The Short Concise D&D Inspired Spell List
One thing that always annoys me about spell casters in D&D is the having to stop what we’re doing, flip through the book, and then read over a paragraph description, most of which is fluff….
So I set out to cut out all the bullshit fat of the spells and leave the nice meat and potatoes. My guideline was if the spell couldn’t fit into two lines of text- then it got cut out.
There are a FEW that are a tiny bit longer, like summon, which is inspired by LotFP version. That is fine considering most versions of D&D have 8 versions of the damned thing.
I also changed certain spells, like Cure Wounds. Rather than having 4 versions of the same spell I just changed it to heals 1d8/3 lvls HP.
I used, mostly, the Castles and Crusades saves and cast time and duration info, but also used Swords and Wizardry for a guideline of shortened spells. In the end I took a listing of spells that was 45 pages and chopped it down to 10… Not bad for a weeks worth of editing and summarizing.
I hope peeps enjoy this…. If so spread the word to anyone who plays a caster.. Hopefully they’ll find this handy.
July 20th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Dude, I was looking for something like this just last week and failed to find anything useful…saved by your list, Thanks!
July 20th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
Np! Hope it comes in handy!
July 22nd, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Cool stuff. If there was a DM college I’d make what you did an assignment 🙂
Seeing them all compressed it makes me wonder why we should mess with so many different ranges and casting times. Maybe make range 20ft per spell level or sight (for earthquake and such). For how long to cast, maybe either it’s a round or it’s a ritual that takes 10 minutes. Just some ideas, I hate having to check the book every time a spell is cast.
July 24th, 2012 at 9:55 am
Thanks Telecanter! I agree. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to keep it down to an absolute minimum. I think 3 pages per spell caster is not terrible at all… I know that the authors want the fluff/spell descriptions to give a feel for the world, etc… but I think we can get that from the name.
Give a GREAT and evocative name and then just the mechanics. Let the players describe what the spell looks like..
July 23rd, 2012 at 11:35 am
[…] The Concise Spell List for ANY Version of D&D or OSR « Wrathofzombie’s Blog at Wrathofzombie’s Blog: A list of OSR spells that fit on 2 lines or less. […]
July 25th, 2012 at 6:46 am
[…] Last week I did a post showing my hack (old version) of Trent B’s own awesome hack. Later that week I posted another project I knocked down last week, the Concise Spell List for ANY version of D&D. […]
September 13th, 2013 at 3:19 pm
Excellent work WoZ. A valuable resource, thanks.
September 14th, 2013 at 7:57 am
Thanks man! Appreciate it!
July 7th, 2015 at 1:01 pm
[…] role-players will surely find a solution, for instance, the magic system from Whitehack, the “Short and Concise Spell List” or “Boring […]
April 15th, 2016 at 6:17 am
Hey, I’ve been working on a as-short-as-possible (in page count) D&D clone and had hit a wall when facing the wizard’s spells. This is extremely helpful. May I ask around how many spells were cut out of the list? I’m thinking about rewriting the gonzo stuff like prismatic ray and such because they sound fun.
April 15th, 2016 at 6:33 am
Thanks 🙂 Honestly, I’m not sure- it’s been so long since I’ve done it- but my basic guideline was if I couldn’t get the spell down 2-3 lines, I nixed it.