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

[YRUSirius]

Yeah, because video games are the downfall of the western civilization...

Now excuse me, where's my monocle...?

-YRUSirius

 

[Mattachine]

This naturally separates those with the knowledge and skill to play magic-users from those not possessing those qualities. I mean that sincerely, because to play a magic-user effectively you have to understand the rules associated with each spell. It should go without saying that the player has to already understand how the resource management aspect works. There are other classes without such demanding rules knowledge that might be a better fit for some players.
I have no sympathy for this, personally.

I don't accept that the wizard class can't be for all players. There should be more than one way to play it.

Also, we have to accept that younger folks get most of their fantasy adventurer tropes from TV/Film/Games, not a set of novels.


Wizards for all.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I don't accept that the wizard class can't be for all players. There should be more than one way to play it.

I agree: skillfully, or not at all.

Also, we have to accept that younger folks get most of their fantasy adventurer tropes from TV/Film/Games, not a set of novels.

I'm not concerned with where younger folks get their fantasy adventurer tropes from. D&D is its own thing, they should learn how *this* game plays.

I'm pretty sure that's one of the design lessons Wizards says it has learned: not looking to other media and game-forms for what works.

If a younger player sat down at the table I'm refereeing, I'm perfectly willing to help him "unlearn what he has learned" (preconceived notions).

 

[Doug McCrae]

Wizards will be able to cast some spells at will in D&DNext, it won't all be Vancian.

From what we know about D&DNext -

Wizards have magical feats that are basically at will abilities. Wizards have magical feats (at-will, always available). Hold on to higher spells until needed.

"...there's no reason why, in addition to Vancian spellcasting for wizards and other classes, we couldn't explore alternatives. If we've done our job right, we can provide rules for spell points or some other spellcasting system, or maybe several other spellcasting systems if we need to. A goal for the game is to make it as modular as possible while still maintaining a baseline of classic D&D fantasy, and part of that modularity can include alternatives to mechanics presented in the baseline. We also know that there are elements of non-Vancian magic systems that would be a good idea to incorporate into a Vancian wizard; at-will spells are a piece of game tech that doesn't fit in the classic Vancian model, but that we know is both popular with players and also helps reinforce the wizard as a representative of the master-of-magic archetype." - Rodney Thompson.

Feats cover at-will abilities. Wizard has javelin of fire at-will feat ability.

"The wizard had some type of at-will magic attack, rinky-dink spell, and a very limited Vancian-style pool of prepared spells."

"...an at-will scorching ray type deal"​

 

[Doug McCrae]

Ironically, one of the few times I've played a Vancian wizard like you're supposed to was in a videogame - Temple of Elemental Evil - which is based on 3e. That worked for me because the player controls a party of five characters, so I didn't mind that my wizard was mostly firing a crossbow. In a face-to-face rpg, where I'm playing one PC whose only strength is magic I like to be using magic/casting a spell every round. That's my character's thing, it's what he does. He's not crossbow guy, he's magic guy.

I do think it's trivially easy to grasp the Vancian 'spell conservation' style though. The first time I ever played D&D (red box basic), I was 12 years old, and I saved my 1st level MU's sleep spell for the toughest encounter we faced - 14 goblins, if memory serves.

As I've got older, I guess my attention span has decreased. I've become less patient, more about the instant gratification. Adults these days, eh?

 

[Minigiant]

Wizards will be able to cast some spells at will in D&DNext, it won't all be Vancian.

From what we know about D&DNext -

Wizards have magical feats that are basically at will abilities. Wizards have magical feats (at-will, always available). Hold on to higher spells until needed.

"...there's no reason why, in addition to Vancian spellcasting for wizards and other classes, we couldn't explore alternatives. If we've done our job right, we can provide rules for spell points or some other spellcasting system, or maybe several other spellcasting systems if we need to. A goal for the game is to make it as modular as possible while still maintaining a baseline of classic D&D fantasy, and part of that modularity can include alternatives to mechanics presented in the baseline. We also know that there are elements of non-Vancian magic systems that would be a good idea to incorporate into a Vancian wizard; at-will spells are a piece of game tech that doesn't fit in the classic Vancian model, but that we know is both popular with players and also helps reinforce the wizard as a representative of the master-of-magic archetype." - Rodney Thompson.

Feats cover at-will abilities. Wizard has javelin of fire at-will feat ability.

"The wizard had some type of at-will magic attack, rinky-dink spell, and a very limited Vancian-style pool of prepared spells."

"...an at-will scorching ray type deal"​

Sounds like the at-will spell might be implanted directly into themes.

The Mystic theme might grant an at-will catting of a cantrip.
Whereas the Apprentice theme gives a (bonus) 1st level spell a day.

So someone who wants to play a 4E style wizard would choose the Mystic theme. While someone who wants to play an earlier style wizard would choose Apprentice.


Other aspects of D&D Vancian magic could be implanted into themes. Things like Duration extension and Maximizing Damage and Increasing DCs. The core caster could then be nerfed and players use themes to unnerving them. Only X theme caster can do X well. Only a Y caster can do Y for a long time. Themes would nudge casters into specializations and certain playstyles.

