Why spellcasters need to rest to gain back spells

[dragoonm]

I wanted to see what you all think of this. This is something I am thinking of using in a future campaign. This is for both arcane and divine spells users.


When you cast a spell, as the mystical energy flows out it leaves a residual charge or taint, like static electricity. This taint interferes with the caster's ability to manipulate more magical energy. A good example would be looking in a one-foot deep pool of water with a muddy bottom. The more you stir up the bottom the harder it is to see the bottom.

Once you have reached your spell limit for the day, you can no longer visualize and manipulate the magical energy until you rest. As you go up in level, you are better able to resist the interference but eventually you will reach your new limit.

To remove this taint, you need to rest. In my campaign, this rest needs to be a Zen-like meditative state. As you rest, the taint slowly bleeds off, similar to how mud settles back to the bottom of a pool.

You can use partial rest to regaining some spells. It is based on how much rest you get. Just take the percentage of full rest received and you receive that number of spells rounded down. Example: your spells per day are 4 zero-level, 3 first level and 1 second level and you have used them all. If you rested for 4 hours, that is 50% of the rest required so you would get half of your spells back rounded down. So you would receive 2 zero level and 1 first level spells back. If you only rested for 2 hours, that is 25% so you would only receive 1 zero level spell. For this example you would need to rest for a full 8 hours to gain the second level spell.


Please tell me what you think.

 

[ARandomGod]

I wanted to see what you all think of this. This is something I am thinking of using in a future campaign. This is for both arcane and divine spells users.


When you cast a spell, as the mystical energy flows out it leaves a residual charge or taint, like static electricity. This taint interferes with the caster's ability to manipulate more magical energy. A good example would be looking in a one-foot deep pool of water with a muddy bottom. The more you stir up the bottom the harder it is to see the bottom.

Once you have reached your spell limit for the day, you can no longer visualize and manipulate the magical energy until you rest. As you go up in level, you are better able to resist the interference but eventually you will reach your new limit.

To remove this taint, you need to rest. In my campaign, this rest needs to be a Zen-like meditative state. As you rest, the taint slowly bleeds off, similar to how mud settles back to the bottom of a pool.

You can use partial rest to regaining some spells. It is based on how much rest you get. Just take the percentage of full rest received and you receive that number of spells rounded down. Example: your spells per day are 4 zero-level, 3 first level and 1 second level and you have used them all. If you rested for 4 hours, that is 50% of the rest required so you would get half of your spells back rounded down. So you would receive 2 zero level and 1 first level spells back. If you only rested for 2 hours, that is 25% so you would only receive 1 zero level spell. For this example you would need to rest for a full 8 hours to gain the second level spell.


Please tell me what you think.

This seems like a pretty decent house rule. There are a couple of things to consider...

I assume you realize that this is a boost in power for the arcanist... are you aware, however, of the degree of boost?
I mean, sure, he can now rest partially in order to get back partial spellcasting ability. But under this rule he could potenitally cast twice as many spells per day. If, say, he started resting at midnight, got up at 8am and cast all his spells by 10am, then rested until 6 pm. He's got another full day's allotment of spells. Now, let's say he blows through those by 8pm, and rests for two more hours, he's got 25% of his spell power back before restarting his day at midnight.

Personally I don't think that's gamebreaking. It's completely up to the GM to control the available rest. But under the current system (I believe) you need not only rest but at least a full day to have passed. Stricktly to prevent what I've meantioned above. Picky? I'd say so. Heavy handed on the rules? Perhaps. But some people find that important, and I wanted to point it out.

But other than that, it sounds like a great flavor, and I don't see it as overpowering at all.

 

[Vrecknidj]

I have some concerns.

1) Can a caster who is high-enough level to cast, say, a 6th level spell, just cast that spell once, and then rest to get just that one back? I mean, one spell out of a whole bunch is a fairly small percent, and that's only going to be a few minutes.

2) If you're saying that you can only do this resting after all your spells have been cast, then this isn't overpowered at all, because wizards almost never use up all their 0-level spells, especially at higher levels. Could they "empty" their slots without having to cast the spells?

3) If a caster can only do this after exhausting all his spells, then if his resting starts granting the lowest level spells first, this reduces the chances of someone manipulating the system to get a bunch of high level spells, and so that seems fair.

Dave

 

[dragoonm]

I have some concerns.

1) Can a caster who is high-enough level to cast, say, a 6th level spell, just cast that spell once, and then rest to get just that one back? I mean, one spell out of a whole bunch is a fairly small percent, and that's only going to be a few minutes.


