Monday, July 22, 2019

Occult magic as wisdom-based arcane magic?

While reading the comparison between psionics and occult magic in Psionics Augmented: Occult, something occurred to me. Occult magic, at least as depicted by Pathfinder: Occult Adventures, feels a lot like what I would imagine a Wisdom-based arcane spell-caster would work. It simply doesn't feel different enough in theme to qualify as a third power source for magic equivalent to arcane and divine.

The occult magic system is based on the 19th century occult revival. This involved a lot of Victorian Age pseudo-science and secular magic like orgones, mesmerism, spiritualism, etc. This wasn't based on what d20 labels Intelligence ("how well your character learns and reasons"), but more on what it labels Wisdom ("willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition"). Occultists developed their craft through intuition, not respectable science. The new rules like thought and emotion components and sentimental substitution rely on qualities ascribed to Wisdom, not the qualities ascribed to Intelligence.

Furthermore, the playtest for the second edition of Pathfinder changed the bard to an occult caster as part of its reorganization of the spell lists into arcane (sorcerer/wizard), divine (cleric), occult  and primal (druid). Yet, oddly enough, the occult bard still uses standard material, somatic, and verbal components and still relies on their charisma for casting spells.

Therefore, the occult magic seems like it would work just as well if not better as a Wisdom-based form of arcane magic. IMO, the psychic makes perfect sense as a new arcanist class existing somewhere between sorcerer and wizard but beholden to neither. But if I am honest, all of this is essentially arbitrary to begin with.

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