Making Vancian Casting More "Linear" and Less "Quadratic"

[Bluenose]

I'm not sure I am following - Are we disagreeing about something here?

I don't think we are, really. I did think it was worth pointing out that Wizards (mages as they were in 2e) aren't the only Vancian casters in the game, and some of the others really aren't all that fragile by comparison to Fighters, and are less so than Thieves.

I honestly can't recall Cleric and Druid power in AD&D/2E, because I never played one to high levels. Were their spells equivalent in power to those of the Wizard?

They had some pretty nasty stuff in their lists. Druids probably a little more than clerics. I don't think quite at the Wizard level in magical terms, except in some areas. You wouldn't want to be the target of Call Lightning, for example.

I wasn't referring to 3E at all, as my only experience with Wizards in 3E was low level, or simply reading forum discussions about how over-powered they were compared to other classes (as well as the CoDzilla thing which I never experienced personally).

Yeah. 3e is really different.

 

[Mattachine]

Druids in AD&D could summon elementals (very tough elementals) without need to concentrate on controlling them. That was one of the nastiest things they could do.

 

[Redbadge]

so...just like healing surges. A "resource" to manage. When you are out of rests, you are done for the day, just like in 4e you are done when you are low on healing surges. Not interested.





Ok, so if I'm playing a game that is actually heavy on role playing, and not just combat and only intend to have 2 or 3 FIGHTS all day, I have to make them insane, because they will be completely full when they hit those 2 or 3 fights.
Contrary to the tactical nature of some games, MANY people do have roleplaying encounters, where no spells will be used.
So I now need to plan for 10-12 encounters a day, instead of the 3-4 I want to have.

Again, no thanks.

But, isn't it alright for 10-12 fights to be possible. And as far a small number of fights not being challenging enough, that's part of the problem. In prior editions, 1 fight a day allowed a party to bring all their resources to bear. Also, as far as running out of resources in 4e equating to automatically being done for the day (the faulty "healing surges are a strict limit on how much you can do argument*"); this is true of every edition. Generally, when the party runs out of hit points and spells, they stop for the day.

*Once you account for the fact that sources for surge-less healing in 4e can equal or exceed (includes at-wills such as Astral Seal) the amounts in 3e (i.e. a Fourthcore wand with charges of the surgeless Cure Light Wounds), 4th edition characters have fewer restraints on long adventuring days.

 

[Janaxstrus]

But, isn't it alright for 10-12 fights to be possible. And as far a small number of fights not being challenging enough, that's part of the problem. In prior editions, 1 fight a day allowed a party to bring all their resources to bear. Also, as far as running out of resources in 4e equating to automatically being done for the day (the faulty "healing surges are a strict limit on how much you can do argument*"); this is true of every edition. Generally, when the party runs out of hit points and spells, they stop for the day.

*Once you account for the fact that sources for surge-less healing in 4e can equal or exceed (includes at-wills such as Astral Seal) the amounts in 3e (i.e. a Fourthcore wand with charges of the surgeless Cure Light Wounds), 4th edition characters have fewer restraints on long adventuring days.

Fewer restrictions maybe, but look around the threads here and elsewhere. There is a lot of evidence that the 15 minute adventuring day didn't go away in 4th (some people claim it's more prevalent). It's not a faulty assumption, it's based off players and DMs relating their play experience.

There is also a huge difference between 1 fight a day and the 4-5 I like to run per day. With recovering spells between each, 4-5 becomes 12-15 just to be the same level of challenge I've already got now. If I want to stay at 4 or 5, they have to be edge of your seat deadly, every time.

 

[Redbadge]

Ideally, the system will allow 1 fight, 5 fights, or 10 fights, to all be equally viable, preferably in the very same campaign.

Although, one can argue that is possible in the systems we have now:

First, don't allow the players to know that they are fighting the only fight of the day when such fights occur (not always possible).

Second, 4-5 fights is the default assumption, so that is easy.

