A crazy idea; but does it work?

[Inevitability]

I have always liked the idea of the PC's starting off with almost no equipment, overcoming their first encounter with great difficulty, then slowly gaining equipment from slain foes and the occasional treasure chest.

This, however, comes with an obvious problem. What about spell components? Would it be too harsh if a spellcaster wanting to cast, say, Grease had to find a way to get some pork rind or butter himself?

[Troacctid]

Kill an enemy spellcaster and take their component pouch.

[OldTrees1]

Having to scavenge for components would be quite harsh, however some players might fight for the opportunity to try the challenge. Ask your players first.

[FocusWolf413]

It seems like it could be fun, but definitely make sure to talk to your players. Throw a couple low level magic users in there to provide the pouches and books. Perhaps you could allow people to, within reason, retrain their first level after they get some items or reach their second level. For example, a rogue could become a beguiler or bard, a paladin could become a cleric, a ranger could become a druid, or a spellthief could become a sorcerer or wizard.

[sleepyphoenixx]

There are plenty of spells without components. The obvious thing to do when you don't have a component pouch is to prepare those.
So what if your favorite spell needs a component you don't have? Life isn't fair and the fighter would prefer having his armor too. It's part of the game. You'll get one soon enough after all.

[Inevitability]

Kill an enemy spellcaster and take their component pouch.

The game in question would be in a megadungeon-y setting with only a few settlements, so enemy spellcasters will have to cope with the same difficulties as the players.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The game in question would be in a megadungeon-y setting with only a few settlements, so enemy spellcasters will have to cope with the same difficulties as the players.

Making it an ongoing problem (as in, SCP's aren't available at all) will just make every caster take Eschew Materials, turning your attempt at flavor into a feat tax for casters.
Because while most players will put up with it for a session or two going the whole campaign without (reliable) access to most of your spells is quite another story.

[Troacctid]

Spell components are designed under an expectation that they will be readily available from a component pouch. The designers put in a lot of odd and esoteric components that would be difficult or impossible to scavenge because it wasn't their intent for players to have to actually scavenge for them--the components themselves are purely for flavor. Forcing the use of actual components without a pouch would not result in good gameplay.

If this is something you want to try for gameplay reasons, I would instead put together a system of interchangeable components, like runes. If you just want components to be rare in your setting for story reasons, then simply replace component pouches with arcane focuses and mission accomplished.

[WhamBamSam]

Assuming "it all starts in a tavern" or what have you, a first level wizard should be able to go and acquire what they need to get through enough encounters to buy a spell component pouch. The only big name 1st level wizard spell that's hard to get the supplies for in Generic Fantasy Hamlet #3567 is Color Spray, which requires three different colors of sand.

Just being dropped in the middle of nowhere with naught but your spellbook and the enemies bearing down upon you is something of another matter, though there are still a number of good spells that have relatively easy or non-existent material components (ex. Sleep, Benign Transposition, Nerveskitter, Charm Person/Hypnotism).

It's always worth asking your players about this sort of thing, but I think the wizard should be able to manage alright. He's probably better off than a Fighter who has to swing around a large stick while not wearing armor, though pretty much everyone is worse off than the Druid whose riding dog simply does not care and just needs to get hold of a divine focus for spellcasting.

It might be worth explaining what you mean by "almost no equipment," so we know what the wizard who presumably has a spellbook, a robe, and nothing else, is being compared to.

[atemu1234]

Give players eschew materials as a bonus feat; problem solved.

[Tragak]

I think it could be fun to try something like that, but I only know that because you asked. You need to know if your players think it would be fun to try.

[Blackhawk748]

Id be all for that, but thats me. Ill just echo whats been said several times and say ask your players. Also im sensing prison break for a first adventure.

Also i like the Rune idea instead of components.

[jedipotter]

IThis, however, comes with an obvious problem. What about spell components? Would it be too harsh if a spellcaster wanting to cast, say, Grease had to find a way to get some pork rind or butter himself?

It's not too harsh. I do this all the time. A spell component pouch is often the third thing a spellcaster losses in a game, after a mount and their spellbook.

A spellcaster running around, desperately trying to find some spell components can be quite fun. Though it's not for everyone.

Spoiler: Example

Show

Sally once had the gnome Perwinkell Faerybottom. And the group was caught and enslaved....in Thay. So Per had no spell components or spellbook. So it was a mad dash across the farm lands of Thay, trying to get to the border. And Per grabbing everything she could to cast a spell. Liker her running into a hen house, followed by orcs, as she desperate looked for a rotten egg. She found one and cast Stinking cloud..just in time.

