[3.P] Freeform Magic

So, many people in D&D's history have expressed distaste or outright dislike of the Vancian casting system it has clung to. I admit, I am one of these people; I prefer the idea of a mage constructing his spells on the spot to match his whims. However, this desire for a different magic system has long gone unsated, forcing people to turn to other systems. This time is at an end. With numerous variant rules available, it is now possible to create a character who pulls his spells together in an on-the-spot manner.

1. Pathfinder's Word Casting System
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/words-of-power
This is the system that allows you to put your spells together at a moments notice, using a formula of Target+Effect+(Optional Meta) Words.

2. D&D 3.5's Spell Points System
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm
This is the icing on the cake; with the ability to use spells of any level as much as you like, you become truly unchained!

All of this assumes your caster is spontaneous of course.

Now, I'm sure other members of the playground have thought of this combo before, but the possibilities make me absolutely giddy! Using these rules creates a very clear divide between spontaneous and prepared casters, and ups the versatility of spontaneous casters at the same time! What do you think?

So we're dispensing with the Batman part of Batman Wizard and turning him into god instead? :smallsmile:

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Originally Posted by Saintheart

So we're dispensing with the Batman part of Batman Wizard and turning him into god instead? :smallsmile:

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Essentially. :smallbiggrin:

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Originally Posted by Saintheart

So we're dispensing with the Batman part of Batman Wizard and turning him into god instead? :smallsmile:

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Nope. A sorcerer is still restricted by his spells known for the purposes of the combined variants.

In fact, though most Effect Words have no restriction on target choices, the better ones... Do. This combined variant would make a spontaneous caster have a bit more leeway in their choices- if they could change their 4th level acid spell from a cone to a single target spell...



Personally, I support this combination of variants for spontaneous casters only. For prepared casters, stick with the normal casting system, since they (wizards/clerics/druids) have the fact that their magic is a learned art, while spontaneous casters have the fact that it's inherent as a fluff point.

@T-M-K
Oh, yes. These two put together would be incredibly tedious for prepared spellcasters, seeing as they would have to construct their entire list from scratch every morning. I really think it does a lot, as you said, to differentiate between prepared and spontaneous casters, giving a different experience for each of them.

Vancian casting is brilliant for a tabletop game because

(1) it reduces the amount of time a player spends deciding what to do when their turn comes up (vs being able to on-the-spot construct a spell from scratch as you propose)

(2) it's easier to keep track of than the MP popular in CRPGs/JRPGs (which are more similar to psionic PPs) - you have a list of prepared spells (possibly w/ duplicates), and you strike one out when you use it. (A spont caster still counts slots, but it's smaller numbers than if they had one pool of MP.)

(3) It's easier to balance a fixed list of possible spells than to consider every possible combination of 'spell building blocks'. Since this is the Playground, it's obligatory for someone to pitch in with "But D&D spellcasting is already so broken! I can kill a Tarrasque at L1 with it! Aren't I awesome?' but a building block system would be more work to balance (epic spellcasting is like a building block system, and is considered more broken).


If you'd like a non-homebrew taste of your proposal, you could try playing an epic game where the PCs have Epic Spellcasting and are allowed to 'construct' their epic spells on the fly (rather than 'researching them' as in the rules - aka constructing them ahead of time, in a manner very similar to magic item crafting, and then preparing them). For party balance you'll probably want to give every PC this ability, regardless of class.

Depending on the group, it will probably be very time consuming, very broken, or both. But I genuinely suggest trying it once if you are serious about your idea - at the very least, the experience may help you refine your own homebrew ideal system.

You seem not to have read the OP, ffone. I am not suggesting creating a homebrew free-form magic system; I am listing two official variant systems that when combined resemble a free-form magic system. It may be a bit more powerful for spontaneous casters than the original system is, but most spontaneous spell-casters are only tier 2 anyways.

