How would you rule this spell combo?

[jedipotter]

Because you immediately jumped to "YOU WANT THERE TO BE WAL MAGIC MART!" Which is funny, because straw is something you find on the surface, so I'm not sure how the drow got that for you.

You might want to note that is exactly what Boci did:

Notice I was talking about a single city state. I'm not saying every drow city state should have a grass hopper merchant, but I really think you are overplaying how difficult it would be. Deciding that jump may be a spell they are interested in, a drow wizards asks some questions, travels to a nearby city state, makes some gather information rolls, then pays 20 gold pieces for a box of crickets. He payed a trivial amount of money and spent a couple of days searching, and now he has a lifetime's supply of cricket legs, ad the supplier got a pretty good deal on them too.

He is the one saying ''there would be magic components trade'' and ''everyone can get every material component everywhere''. I'm the one that says that would not happen.

[Boci]

He is the one saying ''there would be magic components trade'' and ''everyone can get every material component everywhere''. I'm the one that says that would not happen.

Yes, but that's hardly a magic mart. The two extremes are "its practically impossibly to get the component" and "component is available on every street corner". My idea was a drow could get the components, but since they involved potentially traveling to another city state and several days, you can hardly say I was advocating free access.

You seem to have a problem whereby you lay out two relatively extremist views: yours and the polar opposite of yours, and then assume anyone who doesn't follow yours must be advocating the polar opposite, rather than something between those two.

I'm not saying cricket legs should be freely available in drow cities, but at the same time it should not be a massive trial for a wizard, an intelligent and likely resources individual, to acquire them.

[137beth]

This coming from the guy who has a top secret list of spell components he's house-ruled are not in a spell component pouch or affected by eschew materials, that he won't even post for fear of his players knowing which spells they can actually cast or not. Then again, perhaps Psychoalpha is right about him.

Didn't GoddessSune have a couple long threads about secret house rules?

Do I even want to know what your stance on Psionics is Jedi? Or how you temper the power of Druids or Clerics? Putting the squeeze on Wizards and Sorcerer and not the holy men seems odd...

These are not the house rules you are looking for!

[Mellack]

If the god of a cleric has to approve every use of every spell, wouldn't that make a great way to detect motives and alignments? You could certainly use that to find people who are trying to infiltrate or disguise their way into a good group. Certainly a good god would not approve use of a power to bless a villain. So you now know they are a villain! But I suppose that would be me "cheating" to use the rules Jed made logically.

[jedipotter]

If the god of a cleric has to approve every use of every spell, wouldn't that make a great way to detect motives and alignments? You could certainly use that to find people who are trying to infiltrate or disguise their way into a good group. Certainly a good god would not approve use of a power to bless a villain. So you now know they are a villain! But I suppose that would be me "cheating" to use the rules Jed made logically.

I've had players do this often enough, but you can also do it in the core rules, so it is not much of a change. There are tons of spells you can use to ''detect'' things that are not divinations. For example, speak a holy word and if someone with you is suddenly paralyzed, deaf and blind....well you know they are not good.

Motives are a bit more complex, but a divine caster can still discern some information from the spells they cast on someone..if they are careful and pay attention.

[RolkFlameraven]

Um.. if your Gods are Rubber Stamping EVERY spell every priest gets in the morning/dusk/midnight/whatever, why do they even needs to ask for Spell ABXYS&N when my God should know that I WILL needs Spells EFGIJ&M and just give me those? If the God is going to take the time to look over every single spell and go, yep, yep, NO! You can't do THAT! Why not just screw the middle man and shove the "right" spell list in your head?

And seeing as you didn't touch on Psionics I'm guessing you just don't use them?

[Oddman80]

Divine casters must have a god, and the god actively judges each and every spell they cast and determines it's effects. And I must say this system works spectacularly well. You can't just be a divine caster and ''just do whatever cool stuff you want'', you have to role play being a representative of the god you chose to follow. It adds tons of role play to a divine caster, and prevents the cheating optimizers who just pick a god for a domain as part of a build.

