Need 'Vancian' Imply Slots?

[The Shadow]

If I'm understanding the OP right, you're proposing something more along the lines of a wizard working like a ring of spellstoring, where he can memorize "X levels worth of spells, no spell higher than level Y" and let him figure out what he memorizes?

Yes, exactly, and said more simply than I did.

It has promise.

Thanks! I do wonder if spell levels should be 1:1, though. As slobster says, it might be better to go 1,3,5,7,9... points for levels 1,2,3,4,5...

In my 3e games, I made wizards chose their spells as normal, but they could then cast from that list as a sorcerer did. The sorcerer was rebuilt into something completely different.

So in essence, you had wizards act the same way Next clerics do?

Your suggestion, in a way, reduces some of the restriction on the vancian caster. Somebody who is very good at optimization could make great use of that loosening.

This is true. I still think it can be made to work, though.

There is nothing wrong with the idea... and actually, it is not new.
Spells and magic of ADnD had an option for wizards to use spell points instead of slots.
It even had metamagic built in. (Increase the cost of the spell by 50% to cast as if you were one level higher...)

I'm not at all surprised it's been done before. D&D has been around quite a long time, after all. I *am* surprised it was a published option for AD&D, though, given Gygax's vociferous dislike of spell-point systems.

Spell poitn cost as following:

1 - 4
2 - 6
3 - 10
4 - 15

What a strange progression! Perhaps I'm misreading you, do you mean that a 1st level spell costs 4 spell points? Or do you mean a 1st level wizard has 4 spell points total?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I believe there was also an option for this in Unearthed Arcana, and I've played in a game where you where something similar was allowed.

The other way to go, which is a bit simpler but still flexible, is to say, "The wizard can prepare six spells, no more than three of which can be of the same level."

 

[nightwalker450]

Maybe this isn't the place to put it, but it relates.

I dislike the idea of memorizing multiples of the same spell. It pretty much laughs in the face of the whole memorization idea. You cast and forget fireball, but you still remember your OTHER fireball? I'd be fine with leaving slots open to re-memorize a cast spell after you used it (and in fact works really well thematically).

Just an idea to put out there, that would work with the spell points thing as well. I like the spell points because it reflects how difficult the spells are, instead of just being what size slot it fills. It's no longer a waste to prepare a lower level spell in a higher level slot, because now you can get a few more spells prepared that way. It's probably why their accounting had first level spells taking up 4 slots so it would be more of a 3:2 ratio, instead of a 3:1.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

As for 1:1 slots vs. points, that was just an example to make sure I had the idea right in my head, rather than a proposal for a balanced system.

After all, if you're ditching the idea of discrete 1-9 spell levels, there's no reason why you couldn't also increase the range of available point values. So, Sleep costs 5 points; Burning Hands costs 3; Wish costs 435; etc.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Maybe this isn't the place to put it, but it relates.

I dislike the idea of memorizing multiples of the same spell. It pretty much laughs in the face of the whole memorization idea. You cast and forget fireball, but you still remember your OTHER fireball? I'd be fine with leaving slots open to re-memorize a cast spell after you used it (and in fact works really well thematically).

Just an idea to put out there, that would work with the spell points thing as well. I like the spell points because it reflects how difficult the spells are, instead of just being what size slot it fills. It's no longer a waste to prepare a lower level spell in a higher level slot, because now you can get a few more spells prepared that way. It's probably why their accounting had first level spells taking up 4 slots so it would be more of a 3:2 ratio, instead of a 3:1.

In AD&D, spells were memorized. In 3rd Edition, they were prepared. If spells are memorized, then you are right. It makes no sense to be able to memorize the same spell twice. But if spells are prepared, then it makes perfect sense.

As for 1:1 slots vs. points, that was just an example to make sure I had the idea right in my head, rather than a proposal for a balanced system.

After all, if you're ditching the idea of discrete 1-9 spell levels, there's no reason why you couldn't also increase the range of available point values. So, Sleep costs 5 points; Burning Hands costs 3; Wish costs 435; etc.

