All Spontaneus Caster D&D

[Obergnom]

Hi all,

I thought for my next campaign I would like to make all casters spontaneus casters. How would you do that?


Which Classes?

I do not want to loose any base class, rather make all of them spontaneus casters.

Why do that?

Looking up spells takes enourmous amounts of time in my group since the campaign hit 9th level.

My Ideas/Thoughts:

Is getting a new spell level a later really neccessary? Anyway, all full casters should gain their spells at the same level. Either the Wizard, Cleric and Druid go up to 2nd Spell level at 4th Character Level or the Sorcerer goes down to 2nd Spell Level at 3rd Character Level.

The Wizard should have more spells to choose from but fewer spells per day than the Sorcerer. Maybe the Sorcerer gets Bonus feats (Every 5th Level, as the Wizard) which may be used to buy reserve and heritage feats.

The Bard should get spells a level earlier if the other spontaneus casters get a fix.

Paladin and Ranger need to be fixed, too.

Druid and Cleric could simply use the Favoured Souls Spells per Day and Spells Known List. Wether that is changed to allow earlier access or not.

 

[Meeki]

Ooo fun post. Well if you don't mind I have some ideas.

Wizard: Allow the wizard to cast spontaneoulsy instead of preparing spells. The number of spells he can cast per day is equal to his current spells per day.
However wizards do not have a known spells list, rather they cast directly from their spell book (or some other similar functioning item). Finding a spell in a spell book is a move action so spells that take a full round or greater to cast may not be cast until the following around. Wizards posessing spell mastery do not need to spend the move action to cast any mastered spells. This essentially creates a known list.
Spell mastery may ONLY be taken when the wizard would receive a bonus feat and at first level.
Wizards may also cast off of scrolls that they scribe themselves without consuming the spell on the scroll. Spells requiring XP or materials greater than 1g must still be paid if the spell on the scroll is not consumed. Essentially the wizard must pay the cost when scribing the scroll and when casting it if he elects not to consume the spell.
Wizards still require 8 hours of rest and must study their spells daily.

Sorcerer: This class has always seemed pretty weak to me so first I would like to suggest some tweaks to the class itself.
HD: D6 (logic used over and over they do not study like wizards)
Skills: 2+int Concentration, Craft, Profession, Bluff or diplomacy, and 2 others (sorcerers are diverse and have many skills)
Profeciencies: same as current sorcerer plus light armor. (still subject to arcane spell failure)
Spells: Same spell progression however at odd levels sorcerers now can access to 0 spells per day at a spell level one higher than her current highest. Thus a level 5 sorcerer could cast her normal allotment of level 1 and 2 spells AND 0 level 3 spells. This allows the sorcerer to gain a bonus spell in that slot for metamagics. They will gain no additional spells known so they still will have to wait until 6th level to cast level 3 spells.
Spells known: Same as current except the sorcerer gains a bonus spell known just as she gains bonus spells per day. If she would lose a bonus spell per day she also loses a spell known. If she would gain a spell per day back she gains the spell known that she lost. Only her base stat counts towards bonus spells known, thus magic items and enhancement bonuses do not contribute towards spells known as they do for spells per day.
Feats: At first, fifth, and every five levels after fifth the sorcerer gains a bonus feat that must be a metamagic feat, spell focus, spell penetration, greater spell focus, greater spell penetration. (or a heredity feat if you use this)

 

[drothgery]

Just throwing ideas out here with no playtesting or even back of the envelope stat analysis...

Paladin and Ranger can probably spontaneously cast from their entirely list without any serious harm (at least with PHB spells); they almost never cast spells anyway.

For wizards and clerics I think you'd want some variant on the 'spells readied' mechanic from Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, where they can prepare a certain subset of the spells they know (on their list for clerics, in their spellbook for wizards) and cast them as often as they have slots for (possibly including metamagiced versions as full-round actions).

For sorcerers and other casters with the same progression, I'd just give them 1 2nd level spell at 3rd level, 1 3rd level spells at 5th level, etc. and otherwise leave their progression unchanged. I'd probably give sorcerers the fast metamagic/no familiar option from PHB2, and the wizard's bonus feat progression (though you might make them bloodline feats instead of metamagic/item creation feats).