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Originally Posted by Curious

You seem not to have read the OP, ffone. I am not suggesting creating a homebrew free-form magic system; I am listing two official variant systems that when combined resemble a free-form magic system. It may be a bit more powerful for spontaneous casters than the original system is, but most spontaneous spell-casters are only tier 2 anyways.

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I like that. Seems kinds funny to me, what with them being only tier 2 :smalltongue:

Still, I like your idea. I'll think about it, and maybe even run it in my next game to see how well it flies. If it doesn't, oh well, but it might be quite nice if it does.

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Originally Posted by Harnel

I like that. Seems kinds funny to me, what with them being only tier 2 :smalltongue:

Still, I like your idea. I'll think about it, and maybe even run it in my next game to see how well it flies. If it doesn't, oh well, but it might be quite nice if it does.

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I knew someone was going to remark on that. :smallamused:

And great! If it happens I would very much like to hear how it went, and how it stacks up to traditional spellcasting.

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Originally Posted by ffone

(2) it's easier to keep track of than the MP popular in CRPGs/JRPGs (which are more similar to psionic PPs) - you have a list of prepared spells (possibly w/ duplicates), and you strike one out when you use it. (A spont caster still counts slots, but it's smaller numbers than if they had one pool of MP.)

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I disagree, spell points are much easier to track. The biggest timesaver is during preparation:

Vancian Wizard - "Okay, 3rd level: I want fireball, fireball, extended SMII in my specialist slot; 2nd-level, regular SMII specialist, Glitterdust, Enlarged Grease, and regular Grease in level 1. I'll leave the others unchanged, but because I crossed some of them out yesterday I need to rewrite them without the line running through them..."

Spell-Point Wizard - *erases previous day's spell point total and writes in maximum.* "I want Fireball, SMII, Glitterdust and Grease today. The rest can stay unchanged, and I'll worry about metamagic when it comes up. Who wants coffee?"

And even during combat:

"Okay, I cast fireball..."
"You can't, you spontaneously converted your second fireball into See Arcane Sight to scan that sorcerer earlier."
"No, that was the Extended SMII I converted."
"Then the SMII you cast just before the last combat wasn't extended and should have ended two rounds earlier. We won't bother going back to it but we'll have to keep better track going forward. Let me see your character sheet for a second."

Whereas with spell points:

"I cast fireball" *Deducts total.* "Still alive? Hmm, I may need to cast it again. Let's see if the fighter can great cleave them now first."

I like it, but my god, if a normal wizard can give me Analysis Paralysis, this would have me like a deer frozen in the headlights in a vat of liquid helium. Depending on how you fluff this, this feels both very primal, the building blocks of magic, and very technical and scientific, it's basically a programming language, like in 'The Dragon and the George'.
It probably can be broken fairly easily, but you know what? Broken is an OOC term. In-universe, the term is 'Effective'.

Perhaps a combination, like in Ars Magica? Spontaneous casting gives the user great flexibility against unknown challenges, but with the drawback that a quick-and-dirty solution isn't necessarily going to be perfect. Vancian ritual spells are assumed to be built from the same components as spontaneous magic, but pre-constructed for a specific purpose, tested, and utterly reliable—if rigid in application.

Doing this could unify the two primary arcane casting classes. Sorcery is defined as spontaneous casting, while wizardry is ritual magic. Your "class" is merely fluff to define which you do more often.

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Originally Posted by Curious

You seem not to have read the OP, ffone. I am not suggesting creating a homebrew free-form magic system; I am listing two official variant systems that when combined resemble a free-form magic system. It may be a bit more powerful for spontaneous casters than the original system is, but most spontaneous spell-casters are only tier 2 anyways.

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Combing two variants from different editions is homebrew. Or certainly, far out houseruling. Why are you focusing on the semantics of my post rather than the substance ? So do you concur with the substance then?