I like this quite a bit. Forget spell levels, just give spells a cost.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

This would be a great house rule or even official rules module for wizards. It would be fairly easy to patch together too: the slotless wizard gets the Willpower progression and spell costs of the Sorcerer alongside the max spell level and spell selection of the standard Wizard. (I would probably say that he doesn't get the benefits of a tradition, to help make up for the extra power this setup would give him... he might still be too powerful though.)

To make it simpler, you could take a page from the 5e cleric: each day the wizard picks a fixed number of spells (of any level) to memorize. He also starts each day with a fixed number of MP. He can recast individual spells as many times as he wants, until he runs out of MP.

However, I don't think this would ever be a default setup. Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of re-rigging the slot-based wizard/cleric spell lists to work with new systems, because it always ends up meaning adding more complexity to an already over-complex system. There are a bunch of ways to make a balanced, memorization-based caster without spell slots, if you're willing to ditch the traditional spell lists:

1. All spells scale all the way up to max level (although some might have a minimum level), so every spell is worth the same. At the beginning of each day you memorize a fixed number of spells. (Like 3e wizards, you can memorize multiple copies of a single spell.) The number of spells memorized per day scales up very slowly, but that's okay because you keep powering up existing ones as you level. (Think fighter maneuvers or warlock invocations here: they're supposed to be just as useful at level 10 as they are at level 1.)

2. Each spell allows you to spend a variable amount of MP. The max MP you can spend per spell adjusts as you level up. (I think 3e psionics worked this way?) You memorize a fixed number of spells each day, but you can reuse them, and you can adjust how much MP to spend on each casting on the fly.

3. For something really different, make spells much less powerful (akin to warlock minor invocations). You can memorized a very low number of them each day (like 2-4), but you can cast each of the spells you've memorized as often as you want.

4. Same as above, but some (or all) of the spells are per-encounter, like warlock lesser invocations.

Anyway, all viable possibilities, as are all the ideas the OP and others have mentioned here, but the question is which of these options would be worth the extra design work? How many people want to memorize spells each day but don't like the traditional Vancian wizard?

 

[I'm A Banana]

'tain't a bad plan.

The big things is that you want to preserve the experience of playing a Vancian caster: that preparation, memorization, and "used it, now it's gone" kind of experience. As long as you can replicate that, the precise mechanic that underpins is is likely open to some flexibility. And there's a lot to recommend a more simple pool instead of a strict spell-level slot division.

I'm not sure what it gains you if you're already a fan of slots, but I'm also not sure folks are really that married to slots per se, as much as to that Vancian play experience. It's worth floating out there.

 

[howandwhy99]

Doesn't freezing the number of slots per level seem needlessly restrictive, though? If Vancian casting is limited in the number of spells, and the power of spells, one can memorize - why doesn't one have any flexibility in terms of how one allocates one's disk space, so to speak?

As F700 said, spell casting is about preparation prior to performance. That leaves spells as a strategy game and their design can be that much more powerful. One of the trends throughout D&D's history is to give more spells whose effects simply matter less.

Trading lower slots for higher slots (or vice verse) is certainly possible and part of the flexibility of being a caster. Class level limits the highest spell level one can cast, but how you divvy up the resources is can be decided during each prep.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

What a strange progression! Perhaps I'm misreading you, do you mean that a 1st level spell costs 4 spell points? Or do you mean a 1st level wizard has 4 spell points total?

Level 1 Spell: 4 points
Level 2 Spell: 6 points

Level 2 spells are not twice as good as level 1 spells. Mostly true, because spells also scaled with caster level. On the other hand, in 5e a fireball does not look all that much more powerful than burning hands. So maybe such a progression works there too.

 

[triqui]

I like some of your ideas. I think Spells & Powers, from the 2e "skills & powers" ruleset (2.5?) had this as an alternate magic system.

Some concerns: It might not satisfy some people, because "it's not D&D". That aside... you need to careful balance things. You can't simply translate the things from current table and call it a day. This way, you make Wizards quite more powerful than they were with the other system. I know any 18th level wizard will happily trade 5 level 1 and 2 level 2 spells to get another Time Stop. This does not mean the system can´t work, just that you need to balance it with the idea that, at higher levels, low level spells are going to be recycled into higher level spells.