Reworking Spellcasting: Which would be easier?

[flumphy]

So, say I was to modify a version of D&D to include only low-power, at-will casting with no penalties, like the 3.5 warlock or dragonfire adept?

Option 1
Start with 3.5. Remove all casters except the warlock and DFA. Homebrew new classes to cover the niches that were lost, including all divine casting. Rework the crafting system to accommodate. Possibly rework racial and monster SLAs.

Option 2
Start with 4e. Get rid of daily and encounter powers. Rebalance...well, pretty much everything...to make up for this change.

Option 3
Start with a system other than D&D. This was my first choice, but I honestly couldn't find anything better. Literally everything I've seen would require a magic system to be entirely reworked or built from scratch. Earthdawn comes close, but it's not quite there, and I'm not terribly fond of some of its other mechanics. M&M may be workable, but in order to keep a fantasy feel I'd have to go through and prune all the powers and equipment that violate that...a huge project in of itself! But if anyone knows of anything better..

Yes, none of these will be easy to pull off, but at this point I am willing to resort to extreme measures. For once in my life, I WANT TO ENJOY PLAYING A WIZARD, DAMNIT! But since I don't want to make that goal harder than it has to be, I'm looking for opinions from people who probably homebrew a lot more than I do. If you were to go about this, what base would you start from?

[Maraxus1]

The short answer: Option 1.

The long one: I don't think you end up at a good level of balance with option 2. And Option 3 is the most work and unnecessary work on top of it because after half way the goal, you are round about where you start from with option 1.

[Pyromancer999]

Take a look at this. There will be eventually a Mage class for it, if you're interested.

[flumphy]

Take a look at this. There will be eventually a Mage class for it, if you're interested.

It's certainly an interesting system, and I think with some tweaking it could be made into a very functional one. It's not really what I'm looking for, though, since it requires a lot of bookkeeping and math to use to at its full potential. That's pretty much the opposite of what I'm going for. I'm not really a big fan of imposing penalties for spell failure, either.

[jiriku]

I'd go with option 1. If you're good with homebrewing classes, you can probably create a new class with about 1-2 weeks of work in your spare time, and you really only need two or three additional casters to get a game going with a good set of options.

But I'd have to ask... if you want to play an at-will arcane caster, why not just roll a warlock and find a DM who'll let you play him in a low-power campaign? Seems like less work that way. If somebody else is playing the healer or warmage or adept, it's no inconvience to your playstyle as you enjoy your warlock.

[flumphy]

I'd go with option 1. If you're good with homebrewing classes, you can probably create a new class with about 1-2 weeks of work in your spare time, and you really only need two or three additional casters to get a game going with a good set of options.

But I'd have to ask... if you want to play an at-will arcane caster, why not just roll a warlock and find a DM who'll let you play him in a low-power campaign? Seems like less work that way. If somebody else is playing the healer or warmage or adept, it's no inconvience to your playstyle as you enjoy your warlock.

1. Because my options will be limited to just that: warlock or dfa. A guy who made a pact with dark forces or a guy obsessed with dragons, who is hardy and charismatic but probably not all that smart. I won't be able to play the healer, or the necromancer, or the druid. I won't even be able to play the stereotypical generalist wizard.
   
2. Because from a fluff perspective, vancian casting makes no sense to me. As far as I know, Vance is the only writer who even used something like it. Standard fantasy wizards do not work that way, and I don't want them to work that way in my campaigns.
   
3. In keeping with my ideal fluff, and also for game balance purposes, I think there should be a lower power ceiling on magic. It should be useful, but not god-like. D&D wasn't built for that, no, but it turns out it's still just as good as any of the alternatives.
   
4. Because I'm a powergamer at heart, and incredibly competitive, and the fact that I'm not playing a tier 1 when I could be otherwise is painful to me.
   
5. Because most of my group--my husband in particular, who I can't exactly ditch by switching groups--is the same way.

[Adamantrue]

Option 1
Start with 3.5. Remove all casters except the warlock and DFA. Homebrew new classes to cover the niches that were lost, including all divine casting. Rework the crafting system to accommodate. Possibly rework racial and monster SLAs.

