What if you have only 30 minutes to prepare your spells? And what if you want to prepare half of them after lunch? And what about changing a spell you have prepared?
This is an attempt to improve the spell casting by providing an explanation of the prepared spell systems and extrapolating.
Comments welcome!
Procedural spell casting
1 Matrix spell casting
Matrix spell casting, as the name suggests, uses a mystical matrix to serve as a base structure and foundation to build the spell. The structure must be more sturdy to support a higher level spell, but all matrices for the same spell level are equivalent. No spellbook is required to create a matrix. Constructing the matrix takes time acording to the maximum spell level it can receive and the skill of the spell caster.
A matrix can support a single spell of its level or a lower level spell.
Matrix spell casting only applies to arcane magic and is only usable by spell casters that can prepare spells.
1.1 Time to buid the matrix
It is not needed to compute the needed time to prepare a spell caster daily allotment of spells; if the GM or players find these rules too cumbersome, the base assumption that spell preparation lasts one hour can be kept. However, if the spell caster is interrupted in the preparation, the spells available can be determined.
The time to build the matrix can be determined with the following formula.
(20+2*Spell Level)-(D20+caster level)
Instead of rolling D20, the spell caster can elect to take 10 as circumstances allow. The simplified formula to compute the time to build a matrix while taking 10 is 10+(2*Spell Level)-caster level.
A matrix always take at least one minute to build.
Armeth the Wizard is a level 3 wizard. If he prepares a spell matrix for a Level 1 spell by taking 10, it will take 12-3 or 9 minutes. For a level 2 spell, it would take 14-3, or 11 minutes.
1.2. Preparing the spell
After a matrix has been prepared, the spell itself can be cast. Spell casting can be long but fortunately, can be done in advance and thus be divided in two phases; in the first, called preparation, the spell caster shapes the magical energies towards a specific effect but leaves some areas of the matrix blank; this way, the spell is hanging, missing parts that must be filled in when the spell is to be released.
These parts are often called 'lynchpins' in magic theory.
(and in Amber too
)
Lynchpins usually include the selection of a target and other details the caster can specify when the spell is released. In the spell description, the choices the caster have are also lynchpins.
Preparing the spell is intricate; the spell caster follows a procedure which must be described usually in a spell book
That first phase of spell casting takes half as long as creating the matrix for the spell, rounded up to the next minute.
Armeth the Wizard is a level 3 wizard. If he prepares a Level 1 spell by taking 10, it will take 9+4.5 minutes, or 14 minutes.
1.3. Metamagic feats
It is also in the first phase that metamagic feats can be used to enhance the spell. Metamagic usually increase the spell level, thus requiring spell matrices of an appropriate level and appropriate casting time. However, a spell can be cast on a matrix able to support an higher level spell. If that is so, the spell can be 'corrected' with metamagic feats after the first phase of the casting; it takes 4 minutes per additional level gained to do so. A modified spell level cannot exceed the level of the matrix and cannot be 'reverted' to the original, unmodified form.
1.4. Available matrixes and spells
Spell casters can at any time have as many suspended matrixes as they have spell slots for their level. These matrices can be blank or can have spells prepared on them.
Finishing the casting of a spell suppresses the matrix which can be rebuilt at anytime. While the spell is not cast, it stays suspended in its prepared state indefinitely or until the spell caster decides to suppress it.
It is also possible to empty the matrix of an already prepared spell as a full round action by making a spell caster level check at DC10+2*spell level: a failure ruins the matrix. If it succeeds, the matrix is ready to receive a new spell.
The preparation of a spell can be done at anytime, providing that a free matrix of the needed level or more is available.
1.5. Casting a prepared spell
By defining the lynchpins with the spell components, the spell caster finalize the spell; this second phase of spell casting takes the normal casting time as specified in the spell description.
2. Casting without preparation (optional)
One does not have to have an empty matrix or spellslot for the spell since it does not use a matrix and is not "suspended" but used right away.
Anybody able to decipher the text describing the spell and skilled enough to follow the procedure described therein can cast a procedural spell without preparation.
The caster must have Knowledge(Arcana) ranks of 3 times the total spell level to cast (thus 0 level spells always satisfy that condition). Spells cast based on Knowledge(Arcana) can fail; the caster must succeed a Knowledge(Arcana) check DC 10+3*the total spell level. The Knowledge(Arcana) skill cannot be magically improved for that purpose. If the spell fail, it can backfire on the caster depending on the amount the roll was missed by.
Alternatively, if a procedural spell caster want to cast a procedural spell of any spell level he has slots for (these slots are not used and thus do not need to be empty) and that he could prepare and could have or has in his spell book, there is no Knowledge(Arcana) prerequisite and the spell never fails.
Metamagic feats can be added, but this modifies the spell level and casting time as usual.
Of course, the preparation time must still be spent in addition of the normal casting time, and the spell caster cannot 'take 10' to compute that time. As always for for the first phase of spell casting, the spell caster must have description of the spell casting procedure. However, he also needs to perform gestures, utter words and spend material components or use focus; as the spell is cast right away, the lynchpins must be built as the casting progresses.
