Introducing SC material

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I dropped it all in.

Given that, in the campaign in which it mattered, my spellcasters were a wizard and an artificer, nothing bad happened.

If I had a cleric or a bunch of no-kidding powergamers and munchkins, I might be more hesitant to allow certain spells, but for my campaign they all worked fine.

 

[Oryan77]

I would love to hear how you would change things in a do over. Having only gotten the book Monday myself I haven't decided how I will implement it yet or to what degree. Anything I can learn from other peoples experiences with it could be helpful.

Well it's a great book, don't get me wrong. It just kind of gives players a bigger advantage over what the DM does to try and challenge them. Mostly divine casters benefit the most from the book.

Basically, there's spells in there to negate most any kind of penalties a PC should get when performing actions that have negative side affects. The introduction of swift & immediate action spells really make this worse. In a way it feels like my encounters are always lower CRs then what they would have been without the SC book. So it's harder to challenge the PCs because the spells have taken away a lot of the ammo a DM has against them...they can avoid AoO's, avoid flanking, re-roll saves for free, ect ect.

It's a great book for players because it's a survival kit and it can help move the game along easily. But it can make the DM's job harder.

I have heard DMs that allow players to pick spells from the SC only if they permanently remove an equal number of spells from the PHB. I don't bother with that because it wouldn't make a difference in my group. The SC has so many useful spells that the players hardly use anything from the PHB anyway. You can also find enough spells in the PHB that you'd never use anyway, so removing them wouldn't matter.

I would probably just use the SC as sort of a treasure list. I'd pick & choose what spells they gain access to by throwing in scrolls as treasure or introducing NPCs that can teach something new. I just wouldn't let players dictate what spells they can use from it.

 

[Midknightsun]

In my 3.5 campaign, I allow clerics/druids to pick one spell per wisdom modifier point to add to their spell list per spell level. It kinda bit me in back end later on, when wisdom modifiers got ungodly high. Were I to do it again, I'd likely go with the tradeout method stated earlier in the thread.

For most other casters (and clerics/druids), I have to approve the spells they wanted. I've already refused several for being wonky or just too powerful/useful for their level, but the majority seem okay so far. . . and some are just really cool, so I try to work with my players as much as I can without allowing something I know I'll regret.

 

[Shadeydm]

For the casters that have full access to their list but still prepare spells (cleric being the classic example), I allow them to chose 1 spell per caster level to add to their spell list. In addition to that, they can add spells they find during the game automatically. Besides scrolls of the spells, I occasionally sprinkle in divine books revealing these secrets.

All other casters (warmage, beguiler) just can use their Advanced Learning abilities to add them to their list.

How did the players react to this limitation over the course of the campaign? In hindsight were you pleased enough with the results of this method to recommend it to others?

 

[Voadam]

I need to approve all spells before they can come into my campaign. But since I only allow non PH spells for classes that learn individual spells instead of spell lists (sorcerers, wizards, spontaneous divine caster variant from UA, etc.), I do not find adding in new spell sources a problem.

The spontaneous caster druid in my game has the silver claws spell from SC.

I modified orb spells heavily, but have done so since T&B and I'm sticking with my house rule version.

I like the vigor healing spells.

I have an eldritch knight who learned a bunch of SC spells off of BBEG loot scrolls.

 

[Glyfair]

How did the players react to this limitation over the course of the campaign? In hindsight were you pleased enough with the results of this method to recommend it to others?

It really hasn't come up for discussion. It hasn't come up very often because my players almost never play clerics. The only reason I have clerics in my current game is because one is playing a Silver Pyromancer (requiring a single level) and took Leadership to gain a cleric cohort. The rangers and paladins have just reached the levels where they gain spells.

There have been no complains so far, though. I do recommend it as long as your players are comfortable with the bookkeeping. I don't see how it would be more difficult keeping track of then the "swap with core spells" method. With SpellGen it's been easy.

 

[Agamon]

I was already using the complete books, so dropping it in wasn't that big of a deal.