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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 3829212" data-attributes="member: 710">Let me see it this way: Vancian Magic was supposed to be balanced by being Vancian. This means you had high powered spells, but since you could only cast them so few times per day, you had to use them sparingly. This worked okay if you followed the encounter guidelines closely enough, but if you didn't (have a single encounter per day, or dozens of encounters in one day), this no longer worked so great.I think the theory wasn't that bad (from a purely balance point of view), but several aspects were unaccounted for - or later added that made things worse.1) It depends a lot on the adventure whether characters are forced to follow the encounter guideline. If they are not forced, nothing is holding the caster back.2) Some DMs and adventures overcompensated the "nova" spellcaster and introduced more encounters with EL = PL +2 or higher, meaning that spellcasters _had_ to nova to allow the group to survive. 3) From a player perspective, not casting spells when playing a spellcaster isn't exactly exciting, at least not in the context of a combat encounter. 4) Magical Healing becaming extraordinarily cheap thanks to Wands of Cure Light Wounds. So cheap in fact, that the only member in the group requesting rest would be the spellcaster.5) 3.0 edition had a Haste Spell, which made casters overextending their resources too easy.6) 3.5 later added "swift" spells into the mix. They were balanced well in so far as you had to pay for the lessened casting time by a weaker spell, but it also means casters could extend their spells even easier. It seems to me as if this balance component was missed during the design of these spells.Casters "bleeding" spells or novaing could be compensated if casting times for the powerful spells are extended. So, to cast a Save or Die spell like Finger of Death, a caster would need to cast 3 rounds. The rest of the group would need to defend him till he finished casting. The whole action might be even be more interactive - maybe each round the caster casts his spell, the enemy makes a save, and once the 3rd save is failed, it dies. Some spells can't be balanced that well with this method - Teleport for example, and should be balanced differently (for example, requiring you to have placed a teleportation mark at the target location, or being invited by the inhabitant of the location - if a house or room - or by targeting a teleportation portal/pad)Anyway, I suspect that the new approach to spells will scale back the powers of many spells. This is a necessity for the whole non-vancian part of the casting system to work well with the rest.</blockquote>

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