When you refer to divine casting, what exactly are you referring to? I could see using some Feats from Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Lords of Madness to fill the flavor of divine influence, albeit in a less spellcaster-y way.

Alternately...why make the distinction between arcane and divine? It isn't uncommon in fantasy for such a distinction to be meaningless. When the scholar researches the Necronomicon in order to find the right incantations, preventing an ancient horror from entering our world, is he using arcane magic or divine?

[ideasmith]

I gather that you intend 'at will' to exclude not only stuff with only X uses per time period, but also anything that uses up spell points, or has an endurance/strength/powerpoint cost. I am also assuming that you don't mind skill rolls or activation rolls. Are these assumptions correct?

If they are correct, I recommend checking True20, Iron Heroes, Thieves' World and/or Ars Magica.

[flumphy]

When you refer to divine casting, what exactly are you referring to? I could see using some Feats from Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Lords of Madness to fill the flavor of divine influence, albeit in a less spellcaster-y way.

Alternately...why make the distinction between arcane and divine? It isn't uncommon in fantasy for such a distinction to be meaningless. When the scholar researches the Necronomicon in order to find the right incantations, preventing an ancient god from entering our world, is he using arcane magic or divine?

I am referring to the fact that removing every caster but the warlock and DFA removes every divine caster in the game, and a lot of useful--arguably necessary--abilities along with them.

Take healing, for example. We've just taken away the ability to cast the most effective healing spells, along with most of the go-to ways to cure status effects. Sure, a party of PCs can get by with a wand of lesser vigor for healing, but in a universe where nobody can cast lesser vigor, who's making those wands to sell to the PCs?

And what about players who want to play the cleric and druid archetypes? The existing warlock and DFA invocations just aren't thematically appropriate. Something would need to be homebrewed to cover them.

I agree that there need not be a distinction in the final product between arcane and divine. I have actually already debated with myself a lot about whether to keep that distinction. But something still needs to be done to replicate the spells currently labeled as divine as well as a lot of spells currently labeled as arcane that the warlock and DFA don't provide.

[Alefiend]

[LIST=1]
Because from a fluff perspective, vancian casting makes no sense to me. As far as I know, Vance is the only writer who even used something like it. Standard fantasy wizards do not work that way, and I don't want them to work that way in my campaigns.

If you think it might help, read the Second Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Sorcery was was essentially Vancian, and I thought Zelazny explained it very well—I read Amber long before I read Jack Vance's Dying Earth stuff.

The difference with Zelazny is that the Vancian fire-and-forget mechanic is a convenience, not a limitation. One can cast spells all day if desired, but each normally takes a long time to do. Casters would pre-cast their spells except for a few important words and gestures, which are held like the charge of a capacitor. When spoken and performed, the V/S components would release the pent-up power of the spell and using up the stored energy. You could also cast the spell without preparation—assuming you're willing to spend a solid minute to crank out a magic missile in the heat of combat.

If the Zelazny flavor of Vancian magic doesn't do it for you, though, I understand. I think magic is more interesting when it's the dynamic application of training, artistry, and research as opposed to expendable cartridges in my daily magic gun.

[Seerow]

Have you looked at the Shadowrun magic system? I know you mentioned you've looked into Earthdawn, and it's the same universe as Shadowrun, but different system. All spells are at will, and can be relatively powerful, but the big downside is taking stun damage when you cast (or physical if you overcast). So yes, you can do really powerful stuff with magic... but you won't want to do it again soon after, because trying it again quickly in succession could very well kill you. But you can spout off minor magic basically all day without ever worrying about the drain.

[NichG]

You might be able to do it as follows:

- Start with the Advanced d20 Magic rules. They're super-high powered, but that's because you lose things like 'you must be X level to cast Y spell'. The important thing though is that they give you a way to turn a spell into a DC, and a way to determine spells known, so that's what you're going to be keeping.

- The rule for casting a spell will now be: You don't roll to cast, instead you take 15+Casting Stat mod+Caster Level, and that determines what you can cast. You can't use any of the modifiers in the book to make it easier except for taking longer to cast.