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Originally Posted by Psyren

I disagree, spell points are much easier to track. The biggest timesaver is during preparation:

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That's not an argument for MP/PP or 'spell blocks' per se, just spont vs prepared. And the solution everyone I know uses is to have prepared caster PCs prepare their lists ahead of time, i.e. not while everyone else is waiting in real time at the table. In my experience this is not a problema at all; players invariably do this b/c they spend a lot of time thinking about what they'll want to prepare the next day (i.e. it's in their PC's interest to be 'prepared' strategically, and so they have ready lists.)

Your argument is basically 'ban prepared casters in favor of spont casters'. Which some people do do (for tier reasons.)

Also, spont casters spend more time agonizing over spell choices when they create their chars, level up, or retrain them.

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And even during combat:

"Okay, I cast fireball..."
"You can't, you spontaneously converted your second fireball into See Arcane Sight to scan that sorcerer earlier."
"No, that was the Extended SMII I converted."
"Then the SMII you cast just before the last combat wasn't extended and should have ended two rounds earlier. We won't bother going back to it but we'll have to keep better track going forward. Let me see your character sheet for a second."

Whereas with spell points:

"I cast fireball" *Deducts total.* "Still alive? Hmm, I may need to cast it again. Let's see if the fighter can great cleave them now first."

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Disingenuous analogy. Wizard A should cross out the converted prepared spell when he uses it. The problem there is not slots, it's sloppiness. And a fairer analogy would then be for wizard B to also forget his number of used MP.

As for which system will make such errors more likely - in my experience, players are worse about remembering and counting PP than spont spell slots, and worse about spont spell slots than prepared spells. Basically, people are better at remembering binary/categorical things like 'My Knock is/isn't gone' than numbers. *And* other players are more likely to remember it too ("oh yeah, you cast Knock at that door with the green demon face...") to double check the person / keep them honest.

If it interests you, I did a version of Spell Points recently. It makes prepared casters act like the Erudite (C. Psionic). It gives you the versatility, while still keeping them separate to spontaneous casters. Check it out if you like.

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Originally Posted by ffone

Your argument is basically 'ban prepared casters in favor of spont casters'. Which some people do do (for tier reasons.)

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Not at all. My argument is "there are factors that your assertion (Vancian is easier to bookkeep than points-based casting) does not account for."

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Originally Posted by ffone

Also, spont casters spend more time agonizing over spell choices when they create their chars, level up, or retrain them.

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I specifically used the example of Spell Point Wizards so we could compare apples to apples, and for them this statement is false.

SP Wizards do not have fixed lists any more than Vancian ones do. They still have unlimited spells known, from which they prepare a subset of spells to use during the adventuring day.; the only differences are (a) they don't have to pick metamagic ahead of time and (b) they only need to prepare one copy of each of their spells. In effect, spell points separate the knowledge of a spell from its power source, whereas Vancian combines the two into a discrete unit called a "slot."

If a Vancian wizard wants 4 fireballs, one of which is metamagicked, he must prepare three instances of "fireball" followed by one instance of "metamagic fireball." The spell point wizard prepares "Fireball" exactly once and calls it a day.

Naturally, this system makes wizards more powerful; but we're talking about bookkeeping, not balance.

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Originally Posted by ffone

Disingenuous analogy. Wizard A should cross out the converted prepared spell when he uses it.

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In my example, he did. Since the only way to "uncross out" something is by erasing it and rewriting it (or using white-out) this results in increased bookkeeping over the spell point Wizard.

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Originally Posted by ffone

As for which system will make such errors more likely - in my experience, players are worse about remembering and counting PP than spont spell slots, and worse about spont spell slots than prepared spells.

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I'll allow for players that aren't familiar with video games and digital RPGs, but honestly such people are few and far in between in 2011, and will only shrink in number as time goes on.

@ffone
Oh, I see. Sorry about that, I was tired and didn't want to respond to a whole post, so I didn't really read thoroughly.

