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<blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 1557924" data-attributes="member: 15999">Kind of off-topic here, but I had at one time put some thought into making &quot;spell preparation&quot; feel a little more magical.&nbsp; Perhaps rather than &quot;memorizing&quot; spells as written on the caster's mind, you could have different mages utilize other methods to achieve the same result:1: After resting and focusing his mind, the wizard performs rituals to call mystical spirits to serve him.&nbsp; These spirits hover around, invisible (but can be seen with detect magic), and when &quot;casting&quot; the spell he sends forth the spirit to do its work.&nbsp; The power of the wizard determines how many he can have bound to him at any one time.&nbsp; For all mechanical purposes, this is exactly identical to spell-memorization and casting. 2: The wizard's ritual consists of crafting small tokens from his mystical clay (this replaces his spellbook).&nbsp;&nbsp; Each token corresponds to a spell (small arrow for Magic Missile), and when &quot;casting&quot; he throws or crushes the token.&nbsp; If he has too many at once (exceeding spells per day cap), there is a chance they interfere with each other and invoke prematurely.3: The wizard's ritual consists of scribing runes on his staff (which replaces his spellbook).&nbsp; When &quot;casting&quot; the rune disappears from the staff.&nbsp; If he inscribes too many at once (exceeding spells per day) there is a chance that he invokes the wrong one by accident.None of these nerf the caster, but all add some flavor and variety.&nbsp; The key is to make up more and keep them secret from the players.&nbsp; The biggest difficulties to having magic feel magical is that players know what the rules for NPCs are, know what the spells are, and know how casting works for NPCs.&nbsp; Spells they've never seen before, NPCs who cast differently, NPCs with non-book magic progression - these changes will establish that magic isn't as predictable as they suppose.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Brother MacLaren, post: 1557924, member: 15999"] Kind of off-topic here, but I had at one time put some thought into making "spell preparation" feel a little more magical. Perhaps rather than "memorizing" spells as written on the caster's mind, you could have different mages utilize other methods to achieve the same result: 1: After resting and focusing his mind, the wizard performs rituals to call mystical spirits to serve him. These spirits hover around, invisible (but can be seen with detect magic), and when "casting" the spell he sends forth the spirit to do its work. The power of the wizard determines how many he can have bound to him at any one time. For all mechanical purposes, this is exactly identical to spell-memorization and casting. 2: The wizard's ritual consists of crafting small tokens from his mystical clay (this replaces his spellbook). Each token corresponds to a spell (small arrow for Magic Missile), and when "casting" he throws or crushes the token. If he has too many at once (exceeding spells per day cap), there is a chance they interfere with each other and invoke prematurely. 3: The wizard's ritual consists of scribing runes on his staff (which replaces his spellbook). When "casting" the rune disappears from the staff. If he inscribes too many at once (exceeding spells per day) there is a chance that he invokes the wrong one by accident. None of these nerf the caster, but all add some flavor and variety. The key is to make up more and keep them secret from the players. The biggest difficulties to having magic feel magical is that players know what the rules for NPCs are, know what the spells are, and know how casting works for NPCs. Spells they've never seen before, NPCs who cast differently, NPCs with non-book magic progression - these changes will establish that magic isn't as predictable as they suppose. [/QUOTE]

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