New campaign, Core + ONE acessory

[luke_twigger]

One suggestion - don't allow Spell Compendium as a player's accessory. Also note that those who picked Spell Compendium won't get access to any special feats or PrCs.

A different suggestion - see if the Cleric player would be happy to try the rules for Spontaneous Divine Casting instead.

 

[TheGogmagog]

Anyway, enter Spell Compendium. Suddenly, the Cleric doesn't just have 30ish spells known per level. She has almost 100. The Wizard? She still has 2 to 4 plus what she can find. Now ready for the final straw? The GM says she will never find anything more.

Well, "not find anything more", was just not find anything fore out of the SpC. There will be 'magic shops' but they won't be fully stocked with every SRD spell for adventurers with cash. They won't have any (let alone all) of the sor/wiz spells out of Complete Divine, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, Races of..., Complete... etc. Now that one player chose the SpC It wasn't my intention to fill these stores with any of these exotic sources. In a world of NPC wizards, sure someone will probably have a background that includes something out of Book of Vile Darkness. And there isn't anything preventing them from scribing scrolls. It would even be insult to injury to find a spell out of Races of stone, but the wizard can't learn it because it wasn't his acessory book. This was my intention for how to handle two wizard characters selecting different books and trying to swap spells. They arn't on HIS spell list, they can't be learned.

But that's one GM making a call; that's not RAW. RAW, the wizard can find/research/buy as many spells as they want (or can afford).

There also is no restriction to either doing spell research (within the chosen book). There isn't any raw obligation for the DM to make sure every spell ever published makes itself available to the player.

For what it's worth, I have e-mailed with the wizard player, and agreed to make some concession. Some SpC spells may work into the campaign. But there is no guarantee of what spells become available, or how long it takes if he searches for a specific spell. That is true of the SRD spells too, and most likely true of most any campaign in average or lower magic. With the addition of spontanious casters being a great choice for NPC's, this should be counted on as a player of wizards, no matter how open the campaign is.

 

[Rystil Arden]

There also is no restriction to either doing spell research (within the chosen book). There isn't any raw obligation for the DM to make sure every spell ever published makes itself available to the player.

A player should never have to use spell research to get access to spells in approved books. Spell research is for making totally new spells that only the player knows and nobody else anywhere--that's why it costs so much and takes so long.

For what it's worth, I have e-mailed with the wizard player, and agreed to make some concession. Some SpC spells may work into the campaign. But there is no guarantee of what spells become available, or how long it takes if he searches for a specific spell. That is true of the SRD spells too, and most likely true of most any campaign in average or lower magic. With the addition of spontanious casters being a great choice for NPC's, this should be counted on as a player of wizards, no matter how open the campaign is.

This, however, is more than fair. It is exactly what I would do too--rock on, dude! Hopefully, the Wizard has a great time: it could even be an alternate reward of sorts--he might even be excited to find that a small town that otherwise has little of value has a 1st-level Wizard with a scroll of that SpC 1st-level spell he was after

 

[BlueBlackRed]

Hooray for sensible players and sensible DMs getting things hammered out on ENWorld without flames, rants, and raves!

 

[blargney the second]

If I was just adding one book, I'd look at the PHB II

I revise my Complete Adventurer recommendation: PHB II is a much better suggestion. There's stuff in there for every class, so nobody is favoured or disadvantaged.

 

[Remathilis]

I allow a cleric to pick one spell from another source PER CASTER LEVEL. So a first level cleric gets all the 0 and 1st level PHB spells + 1 additional choice (0 or 1st). At 2nd, he gets another. Etc.

At most, he's getting 20 new spells, no more than 2 per spell level. He can always research/buy/find others.

 

[buzz]

Assume that the Cleric is balanced with 30 choices to the Wizard's 2 to 4 + maybe more later, as you say you do assume. More choices are more powerful (otherwise you would accept that the Wizard whose book has all the spells is balanced). So when you give the Cleric 100 choices to the Wizard's 2 to 4 plus maybe more, then that isn't balanced anymore.

I think that it sounds like a huge advantage on paper, but I'm not convinced that it's really an issue in actual play (though I'm not denying you may be correct). I have to imagine that all but the most rigorous, mind-like-a-trap player is going to experience enough "analysis paralysis" given 100 spells per level that they'll just end up using a few tried-and-true additions to their typical assortment.

And heck, if the player is going to go to all the trouble to examine the SpC six ways from Sunday and find the cool bits, I'm not going to deny him the benefits of his effort.

In my Monday game, our paladin has been using spells from the SpC quite a bit, with no restrictions as to whether he access to them or not. We've also glommed onto lesser vigor being a superior out-of-combat healing spell. In all, it's been pretty much what I mention in the first paragraph; an addition here and there. I simply have not seen it be a problem.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I think that it sounds like a huge advantage on paper, but I'm not convinced that it's really an issue in actual play (though I'm not denying you may be correct). I have to imagine that all but the most rigorous, mind-like-a-trap player is going to experience enough "analysis paralysis" given 100 spells per level that they'll just end up using a few tried-and-true additions to their typical assortment.

And heck, if the player is going to go to all the trouble to examine the SpC six ways from Sunday and find the cool bits, I'm not going to deny him the benefits of his effort.

In my Monday game, our paladin has been using spells from the SpC quite a bit, with no restrictions as to whether he access to them or not. We've also glommed onto lesser vigor being a superior out-of-combat healing spell. In all, it's been pretty much what I mention in the first paragraph; an addition here and there. I simply have not seen it be a problem.

Well, I did say before "(Assuming the player is diligent enough to find the optimal spells, of course)." It is true that some players would just not have the mental fortitude to look through the spells. I have actually seen players who do this. If your players only use a few more here and there, though, they'd probably not even notice the difference if you used some of the options presented here (frex one new spell per level, swap out a PH for a new spell, etc). It seems like your players have de facto limited themselves even though you have de jure allowed all the spells, which is a fair way to play and may even be more likely (I don't know which of us has had more of a typical experience), but I've seen the players go through all of them. The player of the *Cleric* complained that it wasn't fair for the other characters and tried to help work it out (I'm always impressed with my group for this--they may be min/maxers sometimes, but if they break something, they are usually the first to help or agree with me about changing it around)

 

[buzz]

There isn't any raw obligation for the DM to make sure every spell ever published makes itself available to the player.

Well, I'm not saying there is such an obligation. I'm just questioning the assumption that giving PCs access to SpC content is inherrently unbalancing, and some in-game restriction needs to be created in response to an out-of-game phenomenon. If you don't want to give PCs (or your NPCs, remember) access to those spells, don't approve the book for campaign use.

 

[buzz]

It seems like your players have de facto limited themselves even though you have de jure allowed all the spells, which is a fair way to play and may even be more likely (I don't know which of us has had more of a typical experience), but I've seen the players go through all of them.

Actually, I'm not the DM in the game I mentioned. The DM in that game has imposed some restricitons, though not yet on the paladin I mentioned. Probably because he is far more likely to minmax his way through the SpC than any of us.

Even when I run a campaign, I tend to err on the side of allowing pretty much anything that's not obviously bad design. If and when problems arise, the group deals with them. Maybe I just have too much faith in the WotC design team.