A(nother) Non-Vancian Spellcasting System: The Fatigue System

[Bladesong]

Well, this thread may be dead, but I thought I would let you know how the method I mentioned previously worked for higher level characters (levels 10 - 15). All-in-all it worked fairly well. The casters would start with their higher level spell, but then kick down to lower ones to avoid exhaustion. They used their spells more wisely, but had them when they needed them.
We will still watch it for a while but it seems to be working well.

Happy Gaming!

 

[DungeonMaester]

My thoughts on spell casting

-Magic: I don’t agree with any of the spell charge variety. Instead, players who take ranks in craft alchemy and have the brew potion can make a variant that gives you back 1d4 spells a day up to the highest spell cast. This potion requires only 1 min to brew, doing nothing special other then grinding them together. It also must use 1gp as a material component along with generic herbs and spices.

Wizards: They way I see it, Wizards spell book is magic, Magic like a scroll spell. Instead of having components to cast spell, they only need it once to scribe the spell in the book. They still need to use the other two component if need be.

Sorcery: Having the innate ability to cast spell, they automatically have the feat Enscew material, and only need material components if it is something rather special*.

Divine casters: Druids use the same set of rules as Sorcery. Other divine casters use normal spell casting rules.

---Rusty

 

[Andre]

...Spellcasters each receive a number of Fatigue Points (FP) equal to their hit points. When casting a spell, the spellcaster loses a number of FP equal to 4 x spell level. Casting a 0-level spell costs 2 FP. Once a character is out of FP, he becomes fatigued. This fatigue can only be removed with 8 hours of rest...

Am I missing something here? A 1st-level wizard with a 14 Con starts with 6 hit points. With this system, he could cast exactly one 1st-level spell and one cantrip, at which point he is fatigued. Seems a bit brutal...

 

[Quartz]

Did anyone play a wizard under this system? Consider a 20th level wizard with a +0 CON modifier (assume his CON boost item has been Disjoined). He's got about 50 HP and thus 50 FP. Casting a single 9th level spell costs him 36 FP. That leaves our mighty archmage with 14 FP, enough for a 3rd level spell and a 0-level spell. Totally ridiculous.

This system fails at the first hurdle.

 

[airwalkrr]

This system probably has flaws too since I have not given it much thought, but it is an intriguing idea. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions for improving it?

Please note the above, Quartz. I did not claim this system was awesome; in fact I claimed quite the opposite. I posted it as a knee-jerk reaction and wanted feedback. The actual system itself probably doesn't work well as it hasn't been play-tested or thought through very thoroughly, but the basic idea might have merit which is what I was shooting for. I wanted commentary and positive constructive criticism on how to improve the basic idea. Please try not to be so negative. Jumping into a thread and saying "This idea is SO LAME!" is bad etiquette on the house rules forum.

 

[Quartz]

Perhaps you missed my first reply on 12th Sept (#5)? In no wise am I 'jumping in'.

 

[reanjr]

I created a caster like this that I called Channeler (from the 2e Spells & Magic book). I used the concept of memorized spells and free magicks from that book. I had slightly different goals. The short of it is, you have spell points. Memorized spells are no problem and expend SP normally. Free spells take more SP and require a check to avoid fatigue. Fatigued -> Exhausted -> 1d4 points of Con damage.

If you want to see more, there's a complete writeup on my site: D20 Channeler Class.

This class has been playtested but not extensively. It gave the casters alot more ooomph in single-combat adventures (akin to Fighters not having to worry so much about HP in a single combat), while still allowing them to be versatile over many encounters (the biggest complaint I hear about memorized casters).

 

[Andre]

This thread is inspired by Vyvyan Basterd's thread here. I wish to take a different approach. As I noted in that thread, the ideal spellcasting system would encourage casters to conserve their power while not depleting them of their ability to cast. In other words, magic should be taxing enough to discourage its use unless absolutely necessary, such as combat.

Airwalker, it seems to me that the core vancian system already does this quite well. You might feel that higher-level spells should take more out of a character than they do (or lower-level ones less), but the vancian system is remarkably effective at limiting how much spellcasters can do in a day. I'm having trouble seeing what using a fatigue-based system adds that's worth the extra recordkeeping. And since your proposed system uses 8 hours of rest as the recharge mechanism, it seems to me to suffer from the same flaw inherent in the vancian system - parties spending too much time resting to get back spells.

If you want to keep the resource management aspect of spellcasting, but change the mix of spells that casters use during the day, I would think a much simpler solution would be to reduce the number of higher-level spells and expand the number of lower-level spells casters get at each level. That would cause low-level spells to deplete the caster's resources more slowly than high-level ones, and not require any additional recordkeeping, die rolls, etc.

 

[airwalkrr]

If you want to keep the resource management aspect of spellcasting, but change the mix of spells that casters use during the day, I would think a much simpler solution would be to reduce the number of higher-level spells and expand the number of lower-level spells casters get at each level. That would cause low-level spells to deplete the caster's resources more slowly than high-level ones, and not require any additional recordkeeping, die rolls, etc.

That is a good idea. Do you have any specific suggestions?

 

[Siberys]

I made a much more comprehensive version of this, shown here. I've expanded yours to a full-fledged skill-system, and incorporated Magic Variants I often use. In fact, since I got / am getting ToB and ToM, I'll be incorporating them too. I based the variant off of yours, Airwalkrr, and you should be able to see that in the basic mechanic.