a wizard says what?

[Gez]

Jack Vance wrote a series of novels titled the The Dying Earth series. In those novels, wizards memorized their spells out of spell books and forget them after casting them. It's the direct inspiration for the standard D&D style of spell casting. Hence, most people call that particular style of spell casting "Vancian spell casting".

Terry Pratchett parodied that in Discworld, where wizards learn and cast spells in the same way -- except that memorizing a spell takes several years. (Well, not all spells, actually. Some, you may even memorize them in just a brief glance, and against your will.)

 

[Turanil]

what method do you use/prefer?

I prefer Arcana Evolved's method the best.

 

[gizmo33]

I used to use rules where you prepared a long list of spells and cast your daily allotment from that - a bit of a hybrid between spell point and Vancian.

(Vancian refers to the wizards in Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" series. I'm sure wiki has something on it.)

 

[WayneLigon]

are there any other groups who use other methods?

At various times in 1E and 2E we used the following:

Spell points: Your Intelligence plus a set # per level = the number of spell points you had. Spells cost 1 spell point per level they were. And about a million different variations on that theme.

Spell Law from Rolemaster.

All spells are Spontaneous for divine casters.

Spells like in Call of Cthulhu; you had a Power score (3-18+), and spells cost a set amount of that. Damage was usually 1 power point = 1 point of damage. You resisted spells with via Power vs Power checks, so the wizard who used the least amount of power had the better chance of resisting spells thrown at him.

 

[funkysnunkulator]

actualy, i already have read this term here, but have never asked!
well, i play 2ed, and now im trying to get back to od&d.

so, my wizards dont hahe to pre-select the spell they wanna use. in the momment they are going to cast the spell, the player look at his sheet and tells me what he wanna cast, thenm this count on how many spells he can cast.

by doing this, the players have the feeling that theys mages are more usefull and alittle more independent..(this is my players opinion)

sounds something like spontaneous casting. they have to learn spells, but once learned they are learned. no need to prepare, just cast the appropriate level slot.

often use that method. in our game we have different kinds of casting, but magic is magic. the effect is always very similar (there are a few differences to warrent selecting one class or another).

 

[funkysnunkulator]

I prefer Arcana Evolved's method the best.

what do you like best about it?

oh yeah, and thanks everyone for responding!!! enjoying your posts immensely.

 

[funkysnunkulator]

as far as spell points go, we use something a bit different.

first, spell law. yeah. we use spell lists, or rather something like them. any given spell has different magnitudes.

as far as the points, we have mystical stats that help determine spell points available. these indicate the characters strength in magic.

levels help determine spells actually known, points determine how much casting the character can actually do.

now. a major difference here..... vancian casting exists in our games, we call this ritual magic. it is generally more potent than spell magic (the point stuff). however it is correspondingly more difficult to use. takes more time, components, etc. also less backlash. think witches and warlocks (classic representation), only not necessarily evil.

also, to a limited degree, one type of caster can learn and employ the other method.

but there are doubtless other methods.

any more thoughts??

 

[Megatron]

if i'm playing 3.5....

Magic Dice+WIS
HP	MP
d4	d12
d6	d10
d8	d8
d10	d6
d12	d4

MP instead of slots
Spell Level - Cost
0	1
1	2
2	3
3	4
4	5
5	6
6	7
7	8
8	9
9	10

x/day abilities
At Will = 1 MP
3/day = 2 MP
2/day = 3 MP
1/day = 4 MP
MP regens at 1/minute

Spending more MP in a round than your Constitution modifier requires a save vs Mana Poisoning.

 

[Lanefan]

At various times in 1E and 2E we used the following:

Spell points: Your Intelligence plus a set # per level = the number of spell points you had. Spells cost 1 spell point per level they were. And about a million different variations on that theme.

All spells are Spontaneous for divine casters.

Sounds close to what we still do, except the spell points are random-rolled plus a small bonus if you have high Int/Wis as appropriate, with numbers ending up at probably much lower than yours (it was designed to replace the slot system, so you still only got 2 or 3 s.p. at 1st level usually). And spells cost more points at higher levels on an ascending sequence (not excatly Fibonacci, but close) so 1-9 level costs 1-2-3-5-8-13-19-26-35.

But, we've learned the hard way that this breaks badly after about 7th-9th level, so for my next 1e-based campaign I'm going to go back to slots...except I'll adopt a quasi-Sorceror mechanic to do away with the annoyance of pre-memorization: if it's in your spellbook and you've got a slot remaining of that level, cast away. (fortunately, I don't have to worry about metamagic)

Lanefan

 

[funkysnunkulator]

if i'm playing 3.5....

Magic Dice+WIS
HP	MP
d4	d12
d6	d10
d8	d8
d10	d6
d12	d4

MP instead of slots
Spell Level - Cost
0	1
1	2
2	3
3	4
4	5
5	6
6	7
7	8
8	9
9	10

x/day abilities
At Will = 1 MP
3/day = 2 MP
2/day = 3 MP
1/day = 4 MP
MP regens at 1/minute

Spending more MP in a round than your Constitution modifier requires a save vs Mana Poisoning.

nice. good thinkin'. yeah. we use something similar. that is we have a backlash sort of thing, as well as .... how shall we put it.... a.... fate...... yeah.....