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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5781983" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here is Monte Cook on the AE system (from <a href="http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mc_diary4" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mc_diary5" target="_blank">here</a>):As a designer, magic in Arcana Unearthed posed a huge challenge. I knew that I wanted to ditch the Vancian system (and by that, I mean the idea inspired by Jack Vance's books from the sixties, in which one prepares or "memorizes" a spell ahead of time, then loses the ability to cast it once it is cast). I didn't want to get rid of it because it was bad -- in fact, I fought for it to stay in 3rd Edition when some people wanted to get rid of it -- but because it was only one way to handle spells. Certainly not the only way. And Arcana Unearthed exists to show that there are alternative ways of doing things. However, at the same time, I wanted the spells in this book to be as compatible as possible with existing D&D and d20 spells and spellcasting classes. That meant there still needed to be nine spell levels, pretty much balanced the same way . . . [E]ach class has access to either simple or both simple and complex spells. You have a set number of spells that you can "ready" on a given day, based on your level and an ability score. "Ready" simply means that you've got the spell all set to go when you need it. (You don't lose the readied status of a spell if you cast it. It's more like how a sorcerer knows certain spells, except that your chosen readied spells can change each day if you wish.) If you can ready four 1st-level spells per day, they can be four different 1st-level spells from day to day. No spellbooks involved. No memorization and forgetting*. And the numbers of spells you can ready isn't so small that it forces repetition (and you can change them every day). You also have a set number of "slots" each day to cast your spells with. So, if you've got three 1st-level slots, you can cast any three of the four 1st-level spells you have prepared. In any combination. So you can cast one spell three times, three different spells, one spell twice along with another, or whatever. So far, it sounds like it's just a combination of the way sorcerers and wizards work, right? Well, that's intentional. I wanted to keep it both simple and not drastically different than what people are used to (and I wanted to keep the spells themselves pretty compatible with regular spells). But I didn't stop there. The two really different aspects are: 1. Casters can "weave" multiple lower-level slots to cast higher-level spells, or a single higher-level slot to cast multiple lower-level spells. This adds a great deal of flexibility. 2. Spells have prescribed diminished and heightened effects in their descriptions to tell you what happens if you cast the spell using a slot one level lower or one level higher than the spell itself. This effectively makes every spell into three similar but different spells.I don't have any strong view on how different this is from D&D Vanican casting in some absolute sense. But it strikes me as clearly different in a number of practical features of the way it will play: a spell caster PC has access to a wider range of spells in a day (due to the readying rules plus the heightened/diminished rules) and in choosing that access has more flexibiilty as to which spells will actually be cast (due to the heightened/dmnished rules plus the weaving rules).It strikes me as completely unsurprising that some - perhaps many - players would find that these practical differences would matter in play.Whether this systems is a better or worse genre emulator I'll leave to others to work out.</blockquote>

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