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

[Mon]

It's Time for Vancian Magic to Go Away

No, it's not.

It does a good job of portraying the feel of a certain type of magic - the type that is relentlessly sought by power-hungry individuals who aren't born with magic and refuse to kowtow to others for it. Folks whose magic is not their own to be channelled and shaped on a whim, or bestowed by higher powers. Folks who have to struggle to master it through sheer ambition and cunning. i.e. Wizards.

I would be perfectly happy if it went away for sorcerers, clerics, druids, etc - but it captures the very essence of the wizard class archetype in tone and feeling.

I guess, what I am saying, is that it should be in the game but it probably shouldn't be the baseline assumption for the game.

Anecdote (feel free to skip):
When I first discovered D&D, the magic-users with their spells and books seemed so arcane (as in obscure and mysterious) and not at all what I expected. I was eager to see how it worked and to achieve an understanding of it. When I later discovered AD&D I found strange new spells crafted by wizards from other dimensions with unearthly names - Bigby, Mordenkainen, Otiluke, Drawmij. That flavour, that sense of wonder, is what made me love D&D.

Isn't that sort of feeling what magic is all about?

Also, it isn't clunky at all - it works smoothly as a mechanic in-game. It is easy to use, and yet unusual and obscure. A good way to represent "arcane" magic in a game. Neither is it particularly unbalanced. It is no more unbalanced than spell-points/power points for example (in fact, it is not as overtly potent due to less spammability).

 

[Janx]

usually when somebody wants to change a rule that benefits a specific class, I gotta wonder, what class to they mostly play....

I'm not a big fan of Vancian magic mind you. But I can't help but notice how changing it out will make my wizard more awesome....

That way usually leads to game imbalance, and that's usually not fun for other people.

I was never a fan of the old concept that wizards suck at low level and are awesome at high level. That's basically making me experience unfun for many levels, before I MIGHT get to have fun IF the campaign lasts that long (and statistics says it won't).

I do like that each class has its moment in the adventure, which means that sometimes in a session, the player has to sit out while somebody else's PC is awesome.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Vancian magic is the worst approach to RPG magic there is - except for all the others that have been tried.

Yeah, it has its faults and limitations, but so does EVERY OTHER APPROACH. D&D became the game that it used to be as a RESULT of Vancian magic, not in spite of it. The further afield from it that the game is taken the more players jump ship saying, "this is not what I want or expect."

There is still MUCH that can be done within a Vancian framework to "modernize" older approaches to D&D gameplay. There is no need to abandon it altogether as useless just because it's old.

 

[Umbran]

There is something worse than having an element in a game that you don't like: having an element in a game that you do like that gets taken away. Pathfinder came about so people wouldn't have to radically change their games. What you're suggesting would force the very thing Pathfinder was created to avoid - it runs against Pathfinder's raison d'etre.

Given D&D's history of tinkering and house rules, and Pathfinder's origins, I'd think providing an alternate system as a supplement would be a better move than ripping out the old system and replacing it.

 

[amerigoV]

Monte Cooks' Arcana Unearthed (3.x variant) had some cool concepts that blended the Vancian and Sorcerer approach:

1) You had a big spellbook and readied a fixed number of spells for the day
2) You cast those as a sorcer
3) I think you could spend an hour and change your spells if you really needed to
4) Some other interesting mechanics around spending 3 lower level spell "castings" to power a higher level spell, or burn a higher level casting to get 2 lower level spells (it was purposefully ineffecient transaction)
5) I do not remember how metamagic worked, but there were changes to that.
6) Each spell had a higher and lower version that you could cast by just preparing the main spell. So once you got Invisibility, you could cast a one level lower weak version, the regular version, and Improved (if you were high enough level)

Now, he also addressed spell levels as well. Everyone takes Magic Missile, Web, Fireball, Invisibility because they have always been the most powerful spell at that level. Those spells were either weakened or the level was adjusted.

Overall, you got a nice blend of being able to Spam fireball and still have useful spells like Knock handy. Still lots of resource management for those that like it, but the DM could just ignore it and fling spells more like a normal wiz/sorcerer.

 

[Ahnehnois]

There are a lot of problems with the 3.5 D&D implementation of 'magic'.

The daily replenishment of spells is arbitrary and enforces a pace that a lot of people complained about.

The spell slots are confusing and needlessly complex.

Most spells automatically work; and if there is a chance to resist them it is generally in the defender's hands.