[ericgrau]

Many of the material components could be found as random items on foes. Remember the basic concerns we usually ignore like food, water, hygiene and interior decorating and more components could appear. Unlocking power could be a lot of fun as long as you don't make it too hard. I'd start the party at at least level 3 and of course use low CR foes to start. That will keep mages from being one shotted before they find a pinch of sand. In fact in addition to the random components through excessively fleshing out rooms, you could roll up 10 random spells and intentionally leave easter egg components for the players to find. An hourglass for sand, etc. Maybe they won't match the player's current spells, but he may find or research more spells too. You might also list out the material components behind your DM screen and make it a spellcraft DC of 20 + spell level secret roll to recognize a potential material component for a spell you don't have. And players might start tearing off random bits of everything they see, useful or not, adventure game style. Just tell them to keep a list and don't spend more than a sentence describing what they do.

The player may want spell mastery too, or start the game with some spells memorized so that he has to choose what he wants to save for writing down later or hope that he finds a new spellbook.

And then throw them a caster with a spell component pouch and possibly a spellbook and move on. Or provide parchment suitable for scribing such as a well made blank book like a fancy diary with unused pages remaining. And determine what special inks are made out of. Maybe it's powdered obsidian and oil. Do tell the caster what he's looking for; he should know. Also you can grind obsidian with a hammer and a lot of patience. It's volcanic glass. A pestle and mortar may help with grinding many things too. It's basically a rod-rock and a bowl-rock. It would be found in a kitchen next to the spices. Or in an alchemist's lab.

Likewise I think other players may have fun going from bare fisted to gear, rationing out everything they find, improvising weapons, etc. I'd discourage weapon specific feats though because it's a bit heavy handed to say, "Gee, you guys find a monster with a spiked chain." Unless the player picks super common weapons like longsword, greatsword, dagger, quarterstaff, etc.

[Arbane]

{scrubbed}

[Blackhawk748]

{scrubbed}

[Lord of Shadows]

Our group started out one time as related family who all lived on neighboring farms. We had brothers, sisters, and cousins mostly. Might have been a hired man in there too. Anyway, life out in the country was pretty hard as it was, and then one night a raiding party of Goblins shows up, setting fire to everything. It's amazing how many weapons one can find on a farm when one needs to. We defeated the Goblins, but of course the farms were burned to the ground and all the senior relatives were killed. I bet we were a sight the next morning, striking off in search of fame, fortune, and a good meal. Carrying our woodsman's axes and pitchforks, with all we could salvage packed onto a farm wagon pulled by two draft horses. Ahh, such meager beginnings..

For spell components, we initially were able to make do with "close replacements." Plus I believe one of the Goblins had a spell component pouch, of a sort. And our "caster" was more of a herb and tonic sort to start with. We didn't really get too far into spellcasting until we reached a greater area of civilization.

[Arbane]

{scrubbed}

Semi-seriously, if the person who plays a spellcaster WANTS to have an uphill scramble to use their only ability, they'll have fun with this. If not, they'll either play a Sorcerer with Eschew Materials and ignore it, or HATE IT.

[Blackhawk748]

Our group started out one time as related family who all lived on neighboring farms. We had brothers, sisters, and cousins mostly. Might have been a hired man in there too. Anyway, life out in the country was pretty hard as it was, and then one night a raiding party of Goblins shows up, setting fire to everything. It's amazing how many weapons one can find on a farm when one needs to. We defeated the Goblins, but of course the farms were burned to the ground and all the senior relatives were killed. I bet we were a sight the next morning, striking off in search of fame, fortune, and a good meal. Carrying our woodsman's axes and pitchforks, with all we could salvage packed onto a farm wagon pulled by two draft horses. Ahh, such meager beginnings..

For spell components, we initially were able to make do with "close replacements." Plus I believe one of the Goblins had a spell component pouch, of a sort. And our "caster" was more of a herb and tonic sort to start with. We didn't really get too far into spellcasting until we reached a greater area of civilization.

Thats sounds like one of the best lvl 0 starter quests ever.

[ericgrau]

I missed the part about it being hard to find material components forever.

Making it an ongoing problem (as in, SCP's aren't available at all) will just make every caster take Eschew Materials, turning your attempt at flavor into a feat tax for casters.
Because while most players will put up with it for a session or two going the whole campaign without (reliable) access to most of your spells is quite another story.

Pretty much.