A player has spent his campaign thus far without a god. He happens to realize that he has a glaring weak spot in his abilities. And, that from what he could tell, this weakness could best be fixed by learning the ways of a specific sect of clerics. He pursues this, and having previously been agnostic, crosses fingers and starts praising (insert god name here with the appropriate domain needed). In your game, this is not doable? Are you anti dips? Are you anti multiclassing?

If the deities themselves must authorize the use and control the power of each spell cast by the cleric, how would the cleric be able to cast the standard cleric class spells that fall outside of their deity's domain? There was a recent oots comic that laid out specifically the problem with the clerics powers being limited to their deity's whims and abilities.

What if a dishonest, disingenuine character (yes - character, not player) really just wanted to cash in the domain for the respective devotion feat? This is a function specifically explained in 3.5 WotC materials. Not a manipulation of raw, just doing something d&d says you could do... Are the devotional abilities (which are not spells and can be taken by any character as a feat) to be done without the deity's daily blessing? How deep do your house rules go into the d&d 3.5 player dynamics?

I am beginning to wonder if given the degree to which you change the game when you play, if you should continue commenting within the 3.5/PF subforums. I think you would spark far less tangential bickering if you reserved your comments to the home brew section or general role playing sections.... Since that's really what your games are.

If you are going to continue inserting your opinions on how rules and spells, and how clearly defined ranger ex abilities should all be interpretted, at least have the decency to preface your comments with a "Granted, I only play in a highly customized, modified and house rules heavy version of 3.5, but within those games I would think......"

Oh, and stop calling 90% of the members of the forum "cheaters"

[Oddman80]

Um.. if your Gods are Rubber Stamping EVERY spell every priest gets in the morning/dusk/midnight/whatever, why do they even needs to ask for Spell ABXYS&N when my God should know that I WILL needs Spells EFGIJ&M and just give me those? If the God is going to take the time to look over every single spell and go, yep, yep, NO! You can't do THAT! Why not just screw the middle man and shove the "right" spell list in your head?

And seeing as you didn't touch on Psionics I'm guessing you just don't use them?

That's actually a really good point. It sounds more like your just praying for the deity to do the spell more than allowing the cleric to tap their own divine power and do the spell. If the deity is able to choose what spells are ok, and how hard they hit, what is keeping an extremely pious level 1 cleric from praying to his god to allow a level 9 spell because, hey, it would solve the problem, against these totally evil villains. It should be no skin off the deity's back to send the spell down through the cleric... Why have levels?

[jedipotter]

A player has spent his campaign thus far without a god. He happens to realize that he has a glaring weak spot in his abilities. And, that from what he could tell, this weakness could best be fixed by learning the ways of a specific sect of clerics. He pursues this, and having previously been agnostic, crosses fingers and starts praising (insert god name here with the appropriate domain needed). In your game, this is not doable? Are you anti dips? Are you anti multiclassing?

All divine casters must pick a god to serve, I don't do the vague ''you can serve nothing'' in my game.

If the deities themselves must authorize the use and control the power of each spell cast by the cleric, how would the cleric be able to cast the standard cleric class spells that fall outside of their deity's domain? There was a recent oots comic that laid out specifically the problem with the clerics powers being limited to their deity's whims and abilities.

All of a cleric's spellcasting power comes from the deity, so they get to say how that power is used.

What if a dishonest, disingenuine character (yes - character, not player) really just wanted to cash in the domain for the respective devotion feat? This is a function specifically explained in 3.5 WotC materials. Not a manipulation of raw, just doing something d&d says you could do... Are the devotional abilities (which are not spells and can be taken by any character as a feat) to be done without the deity's daily blessing? How deep do your house rules go into the d&d 3.5 player dynamics?

A devotion feat? Don't think I've heard of them. But a god would not nitpick what feats a character picks, as feats don't call upon divine power to work.