- Now, use the Sorceror class from those rules to determine spells known.

So what does this look like? Well, lets take a 5th level Sorceror in these rules. As a standard action, he can cast a spell with a DC of 24 or lower at will, and knows at most 15 spells in total - a bit more than standard D&D sorceror, but higher level spells take up more slots (he could only have 7 4th level spells, assuming he could actually cast one). 1st level spells are DC 20, second level spells are DC 25, so he can't actually cast 2nd level spells at will yet. However, if he takes 2 rounds to cast (+1), he can just barely pull off 2nd level spells. If he took an hour to cast (+15), he'd be able to pull off a 4th level spell.

At the high end, a Lv 20 sorceror with a Cha of 28 would have DC 44 spells at will: that's roughly 6th level spells and below, but material components or xp components will push things out of reach. At maximum, if they take a day to cast, they're hitting DC 64, which allows some 9th level spells but Wish, Gate, and the like are going to be basically impossible to cast. I think Raise Dead may still be feasible with this, but True Resurrection will not be.

You can adjust these numbers to taste by changing how your 'admissible DC' varies. You could for instance just do 15+Caster level, which would make standard action 1st level spells available initially at level 5 and would cap out at 4th level spells.

One major flaw here for certain styles of game is that, in such a system, healing is basically free out of combat except for time since you can just do Cure Minor Wounds over and over again.

[flumphy]

I gather that you intend 'at will' to exclude not only stuff with only X uses per time period, but also anything that uses up spell points, or has an endurance/strength/powerpoint cost.

This is correct.

I am also assuming that you don't mind skill rolls or activation rolls.

This is not, unless there are no scaling DCs or "backlash" for failure.

And thus none of the system you mentioned actually work. Except maybe Thieves' World. I haven't looked at it. Googling it I see two editions, the 1981 original by Chaosium and a 2001 remake by Green Ronin. To which are you referring?

If you think it might help, read the Second Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Sorcery was was essentially Vancian, and I thought Zelazny explained it very well—I read Amber long before I read Jack Vance's Dying Earth stuff.

I'll have to see if the library has it next time I'm there, if only because a different perspective on the workings of such magic would be interesting, and maybe helpful from a role-playing perspective.

Have you looked at the Shadowrun magic system? I know you mentioned you've looked into Earthdawn, and it's the same universe as Shadowrun, but different system. All spells are at will, and can be relatively powerful, but the big downside is taking stun damage when you cast (or physical if you overcast). So yes, you can do really powerful stuff with magic... but you won't want to do it again soon after, because trying it again quickly in succession could very well kill you. But you can spout off minor magic basically all day without ever worrying about the drain.

I have. The stun mechanic kills it for me. As does the random lethality of the combat system in general. After the time I soaked a grenade but then died later in the same session from accidentally falling down the stairs I decided I was done.

You might be able to do it as follows:

- Start with the Advanced d20 Magic rules....

Hmm. I like this idea because it would avoid having to rework the crafting system, and it may even leave pretty much every PrC still attainable.

You're right that the ability to spam certain things infinitely becomes a problem, though. You'd have to go through all the spells and prohibit a lot of them, or in some cases change the spell level.

[Seerow]

I have. The stun mechanic kills it for me. As does the random lethality of the combat system in general. After the time I soaked a grenade but then died later in the same session from accidentally falling down the stairs I decided I was done.

lol wut. Unless you fell down like 20 flights of stairs I don't know how that's even possible.

But anyway, if you don't like the stun mechanic, then nevermind. I personally think it's more interesting when there is some sort of cost associated with casting, but really dislike the vancian system of x slots per day, so have always liked the shadowrun style of handling it.

[Adamantrue]

Take healing, for example. We've just taken away the ability to cast the most effective healing spells, along with most of the go-to ways to cure status effects. Sure, a party of PCs can get by with a wand of lesser vigor for healing, but in a universe where nobody can cast lesser vigor, who's making those wands to sell to the PCs?

And what about players who want to play the cleric and druid archetypes? The existing warlock and DFA invocations just aren't thematically appropriate. Something would need to be homebrewed to cover them.

Hmm...