Megadungeons are also less interesting in that they tend to have less components without it being contrived. Unlike a hideout or some such, which is more likely to have random items. So this pretty much turns the whole thing into find caster, kill caster, take spellbook, take the eschew material components feat.

Unlocking power is fun (as long is it isn't frustratingly hard). Being forever restricted not so much fun.

[jedipotter]

Semi-seriously, if the person who plays a spellcaster WANTS to have an uphill scramble to use their only ability, they'll have fun with this. If not, they'll either play a Sorcerer with Eschew Materials and ignore it, or HATE IT.

It's not for everyone.

If your the type of player that likes spamming Celerity or abusing the poorly written Kobold Relic the Enveloping Pit or just like to sit back and solve any problem with your character causally casting a spell, then your best off to just ignore spell components.

And also causal gamers, they don't even want to keep track of what spell they have memorized, let along ''hard'' things like spell components.

And plenty of players of a spellcaster will just give up. They won't even try. Take way the spell components and they will say ''I want to play another character''.

You could always ask about it before the game. I don't recommend doing this, but you still could.

[Arbane]

You could always ask about it before the game. I don't recommend doing this, but you still could.

Thank you for summing up everything I dislike about your GMing style in two sentences.

[Flickerdart]

It's so much fun when players find out that when they took time out of their lives to go somewhere they wouldn't normally go, instead of having fun with friends they instead have to slog through dank dungeon rooms looking for bat poop.

[Blackhawk748]

It's so much fun when players find out that when they took time out of their lives to go somewhere they wouldn't normally go, instead of having fun with friends they instead have to slog through dank dungeon rooms looking for bat poop.

Not if you have a bat familiar

[eggynack]

{scrubbed} In summary though, with the points pertinent to this situation, it tends to turn campaigns into an inventory management quest for the caster, requiring even more book keeping and thing memorization for casters than you did before. That doesn't seem like your goal in instituting the rule, so I'd avoid it.

Instead, you could just give casters pouches as standard equipment, which makes sense, you could ditch them and give everyone eschew material components for free, which also makes sense, or you could do as Troacctid mentioned in this thread, and as Larkas mentioned in the old thread, and revamp the component system to make it more amenable to seeking components out. Troacctid mentioned runes, and Larkas mentioned crystal shards (a system that other users and I detailed a bit in that thread, and some more in this thread, if you're interested), but what you're looking for is something that is easier to handle than the current system. You want to cut down on both the micromanagement and memory/searching issues, which means tossing spells into easy to remember categories and making there be only a few components that are relatively easy to collect. The details are up to you, but what you don't want is the players having to search through a bat infested cave every time they want to throw a fireball. It's just onerous.

[jedipotter]

Well, this seems to be quickly becoming a Jedipotter thread, I would advise reading it for anyone planning to do this, because it lists the points against pretty well. In summary though, with the points pertinent to this situation, it tends to turn campaigns into an inventory management quest for the caster, requiring even more book keeping and thing memorization for casters than you did before. That doesn't seem like your goal in instituting the rule, so I'd avoid it.

It's not as bad as all that.

It never hurts to figure out.....or ask.....the players what they think is fun. Some players think ''nitty gritty down to Earth tough uphill battles '' are fun. Some players only think fun is ''easy pure escapism fantasy where everything goes my way''. And all types of ''fun'' in-between.

Movies are a good sign post. If they like Die Hard, where John gets beat up like crazy and has few weapons, they are more likely on the side of ''losing spell components is fun and exciting''. If they like The Matrix, where Neo is the most powerful demigod in the whole universe, they are more likely to think ''losing spell components would be no fun.''

And it's easy to stop the game from becoming ''the Quest for Spell Components''. Just tell the players they can't do that. And, on with the game.....

[Flickerdart]

Not if you have a bat familiar

Roll for bat poop. You got a 1? Your bat poops out Orcus.

And it's easy to stop the game from becoming ''the Quest for Spell Components''. Just tell the players they can't do that. And, on with the game.....

"Look guys, I know I told you that you had to go looking for spell components in order to cast spells, but actually I don't want you to do that either. In fact if you just stop doing everything and let me tell my story, things should go a lot smoother."

[Honest Tiefling]

I think the idea of a more general spell components would be compelling for a mega-dungeon. You cannot just toss out spells willy-nilly, and suddenly attacking spellcasters might become a lot more attractive. But then you don't have to worry about attacking the wrong type of spellcaster, or choosing your spells based on what you might find vs. what the party will benefit from and find interesting.