Um.. if your Gods are Rubber Stamping EVERY spell every priest gets in the morning/dusk/midnight/whatever, why do they even needs to ask for Spell ABXYS&N when my God should know that I WILL needs Spells EFGIJ&M and just give me those? If the God is going to take the time to look over every single spell and go, yep, yep, NO! You can't do THAT! Why not just screw the middle man and shove the "right" spell list in your head?

And seeing as you didn't touch on Psionics I'm guessing you just don't use them?

No, no, a priest can pray for any spell on the list per normal, it is when the priest goes to cast the spell the god is watching and judging. What happens on the god, but most ''give the cleric enough rope to hang themselves''. In general, a priest is free to act, as a god only cares about some things and not others. But every god wants their priest to promote the faith and follow the gods lead. So if the priest just wants to be an insane murdering loot thief adventurer, the god most likely won't be happy.

Oh, and stop calling 90% of the members of the forum "cheaters"

I'm not sure I ever did? Where did I say that?

[eggynack]

A devotion feat? Don't think I've heard of them. But a god would not nitpick what feats a character picks, as feats don't call upon divine power to work.

You may find them on page 52 of complete champion. They're pretty sweet, especially on a dip, and they sort of do call upon divine power, as they can be fueled by turn undead.

I'm not sure I ever did? Where did I say that?

Not directly, but it's implied. You consider things like bags of holding, spell component pouches, and high quantities of self buffing "cheating", among other things, and so the total list of things you consider "cheating" likely covers 90% of the forum members hereabouts. Might be off by some percentage points, but probably not by all that much. The things on your odd list are pretty common, after all.

[jedipotter]

You may find them on page 52 of complete champion. They're pretty sweet, especially on a dip, and they sort of do call upon divine power, as they can be fueled by turn undead.

Ah, I use little more then the spells out of that book.

Not directly, but it's implied. You consider things like bags of holding, spell component pouches, and high quantities of self buffing "cheating", among other things, and so the total list of things you consider "cheating" likely covers 90% of the forum members hereabouts. Might be off by some percentage points, but probably not by all that much. The things on your odd list are pretty common, after all.

I say they are cheating in my game yes. But that is just my view. Anyone can play the game however they want, it does not bother me at all. And you can't really compare games. One of my famous games was the Green Hunt, where the group took a whole game of six hours to hunt down and kill a single green dragon in a forest very ''Peredtor-like'' style(with even half the PC's dying). Another local game had the ''dozen dragons killed by the over optimized kill squad in like three rounds''. So one of my players would talk about the role playing adventure of trying to kill the dragon, and the player of the other game would talk about how much damage he did with a feat/skill/spell/item combo. It is just different ways to play the game...and does not matter if everyone had fun.

[enderlord99]

I say they are cheating in my game yes. But that is just my view. Anyone can play the game however they want, it does not bother me at all. And you can't really compare games. One of my famous games was the Green Hunt, where the group took a whole game of six hours to hunt down and kill a single green dragon in a forest very ''Peredtor-like'' style(with even half the PC's dying). Another local game had the ''dozen dragons killed by the over optimized kill squad in like three rounds''. So one of my players would talk about the role playing adventure of trying to kill the dragon, and the player of the other game would talk about how much damage he did with a feat/skill/spell/item combo. It is just different ways to play the game...and does not matter if everyone had fun.

So, at first you say a bunch of bigoted, accusatory things (prior posts)...

...Then you suddenly and spontaneously become a reasonable person (quoted post)...

...Are you SKR?!

[13ones]

They way I'd rule this would be that Enchantments generally don't force you to commit an action so egregious to your personal beliefs/nature without a bonus to the save

Spoiler: From dominate person:

Show

"...and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus"

. So I'd rule that willingly drowning themselves by continuing to laugh would give them an instant reroll on their will save with a +2 to stop laughing, and continue to do so every turn.