Magic has no cost to the user; a wizard who runs out of spells still feels fine and might not even have broken a sweat.

Overall magic is too mechanistic, not random or 'mystical' enough, too powerful, and too complicated.

All that said, it works alright in play. I hope someone does come up with something better, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Well, the only other alternate magic system I've played is Palladium and Mage The ascension, which I've both enjoyed.

Palladium basically uses a point system called PPE or Potential Psychic Energy and each spell you cast costs a number of points, If you run out of points you can't cast spells until the points come back from resting or other sources, such as Ley Line energy.

The MTA system worked by two different forms of magic, dynamic and static, also called coincidental magic. Dynamic was basically if you wanted to cast a fireball it would be a big huge fireball that everybody could see. Coincident magic meant that a car's gas tank was leaking and a spark from an electrical wire would ignite and cause the gas tank to explode.

The reason for this was because of how reality was manipulated. In short, in that game, reality was defined by the masses, although popular belief could be manipulated, and there were powerful entities that protected the reality as dictated by the masses. So if you rolled too badly, you would be attacked by these entities and undergo a harrowing as a punishment. BUT spells, also called rotes in the game, could be pretty much anything you wanted only limited by imagination, sphere of magical knowledge, and the Mystic Tradition you belonged to.

 

[pawsplay]

I've always explained it to my players in a similar fashion. Spells are not so much "memorized" as the act of preparing them for the day is when the actual, heavy lifting is done, so that when needed, only the final few syllables of the spell need be said to complete the effect.

Don't forget psychically charging your bit of bat guano.

Harry Potter works well with Vancian casting. Otherwise it's hard to understand why Voldemort doesn't just spam Death Curses all day, or why Harry and Hermione invariably resort to spells they have just learned.

 

[pawsplay]

Seriously? Wow. I'd always considered this to be the Vancian system's biggest bug, not a feature.

If the spellcasters are dealing with all the threats in the early encounters, and the warriors are dealing with all the threats in the later encounters, that means you've got people sitting around feeling they can't contribute much in every encounter.

Wouldn't it be better for both the spellcasters and the warriors to have something useful to do in pretty much every encounter?

You call it being useless, I call it an exciting nailbiter. And I do have some issues with fighters and wizards who never, ever become tired.

To me, "Vancian" casting to some extent defines D&D; I've played dozens of other games, some of which do things quite differently, and I can still play them if I wish. I kind of like the idea of changing things up, maybe having clerics default to spontaneous casting or something, but for wizards I want them to be primarily bookdriven, when I play D&D.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have come across at least one major piece of fiction using Vancian magic, Zelazny's second Amber series, and I like its take enough to make me feel a little better about D&D magic. I do admit, though, that it looks like it was derived from D&D rather than the other way around.

There are others, most notably Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance, which gave the system the name, as well as some spells and things like Ioun Stones.

I disagree. There were plenty of non-core D&D d20 supplements that threw out Vancian magic.

Vancian magic being unique to D&D is not a viable explanation for keeping it in D&D. Many other magic systems also present challenges and unique resource management. You appealing to vague sense of how D&D would "feel like a generic FRPG" without Vancian magic is an irrational sentimental attachment to the mechanic.

Yes there were, but they didn't toss it out of the system as a whole. They were supplemental, not replacements.

As for keeping it in the system, a major key to any product's success is differentiation. With manufactured goods, your primary bases of differentiation are distinctions of quality or quantity. With something like D&D, you differentiate based on intangibles like "flavor", and Vancian magic is one of those aspects that definitely affects the flavor of the game.

Seriously? Wow. I'd always considered this to be the Vancian system's biggest bug, not a feature.

If the spellcasters are dealing with all the threats in the early encounters, and the warriors are dealing with all the threats in the later encounters, that means you've got people sitting around feeling they can't contribute much in every encounter.

Wouldn't it be better for both the spellcasters and the warriors to have something useful to do in pretty much every encounter?

That's a playstyle issue. In 33 years in the game, the only times the non-casters didn't contribute to solving problems is when the problem by definition/DM design could only be solved by magic. Our thieves and fighters help in encounters both early and late...as do our spellcasters.

I'm wondering where the idea that 4e did away with Vancian casting is coming from. It's just reduced the amount of spells used in that way down to dailies, which means your fireballs are still cast in a Vancian manner.

4Ed didn't jettison Vancian casting, but it is inarguable that it radically reduced its use as a mechanic.