2) If you're saying that you can only do this resting after all your spells have been cast, then this isn't overpowered at all, because wizards almost never use up all their 0-level spells, especially at higher levels. Could they "empty" their slots without having to cast the spells?

3) If a caster can only do this after exhausting all his spells, then if his resting starts granting the lowest level spells first, this reduces the chances of someone manipulating the system to get a bunch of high level spells, and so that seems fair.

Dave

(1) It may be a small percentage of your spells but the energy to cast a 6th level spell is much higher therefore the taint is higher. The spells back is based on the number of spells per level per day. So that the only way to the 6th level spell is to be 12th level and rest for 4 hours or more or be 14th level and rest 3 hours.

(2) You do not need to cast all of your spells. I know that this may make the spells users more powerful but they must rest to do so. So if their rest is interupted they only get the spells back equal to the amount of rest done.
Also in the campain I am working on, spell users have other penalties to worry about. I am looking at this to balance these.

(3) Like I showed in the example, it is based off of the spells per day. I did this only to simplify it. I could have had them recover the lower level spells first but I had a problem working out the numbers evenly.

All of this is a work in progress.

 

[dragoonm]

The partial spells back for partial rest is just an idea. The idea of the taint is the main issue I am wanting feed back on.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Divine casters don't have to rest to regain spells- they just need to pray at the correct time of day. Do they have a different model of magic?

In previous campaigns I have allowed twice/day casting if there was rest and relaxation in between. Usually used so the healers could cast two day's worth of cures and restorations. We called it "midnight mass."

 

[Gez]

IMC, the energy for spells comes, partly, from your own life energy. There's this thing, called leï, that is the base energy of everything. (Kinda like the Force in Star Wars.) It has several states, one is known as positive energy, one as negative energy, one as spell energy, and the last known one as raw energy (force effects).

A spellcaster turns a part of his own positive energy into spell energy. (Which explains, in part, the low HD of spellcasters.) Of course, they also try to find other ways to get this precious spell energy -- from a deity, from the surroundings, from the collective unconscious, whatever. Otherwise, they would cripple themselves just casting a mending. But they need to provide the small quantity that will attract more.

That way, spells are tied to natural healing, in a way. (That also explains why you can't heal naturally after a day you have cast spells.)

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Like the taint idea! Are there any bad effects for getting too much of it?

It might be easiest to calculate the effects of rest using the spell point variant from unearthed arcana?

Thus - caster has 80 points - regain 10 points per hour of rest - very straightforward?

Could also be possible to use the normal spell slots system, but keep a running total of the points to calculate how rest would work...

If this allows too much choice of which levels to get back, then you could have it so they must restore 1 spell slot at every level they can cast before being allowed to restore a second one at the same level.

I was confusing myself at this point, so did an example!

Wibbly the Smart
Wizard 5 - Int 16
Spell slots:
1st - 4
2nd - 3
3rd - 2

Spell points = 2*5 + 3*3 + 4*1 = 23: Per hour of rest - 3 points restored

He can recover a 2nd level spell with an hour of rest. Before he can restore another 2nd level spell, he must restore a 1st and 3rd level slot, which will take him 2 hours rest to get the 6 points.

While doing this I had a couple of other thoughts:

Obviously, if you don't have any 'used' slots at a particular level, then you don't need to restore any.

If you have a number of spell points that doesn't divide into even rest periods then I'd lower the number got back at the beginning:
For 24 spell points you'd regain 3 per hour.
For 23 you'd regain 2 in the first hour and then 3 per subsequent hour.
For 22 you'd regain 2 for the first 2 hours and then 3 per subsequent hour.


Hope that makes some sense!

 

[dragoonm]

Like the taint idea! Are there any bad effects for getting too much of it?

Because it has its own limiting factor, you cannot get too much. Once you have reached your spells per day limit you cannot cast any more spells so you will not gain any more taint.

You could add the ability to attempt to cast more spells similar to casting defensively but with with the DC starting at say 20 plus the spell level. Casting a second spell over your limit might be DC 25 and so on. If you fail you could take lethal or non-lethal damage or make a Fort save vs DC x (x being what ever DC you want to set) or be stunned, dazes, etc.

Ment to add that this could also explain how you could loose spells when hit by certain other spells, magic items, etc. (Depending on your game version.)

 

[Ferret]

I really like the explanation!.