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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silam" data-source="post: 9847187" data-attributes="member: 7055898">I’ve been thinking of an alternative scheme, though I’m not sure that it could be viable as a lightweight tweak. Rather, it may require changing all the classes, which is probably too much work, but anyway <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="😅" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f605.png" title="Grinning face with sweat    :sweat_smile:" data-shortname=":sweat_smile:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /> …The general idea would be to do some kind of intermediary system between 3.5e and 5e. More flexible than 3.5e where each individual slot needed to be predestined to a single spell, but less flexible than 5e where each slot can be used for anything.Essentially there would be some small-to-medium size list of "energy types"… let’s call them "mana types". Force, fire, lightning, etc.You would have a number of mana points, that you could assign across the various types. For example, I have 10 mana points, I’ll stick 2 in force mana and 8 in fire mana. This is basically the equivalent of the "memorization or preparation" phase. You need not be more specific than that.Then, for each of your known spells, you would have a mana cost. For example, magic missile costs 1 Force Mana, Burning Hands costs 1 Fire Mana, and Fireball costs 1 Force Mana and 4 Fire Mana (imagine the force is the scaffolding that holds the fire in place and propels it towards its target).So in the previous example, the wizard who prepared 2 Force Mana and 8 Fire Mana, could throw either:1. 2 Fireballs2. 2 magic missiles and 8 burning hands3. 1 MM, 4 BH and 1 FBThe ratio of manas you keep on hand affects the "general shape" of spells you could wield.What about the power level? Well… in 3.5e it was based on the caster level, while in 5e it’s based on augmentation via higher level slots.In this system, I would rather suggest that each spell has a scaling mechanic tied to how much mana of a given type you have in reserve. Meaning that your first spells of the day are most powerful, and their power dwindles as you become spent. So for example, let’s say Fireball does 1d6 per fire mana in reserve (before the casting), and maybe the radius of the blast is 10 feet per force mana in reserve. So the first FB of the day could do 8d6 on a 20 feet radius, while the second FB would do just 4d6 on a 10 feet radius. Those scaling formulas probably cannot be infinite, there should be some cap somehow (maybe based on caster level or something else, but I don’t know, haven’t thought that far).And what about cantrips? Those would be special in the sense that they would not require spending any mana points, hence their at will nature, but their effect would still scale in relation to mana in reserve. This I think is a key part of the whole concept… it means that instead of going all out with slots and then using cantrips only if you still need to fight some more after exhausting all your slots, you may do well to consider using your cantrips first, since they are most powerful while your expendable mana has NOT been expended yet.Another interesting corollary of this system is that there is basically no need for school specialist subclasses anymore… if a wizard prepares mostly a single type of mana, then they are effectively a specialist in that, and as a reward all of their spells are boosted due to the higher mana reserve. On the other hand, a generalist wizard gets to do a greater variety of things but each of them is augmented to a lesser degree. In a sense, this can squash not only the specialist versus generalist wizards, but maybe even the wizards versus sorcerers. They are all on a sliding scale spectrum. You can be a strong but inflexible sorcerer of fire today, and tomorrow prepare a broad mix of charms, illusions, necromancy, transmutation to get you out of any jam, but without being very powerful in any single thing.Anyway… the whole thing is admittedly pretty half-baked, so apologies in advance… but I thought I’d share <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="😅" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f605.png" title="Grinning face with sweat    :sweat_smile:" data-shortname=":sweat_smile:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />Cheers!</blockquote>

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