This of course limits the utility of spells cast that way, because for instance the target of the spell must be there during all the casting.
This is an attempt to improve the spell casting by providing an explanation of the prepared spell systems and extrapolating.
Comments welcome!
Procedural spell casting
1 Matrix spell casting
Matrix spell casting, as the name suggests, uses a mystical matrix to serve as a base structure and foundation to build the spell. The structure must be more sturdy to support a higher level spell, but all matrices for the same spell level are equivalent. No spellbook is required to create a matrix. Constructing the matrix takes time acording to the maximum spell level it can receive and the skill of the spell caster.
A matrix can support a single spell of its level or a lower level spell.
Matrix spell casting only applies to arcane magic and is only usable by spell casters that can prepare spells.
1.1 Time to buid the matrix
It is not needed to compute the needed time to prepare a spell caster daily allotment of spells; if the GM or players find these rules too cumbersome, the base assumption that spell preparation lasts one hour can be kept. However, if the spell caster is interrupted in the preparation, the spells available can be determined.
The time to build the matrix can be determined with the following formula.
(20+2*Spell Level)-(D20+caster level)
Instead of rolling D20, the spell caster can elect to take 10 as circumstances allow. The simplified formula to compute the time to build a matrix while taking 10 is 10+(2*Spell Level)-caster level.
A matrix always take at least one minute to build.
Armeth the Wizard is a level 3 wizard. If he prepares a spell matrix for a Level 1 spell by taking 10, it will take 12-3 or 9 minutes. For a level 2 spell, it would take 14-3, or 11 minutes.
1.2. Preparing the spell
After a matrix has been prepared, the spell itself can be cast. Spell casting can be long but fortunately, can be done in advance and thus be divided in two phases; in the first, called preparation, the spell caster shapes the magical energies towards a specific effect but leaves some areas of the matrix blank; this way, the spell is hanging, missing parts that must be filled in when the spell is to be released.
These parts are often called 'lynchpins' in magic theory.
(and in Amber too
)Lynchpins usually include the selection of a target and other details the caster can specify when the spell is released. In the spell description, the choices the caster have are also lynchpins.
Preparing the spell is intricate; the spell caster follows a procedure which must be described usually in a spell book
That first phase of spell casting takes half as long as creating the matrix for the spell, rounded up to the next minute.
Armeth the Wizard is a level 3 wizard. If he prepares a Level 1 spell by taking 10, it will take 9+4.5 minutes, or 14 minutes.
1.3. Metamagic feats
It is also in the first phase that metamagic feats can be used to enhance the spell. Metamagic usually increase the spell level, thus requiring spell matrices of an appropriate level and appropriate casting time. However, a spell can be cast on a matrix able to support an higher level spell. If that is so, the spell can be 'corrected' with metamagic feats after the first phase of the casting; it takes 4 minutes per additional level gained to do so. A modified spell level cannot exceed the level of the matrix and cannot be 'reverted' to the original, unmodified form.
1.4. Available matrixes and spells
Spell casters can at any time have as many suspended matrixes as they have spell slots for their level. These matrices can be blank or can have spells prepared on them.
Finishing the casting of a spell suppresses the matrix which can be rebuilt at anytime. While the spell is not cast, it stays suspended in its prepared state indefinitely or until the spell caster decides to suppress it.
It is also possible to empty the matrix of an already prepared spell as a full round action by making a spell caster level check at DC10+2*spell level: a failure ruins the matrix. If it succeeds, the matrix is ready to receive a new spell.
The preparation of a spell can be done at anytime, providing that a free matrix of the needed level or more is available.
1.5. Casting a prepared spell
By defining the lynchpins with the spell components, the spell caster finalize the spell; this second phase of spell casting takes the normal casting time as specified in the spell description.
2. Casting without preparation (optional)
One does not have to have an empty matrix or spellslot for the spell since it does not use a matrix and is not "suspended" but used right away.
Anybody able to decipher the text describing the spell and skilled enough to follow the procedure described therein can cast a procedural spell without preparation.
The caster must have Knowledge(Arcana) ranks of 3 times the total spell level to cast (thus 0 level spells always satisfy that condition). Spells cast based on Knowledge(Arcana) can fail; the caster must succeed a Knowledge(Arcana) check DC 10+3*the total spell level. The Knowledge(Arcana) skill cannot be magically improved for that purpose. If the spell fail, it can backfire on the caster depending on the amount the roll was missed by.
Alternatively, if a procedural spell caster want to cast a procedural spell of any spell level he has slots for (these slots are not used and thus do not need to be empty) and that he could prepare and could have or has in his spell book, there is no Knowledge(Arcana) prerequisite and the spell never fails.
Metamagic feats can be added, but this modifies the spell level and casting time as usual.
Of course, the preparation time must still be spent in addition of the normal casting time, and the spell caster cannot 'take 10' to compute that time. As always for for the first phase of spell casting, the spell caster must have description of the spell casting procedure. However, he also needs to perform gestures, utter words and spend material components or use focus; as the spell is cast right away, the lynchpins must be built as the casting progresses.
This of course limits the utility of spells cast that way, because for instance the target of the spell must be there during all the casting.