1. I think this is more of a matter of experience than anything else. An experienced Vancian caster is going to know right away what spell he wants prepared for a variety of situations, just as an experienced Word caster will know what spells he wants to create. And really, creating a word spell does not take much time. It basically boils down to:
"Okay, I want to use Accelerate on our charger there, should I use a meta word or not?"

2. I think we'll have to settle for a difference of opinion here. I think it is much easier to simply keep track of a pool of points than to cross off every spell you have in detail.

3. This particular building block system is actually rather balanced with traditional spell-casting, I would think. Individual words are basically just spells.

My last post, not b/c things are too heated, just for the sake of personal time.

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Originally Posted by Psyren

Not at all. My argument is "there are factors that your assertion (Vancian is easier to bookkeep than points-based casting) does not account for."

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I didn't say MP was high bookkeeping, I said it was error prone, and, if you combine it with an extremely large spontaneously available spell list (such as from 'building block casting', it can slow down gameplay (as the linked PF page warns), and be harder to balance.

Also, it should be noted that discussing MP by itself is very different from MP + building blocks, and this thread is sort of blurring between these issues.

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I specifically used the example of Spell Point Wizards so we could compare apples to apples, and for them this statement is false.

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Apples to apples has got to be one of the most overused phrases this year. When I was speaking about spont casters, I made it clear I was speaking about spont casters like the sorcerer VS an MP system, not that they were the same, in fact I made a comparative point about the 3 at one point. I brought up Sorcerer type casting, but it's relevant to the discussion.

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SP Wizards do not have fixed lists any more than Vancian ones do. They still have unlimited spells known, from which they prepare a subset of spells to use during the adventuring day.; the only differences are (a) they don't have to pick metamagic ahead of time and (b) they only need to prepare one copy of each of their spells. In effect, spell points separate the knowledge of a spell from its power source, whereas Vancian combines the two into a discrete unit called a "slot."

If a Vancian wizard wants 4 fireballs, one of which is metamagicked, he must prepare three instances of "fireball" followed by one instance of "metamagic fireball." The spell point wizard prepares "Fireball" exactly once and calls it a day.

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Non-variant-rule also has this type of caster, like the Spirit Shaman, the prepared/spont hybrid who prepares a list each day and spont-casts from that. In some ways it's more complicated, since you have 3 things to keep track of:

1. Class spell list
2. Today's spells
3. Today's remaining slots

OTOH, for balance, their 2. is typically smaller than a pure prepared guy's and their 3. is typically smaller than a pure spont guy's. (If it weren't, there'd be little point playing anything else.) Which is more bookkeeping probably depends on the exact numbers involved. I didn't realize we were also talking about the Spirit Shaman style caster, that's very different than a builing block caster.

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Naturally, this system makes wizards more powerful; but we're talking about bookkeeping, not balance.

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Well sure, a total Schrodiner Wizard is less bookeeping than a regular Wizard b/c he doesn't ever prepare spells, he just casts anything from the PHB/SC on the fly. And if he doesn't keep to limited spell slots, that's even less bookkeeping and more power.

It's uninteresting to compare bookkeeping without a notion of

1. Balance
2. Time a typical player spends making their decision during real-time play

Schrodinger wizards are low bookeeping, but terrible along these axes. I'm saying a building block system requires more work to balance, and a more veteren or considerate player (or group-set time limits!) for 2. In the hands of responsible and skilled designers and players it could work out well though.

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In my example, he did. Since the only way to "uncross out" something is by erasing it and rewriting it (or using white-out) this results in increased bookkeeping over the spell point Wizard.

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No need to erase and rewrite what you converted it to, just cross out what you originally prepared and converted.

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I'll allow for players that aren't familiar with video games and digital RPGs, but honestly such people are few and far in between in 2011, and will only shrink in number as time goes on.

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Non sequitor. I didn't say MP/PP were error prone b/c people weren't already familiar with the concept.

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Originally Posted by Curious

@ffone
Oh, I see. Sorry about that, I was tired and didn't want to respond to a whole post, so I didn't really read thoroughly.

