Has the Vancian Magic Thread Burned Down the Forest Yet? (My Bad, People)

[Lanefan]

I used to agree with this. Then we tried playing a 1e game using a houserule that spell slots determined only number of castable spells with no pre-memorization. The casters came to dominate play since they always had the perfect spell. We went back to memorization after a few months.

Interesting, as your houserule is pretty much precisely what I'm doing right now as well. When you did it, what character level did you find things broke down at? I'm up to the 4th-5th level range now and so far so good...

Lanefan

 

[Gryph]

Interesting, as your houserule is pretty much precisely what I'm doing right now as well. When you did it, what character level did you find things broke down at? I'm up to the 4th-5th level range now and so far so good...

Lanefan

If I remember right, and this was 1e days, I was playing a 6/5 F/MU and joined a running group so I was a level or behind. Single class casters were 7 or so for the magic user and 8 or 9 for the cleric.

The DM ended up getting into a cycle of increasing items to the non-casters to try and keep things balanced and you can probably guess what that did.

We used that rule for a couple of months worth of sessions and I think we all leveled up once in that time. The DM ended up doing a bit of a reset and took away a few items at the same time we went back to memorization.

 

[Lanefan]

If I remember right, and this was 1e days, I was playing a 6/5 F/MU and joined a running group so I was a level or behind. Single class casters were 7 or so for the magic user and 8 or 9 for the cleric.

Which isn't all that far away from where I've found things tend to break down in any case: around 9th-10th.

So I'm good for a few years yet. Nice to know!

Lanefan

 

[Gryph]

Which isn't all that far away from where I've found things tend to break down in any case: around 9th-10th.

So I'm good for a few years yet. Nice to know!

Lanefan

Could well be. If we had tried that out starting with new characters I think it would have taken a while to feel broken. We may have even tried some other variants to balance the higher level spells.

There's a lot of water under that bridge now, and sadly not all of those friends are still with us.

Good Gaming

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Putting on my mediator hat...

What do you think this thread would have been like if it had been entitled "Designing Non-Vancian D&D campaign: please help!"

I bet it would be very different. Heck, I probably would have tried constructive posts to help...and I probably wouldn't be the only pro-Vancian who did.

 

[DumbPaladin]

I think the OP might have been fine with that, Danny, but for the first few pages of this thread it was pretty much just 1 guy posting and saying "But I don't WANT to play a game where I don't get to monopolize EVERYTHING!!!" over and over again.

That tends to make a thread go 16 pages for no reason at all, in this place.

 

[Aldarc]

Putting on my mediator hat...

What do you think this thread would have been like if it had been entitled "Designing Non-Vancian D&D campaign: please help!"

I bet it would be very different. Heck, I probably would have tried constructive posts to help...and I probably wouldn't be the only pro-Vancian who did.

A good mediator does not stir the hornet's nest up again.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Unless he's teaching a lesson...

 

[Aldarc]

Unless he's teaching a lesson...

The lesson has already been taught and learned, and even acknowledged by the OP, thus making your mediation both redundant and trouble-stirring.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Maybe si, maybe no.