[3.5] A Translation of Vancian Spellcasting to Psionic Mechanics

[Jallorn]

Cantrips could be cast for the low(?) cost of expending Focus. Maybe you can metamagic them with the same expenditure, so they're not suddenly harder than everything else to metamagic.

Or just make them at-wills like Pathfinder did.

[Ernir]

Cantrips could be cast for the low(?) cost of expending Focus. Maybe you can metamagic them with the same expenditure, so they're not suddenly harder than everything else to metamagic.

Or just make them at-wills like Pathfinder did.

The ideas have merit.

How about just a class feature called "Cantrips" that says "While you are magically focused, you may do X, Y, and Z"?

[Veyr]

That also works. There're not many cantrips I'd be worried about allowing for that. Mostly Launch Bolt shenanigans.

[Qwertystop]

That also works. There're not many cantrips I'd be worried about allowing for that. Mostly Launch Bolt shenanigans.

What, you're worried about what is essentially a free, non-magical, non-masterwork light crossbow? Not much to worry about.

[Veyr]

Launch Bolt does not have a size limitation. Colossal Bolts do quite a bit more damage.

[Qwertystop]

Launch Bolt does not have a size limitation. Colossal Bolts do quite a bit more damage.

Technically, isn't the damage done by a Bolt defined by the crossbow used? And isn't the damage based on a crossbow usable by the caster?

EDIT: Anyway, you said you were fixing the biggest broken exploits. Rephrase it as I said above (based on what crossbow the caster could use if they had a crossbow) and all it does is save you the cost of a crossbow.

[Sfere]

3.0 Psionics had cantrips- called "talents". They could be manifested for free level + 3 times per day, and for 1 pp thereafter.

[Ernir]

That also works. There're not many cantrips I'd be worried about allowing for that. Mostly Launch Bolt shenanigans.

Technically, isn't the damage done by a Bolt defined by the crossbow used? And isn't the damage based on a crossbow usable by the caster?

EDIT: Anyway, you said you were fixing the biggest broken exploits. Rephrase it as I said above (based on what crossbow the caster could use if they had a crossbow) and all it does is save you the cost of a crossbow.

I'm not particularly worried about one oddly written non-OGL cantrip is going to do. I'm still fuzzy on what exactly I can and can't do with the splatbook spells, so they aren't about to be included in the immediate future.

3.0 Psionics had cantrips- called "talents". They could be manifested for free level + 3 times per day, and for 1 pp thereafter.

Could work too.



I haven't done anything with the cantrips/orisons yet, but in celebration of my first exam being tomorrow, I did upload a new version. This includes

• The chassis of the Cleric class I am working with, although not any of the domains.
• The Assassin PrC.
• A class feature for the Sorcerer.

[acid_ninja]

This is really excellent work. I've long felt that Vancian magic was the biggest weeakness in D and D and that the psionics mechanics were the way to go. I've been toying around with just re-fluffed psionics instead of magic (and I actually kind of like some of the limitations that imposes, especially for healing) but the problem with that is losing a big chunk of splatbook support. You've gone and solved that problem.

I also really like what you've done with the pally and I can see doing something similar with the druid (giving them x number of free uses of the form of X spells instead of wild shape, etc). I would kind of like to see an arcane version of the paladin, maybe based on the Duskblade. More of an offensive spell list and class-only feats that mimic spell channeling and casting in armor might be the main things, maybe along with something like the arcane strike feat. I know you're probably plenty busy working so its just a thought.

Great job.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Very, very good. I read most of the document (skimmed a few of the spells that I pretty much never use), and was particularly impressed with the rebalancing. I think you hit most if not all of the classic exploits while still leaving the spells quite useful, and the merging made lots of otherwise nigh-worthless spells actually viable choices (Hold Portal leaping to mind).

The only spells I can think of that seemed a little off in terms of power were Stoneskin, Precognition, and - in a sense - Meteor. Stoneskin I think could be reduced to one minute per level, since it's no longer ablative. Precognition I think needs a little more behind it to be worth its level, some sort of incentive to actually stick to the action stated so you can prepare tactics accordingly without the opponent just saying never mind. Meteor is truly awesome, well worth its spell level, but an option to call down a smaller meteor more useful to a typical D&D-scale battle would probably be good. As-is, it's great for annihilating armies, but unwieldy for fighting, say, dragons.