Finally, the DM can make additional resources available for those really long adventuring days (in fact most 4e adventures with time-sensitive expectations already frequently provide some amount of surge and power recharges built into the narrative to curtail risk of TPK). Alternatively, the DM and players can just understand that these long days are just inherently riskier, most likely to end in defeat (although capture/knock-outs can substitute for TPK if the group is more interested in maintaining the campaign continuity rather that the challenge of true lethality).

That said, I do like to put on my designer hat and theorize about systems that might better curtail the 15-minute adventuring day, while also providing room for a large range of "encounters," without a lot of thought and tweaking from the DM during the design of an adventure itself.

 

[triqui]

There is also a huge difference between 1 fight a day and the 4-5 I like to run per day. With recovering spells between each, 4-5 becomes 12-15 just to be the same level of challenge I've already got now. If I want to stay at 4 or 5, they have to be edge of your seat deadly, every time.

This is a major problem to build a new edition indeed. It's hard to catter different playstyles. I ussually do 1 single encounter per day. Often less than that. With that, the regular 4-5 encounters per day that the game is balanced for, makes me a problem. Players have 5x the resources (be it daily powers, or spells, the problem is the same in 3.X or 4e, so it was in 2e). That means lots of encounters are just blown by overloading, and it makes it harder to balance encounters through CR.

I know the game is balanced for several encounters a day (dungeong style). But often I like to play a different kind of campaign (I also like dungeoning, but it's not my favourite style). And the game isn't very well suited for my preffered playstyle. If 5e allow to "dial" for several encounters a day, or one, that would be awesome. I've no clue how to do it, though.

 

[MortalPlague]

Encounter would just mean spells that can be re-prepared after 5 minutes of rest, instead of 6 hours rest. And most spells would be able to scale to higher spell levels.

Despite all the hate this idea's received, I think it's a great way to change things up.

A couple of relevant points here:

• First off, it's a different way for a wizard to gain power. As was mentioned earlier, they gain spell slots, spell levels, and spell power at the same time. This feeds the quadratic wizard problem. Gaining a new, different sort of 'spell slot' is a great way to change it up. Call it 'Spell Mastery'; they've gained enough familiarity with lower level magic to work with it more quickly.
• Secondly, this doesn't change the front end of the wizard class in a big way. His big guns are still his highest level spells. I believe the way dkyle had the chart arranged, the new slots only came in at level five. At fifth level, the wizard has fireball, has lightning bolt, and a whole host of potent game changers. He also has things like scorching rays or acid arrow to complement his big guns. He's not using magic missile until he's run out of the others. So the high level spells are still the ones that really matter.
• Refreshing the use of lower level spells are a great way to make them useful without boosting their power in a big way. As was mentioned earlier, scaling spell power is a huge part of the quadratic wizard issue.

I just don't see a problem with a wizard at 5th level being able to change a couple of spells after a short rest. It would really add to the versatility of a wizard if he could make choices throughout the day, instead of right at the beginning. You would never, for instance, have him turn a corner, see a spider, and go, "Oh, let me arm my poison resistance spells". He wouldn't have time. But you might have the wizard come around a corner and see a library, and say "Oh, let me arm tongues so I can read these languages.".

Suspicions could be acted upon; the ranger detects an acrid smell in the air ahead? The wizard can take a moment to pore through his tomes and select an acid resistance spell. The rogue finds a guard post? The wizard casts invisibility on the rogue. Little things like that don't upset the balance of the party, but they make a wizard more useful in a wide variety of circumstances.

 

[FireLance]

Giving them "Firelance" all day makes them a warlock or a reflavored crossbow.

Frankly, I would rather be an encounter power. An at-will power is too common, and a daily power doesn't get used often enough.

 

[FireLance]

So, if everyone is essentially at full HP and such all the time with only 15 mins of rest, you essentially have to make all encounters harder. If they always have a haste, fly, fireball, righteious might, healing, etc. then I no longer get to wear them down with encounters that are fun for them to hack through and must make more of them potentially deadly.