Nimbus of Light and Stigmata are some examples of alternative means of Healing (and Turn Undead with Holy Radiance), with the option of maybe tweaking them to suit your needs better. I'm actually working on some Feat-based Healing options a few threads down myself (its still very much a work in progress). And there are alternative systems that can help shoulder the burden as well (such as Reserve Points).

Plus whatever else is buried within these forums. I remember something not too long ago that seemed like a divine warlock.

[Alefiend]

I'll have to see if the library has it next time I'm there, if only because a different perspective on the workings of such magic would be interesting, and maybe helpful from a role-playing perspective.

I highly recommend the two series. The first is better IMHO—required reading, really—but the second has the part that's relevant to your predicament. Enjoy!

[ideasmith]

This is not, unless there are no scaling DCs or "backlash" for failure.

And thus none of the system you mentioned actually work. Except maybe Thieves' World. I haven't looked at it. Googling it I see two editions, the 1981 original by Chaosium and a 2001 remake by Green Ronin. To which are you referring?

I am referring to the Green Ronin product, which you may or may not consider "no scaling DCs". Higher level spells do take longer to cast, given the same die rolls.

[NichG]

Hmm. I like this idea because it would avoid having to rework the crafting system, and it may even leave pretty much every PrC still attainable.

You're right that the ability to spam certain things infinitely becomes a problem, though. You'd have to go through all the spells and prohibit a lot of them, or in some cases change the spell level.

One simple way to do it would be to make it so that magical healing is taxing on a person, and so any one person can only be healed an amount equal to their maximum hitpoints per day (or hour, as you like), and for ability damage/drain, an amount equal to their total stat. That'd even let you introduce magical items that expand your healing cap, which would be valuable, though they'd have to have an attunement time to prevent passing them around the party.

[flumphy]

lol wut. Unless you fell down like 20 flights of stairs I don't know how that's even possible.

This was 3-4 years ago, so I don't remember the exact circumstances. It was with a killer GM, though, so it's perfectly possible he was a bit too liberal in calculating the damage.

I'll admit my perception of the system may have been unfairly colored by him.

One simple way to do it would be to make it so that magical healing is taxing on a person, and so any one person can only be healed an amount equal to their maximum hitpoints per day (or hour, as you like), and for ability damage/drain, an amount equal to their total stat. That'd even let you introduce magical items that expand your healing cap, which would be valuable, though they'd have to have an attunement time to prevent passing them around the party.

That takes care of healing. Other possibilities are to set a per-encounter limit or to just live with it, since the CRs are going to be borked anyway. There are probably some non-healing spells that would have negative consequences if left spammable, though. Could a resourceful high-level wizard disintegrate the entire world rock by rock? Probably not the best example, but yeah...

[silver spectre]

Have you checked out the incantations in D20 Modern Urban Arcana?

It may be right up your ally.

[Eldan]

I'd go with something akin to number one... use the Binder, Warlock, Dragonfire Adept, the psychic warrior and maybe a reworked Truenamer. That should give you a nice spread.

I'd recommend also adding something like Incantations for more powerful effects. A very flavourful system, really.

[flumphy]

You know, I'd seen those before, but I never saw the point of actually using them in a game before now.

Removing the backlash from incantations and perhaps playing around with the DCs could be an interesting option. It would allow higher-level spells to still exist, but they would basically only get thrown around in dire straits for plot purposes. And yeah, it's flavorful. It's not high on my list of things to do, admittedly, but once I get the main system working it's definitely something to look into.

I think I'm going to avoid reworking things like ToM and psionics initially as well. The system isn't heavily integrated with them as it is with regular spellcasters, and to be honest I'm not really fond of the extra weirdness they add to the cosmology anyway. Just throwing them in without modification would throw a monkey wrench into things, given that the binder on its own is tier 2.

[Eldan]

Tier 3, actually, if you don't allow those few totally unbalancing online vestiges. Which is why I included it, but not the psion.

Also, flavour goes a long way. Call your Vestiges "Ancestor Spirits", "Small Gods", "Fiends of Possession" or "Fey Nobles", and you no longer need a different cosmology.