[Synar]

Notice how he still used extreme exemples, and how he still sort of implied optimizers kill dozens a dragon every three round (either they are using TO and loopholes in the rules, the dragons are newborns, or the dragons are played really, really stupidly, or this is a silly hyperbole [probably all of them]) and can not roleplay.

I would like to call Stromwind fallacy: optimizing does not in anyway hinder roleplaying. One can even optimizes just in roleplaying ends, to be able to be effective at what his character should be effective at, do what he should be able to do, and make an otherwise weak concept viable (so as not to be limited in character concept to those that are powerful from the start).

Also, being able to optimize to different degrees make it unnecessary to use "hardcounters" like the ones jedipotter believes should be used, which actually transform 'roleplaying a bearer of magical might or a cunning trisckter, master of illusions' into 'accounting, the game'.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

So, at first you say a bunch of bigoted, accusatory things (prior posts)...

...Then you suddenly and spontaneously become a reasonable person (quoted post)...

...Are you SKR?!

Shhhhhh

SKR has recently done a 180 with regard to Fighters, please don't jinx it! (I kid you not, SKR is quite different since leaving Paizo).

Also...

Jedipotter,

As a person who plays athiest Clerics in D&D (tons of fun) I really need to know why you believe you should have such dominating control over a player's fluff/PC? You conaider optimizing as cheating... I don't get that. You even seem to think that fluff will break things, fluff that the core system is based around.

Are you afraid that your players may "beat" your schemes or be to crafty for you? Do you see the game all about you and YOUR story?

Heck, do you even have players at all?

Please whenever a new player comes to your game point them to your giantitp posts. This way that can see if they want someone like you as a DM, can see what they are really getting into. Cause at some point that could be me thinking about playing in your game, and I would rather give up the hobby than feed your ego in such a miserable game.

Sincerely,

SpawnOfMorbo

[mashlagoo1982]

My house ruling...

The two spells should interact with one another.

However, since the laughing is uncontrollable, I feel there should be some randomness involved.

So, for my solution, the victim should take their Con modifier and roll a die that is double it (so a +4 Con = 1d8).

Odds start at 50-50. So a lower roll is a fail and higher roll is a success.
If the victim rolls 1-4, they start drowning... if 5-8, they do not start drowning (no modifiers).
This would be to represent forcing air out of the lung (though laughing with 5-8 roll), and inhaling (1-4 roll).

A success in not drowning increases the DC of the roll by 1. So a success on the first roll in the example above would increase the fail to 1-5 and decrease the success to 6-8. Eventually, the victim would be forced to breath in uncontrolled (and thus start drowning) after a max of 4 rounds of successes (based on Con).

Not perfect, but I feel it has the appropriate randomness for uncontrolled laughter that also takes into account Con.

[Killer Angel]

jedi, I know that probably you missed it, but I'm waiting for an answer to this question (wich I'm going to expand).

Nope, and it is one of the great things about my game. Not every spellcaster in the whole multiverse uses the same handfulls of spells like brain dead robots. Each location has it's own flavor of spells, and much of it is based on what materals can be found in that location.

To give an easy example, drow spellcasters don't use very many spells that require surface animals as components. So Jump is not a spell often used by drow as they don't have easy ways to get grasshoppers.

Example 1.
A wizard (with eschew material) lives in a part of the world where bat guano is common, but sulfur (while known) is not.
Fireball is a well known, but rarely used spell, because the cost of the sulfur is not small (and so doesn't fall in the eschew material area).

Our wizard travels in a part of the continent where those two materials, are very common, and have no cost.
Can our wizard cast fireball using eschew material?

Does that feat adapt to the current market rules of the place you're in?

I'm interested in this, because, form a certain pov, it makes a certain internal consistency, but certainly it creates a lot of other problems.

