As I was working on my article on genre emulation in roleplaying games I started to think about examples of game elements that are a certain way simply because that's the way they have always been. Then it hit me that there is one huge example of this: spells in d20 Fantasy. There are a number of instances where other than a few nips here and tucks there the essentials details of some spells haven't changed since I first cracked open a copy of a 1st edition AD&D Player's Handbook 19 years ago this September.
In some ways this isn't a big deal. While either the magic system in general, or d20 in particular might not be to someone's personal taste it works within the specific confines of the game; however, one thing that has always bugged me about the system is that some spells are simply duplicates of another spell given a facelift, (with something like a descriptor changed from fire to acid) or else are simply an already existing spell with a few slight mechanical changes. In both cases these spells are often scattered throughout a dozen different tomes. So my brain said to me, "If I want a lightning ball, or a magic missile made of acid instead of force does it really justify an entirely separate spell?" Lacking any nearby source of alcohol to kill the braincells in question I was actually forced to consider this, and realized the answer was "not really."
Personally I don't really like introducing a new system into an already existing set of rules unless I really see the need for it. Then I realized I didn't have to. d20 already includes the concept of metamagic feats, and WotC themselves even brushed against this concept with feats like energy substitution and energy admixture. So I started thinking about how attack spells might be standardized. My solution: break them down into a series of generic spells, which consist of base damage/duration etc. Each spell is then assigned a series of modifiers. At the very least each one has to have an elemental descriptor, which in and of itself has a level modifier of 0 – it's mostly for style reasons, and for purposes of overcoming or being stopped by special protections. Each spell can then be assigned additional modifiers, such as area-of-effect burst, capable of penetrating barriers, effects incorporeal, lingering damage etc. This way a player could put together varied attack spells without needing a dozen different books, and magic user characters wouldn't need a dozen different pages of a spellbook just to keep track of variations on a single spell.
There are a few bugs that would need to be worked out. For example if you strip away all inherent properties of an elemental descriptor that would mean magic missile would need additional modifiers in order to duplicate all the current effects of a force-based spell, and as a result might wind up being higher than level one. There's also the fact that players often plan feat progression out very carefully, and forcing spellcasters to take these modifiers with their feat slots would not only bung up such plans, but leave these characters at a disadvantage in the long run. A system like this is also probably going to primarily be limited to direct-damage causing spells, and even then wouldn't replace all of them.
Despite these potential snags I think it's an interesting idea. Which doesn't mean I'll actually do anything with it, but I'll at least toy with the possibility.
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