 

[Blackwarder]

Everyone in this topic has missed the biggest reason Vancian casting is overpowered and can never be balanced: It's easy to print more and better spells.

Face it, WotC is in the business of selling books. This isn't a bad thing at all. I love splat books. However, since a spell or power or other modularized piece of character-ability-power-function-box-o-crunch in a text box is easy to portion out and easy to create without pages of justifying or supporting material (or really any at all) they tend to get made by the truckload and appear in books not even slightly intended for wizards. Complete Fighter? Add some new spells to fill out those last few pages. Complete Wizard? Half the book is spells.

I'm not saying books like those shouldn't be made (they WILL, no one can seriously believe for a second that they won't) but combine the fact that the ulimited-book casters (those who have access to nearly every new arcane/divine spell) get new goodies in every book with the fact that these outlier books often do not have oversight or playtesting that core does and simply using errata to nerf to extremely problem spells is like crushing air bubbles in wall paper. 4e dealt with this problem by giving that printability to all classes, so in Martial Power when they have another page to fill they can add another fighter power or two in the same way you could a spell. That way if things are going to get broken at least everyone is allowed to be just as broken.

This is just an innate quality of vancian the vancian magic system as it's been implemented pre-4e. If they want to do away with it they MUST do away with unlimited-book casters so that options can be carefully balanced.

Easy, the DMG should have different methods for getting new spells, it could be only from scrolls and other spell books all the way to automatically getting new spells at the player choice every time he levels up.

Personally, I'm in favor of letting the wizard (or sorcorer) roll on the spell table to generate a random new spell and all the rest being found in the game from scrolls and spellbooks with a chance to learn new spells.

I think the biggest problem is with devin spells, mainly because a divine caster got access to all the spells in each level, personally I think that the number of spells available to each cleric should be limited and not all the spells in that spell level.

Warder

 

[Dausuul]

Expectations for what a fantasy wizard should be able to do aren't really coming from Lord of the Rings or Elric anymore. For a long time, the major wizar/adventurer tropes come from games.

What does Lord of the Rings or Elric have to do with Vancian spellcasting? Gandalf didn't forget his spells after casting them and neither did Elric. Vancian spellcasting is one specific form of magic from one specific fantasy series.

Dislike of Vancian casting has nothing to do with video games. Plenty of old-school players hated Vancian right from the get-go. I'm one of them. I love everything about the wizard class except spell preparation. I am perfectly capable of playing Vancian wizards, I did it quite effectively through BD&D and 2E, but I jumped on the sorceror as soon as 3E came out, and I was irritated when 4E shoved me back in the Vancian box.

 

[tlantl]

I think the biggest problem is with divine spells, mainly because a divine caster got access to all the spells in each level, personally I think that the number of spells available to each cleric should be limited and not all the spells in that spell level.

Warder

Since the player's god is the one granting those spells it seems to me that the dungeon master has as much control over which spells are available to the players as he is with arcane spells.

When I have the time, and inclination, I usually assign different spells to different gods in my game world. If I don't like a spell then it doesn't get used. Since none of the gods give all of the good spells the players have to decide which god to follow carefully. I also use the old system of assigning gods power levels such as lesser and greater. This way I can also set the upper limit of spell levels available. There aren't too many greater gods and only a couple grant the really "good" spells.

 

[Zustiur]

I'm not concerned with where younger folks get their fantasy adventurer tropes from. D&D is its own thing, they should learn how *this* game plays.

This is a key point.
Are we making DND here, or are we making a game to attract newbies?
I believe the goal is to do the former.

Like it or not; Vancian is in.
The question is how to make it less quadratic.
How do you take the fire and forget spell mechanic, and make its resulting power linear, rather than quadratic? There ARE ways.

I see no problem with slowing down the spell progression of 3E. For example, you might gain a new spell level every 3 class levels, rather than every 2. This also has a benefit of pushing spell levels up past 20th class level. Thus making the 'epic levels' of 3E not feel as odd because the progression won't stop quite so suddenly. And it comes with a potentially hidden benefit. If the PHB1 only goes up to 20th level, that means we can drop 8th and 9th level spells from PHB1, thus leaving more room for something other than spells.

Another potential solution is to reduce the number of spells per day that a wizard might have at high levels. Picking a random number for my example: If the wizard only ever has 15 spells memorized, but they move up the spell level tree as he levels up, he will have much less power over-all. To ensure that low level spells are still available, state they you can always memorize a lower level spell in a higher level spell slot.

And of course, there's the question of reducing or eliminating the caster level issue by removing the 1d6 per caster level stuff. If fireball always does 5d6 damage, then being able to cast 10 of them at high level isn't quite as devastating.

Finally there's the question of re-organizing the spell charts. Aside from Magic Missile and maybe Fireball, I'm not really fixed on any particular spell being any particular level. Therefore things like invisibility and fly could easily be pushed up to a higher spell level without upsetting me. I obviously cannot speak for everyone, but I for one am much happier with reallocating spells across levels than I am with removing spell slots or instituting encounter powers etc.