There are a number of underlying assumptions in this statement which may or may not be true:

1. All players enjoy hacking through encounters that are there just to wear them down.

2. All of a character's resources are regained after a short rest.

The first is a matter of taste. The second is a matter of game design, and while I suppose it is possible to design a game in which all of a character's resources are regained after a short rest, that is completely different from allowing a character to regain some resources after a short rest.

Also, it messes with my timeline if I want to impart a sense of urgency and get the PCs to push on at their own peril. It basically makes it so they can always push on regardless of resources, fights are always full powered and makes one shot or charged magic items nearly useless. Also, duration of spells hardly matters because in 15 minutes, you're all back up to full and can cast everything again.

There are again some more assumptions here that may or may not be true (apart from the "recover all" vs. "recover some" assumption that has already been pointed out):

1. There are no short deadlines.

2. All fights are against foes of equal difficulty.

For the former, deadlines measured in days are obviously less relevant when resources can be wholly or partially regained in a matter of minutes. All this means is that when deadlines are used, they have to be shorter. No doubt, this places some restrictions on the type of scenarios that can be run (as the adventurers might comically put it, "Why am I always told to rescue the princess one hour before she is to be sacrificed? It would be nice if they could inform me three days in advance for a change."). Another alternative, which verges into house rule territory, is to change the length of a "short" rest. Even though the rulebook might define it as five minutes, a DM might choose to extend it to an hour or even a day if t suits his playstyle better.

For the latter, if some fights are against tougher opponents, charged and one-shot magic items will help to even the odds. In addition, on the assumption that an element of luck or chance will still be involved, they can act as safety nets that help the PCs recover from a run of bad luck.

 

[GM Dave]

Just a couple of thoughts;

1> When I play a Vancian Wizard, I usually don't fill all my 'slots' with memorized spells at the start of the day. I usually choose some combat spells for 'emergency' use and a couple of utility style spells that I know can be my 'fall back' spells. I use the empty spell slots to fill as I need during the adventure. This allows me to adapt on the fly to fill in or adjust my combat style to the needs of adventure and players.

2> Personally, I'm not a big fan of a couple of spells like Invisibility at level 2 and True Strike at level 1. The trouble that I have with these spells is that they give a bonus that is too big compared to another class's capabilities. If Invisibility is the equivalent of +20 to skill then you should compare it to what a Rogue could do that is focused on Stealth to decide which level it belongs at. Personally, I feel that would be closer to level 4 or 5 since this is such a big advantage (Rogue with +4 for Dex, +9 for level, +3 for focus on skill is +16 which is pretty close given no limited resource is involved).

3> I was wondering if a system of diminishing returns might be a good choice for repeated usage of the same magic. This is more directed to towards healing to avoid unlimited usage of Cure Light Wounds and Cure Light Wound Wands is to have each repeated usage within a 24 hr period have a reduced value like [the total rolled -2xApplication to the individual.]

The same idea might be applied to the spamming of combat spells. The first usage of a Magic Missile might be at 'full' effect while repeated usages are a reduced value copy. This encourages the use of a variety of spells instead of the same spell all the time.

4> Remember that in 'fixing' wizards, you should also 'fix' fighters by increasing their damage per level. A sword swung by a level 10 fighter should do more damage then if it is swung by a level 1 fighter. If I do 1d8+Str at level 1 then I should be doing 3d8+Str at level 10 to 'keep up' with the Wizard throwing out Fireballs or more.

5> Druids in 1e AD&D were very different. They were the only class that could use 3rd level spells at 3rd level and they had a lower experience cost to level then Clerics. They also didn't have Cure Light Wounds at level 1 but had to wait till Level 2 to get their second level spells with the Cure Light Wounds spell. They could also have an army of animal friends accompanying them (via 'Animal Friendship spell'). They could attract 2 HD of animals per level of experience. A bear was 3 HD; so, by level 2 you could have that and a dog/wolf accompanying you.