There are a few design choices I don't personally agree with (some of the Evil descriptors; Fog, Invisibility, Fly, and Dimension Door as specialist only; maybe a couple changes that weren't made), but that's more playstyle differences than anything. And I'm sure my dislike to the nerf to the "Greater Teleport" effect is because teleportation is my personal favorite supernatural ability.

In terms of editing, Heal and Harm have augments that say "if you spend 6 additional creatures" rather than spell points. And Cure Minor Wounds is down in the T's.

And finally, a couple suggestions for things that were mentioned in the thread:

For Rope Trick (and Mage's Mansion, I suppose), increasing the casting time to one hour would probably be sufficient to prevent the "I can rest wherever and whenever I want" exploit, while still leaving them fulfilling their primary purpose of giving you a safe place to rest.

For generalist wizards, what if they could select specialist spells, but no more than one from each school and/or one for each spell level?

Anyway, I think that's enough out of me. Again, great job!

[Ernir]

For those of you who are really really interested, I have begun uploading the very latest edition of the document here. This is the document as it looks like the last time I hit the "compile" button on my end - formatting errors, placeholders, and bad ideas that will never make it to an actual release included.

This is really excellent work. I've long felt that Vancian magic was the biggest weeakness in D and D and that the psionics mechanics were the way to go. I've been toying around with just re-fluffed psionics instead of magic (and I actually kind of like some of the limitations that imposes, especially for healing) but the problem with that is losing a big chunk of splatbook support. You've gone and solved that problem.

Whee!

You're still missing thousands of spells worth of splatbook material, but at least this provides a working core.

I also really like what you've done with the pally and I can see doing something similar with the druid (giving them x number of free uses of the form of X spells instead of wild shape, etc).

Right now, the Druid is just a subheading under the Cleric, but one of the Animal domain granted powers will be to extend the duration of the Form of the [Animal] spells.

I would kind of like to see an arcane version of the paladin, maybe based on the Duskblade. More of an offensive spell list and class-only feats that mimic spell channeling and casting in armor might be the main things, maybe along with something like the arcane strike feat. I know you're probably plenty busy working so its just a thought.

Great job.

I'm going to finish converting the core classes before I start adding my own... but it so happens that the first base class I want to do myself is an arcane knight type. Odd coincidence.

I think I might give the Eldritch Knight channeling. And convert Deep Crystal weapons. I actually have the Psionic Weapon feats and its relatives converted. They are currently commented out in the source code due to me thinking that I was stealing what should perhaps stay a Psionic trick. Might add them back in at some point.

Casting in armor is actually not a problem under these mechanics (an inheritance from Psionics). The only problem is that the old primary arcane casters (Sorcerer and Wizard) aren't proficient with the things.

Very, very good. I read most of the document (skimmed a few of the spells that I pretty much never use), and was particularly impressed with the rebalancing. I think you hit most if not all of the classic exploits while still leaving the spells quite useful, and the merging made lots of otherwise nigh-worthless spells actually viable choices (Hold Portal leaping to mind).

Yay!

Contrary to what I sent out to do, this might have taken up more time than any other part of the project...

The only spells I can think of that seemed a little off in terms of power were Stoneskin, Precognition, and - in a sense - Meteor. Stoneskin I think could be reduced to one minute per level, since it's no longer ablative. Precognition I think needs a little more behind it to be worth its level, some sort of incentive to actually stick to the action stated so you can prepare tactics accordingly without the opponent just saying never mind. Meteor is truly awesome, well worth its spell level, but an option to call down a smaller meteor more useful to a typical D&D-scale battle would probably be good. As-is, it's great for annihilating armies, but unwieldy for fighting, say, dragons.

Stoneskin... ablative? Sorry, I think you may have broken my English vocabulary here.

Yeah, Precognition was something I threw together to fill a level. It relies on Gentleman's Agreement and DM fiat way more than I think a spell should, really. I'll probably just end up ditching it once I come up with/find something better.

Mini-meteors are probably a good idea.
The more I think about it, Meteor as-is might be better as an Epic spell or something.

There are a few design choices I don't personally agree with (some of the Evil descriptors; Fog, Invisibility, Fly, and Dimension Door as specialist only; maybe a couple changes that weren't made), but that's more playstyle differences than anything. And I'm sure my dislike to the nerf to the "Greater Teleport" effect is because teleportation is my personal favorite supernatural ability.

Heh. Yeah, it's not quite Teleport Without Error any more. That might be my preference shining through, because some of my favourite moments as a DM have been when I announce that the party has safely Teleported into a duck pond. xD

As for the specialist-only spells... which spells should be specialist-only isn't exactly a hard science. I only really had my own preference to go with, but if whatever table this could hypothetically be played at thinks it should be different, this should be fairly easy to nudge around without breaking everything to pieces.

