Pathfinder 1E Campaign with spell points, only divine magic.

[TheNewt123]

As the name suggests, I'm making a campaign where the only magic classes for players is divine magic (with perhaps the warlock ported from D&D 3.5, but that's irrelevant). There will still be arcane magic users in the world, but not enough for there to be one in an adventuring party. Anyway, I want to implement the spell point variant used in d&d 3.5 and was curious on people's thoughts on the matter.

For the record, the people I'll be DM for aren't huge Pathfinder or D&D players, but they do like the game.

 

[Lwaxy]

In the opinion and experience of my group the spellpoint variant is a great idea but the execution was sloppy, as it does not take into account each spell separately. And the spells generally cost too less in points, and made the mage quite overpowered.

To get around this, we now use a self-made system, for one not allowing the mage to cast the same spell more often than they could per day in the vancian system and using an adapted points per level system, bascally giving them more points to use on low levels compared to later levels. We then grouped spells into cost categories independent of level, so that it was possible to find a 3-point spell available for 1st levels. There is no high level spell only costing 17 points, no way.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Book keeping is a pain. Keep Vanican magic and just use your INT or CON Bonus as a recharge rate for your slots recovered, lowest to highest in a period of time, say every 2 (in-game hours) hours.

 

[Lwaxy]

I found it really simple to keep track. Way easier than remembering which spells were cast or not.

 

[TheNewt123]

To get around this, we now use a self-made system, for one not allowing the mage to cast the same spell more often than they could per day in the vancian system and using an adapted points per level system, bascally giving them more points to use on low levels compared to later levels. We then grouped spells into cost categories independent of level, so that it was possible to find a 3-point spell available for 1st levels. There is no high level spell only costing 17 points, no way.

Do you mean you changed the costs of some spells of a given level and left others the same, or you changed the cost of all spells in that level?

Book keeping is a pain. Keep Vanican magic and just use your INT or CON Bonus as a recharge rate for your slots recovered, lowest to highest in a period of time, say every 2 (in-game hours) hours.

So, if your total bonus from INT and CON were 5, you would recover 5 spells slots in 2 hours, starting with 1st level spell slots, then 2nd, etc. Am I understanding this correctly?

 

[Morrus]

Just use 3.5 Elements of Magic! Works perfectly well in Pathfinder.

 

[Hand of Evil]

So, if your total bonus from INT and CON were 5, you would recover 5 spells slots in 2 hours, starting with 1st level spell slots, then 2nd, etc. Am I understanding this correctly?

That is correct but I normally use one or the other not both (think recovery should be tied to CON but can see it tied to INT), you can adjust the time to fit your game style, if you find that you are getting slots back to fast or not fast enough.

 

[Uber Dungeon]

My group uses a vaiant spell point system that we put together... well it would be more accurate to say that we chose to ignore part of the rules of the 3.5 spell point rules in unearthed arcana.
We just play it as you spend 1sp and cast a 1st level spell like normal.
So 5th level would spend 1sp for a 5D4 burning hands.