D&D 4E Material components and spell books? Get rid of them for 4e!

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I like the spell components in D&D, but only at a flavor level and, really, only because most of them are jokes.

Gum arabic and an eyelash for invisibility? Yeah - that's an eraser* and something from someone's eye.

The black and white canine statues for the repulsion spell? An old child's toy where two dog statues had opposed magnets in them and you could use one to chase the other away.

Passwall? Sesame seeds, which need no explanation.

Antipathy involves soaking some alum in vinegar which, IIRC, gives off a bad smell.

Apart from that, though, they're generally relegated to the backgroud.

* - Okay, gum arabic isn't actually made into erasers that I know of, but it is part of chewing gum, which is what fancy artists' erasers look like.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Spellbooks are cool and should remain in the game. However, what they do should change. They should give bonuses to some spells or some other benefit, but I don't think Wizards should be "forced" to memorize/prepare spells from their book.

The idea of using material components to cast a spell is also cool, but, like a spellbook, I don't think they *need* to be required. Perhaps they just augment the spell.

If they are required in order to cast spells, I actually don't mind them. Indeed, the real problem is having to actually spend time to track down the mats and write them on my sheet. What I'd like is something really abstract, like an abstract pool of "resource" or "treasure" points that would replace gold pieces. When you cast a spell requiring material components, you just make a deduction to your resource points. This represents using up your material component. It's not very "realistic," but that doesn't bother me much because it's easy to actually use.

I bascially use this in my games. For example, last game I had a player who wanted to cast Identify but didn't have the 100 gp pearl. I instead let him use a 100 or so gp ring his character found. If he had any other equivalent gp value (like 1000 sp), I would probably have let that work as well.

At the very least, I'd take a nod from WoW and have a relatively small amount of components for a few spells.

 

[messy]

I don't mind spellbooks, but wouldn't miss them either.

I long ago dropped material components (except for the rare pricy one for game balance reasons, and then I just have the player mark off the equivalent gp value) and don't miss them one bit.

ditto.

there's something about spellbooks, though... you can't just get rid of them, can you??

messy

 

[Slife]

Here's the thing about spellbooks:

A first level wizard starts off with at least 3,300 gp worth of spellbook.

This is patently absurd. For that amount you could hire a small army and have them fight for you instead.

 

[Slife]

The best part about the diamond dust, etc is that it may or may not take market forces into account.

"Hrm, now that the price of diamonds has gone up, I find that I can use less of it to achieve the same effect."

Brad (who enjoys jokes about D&D economics, and thus has no life)

My interpretation is it's the spell that fixes the value of the diamonds, and, indirectly, gold. The fact that the gold values happen to be evenly divisible is partly because of how the weight was chosen and partly because of something very complicated in magical valance theory.

 

[Rolzup]

And I bet his one spell does the same damage as shooting someone with a crossbow bolt, right?

No, no. He's an alchemist. So, sure he *can* fire a flaming crossbow bolt...or he can fire a glob of resin (Web), a blast of flame (Cone of Fire), peer through the scope to determine the presence and nature of a magical aura (Detect Magic), or use it as a rocket engine (Flight), and so forth and so on.

It limits me, as a player, because all of his spells have to fit his particular mechanism. But it's a fun limitation, and it's gotten me thinking in creative ways, and it's all for the good.

Prying Eyes, for example: A swarm of flying clockwork eyes, released from a compartment in the stock of Burne's Heremetic Destructive Engine, which fly about, observe things, and then return and flash an high-speed image directly into poor Burne's retinas.

 

[hong]

Vis-a-vis flavour: material components are a vestige of 1970s Gygaxian funny. Bat guano, glass rod and cloth, et al. It's like having names like Zuggtmoy, Zagyg, Iggwilv and Tenser.

 

[Sun Knight]

Man, I hope they don't get rid of spell components and spell books. It is part of the magic system that makes it different from all the other magic systems in other RPGs. In our group we do keep track of spell components and make use of spell books. With all the changes they are doing to the game they shouldn't even call the game Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[hong]

Man, I hope they don't get rid of spell components and spell books. It is part of the magic system that makes it different from all the other magic systems in other RPGs. In our group we do keep track of spell components and make use of spell books. With all the changes they are doing to the game they shouldn't even call the game Dungeons and Dragons.

You know, if you want to keep playing 3E, you could... keep playing 3E.

 

[Sun Knight]

Why would there be any point to? Its not like its going to get any support or new products released after 4e is out.