In terms of editing, Heal and Harm have augments that say "if you spend 6 additional creatures" rather than spell points. And Cure Minor Wounds is down in the T's.

Additional creatures. Wow, that's a glorious one. xD

Both fixed.

And finally, a couple suggestions for things that were mentioned in the thread:

For Rope Trick (and Mage's Mansion, I suppose), increasing the casting time to one hour would probably be sufficient to prevent the "I can rest wherever and whenever I want" exploit, while still leaving them fulfilling their primary purpose of giving you a safe place to rest.

For generalist wizards, what if they could select specialist spells, but no more than one from each school and/or one for each spell level?

I recently saw that Pathfinder added a clause that says "The rope cannot be removed or hidden.", which really makes a lot of difference IMO. That + a casting time increase makes this a lot less powerful. It'd turn into a "protection from random nightly encounters" spell, but it'd be pretty damn useless in a dungeon.

Good idea on the generalist - too bad I already used it for the Sorcerer. =/

Anyway, I think that's enough out of me. Again, great job!

Thanks!

[Draz74]

[*]Matter Creation: The point was more to make the Shapers feel less robbed.

Ah. A noble cause ... somehow I was under the assumption that this system was intended to be used in a setting that didn't have psionicists anymore.

I still might prefer switching this with Summon Monster. Fixing the scaling on Summon Monster wouldn't be too hard -- just eliminate the lowest-order beasties from the equation. But hey, that's a change that's easy enough to just make myself if I ever DM 3.5e again.

EDIT: Hmmm, I probably should be commenting over on Competitor Games instead of here ... just because that Forum's been so sadly dead lately.

[Amechra]

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDS MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD

That said, I like it. I'm thinking of using this next game I run.

[Ernir]

@Draz

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDS MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD

That said, I like it. I'm thinking of using this next game I run.

It's coming! Soon(TM)

And thanks. Please let me know how it goes, if it happens.

[Ernir]

You didn't think I let this die, did you?

Beta 1.05 is up. Includes the first five domains I've completed, and a Dragon Disciple class.

The alignment domains are really similar to another when it comes to spells. This isn't typical for what the domains will be like, but them being similar is the reason they were the easiest ones to spit out first.

[acid_ninja]

Glad to see this is still going. Really great work. I'm thinking about adapting it for pathfinder. Should actually be a pretty simple job - the spell lists are pretty much core and there are only a few spell progressions. There are psionic classes for PF and I'm thinking I could use the psywar progression for the half casters - bards, magi and inquisitors. I think I would actually leave alchemists as-is since their flavor is the only one that really justifies a vancian mechanic.

[Ernir]

Glad to see this is still going. Really great work.

Thanks!

I'm thinking about adapting it for pathfinder. Should actually be a pretty simple job - the spell lists are pretty much core and there are only a few spell progressions. There are psionic classes for PF and I'm thinking I could use the psywar progression for the half casters - bards, magi and inquisitors. I think I would actually leave alchemists as-is since their flavor is the only one that really justifies a vancian mechanic.

Cool. Not sure how much there is to be done, aside from the class skill lists. Haven't really looked much at Pathfinder since the beta. Let me know how it goes!

If you want to tweak the SP progressions, right now I'm using the following:

• Wizard and Cleric SP: roundup((level^2+level+1)*(3/4))
• Sorcerer SP: rounddown(level^2+level+1)
• Paladin SP: Whatever the psychic warrior has.
• Bard (not yet out there) SP: rounddown((level^2)/2)

Let me know if you want the source code for the document.

[NineThePuma]

I'm going to be abducting this for my setting (giving you proper credit, of course) when I finally get it running and some play test, I'll give you a line.

((Of course, I'm waiting excitedly for the Ranger/Druid; the Cleric is getting something closer to Binding.))

[acid_ninja]

Not sure what ^ means in math. Sorry, I'm an English teacher

[NineThePuma]

It's the sign for an exponent. level² would be the way you're familiar with it from high school, I bet.

[acid_ninja]

That I get. Thanks

[DragonOfUndeath]

Subscribed.
This looks like an awesome system, I am so playing a Wizard next game I play
*Lurks and reads pdf*

EDIT: Just looked at the Archmage Prestige Class, is it possible to not use a High Arcana to keep the fueling Spell Points?
So if V had Mastery of Counterspelling but knew he would not be facing any Casters that day, would he be able to lose access to the ability for 1 day and regain 13SP?

