NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ferghis" data-source="post: 6042011" data-attributes="member: 40483">I think the flexibility is mildly misrepresented as an advantage, at least in my experience. It certainly applies in those rare instances where the caster knows of an upcoming situation that requires a particular set of otherwise-rarely-used spells. But I've only been in that situation a small handful of times in 25 years of gaming. Personally, other than it is a traditional D&D mechanic, I see no game-design advantage to the Vancian system. I do see several disadvantages to it.The five minute workday is a phenomenon that arises not only due to vancian spellcasting, but the latter certainly contributes to it.The disadvantage of AEDU you mention is not intrinsic to it. And it certainly doesn't apply if you use rituals. But back to the disadvantages of the vancian system, just so I'm clear on what is trying to be fixed in this thread.At mid to high level, vancian spell slots take a while to fill, at least if you have a decent library of choices and the choices are equally viable. First second edition made this easier by offering a lot of poor choices that nobody would select unless you knew of a specific upcoming situation that would need the otherwise sub-par spell. There might be a library of about 50 to 70 choices, and about 20-30 slots to fill. Unless I was thoroughly familiar with the spells, it could easily take me an hour or so to make those selections. To make my life easier, I used to have three sets of default selections: camp/healing, travel/wilderness, and dungeon. It still took time to make sure I had the right stuff memorized.Further, the vancian system means that certain circumstantial spells were never memorized (unless you knew of a specific upcoming circumstance that required that spell). My clerics and druids regularly wound up making scrolls of neutralize poison and cure disease, because memorizing those spells would be a waste of a valuable slot. These kinds of spells are much better handled by the 4e rituals mechanic, perhaps boosted by a certain amount of free rituals per level per day.I would much rather see a hybrid AEDU/ritual system, where spells can be promoted from daily to encounter and later at-wills as characters gain levels. This would somewhat simulate the availability of a often-memorized spell under the vancian system. Spell management becomes much, much easier, and one gets to the "fun" part of the game much quicker, under the AEDU system.</blockquote>

Verification