 

[Obergnom]

@drothgery: The AU/AE method does not work, as one of the real problems is the ever changing spell selection. We played AE for some time, and reached 9th level. The only thing really helping the players was, that they all used the same spell list, thus they were able to help each other.

 

[Obergnom]

Here is a simple first try for Cleric, Druid, Wizard and Sorcerer based upon the spontaneus divine caster rules in Unearthed Arcana. (I did not know they existed, great, a base to start from)

The Basic Tables:

	Spells per Day									
Level	0	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	4	2	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
2nd	5	3	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
3rd	5	3	2	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
4th	5	4	3	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
5th	5	4	3	2	—	—	—	—	—	—
6th	5	4	4	3	—	—	—	—	—	—
7th	5	5	4	3	2	—	—	—	—	—
8th	5	5	4	4	3	—	—	—	—	—
9th	5	5	5	4	3	2	—	—	—	—
10th	5	5	5	4	4	3	—	—	—	—
11th	5	5	5	5	4	3	2	—	—	—
12th	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	—	—	—
13th	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	2	—	—
14th	5	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	—	—
15th	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	2	—
16th	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	—
17th	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	2
18th	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	4	3
19th	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3
20th	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	4

	SPELLS KNOWN									
Level	0	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	4	2	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
2nd	5	2	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
3rd	5	3	0	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
4th	6	3	1	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
5th	6	4	2	0	—	—	—	—	—	—
6th	7	4	2	1	—	—	—	—	—	—
7th	7	5	3	2	0	—	—	—	—	—
8th	8	5	3	2	1	—	—	—	—	—
9th	8	5	4	3	2	0	—	—	—	—
10th	9	5	4	3	2	1	—	—	—	—
11th	9	5	5	4	3	2	0	—	—	—
12th	9	5	5	4	3	2	1	—	—	—
13th	9	5	5	4	4	3	2	0	—	—
14th	9	5	5	4	4	3	2	1	—	—
15th	9	5	5	4	4	4	3	2	0	—
16th	9	5	5	4	4	4	3	2	1	—
17th	9	5	5	4	4	4	3	3	2	0
18th	9	5	5	4	4	4	3	3	2	1
19th	9	5	5	4	4	4	3	3	3	2
20th	9	5	5	4	4	4	3	3	3	3

Cleric

Spells per Day: As Table. No Domain Slots.
Spells Known: As Table + one Domain Spell per Level + Cure or Inflict Spells
Note: You only gain one Domain Spell as a bonus spell known, but you may learn spells from your other domain(s) as if they were on the clerics spell list later.
Example: A cleric with the Plant and Trickery domains reaches 3rd Level. He chooses Invisibility (Trickery Domain) as his free spell known. When he reaches 4th level, he could choose to learn Barkskin, allthough it is not on the clerics spell list.

Druid

Spells per Day: As Table.
Spells Known: As Table + Summon Natures Ally I-IX + Spontaneous Rejuvenation Ability (PHB2)

Sorcerer

Spells per Day: As Table
Spells Known: +2 Spells per Spell Level.
Heritage: At 1st Level a Sorcerer may choose a Heritage Feat (Draconic, Infernal, Celestial or those from Dragon Compendium) as a bonus feat. Only Sorcerer are able to take Heritage Feats.
Bonus Feats: At 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th level, a Sorcerer may choose a bonus feat. This must be a Sorcerer Heritage Feat (Draconic, Infernal, Celestial or those from Dragon Compendium), a metamagic feat or a Reserve Feat.
Sorcerers Edge: Add your Charisma modifier to the damage done by any spell that does hit-point damage. For Area of effect spells, such as Fireball, all foes receive the bonus damage. For targeted spells, such as Ray of Fire and Magic Missile, only one target takes the extra damage. (There is no Extra Edge Feat for Sorcerer)

Wizard

Spells per Day: As Table.
Spells Known: +2 Spells per Spell Level.
Spell Book: Wizards may write Spells into their spell book and cast spells out of the book which are not on their list of known spells. To copy a spell into a book a wizard must have somehow gotten access to it (research, a scroll etc). The prossess of copying a spell costs (Spell Level)^2*200gp. Preparing to cast a spell from the book is a move action.

