How fast should magical power return to a caster?

[Nifft]

What about slot (mana) potions? Since the fighter can drink some healing potions to keep going, there should be some potion to let spellcasters keep going, although I believe they already had this idea and if it\'s not implemented, that\'s because it sucks for some reason...

Pearl of Power!

-- N

 

[Menexenus]

In a perfect game, IMO, the spellcasters should not be limited, but spellcasting should be taxing, and big spells when you're tired should become dangerous to cast for the caster's health.

I agree. A system like this seems more reasonable and could introduce some additional drama into the game. I'd definitely be interested in trying something like this if it could be implemented well.

 

[HeinorNY]

I\'m in favor of \"per encounter\" so I don\'t have to keep close track of time but still don\'t have to worry about classes being balanced toward an encounters per day paradigm.

Iron Heroes does a fine job balacing class abilites per encounter instead of per day, (I\'m not talking about the magic system, it\'s also balanced per day) the token system does that pretty well. If somehow it could be implemented with D&D magic system would be gold.

 

[elrobey]

my house rule is to convert 1/day to "automatically replenishes to maximum once you have been fallow for 12 hours".

To put it another way, any time you go a continuous 12-hour period without casting any spells, you recover all your spell capacity. You cast a spell before the 12-hour clock is up, sorry, you reset the clock. No exceptions, not modifiable by feats or magic or anything, not related to whether you rest or sleep or whatever.

Works really well.

 

[Sejs]

In a perfect game, IMO, the spellcasters should not be limited, but spellcasting should be taxing, and big spells when you're tired should become dangerous to cast for the caster's health.

I'm sure there are already some systems that play it that way and I just don't know about them, though.

Well I wish i knew what system that was.

Yup, as Aust said - Shadowrun. Casting a spell causes 'drain' in the form of non-lethal damage, and the nastier a spell is (and how hard you choose to cast it, up to a maximum of the level you know the spell at) the more damage you do to yourself.

Also of note is that in Shadowrun, once you fill up on non-lethal damage it overflows to lethal, and thus if you cast a spell that is well beyond your ability to handle it is entirely possible for a spellcaster to kill themselves by overstepping their bounds.

Beyond that there are no hard and fast limits on how many spells a caster may cast in a given day.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Well I wish i knew what system that was.

DnD's Unearthed Arcana.

 

[kaomera]

It depends on which spell. Combat spells should refresh per encounter, other spells will vary depending on their usefulness.

 

[Cadfan]

I voted for the 10 minutes option, but what I'd really prefer would be a "per encounter" system like in Tome of Battle.

I recognize that this would require a massive change to the system, and the amount of magic available to a character would have to be dramatically reduced. But I don't enjoy the resource allocation involved in "per day" thinking, I much prefer tactical planning. And I think more of that could be achieved with a system similar to what Tome of Battle utilizes.

This will probably never occur, though, because of the legacy effect. Perhaps a small book somewhere, Tome of Magic II, could allow it for a few small, new classes.

 

[ephemeron]

Well I wish i knew what system that was.

I'm still not up on 4th edition GURPS yet, but 3rd edition qualified -- "fatigue points" doubled as spell points, and a desparate caster could burn hit points to power their spells. There's also an unofficial variant called "Unlimited Mana", which lets spellcasters do amazing things if they're willing to take corresponding risks.

 

[JustaPlayer]

I picked the last one. In reality it depends on the way the class is set to work. If it's a PHB class, once a day.