Example 2.
Now, a Sorcerer (with eschew material) lives in a part of the world where there is no bat guano (say, a large Island).
Fireball is a spell unknown by the wizards, but the Player of the sorcerer, says "as my first 3rd lev. spells, I'll pick fireball".
The fluff of the sorcerers is clear: they don't study, magic is raw power that comes out of them naturally; they have no books, no mentor, no theory... they cast spell through innate power, so the "fireball" comes out from nowhere (it flows in the sorc's blood), and the sorcerer doesn't need material component.

If you say "NO, you can't", then why? are you changing the core fluff of the sorcerer? and how?

[Kazudo]

so the "fireball" comes out from nowhere (it flows in the sorc's blood)

Something about fireballs in one's blood just sounds interesting and painful at the same time, just as a side note.

I still think that I'd love to see a thread in which Jedipotter pens out his entire fix of the magic system. If it's good, I may just have to use it albeit with maybe a handful of changes to make it more palatable to my personal D&D table.

[RolkFlameraven]

No, no, a priest can pray for any spell on the list per normal, it is when the priest goes to cast the spell the god is watching and judging. What happens on the god, but most ''give the cleric enough rope to hang themselves''. In general, a priest is free to act, as a god only cares about some things and not others. But every god wants their priest to promote the faith and follow the gods lead. So if the priest just wants to be an insane murdering loot thief adventurer, the god most likely won't be happy.

So Clerics of Cyric would be fine to do anything they want to do? But some Good Gods will just go "yoink" and let a Priest die? And if they do somehow make it out of their alive most likely have one hell of a crises of faith and maybe join a different religion?

Hell, in your games Palleys and some Clerics MUST be Lawful stupid as their god is LAW, so if they jaywalk they fall?

[13ones]

Hoooo boy. I just re-read most of this thread.

Here's the thing about academics, Jedi. If they are researching something, anything, they will order it. It doesn't mater what the material is, what the cost is, what routes they have to take to get it. If an Archmage living on a frozen isle with no natural access to Bat poop and sulfur wants to study how to cast a fireball, he will get in touch with every single contact he knows in order to obtain enough poop and sulfur in order to cast said fireball. What if they don't know that fireball is even a spell? Well that is also the sign of a bad academic. They will import scrolls or spell books in order to study that spell and THEN import the components. Having just spent the better part of 8 years in Post-secondary education I can safely say this holds up everywhere. Professors will order bugs, minerals, texts, tomes, plant life, chemicals, and whatever else just so they can play around with it! And they never just order 'exactly enough for x amount of experiments'. It always seems to be more than they need. I have to agree with other people in that restricting the use of materials in order to try and get some creativity out of your players seems like a surefire way to annoy people.

It also sounds like you once got one of your big bad boss monsters beaten by a 'cheater' (see any decent Arcane or Divine caster) and you're taking it out on anyone who comes after. Here's the thing about Wizards, Clerics, and Druids. With the proper knowledge and spells they are able to fight GODS! This is how the class was designed. They are not Fighters swinging around bits of metal to slash through the air and flesh. They are beings who, on a daily basis, TOY WITH THE FABRIC OF SPACE, TIME, AND REALITY! They are not supposed to be 'fair'. If a wizard wants to stop time to summon a dozen monsters and cast haste and then maybe conjure an illusion of a giant flaming penis (because why not?) he can do that! That is the way his class works. This was how he is designed. Wizards and Sorcerers are supposed to be these clever bastards who constantly find ways to break the laws of reality to better suit their situation. They are supposed to be the ones constantly making life difficult for the GM and require a little more creativity on how to challenge them! If you put as much thought into your encounters as you have into hobbling some of the more enjoyable classes you could almost be a decent DM!

I know your counter argument. "It's my game, and this is how things work." And you know what, kudos to you for finding players willing to subject themselves to it. I, personally, wouldn't get within close range of one of your games.


(sorry if this is a bit ranty. I REALLY love Arcane casters and to see someone destroying them so totally for the sake of their ego/convenience/narrow-mindedness really rubs my rhubarb the wrong way)

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I know your counter argument. "It's my game, and this is how things work." And you know what, kudos to you for finding players willing to subject themselves to it. I, personally, wouldn't get within close range of one of your games.