Specialist Wizard Modification (Add to standard wizard)
Loose: Schools (As per PHB)
Get: Spell Power - When casting spells from your Specialized School, add 1 to the spell effective caster level & add 1 to attempts to overcome Spell Resistance. This bonus increses by +1 at 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th level.

 

[Obergnom]

After some more research done, this is what I came up with.

Comments: Cleric and Druid are essentially as in Unearthed Arcana. The only changes made are:

Clerics do not automatically have access to all domain spells (a source of imbalance when combined with domain granting PrCls), but they gain access to all cure spells.
Druids do gain access to the Vigor line of spells, this will give them basic healing powers.

We are not so different, you and I! ... Or why Sorcerer and Wizard are more or less the same:

I was tinkering with giving the Sorcerer more Spells per day but fewer Spells Known, but to tell the truth, that just was not worth it. The Sorcerer Class was born out of the spontaneus caster concept, and there is not much more to it. I did not want to remove any of the two classes, so the difference will simply be the selection of Bonus Feats and Skills as well as the Edge vs. Book ability.

 

[Meeki]

Really if you made a cleric choose spells known I would never play one. Clerics have so many spells they need to be able to cast that if they optimize their spell list to serve the function that you have laid out, giving clerics cure spells every level, that they will have no fun spells. Their list will consist of domain (if its useful at all) + restoration/remove/resist spells+ cure spells. On top of that your spells per day is pretty limited nixing the domain slot. Very inflexible system.

I suggest giving Clerics prayer books and the like, just like a wiz book. They can spontaneously cast from the prayers they possess. That way they can at least buy some fun spells they can cast.

I think converting everyone to spontaneous caster with spells known really limits the utility of some classes. Wizards can already accomplish a sort of spells known using spell mastery anyways.

Also, how does gaining 0 spells known at a certain level work? What can go in that slot?

 

[Obergnom]

As I said, I took the base for the system from Unearthed Arcana. (See here )

I did some research to find out if others have experience with that variant rule, and found out it works quite well. Clerics tend to buff themselfs a little less, as they, as you pointed out, need to learn some essential spells first.
The 0 Spell Known Thingy... every class gets extra spells known. For a cleric it is his Domain Spell and the cure spell. The Druid gains Summon Natures Ally and sometimes a Vigor Spell.
Wizard and Sorcerer gain 2 extra spells known.

I know that this system will limit the utility and power of the caster classes. But I think that is okay! As I said in my first post, I want to make these changes to speed up the game.

The Spells per Day list is actually Cleric/Druid (PHB) +1, thus the domain slot is not really lost, just added to the base number of spells.

 

[Asmor]

Here's an idea I've had that might work for you... It creates an interesting tension between being prepared and being able to do a lot.

A caster has to "prepare" spells known to use them. He gets to use any spell he has prepared spontaneously.

In order to prepare a spell, the caster has to sacrifice a spell slot of the spell's level for that day.

For example, say you can cast 4 level 1 spells. You could prepare Magic Missile and cast it and only it 3 times that day, you could prepare Mage Armor and Grease and cast either of them twice or both of them once, or you could prepare Mage Armor, Grease and Magic Missile, but you can only cast one of them once.

Actually, now that I think about it, it is really limited with spell slots, so I'd give them some extra slots per day (maybe 2 "preparation slots" of each level which must be used to prepare spells).

 

[Tagnik]

the rules are there for you

Wizard uses the same spells per day, and uses spells known as a Spirit Shaman. Specialists get one more spell known. They prepare their spells known from their spell books like a spirit shaman retrieves them.

Cleric and Druid have spontanious caster rules in UA

Paladins and Rangers use their normal spells per day and have the "Spells Known" the way a Hexblade/spellthief has them.

Sorcerers and Bards remain the same.

that was easy