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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 3:09PM
#1
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So my only problem with the vanician system is that you forget the spell after you use it and have to choose them at the beginning of the day. Instead I propose that you should simply know all spells that you learn (To distinguish Sorcerors and Wizards, Sorcerors can be limited to basic cantrips and spells on a list depending on their bloodline).
Then instead of having a number of spells per day you have you have a certain number of points (Mana or MAgicka or Spell Points whatever WoTC likes) where basic spells such as cantrips and magic missile would be the at-will/0 cost spells and then above that spells would have a cost based on their level. Also the caster would need to have a certain class level to use higher level spells since if a lvl 1 wizard tried to sunder the earth he/she would more likely kill themselves then move even a pebble.
I believe that this system could provide some common ground between the groups
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 4:13PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Sep 21, 2006
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That eliminates basically all that makes Vancian Vancian, so I don't think it will be too popular with the pro-Vancian side. It also keeps everything on a daily clock which is one of the main complaints against the Vancian side. It's essentially 3.x era psionics.
Several people have suggested a spell-point option, and it seems to be generally popular enough as an option that people would like WotC to have spellpoint casters exist in some form.
My own suggestion would be to instead have Vancian casters mimic Jack Vance's work a little more closely. Drop the daily limit, have a small limit (around 6 at max level) of spells memorized at any time, and be able to spend time (like a short rest) to drop unused spells and fill empty slots. So rather than X spells per day, you would be able to cast Y spells per encounter. When you stop to rest for a few minutes, you can both replenish your spells and swap out for new ones, meaning you can choose based on new information. (Playing mostly RPGA games, it was always rare for me to have a chance for wizards to change spells during a play session, meaning they couldn't possibly have any of the clues to what they will be facing until it's too late to change spells. Unless they used the often overlooked option of leaving open slots to fill during the day, but even then time pressure often limited that option.)
If the powers need to be tied to the daily clock in some fashion they can have a limit to how many times they can re-prepare, or have it cost HD or something, but I don't see this as necessary if the powerlevel is tuned right and spells with too much out-of-combat utility are kept to rituals.
Giving a bunch of refillable encounter powers makes it true to the source and gives them the versatility of old (maybe more?) without being unbalanceable by nature are creating 5 MWD. But it also loses some of the daily level resource-management that attracts a certain segment of the D&D playing population to Vancian.
Does that suit your needs for the system?
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 4:19PM
#3
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Date Joined:
May 18, 2002
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Just have multiple subsystems which can be plugged into any caster.
- Fire & Forget Guy (Vancian) would probably have more daily/encounter spells and infinite overall spell access
- Spontaneous Guy (Sorcerer/5E Cleric) would have fewer daily/encounter spells, maybe some cap on access
- Points Guy (Psionicist) would probably have even fewer, probably a cap on access?
- AEDU Guy (4E) would have, what, six spells total? (I don't remember)
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 4:21PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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That eliminates basically all that makes Vancian Vancian, so I don't think it will be too popular with the pro-Vancian side. It also keeps everything on a daily clock which is one of the main complaints against the Vancian side. It's essentially 3.x era psionics.
Several people have suggested a spell-point option, and it seems to be generally popular enough as an option that people would like WotC to have spellpoint casters exist in some form.
My own suggestion would be to instead have Vancian casters mimic Jack Vance's work a little more closely. Drop the daily limit, have a small limit (around 6 at max level) of spells memorized at any time, and be able to spend time (like a short rest) to drop unused spells and fill empty slots. So rather than X spells per day, you would be able to cast Y spells per encounter. When you stop to rest for a few minutes, you can both replenish your spells and swap out for new ones, meaning you can choose based on new information. (Playing mostly RPGA games, it was always rare for me to have a chance for wizards to change spells during a play session, meaning they couldn't possibly have any of the clues to what they will be facing until it's too late to change spells. Unless they used the often overlooked option of leaving open slots to fill during the day, but even then time pressure often limited that option.)
If the powers need to be tied to the daily clock in some fashion they can have a limit to how many times they can re-prepare, or have it cost HD or something, but I don't see this as necessary if the powerlevel is tuned right and spells with too much out-of-combat utility are kept to rituals.