(sorry if this is a bit ranty. I REALLY love Arcane casters and to see someone destroying them so totally for the sake of their ego/convenience/narrow-mindedness really rubs my rhubarb the wrong way)

This quality you point out is the worst quality of any DM. You can have fun with almost any type of DM but this is the worst.

Because everything at the table is about the DM saying "me me me me me" like a spoiled little brat. Well you know what, there are other people at the table and it isn't about the DM or any one player. It is about all the people who sat down to play D&D. I actually hate the term Dungeon Master and Rule 0, they help breed the sense of superiority that infects way to many DMs. There comes a time you need to check your ego, and when running a game as a DM that is before you even decide to be a DM.

I've seen the game lose to many players because of stuff like this. It is a sad day when the hobby looses a player because a DM can't check their ego.

[mashlagoo1982]

One of the best gauges for determining how "successful" a caster is would be the number of smiles you see on your players.
This isn't always the most accurate (can't give the players everything they want), but it is a good general rule to follow.

I am very fortunate to have a good player for the arcane caster of the game I DM.

He has been able to sense the general mood of the players and act accordingly.

[Deophaun]

He is the one saying ''there would be magic components trade'' and ''everyone can get every material component everywhere''. I'm the one that says that would not happen.

And see, right here: The options in your universe are "No trade" or "WAL-MAGIC-MART!" Boci didn't do that. You did. It's ridiculous.

[Kantolin]

Is it utterly impossible for a drow wizard to get his hands on a grasshopper, no. Is it common to find drow with out spells that need surface components, yes.

I'm actually curious now. Do you have a list of regions and then acceptable spells for said region?

As that could be interesting in and of itself. After all, the particular problem-spell listed seems to be fireball, so it's not 'Powerful spells need to be carefully limited'. It then doesn't seem to be split by school or necessarily the difficulty of obtaining said resources. But you are playing with a bunch of horrible monsters that you hate, so they'll probably try to shenanigans out things.

So well... uh, what spells would be acceptable to, say, a drow? Or well, your average half-elven wizard/sorceror from a mostly-elven area?

If it varies a lot, then any one common-for-PCs area will do; I'm really just curious about the list of 'these are the acceptable spells'.

Or is it more that if someone wants to play a sorceror in one of your games, they have to present you a list of spells and their components and you inform them of where they're from or that they cannot do that or sommat? I originally though it was more of, "You prepared fireball? Well surprise - you cannot cast fireball, ever! Mwahaha!" But now it's apparently more of "Your character doesn't know what fireball is." So presumably they can't even have fireball (for eschew materials purposes) if they're not from a fireball-is-common area?

[jedipotter]

Example 1.
A wizard (with eschew material) lives in a part of the world where bat guano is common, but sulfur (while known) is not.
Fireball is a well known, but rarely used spell, because the cost of the sulfur is not small (and so doesn't fall in the eschew material area).

Our wizard travels in a part of the continent where those two materials, are very common, and have no cost.
Can our wizard cast fireball using eschew material?

Does that feat adapt to the current market rules of the place you're in?

I'm interested in this, because, form a certain pov, it makes a certain internal consistency, but certainly it creates a lot of other problems.

Well, eschew materials lets the wizard cast fireball with no materal componets needed. So a wizard with that feat can cast fireball even if they have no sulfur. That is what the feat does. No matter where the wizard travels, the feat still works.

Note my house rule is ''all creature parts except thoes of the animal type have a cost of more then one gold''. Bats are animals.

Example 2.
Now, a Sorcerer (with eschew material) lives in a part of the world where there is no bat guano (say, a large Island).
Fireball is a spell unknown by the wizards, but the Player of the sorcerer, says "as my first 3rd lev. spells, I'll pick fireball".
The fluff of the sorcerers is clear: they don't study, magic is raw power that comes out of them naturally; they have no books, no mentor, no theory... they cast spell through innate power, so the "fireball" comes out from nowhere (it flows in the sorc's blood), and the sorcerer doesn't need material component.

