Weekly spells

[adwyn]

For my next campaign I've been toying with the idea of changing the spells per day to spells per week in order to fit better with a swashbuckling/intrigue style of play where more than one encounter in a day is unusual.

The question I have is what am I overlooking? Its easy to say that where magic is concerned replace "day" with "week", but I know I haven't thought all of this through mechanically.

 

[Kabol]

Interesting Idea, But it be really easy to be overpowered. It would be very easy to just BURN all your spells in one hellish display, then take a few days off then come back in a week and rain hell fire on next adventure.

Unless of course you ment that spells per day would become spells per week. So like 6 spells per day would become 6 spells per week, then id say its really hurting caster balance. While its a cool idea, its really open to Explotation

 

[LightPhoenix]

Interesting Idea, But it be really easy to be overpowered. It would be very easy to just BURN all your spells in one hellish display, then take a few days off then come back in a week and rain hell fire on next adventure.

As opposed to the way it is now, where... wait, it still works like that, except now you don't wait a week, you wait a day.

I think you need to clarify what you're going for here, as I was a bit confused when I first read it too.

The problem I personally see with this isn't necessarily the balance issue, but with your definition of encounter. To me, an encounter isn't simply a combat.

For example, your first encounter is charming the magistrate's daughter to try and get the information you need. Then that night you break into his house, trying to find a detailed map of the local trade waters. He catches you, throws you in jail, and now you've got to stage a jail break the next day when the guard is distracted. You make it to the docks and the magistrate's guards need to be bypassed in some way - by stealth or sword. Finally you get out to see, but in the distance behind you is an Imperial frigate, chasing you down.

All of this is only in a few days, and that's a number of encounters, each of which could be benefitted by magic. By reducing the number of spells per day a spellcaster gets, you're reducing the number of opportunities that the spellcaster gets to be useful. Especially in the case of the Wiz/Sor, who don't have much else to really be helpful in any encounter.

 

[HellHound]

My experience with urban campaigns is that spellcasters rapidly begin to outshine the other PCs. In a big way. This is because quite often you do only deal with one or two encounters (even non-combat encounters) in a day, and when one taps out the wizard, you will often see the party take the opportunity to rest that isn't available in a dungeon setting. I think a per week system might be too heavy-handed... but since I am book-keeping using a 10 day week, going to per five-day might work better. Or even just per 48 or 72 hours.

 

[adwyn]

Hellhound has pretty much hit the nail on the head. This will be a return (new characters) to the campaign, but last time the spellcasters were a little to free with their spells, to the point the players began to feel something needed done to reign it in. Using a seven day week we should have the same balance of encounters, be they violent or nonviolent, to spell recovery period as in the typical dungeon campaign.

What I'm more worried about than balance is secondary rules that would tie in that I've overlooked.

 

[Kabol]

As opposed to the way it is now, where... wait, it still works like that, except now you don't wait a week, you wait a day.

Hahaha, yes, that true. But when you have 7x the spells you can jsut Burn your self to the brink with almost no fear of runnin outta spells. This woudl make dungeon clears MUCH faster.

DM :"you come to a four way"
Wizzard: "Fireball!"
DM: "Ok, you look down the burn hallways and see another fourway to the West"
Wizzard: "FIREBALL!"

Hahah - I know that a lil over the top. But you get my drift

 

[Pyrex]

If you're going to take such a huge chunk of utility out of the wizard's sails (so to speak), you need to give them something to make up for it or they're really going to start to feel useless.

One idea would be to let your (nerfed) full-progression casters take a few (say 1/3 to 1/2) of their levels gestalted (as per UA) with another class.

That way your spells-per-week Wiz10 wouldn't just be a Wiz10, but could be, say a Wiz10/Exp5.

(under this concept I'd probably let them gestalt 1/2 with NPC classes or 1/3 with another PC class)

 

[Beholder Bob]

Hmm - I like the idea of waiting a week to regain a cast spell. But...

1) magic items would become even more powerful in comparison (1/day mage armor amulet, shoes of spider climb 2/day, etc) - allowing the owner to outshine the caster in question.

2) low level play is difficult in extreme - a 1st level specialist wizard has, with INT bonus, 3 spells/day currently. Make that 3/week - once the wizard casts while in the dungeon, he is toast (melee or rng combat only since no spells for the rest of the week - yikes!).

3) bad guys are not impinged - unless you arbitrarily set up x spells not available for y days (2 days for 3 spells, 1 day for 1 spell, and 7 days for 3 spells) - and so unload true nasty on the pcs who will have already used up resources.

4) bookwork (as above, 1 week from time each spell is cast.....)

So: too extreme, but I like the concept.

1 answer) 1/day items are 1/wk

2 answer) allow each hp/day normally healed to be converted to recovery of 1 spell lv faster. That is, unwounded 1st lv wizard sleeps, regains 1 day on all spells plus +1 day for 1 spell. A 5th lv wizard can add 5 days between his spells. Good rest helps the casters a lot this way.

3 answer) make sure to assign spells cast earlier in the week - just more book keeping. Also, easier for PC's to harass and kill high level casters. Minor attacks over 5 days depletes most of his spell resources, make real attack on day 6.

4 answer) there is no answer - inherent with suggested idea.

BB