spells, so feedback is appreciated.
Chill Fog lv. 1 > lv. 2, this spell is definitely not worse than Curse of Blackened Sight
Miasma of Dull-Mindedness lv. 2 > lv.1, -6 instead of -10(?)
Merciless Gaze -> Eagle Eye. More animal eyes!
Wizard's Double now grants +20% damage until hit, 0 deflection, so you don't get 300 deflection spells doing the same thing.
Deleterious Alacrity of Motion 3 > 4, it's already build defining, and I would like to see Warmages do other, less no-brainer things
Necrotic Lance > Blast of Tattered Veils; cast time 4.5 > 1, recovery 3 > 4, now interrupts on hit, damage 18-26 instead of 33-42. Redundant, but trying to spread spells I ran out of ideas.
Arcane Veil lv. 2 > lv. 1; grants 40 deflection instead of 50.
Essential Phantom lv. 4 > lv. 5
Confusion > Ghastly Debilitation, causes Sickened instead of Confused, to distinguish it somehow from Bewildering Spectacle.
Blast of Frost lv. 5 > lv. 4, 36-58 damage instead of 39-62, to have Ice spells each level.
Shadowflame lv. 4 > lv. 7. Bear with me, it's to make Ice Mages a thing! We'll just buff damage and effects accordingly.
Arkemyr's Mercurial Madness lv. 8 > lv. 7. It's so quirky that I'd even put it at a lower level, but let's talk about it; now pickable progressing to PL 7, or Hexes wouldn't have anything there.
Llengrath's Warding Staff > Llengrath's Warding Moonstaff, lv. 7 > lv. 6
NEW SPELL! Removed Infuse with Vital Essence > Ryngrim's Revivification (inspired by DCSS) -> You heal to max health, but you're knocked out after 15 seconds. Only available in Ryngrim's something grimoire (Ryngrim's Disquieting Countenance? Ryngrim's Dire Bargain? +3 PL to Ryngrim's spells, vulnerability to resolve afflictions?)

--- just cosmetic:
Llengrath's Displaced Image > Llengrath's Spectral Diversion, in theme with shamanic stuff
Arcane Cleanse > Soul Cleanse, again for shamanic stuff
Llengrath's Warding Staff > Llengrath's Warding Moonstaff, again for shamanic stuff
Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp > Ryngrim's Sunless Grasp for Ryngrim's grimoire

 

GRIMOIRES

A lot to be done about this, but I'd like more themed grimoires: Book of Storms could have some unpredictable effect, there should be a Minoletta's Grimoire, the Dusty Black Grimoire could reduce range of spells for 1 PL or something. Feedback appreciated! I'll get to it in the next days.

 

TAGS

Hexes, War Magic, Necromancy, Shamanic, Elements (Fire, Frost, Electricity).
Concelhaut's, Minoletta's, Ninagauth's, Arkemyr's, Llengrath's, Ryngrim's Spells, to give a few grimoires some cool effect.
Some Shamanic Spells could get Beast (Eagle Eye, Gaze of the Adragan, Maura's stuff, Zahndethus' Draconic Fury...), to give some good feels about using The Spine of Thicket Green with a Wizard.

 

Thank you for reading! Looking forward to some feedback.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Amphotericin

[Testlum]

This sounds quite ambitious, good luck with the project! There are a number of wizard mods on Nexus if you're interested in seeing how others have tackled changing up wizards as well - off the top of my head are The Funnening - Wizard, New Wizard Subclasses and Wizard Revision.

[Buru]

11 hours ago, Testlum said:

This sounds quite ambitious, good luck with the project! There are a number of wizard mods on Nexus if you're interested in seeing how others have tackled changing up wizards as well - off the top of my head are The Funnening - Wizard, New Wizard Subclasses and Wizard Revision.

Thanks! I'll surely incorporate the coolest bits from the other mods. If you've played any of them, how was the experience?