If you say "NO, you can't", then why? are you changing the core fluff of the sorcerer? and how?

I know we would not agree on the sorcerer fluff and the PH is a mess anyway, but it does not matter much. A sorcerer can pick a spell just fine, and if they have eschew materials, and it has common components, they can just cast away.

Now a sorcerer that does not have eschew materials, has to have the needed materal components. So, no, a sorcerer living in the land of no bats, could not pick or cast fireball....at least not by the ''level pick rule''. The character could still learn the spell in other ways, but they would still need the materal components to cast the spell.

This is not any change to the rules as a sorcerer, even with ''magic blood'' can't cast a spell like secret chest or any spell that has an expensive component. I just expand the rule.

[papr_weezl8472]

Also, "cheater", you keep using that word. I'm not sure it means what you think it means.

You seem to have a problem whereby you lay out two relatively extremist views: yours and the polar opposite of yours, and then assume anyone who doesn't follow yours must be advocating the polar opposite, rather than something between those two.

This seems to sum up pretty much the entire thread.

[Boci]

I know we would not agree on the sorcerer fluff and the PH is a mess anyway, but it does not matter much. A sorcerer can pick a spell just fine, and if they have eschew materials, and it has common components, they can just cast away.

Now a sorcerer that does not have eschew materials, has to have the needed materal components. So, no, a sorcerer living in the land of no bats, could not pick or cast fireball....at least not by the ''level pick rule''. The character could still learn the spell in other ways, but they would still need the materal components to cast the spell.

This is not any change to the rules as a sorcerer, even with ''magic blood'' can't cast a spell like secret chest or any spell that has an expensive component. I just expand the rule.

And yet the sorcerer can cast burning hands and scorching ray, as well as potentially flaming sphere, energy subed cone of cold (fire), wall of fire and fire shield to name but a few.

By focusing more attention on material components, it just seems you are just highlighting how arbitrary and naff they are.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Has there been any explanation on why a Wizard couldn't just find a new way to cast the same spell? There are spell creation rules after all, you could make a Fireball Spell that needs only a blade of grass (for ignition fuel) as a material component.

Screwing players over based on what comes down to fluff is pretty messed up.

[137beth]

Shhhhhh

SKR has recently done a 180 with regard to Fighters, please don't jinx it! (I kid you not, SKR is quite different since leaving Paizo).

Jedipotter is...TIME TRAVELING SKR!

He's traveled several months into the future, to confuse supporters of post-epiphany SKR! But wait, going by the epic spell rules, time traveling more than five rounds is...cheating

[Kazudo]

I have in one instance or other ruled that Eschew Materials doesn't simply negate the material component outright, but that your character has learned how to MacGuyver things into working anyway. If your character doesn't have sulphur for example, he takes a bit of the lining from his padded shirt (no real mechanical difference made, maybe 1 point of HP from his clothing if we even track object hardness/HP per thickness rules) and uses that instead. He's just that good. Basically it takes this sentence:

To cast a spell with a material (M), focus (F), or divine focus (DF) component, you have to have the proper materials, as described by the spell. Unless these materials are elaborate preparing these materials is a free action. For material components and focuses whose costs are not listed, you can assume that you have them if you have your spell component pouch.

And removes the phrase "If you have your spell component pouch". So it's not that there's no spell component needed, it's that you've always got something nearby that you can, as a free action while casting, pull. Maybe a hair from your head, a thread from your shirt, a bit of metal dust from your chainmail, some mud on your shoe, whatever. You've got something you can use for it.

Mechanically it doesn't really make a difference in-game, it's all about the fluff of the feat. I haven't done it in a while, and in most games Eschew works exactly as you'd think: Your character has learned how to cast spells in such a way that most forms of material component just aren't necessary.