[Phosphate]

[*]Because from a fluff perspective, vancian casting makes no sense to me. As far as I know, Vance is the only writer who even used something like it. Standard fantasy wizards do not work that way, and I don't want them to work that way in my campaigns.

I would amend that. It does make sense (for wizards at least). The point is that at the beginning of the day you read a couple incantations, and let them almost finished, missing the trigger. You can only channel that much arcane energy every day for a certain number of triggers. It makes perfect sense in theory.

What DOESN'T make sense, and this I agree, is that, for instance, after depleting your level 1 spell slots, you may no longer cast level 1 spells. EVEN though you can still cast 7th and 8th level reality warpers/crushers/destroyers. Yeah, that irks me too.

On a side note, yeah, I'd advise you to go with the homebrewing aswell. There's nothing "do it yourself" can't solve when you're talking about a tabletop RPG.

[Realms of Chaos]

If you want a general arcanist with at-will casting, perhaps look at this

If you want a divine caster with at-will casting, this may be more your speed.

[Yitzi]

What DOESN'T make sense, and this I agree, is that, for instance, after depleting your level 1 spell slots, you may no longer cast level 1 spells. EVEN though you can still cast 7th and 8th level reality warpers/crushers/destroyers. Yeah, that irks me too.

It's not that you can no longer cast level 1 spells (after all, a sorcerer can spend a higher-level slot to cast a lower-level spell, and a wizard can use a higher-level slot to prepare a lower-level spell). It's simply that if you've expended all the first-level spells...well, they're all expended. So long as you accept the "pre-prepared spell slots" idea (which it seems you do), the rest makes perfect sense.

[flumphy]

Maybe it's my age--I'm only 23 and therefore grew up playing CRPGs--but I just can't see the whole system as anything but a thinly-veiled attempt as RPG balance. I put it on the same level as respawning at a set point after death: completely meaningless story-wise, but a necessary evil to make a game playable. The fact that you don't see anything like it in all of fiction aside from a couple of 20th-century authors indicates that it's not a system most people find intuitive except for the purposes of RPG balance.

I mean, YMMV, and if it works for you then there's certainly nothing wrong with that. It just doesn't work for me, you know?

If you want a general arcanist with at-will casting, perhaps look at this

If you want a divine caster with at-will casting, this may be more your speed.

Thanks! These will definitely be helpful if I decide to go the "everyone's a warlock" route.

I've been exploring something more along the lines of the Advanced D20 rules, though. I may actually keep being X level to cast Y spell for the sake of ease-of-use, but slow the progression down to paladin or bard levels. 5th or 6th level spells seem like a good cutoff to me, since you get a lot of iconic abilities but haven't yet gotten too many world-shattering ones. In order to keep casting stats relevant for something other than save DCs, they would provide bonus spells known.

[Phosphate]

It's not that you can no longer cast level 1 spells (after all, a sorcerer can spend a higher-level slot to cast a lower-level spell, and a wizard can use a higher-level slot to prepare a lower-level spell). It's simply that if you've expended all the first-level spells...well, they're all expended. So long as you accept the "pre-prepared spell slots" idea (which it seems you do), the rest makes perfect sense.

Not really the point (and spontaneous casters actually do it right in that respect). It just feel simply wrong - to me - that a level 20 wizard can prepare 4 level 1 spells and 4 level 9 spells, but not 9 level 1 spells and 0 level 9 spells.

[Yitzi]

Not really the point (and spontaneous casters actually do it right in that respect). It just feel simply wrong - to me - that a level 20 wizard can prepare 4 level 1 spells and 4 level 9 spells, but not 9 level 1 spells and 0 level 9 spells.

Well, naturally he can't (except by using Mnemonic Enhancer); if he's only giving up 4 level 9 spells he can't get 5 bonus level 1 spells. 0 level 9 and 8 level 1 spells would be ok, though.

[Phosphate]

Well, naturally he can't (except by using Mnemonic Enhancer); if he's only giving up 4 level 9 spells he can't get 5 bonus level 1 spells. 0 level 9 and 8 level 1 spells would be ok, though.

Yup. Don't you find that kind of wrong?