[Ernir]

I'm going to be abducting this for my setting (giving you proper credit, of course) when I finally get it running and some play test, I'll give you a line.

Good to hear. I only have one report of this being actually used so far, so I'm very eager for more.

((Of course, I'm waiting excitedly for the Ranger/Druid; the Cleric is getting something closer to Binding.))

The Druid is currently just a subheading under the Cleric class, but yeah, the domains that will make up its spell list and class features aren't out yet.

The Ranger is going to be last of the core classes to get its overhaul, but you can expect something similar to what I did with the Paladin.
Fortunately, the Ranger should be easy once I'm done with the Druid spells.

Subscribed.
This looks like an awesome system, I am so playing a Wizard next game I play
*Lurks and reads pdf*

Thanks!

EDIT: Just looked at the Archmage Prestige Class, is it possible to not use a High Arcana to keep the fueling Spell Points?
So if V had Mastery of Counterspelling but knew he would not be facing any Casters that day, would he be able to lose access to the ability for 1 day and regain 13SP?

No, that was not the intent. It says the Spell Points are permanently eliminated.

[DragonOfUndeath]

No, that was not the intent. It says the Spell Points are permanently eliminated.

That sucks then, losing SP reduces versatility which a PrC should be doing the opposite of, sure some of the abilities are cool or good for a specific build but I don't see it being taken past lvl2-3 (Mastery of Elements for use against Immune Enemies, Arcane Reach for some cool Touch Spells, Spell Power for an odd-numbered casting stat) and certainly not all 5 levels simply from the SP cost.

[Draz74]

That sucks then, losing SP reduces versatility which a PrC should be doing the opposite of,

Au contraire, PrCs are precisely supposed to reduce versatility. They're supposed to specialize a character more definitely into a specific niche.

[Garryl]

The psionic style archmage is just following the precedent set by the standard archmage, which also requires you to permanently lose spell slots when you gain High Arcana abilities.

[Jallorn]

That sucks then, losing SP reduces versatility which a PrC should be doing the opposite of, sure some of the abilities are cool or good for a specific build but I don't see it being taken past lvl2-3 (Mastery of Elements for use against Immune Enemies, Arcane Reach for some cool Touch Spells, Spell Power for an odd-numbered casting stat) and certainly not all 5 levels simply from the SP cost.

Au contraire, PrCs are precisely supposed to reduce versatility. They're supposed to specialize a character more definitely into a specific niche.

I partially disagree with both of you. Yes, a PRC is supposed to improve specialization, no it shouldn't damage generalization, however, that only means that a Class x/PRC y should have the generalized abilities of Class x+~1/2 Class y, because they trade some of that new generalization for specialization. Therefore, the trade off for the Archmage is viable, given that it gains additional casting as well as abilities, the cost of those abilities is absorbed by the additional casting.

[Ernir]

That sucks then, losing SP reduces versatility which a PrC should be doing the opposite of, sure some of the abilities are cool or good for a specific build but I don't see it being taken past lvl2-3 (Mastery of Elements for use against Immune Enemies, Arcane Reach for some cool Touch Spells, Spell Power for an odd-numbered casting stat) and certainly not all 5 levels simply from the SP cost.

Hmm. Sometimes cool or good for a specific build, but not always and not always good all the way... sounds like the old Archmage.
Which I think is OK, really. I look at the old Archmage as a particularly well balanced class as far as caster PrCs go, one that takes a nontrivial chunk out of your spellcasting ability without gimping you to the point where the spells you're casting aren't appropriate for the encounters you're facing (lost caster levels, I'm looking at you).

But you may have a point. Assuming for a moment that the class features reducing your SP pool isn't fundamentally bad design, do you think any of the High Arcanas have too high of an SP cost associated with them?

[Ernir]

Beta version 1.05a is out.

Fundamentally, this wasn't a huge update, since I was mostly just adding more domains. Functionally, though, this might be a bit bigger, as the domains I was adding were the Death, Healing, Strength and War domains, which brings the Cleric class much closer to being actually playable. Once I have the Knowledge, Luck, and Protection domains up as well, the generic "I usually just throw up some buffs and then hit stuff, but I heal after combat and ask my god for advice when we don't know what to do" Cleric concept should more or less work.

[Lord_Gareth]

I'll be taking a look at this when I get off of work, Ernir. I'm very excited about this concept.