Like food, I've never seen a group track more then generic rations. No one I've played with has given out scurvy or hypervitaminosis A if they didn't have a balanced diet. So I'd pitch this idea to interested people with that concept in mind.

[eggynack]

It never hurts to figure out.....or ask.....the players what they think is fun. Some players think ''nitty gritty down to Earth tough uphill battles '' are fun. Some players only think fun is ''easy pure escapism fantasy where everything goes my way''. And all types of ''fun'' in-between.

The issue is that spell component limitation isn't really nitty gritty or down to earth. It's just inventory management. It's a system where you have to continually cross reference desired spells with local availability, doing continual busy work

Movies are a good sign post. If they like Die Hard, where John gets beat up like crazy and has few weapons, they are more likely on the side of ''losing spell components is fun and exciting''. If they like The Matrix, where Neo is the most powerful demigod in the whole universe, they are more likely to think ''losing spell components would be no fun.''

See, that's the thing. At no point in Die Hard do I recall him spending long tedious minutes sorting through his inventory, trying to determine how it specifically matches up against a situation, and then searching around for arbitrary things. Yes, he has to get by with less consistently, repurposing and such, but you don't really watch the long boring minutes spent doing that, especially because there isn't really any improvisation to spell components. It's rare that you'll come across a situation where you can combine arbitrary stuff to make bat guano, after all. If you could, that'd at least be a bit more interesting. As is, it's a lot less, "Hmm, what can I do with some sheep fleece and a length of wire," and more, "So, I have 13 of this component, 5 of this component, 2 of that component, hmm, better get more of that one, 7 of this component, oh jeez, none of this component, I guess that spell's off limits..." and on and on.

And it's easy to stop the game from becoming ''the Quest for Spell Components''. Just tell the players they can't do that. And, on with the game.....

As was mentioned in the other thread, that's just silly. You're constructing a situation where this is the thing people need to do, and then getting annoyed when they do that thing. Yeah, if they're inches away from a dragon and want to head back for components, then that might be a reasonable limitation (and one you've specifically mentioned), but if you're in a town and the player wants to spend long periods of time seeking out spell components, limiting them in that fashion is absurd.

[WhamBamSam]

It's not for everyone.

If your the type of player that likes spamming Celerity or abusing the poorly written Kobold Relic the Enveloping Pit or just like to sit back and solve any problem with your character causally casting a spell, then your best off to just ignore spell components.

And also causal gamers, they don't even want to keep track of what spell they have memorized, let along ''hard'' things like spell components.

And plenty of players of a spellcaster will just give up. They won't even try. Take way the spell components and they will say ''I want to play another character''.

You could always ask about it before the game. I don't recommend doing this, but you still could.

{scrubbed}

I don't understand your fascination with the Enveloping Pit. I've never, ever, seen anyone try to use it as a Bag of Holding. Also, I get the impression that most (or at least a good chunk) of the games where Celerity spamming happens are games where you don't survive without spamming it. Plenty of people, even on this board, ban Celerity, and plenty of people want to play games where you use Celerity (or whatever) not because you want to play on easy mode, but because you want to play at a difficulty where you need that sort of power to keep up.

The game was designed around the assumption that you would keep track of the spells you prepared each day. It was not based around the assumption that players would have to keep track of material components. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was based on the assumption that material components without listed prices were contained in every spell component pouch and not something with which players need concern themselves. There is no comparison between the two. None.

As I said earlier in the thread, it's not that bad to slog through a few encounters under these limitations, but forcing players to manage spell components in perpetuity the way you're trying to hijack this thread to suggest is just flat out unacceptable.

It's not as bad as all that.

It never hurts to figure out.....or ask.....the players what they think is fun. Some players think ''nitty gritty down to Earth tough uphill battles '' are fun. Some players only think fun is ''easy pure escapism fantasy where everything goes my way''. And all types of ''fun'' in-between.

Movies are a good sign post. If they like Die Hard, where John gets beat up like crazy and has few weapons, they are more likely on the side of ''losing spell components is fun and exciting''. If they like The Matrix, where Neo is the most powerful demigod in the whole universe, they are more likely to think ''losing spell components would be no fun.''

And it's easy to stop the game from becoming ''the Quest for Spell Components''. Just tell the players they can't do that. And, on with the game.....

You can fight uphill battles without being denied the ability to do anything. There are a lot of Die Hard movies, but to my knowledge, John McClane has not yet pulled the trigger only to have Orcus come out of his gun and eat him. Though that might not be the worst way to finally end the franchise.