1. I think this is more of a matter of experience than anything else. An experienced Vancian caster is going to know right away what spell he wants prepared for a variety of situations, just as an experienced Word caster will know what spells he wants to create. And really, creating a word spell does not take much time. It basically boils down to:
"Okay, I want to use Accelerate on our charger there, should I use a meta word or not?"

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Huh, sounds about the same as a spont caster with metamagic feats. For some reason I figured it would be smaller building blocks with more combinations.

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2. I think we'll have to settle for a difference of opinion here. I think it is much easier to simply keep track of a pool of points than to cross off every spell you have in detail.

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The "in detail" prepositional phrase seems extraneous, and anyway, I never said keeping track of MP wasn't easy - I said it was error prone. It's harder to keep players honest (I'm sure it's all genuine mistakes, but curiously, they always go in the same direction, overestimating remaining MP)

The merits of a system depend on how it's used. The 'hard' part of Vancian prepared casting is making the new list each time you sleep - in marathon sessions that might be bad, but in actual experience, players seem to do this on their own time (and they enjoy the time investment), and then the part that happens during a session (crossing out used spells) is incredibly quick, less error prone, and discourages cheating/mistakes (if you try to cast something you already did, other players are likely to remember the last time you cast it - and the caster player knows this, discourages such 'accidents'.)

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3. This particular building block system is actually rather balanced with traditional spell-casting, I would think. Individual words are basically just spells.

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My reply to 1. Sounds a bit like metamagic or the epic spell seed system.

@ffone:

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Originally Posted by ffone

I didn't say MP was high bookkeeping, I said it was error prone

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This is anecdotal at best.

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Originally Posted by ffone

Also, it should be noted that discussing MP by itself is very different from MP + building blocks, and this thread is sort of blurring between these issues.

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Your statement ("Vancian is easier to keep track of than the MP popular in CRPGs/JRPGs") does not mention building blocks at all. If you meant "it's less complicated than MP + building blocks" then you should say so. (I still disagree, but less so than I do with a comparison to MP alone.)

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Originally Posted by ffone

Apples to apples has got to be one of the most overused phrases this year. When I was speaking about spont casters, I made it clear I was speaking about spont casters like the sorcerer VS an MP system, not that they were the same, in fact I made a comparative point about the 3 at one point. I brought up Sorcerer type casting, but it's relevant to the discussion.

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Sorcerers are partially Vancian at best and thus not representative of your argument. A sorcerer that thinks he only needs one Invisibility in a given day can still cast more than that (provided he has the necessary unused 2nd level+ slots.) A wizard is either hosed, or must employ inefficient tricks to regain the used slot/cast it via another means. "Vancian casting" means needing to predict not just which spells you need for your adventures, but how many of each you need daily.

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Originally Posted by ffone

In some ways it's more complicated, since you have 3 things to keep track of:

1. Class spell list
2. Today's spells
3. Today's remaining slots

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How is that different from Vancian?

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Originally Posted by ffone

It's uninteresting to compare bookkeeping without a notion of

1. Balance
2. Time a typical player spends making their decision during real-time play

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#1 has no relation to bookkeeping. #2 does, but even folks who are bad at math go everywhere with a calculator these days. (i.e. their cellphone.) And the math is no harder than tallying up modifiers or netting bonuses/penalties like any player would have to do.

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Originally Posted by ffone

No need to erase and rewrite what you converted it to, just cross out what you originally prepared and converted.

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...And then erase and rewrite it next morning, just like you would with anything else you crossed out during the previous "day's" adventure. SP casters do not have to do this, or at the very least do it less (for the prepared ones, who don't need to record a given instance of a spell more than once.)

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Originally Posted by ffone

Non sequitor. I didn't say MP/PP were error prone b/c people weren't already familiar with the concept.

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If that's not the reason for being error-prone with it, then what could it be? Unfamiliarity is the only hurdle I can see.