Giving a bunch of refillable encounter powers makes it true to the source and gives them the versatility of old (maybe more?) without being unbalanceable by nature are creating 5 MWD. But it also loses some of the daily level resource-management that attracts a certain segment of the D&D playing population to Vancian.
Does that suit your needs for the system?
The thing I like about the True Vancian technique is that it ought to be very balanceable witha fighting man using a fatigue based system.
The main problem is potentially huge numbers of utilities - keep that spell list under serious control dude.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 4:24PM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2012
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I'd drop the limit to maybe 2-3 spells at a time (in addition to at-wills that are equivalent to basic attacks), but the per-encounter-Vancian idea sounds great to me. As long as we're keeping rituals off in their own separate thing, the primary distinction between Vancian and non-Vancian should be that Vancian requires you to set your spells (from a large list) before the encounter starts, while non-Vancian always has access to any spells known (but from a much smaller list).
The metagame is not the game.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 4:32PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Oct 17, 2007
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I'd drop the limit to maybe 2-3 spells at a time (in addition to at-wills that are equivalent to basic attacks), but the per-encounter-Vancian idea sounds great to me. As long as we're keeping rituals off in their own separate thing, the primary distinction between Vancian and non-Vancian should be that Vancian requires you to set your spells (from a large list) before the encounter starts, while non-Vancian always has access to any spells known (but from a much smaller list).
I do like the sound of this.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 4:41PM
#7
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While it's an interesting solution, I don't know that it will really help those whole love 4e. I can't speak for every 4e player (nor would I want to), but the primary complaint about pre-4e was unbalanced casters: 1) casters were better the shorter the day 2) casters often had many utility spells, allowing them to be flexible 3) vague wording and "it's magic" lead to mages being held to a lower standard of simulation than fighters (for all those who say jumping over a 15 ft pit isn't "realistic", I say "casting a fireball in a cave when you're an oxygen breather" isn't realistic) 4) Spells were interesting and fun, so spell casters tended to get 1/2 the pages in PHB, and bonuses in many suppliments. This felt overly generous compared to other classes.
I'm not sure how your solution fixes any of those. Am I missing something?
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 8:33PM
#8
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That eliminates basically all that makes Vancian Vancian, so I don't think it will be too popular with the pro-Vancian side. It also keeps everything on a daily clock which is one of the main complaints against the Vancian side. It's essentially 3.x era psionics.
Several people have suggested a spell-point option, and it seems to be generally popular enough as an option that people would like WotC to have spellpoint casters exist in some form.
That's true. Also, spell points was kindof the default method of fixing vancian (for those who didn't care for vancian) back when I was playing AD&D 2e. It's very easy to convert vancian into spell points instead. If they don't include this in the modules in the PHB, it's going to be a bad sign for the modularity that they're touting.
Why Mechanics-Alignment Integration is Bad
Show
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
Mecha Pilot's Skill Challenge Emporium.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 11:12PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Nov 27, 2006
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While it's an interesting solution, I don't know that it will really help those whole love 4e. I can't speak for every 4e player (nor would I want to), but the primary complaint about pre-4e was unbalanced casters: 1) casters were better the shorter the day 2) casters often had many utility spells, allowing them to be flexible 3) vague wording and "it's magic" lead to mages being held to a lower standard of simulation than fighters (for all those who say jumping over a 15 ft pit isn't "realistic", I say "casting a fireball in a cave when you're an oxygen breather" isn't realistic) 4) Spells were interesting and fun, so spell casters tended to get 1/2 the pages in PHB, and bonuses in many suppliments. This felt overly generous compared to other classes.
Well, there's a really easy way to fix that. You simply make a system where the caster has to pass a spellcasting check to cast a spell. The DC & effects etc increase with the lv of the spell. The spells themselves? Maybe provide a few examples & guidelines, but otherwise they aren't actually detailed. So the caster & the DM HAVE to work together. Very improvisational....
Puts them very even with the fighter who generally has to improv if hitting a target doesn't suffice.
But really, can you see giving such an open ended system to people who are so stupid as to argue that "2) casters often had many utility spells, allowing them to be flexible" is a BAD thing?
No.
So we get to play with a list of pre-written spells. And people STILL can't handle it.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 11:32PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2004
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^ 5th edition Talislanta has a system like you describe. You can get a free download at talislanta.com
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