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

[hong]

Why would there be any point to?

This boggles the mind.

Its not like its going to get any support or new products released after 4e is out.

So Make It Up. You are Allowed To.

 

[Sun Knight]

Hong, you just do not get it so there is no reason to even try to explain it to you but I will try. I don't care if the game is basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, or 4e just as long as the game is recognizbly Dungeons and Dragons. The Vancian Spell system, spell components, the whole way Magic is done in DnD is one of the key aspects that marks DnD different from all the other RPGs out on the market. When my group gets together to play DnD we want to play DnD. Plain and simple.

 

[hong]

Hong, you just do not get it so there is no reason to even try to explain it to you but I will try. I don't care if the game is basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, or 4e just as long as the game is recognizbly Dungeons and Dragons.

"The game" is what you play. That might be basic, 1, 2, 3, 3.5 or 4E. Whatever it is, you have no reason to care about the others.

The Vancian Spell system, spell components, the whole way Magic is done in DnD is one of the key aspects that marks DnD different from all the other RPGs out on the market. When my group gets together to play DnD we want to play DnD. Plain and simple.

So play D&D.

 

[Sun Knight]

Its going to be hard when 4e is looking like its not going to be D&D, except in name only.

 

[hong]

Its going to be hard when 4e is looking like its not going to be D&D,

See, this is where that cunning trick of "playing 3E" comes in.

except in name only.

Not that you will care, because you will be playing 3E, right?

 

[Sun Knight]

However reverting to a previous edition is not viable in the long run because it is unsupported and there won't be any new material released.

 

[hong]

However reverting to a previous edition is not viable in the long run because it is unsupported and there won't be any new material released.

I think you should have a chat to the nice people over on Dragonsfoot before making statements like that.

PS. Tell them Hong said hi!

 

[italianranma]

On a 7 day overland journey do you describe every meal along the way?

"Hardtack and beef jerky."

"Hardtack and beef jerky."

"There were apples on the way and you bite into a scrumptious apple."

"Hardtack and beef jerky."

At some time it because repetitive and loses the value.

Ah, see you're right on one count and wrong on the other. It does become repetitive to eat the same thing over and over again. But in this case repetition adds to the experience. Not only do the players get sick of me telling them the same boring foods they eat, but they get sick of eating the same boring foods. I believe immersion is a very handy tool at the game table; otherwise we'd set down and play Descent.

And I want to make it clear that there is a time and place for details: If the PCs have had a long day with lots of events then I don't describe the menutia. It's those days on the road, long, boring, and repetitive that need that kind of attention. Telling my players, "You travel on the road for 3 days before you reach your destination. There were no random encounters." breaks the immersion feeling, and trivializing something that is inherent to all fantasy adventure: travel.

At some point the party will just tell a wizard who describes the material components every time - "Yeah, bat guano, we get it."

I have a player like that. We roll our eyes when he describes things sometimes because he uses the same phrases too much. One time he started in with one of his tirades but petered off halfway through saying "...uh..you know." That was hilarious! In any case it's about keeping game descriptions interesting and varied. Sometimes you need the boring to make the exciting stand out that much more: Contrast more than quality will be better received by your players, believe me on that one. Sure, if a player says "I reach into my belt pouch, pinching bat guano between my fingertips." twenty times in a 4 hour session, then he's going to have us all pull out hairs from our heads. But when he does it just once or twice, for dramatic effect, then it really adds to the experience. When I descibe combat, I try to make it sound like an action movie: Time slows down when that wizard reaches into his belt pouch, but at the same time things just happen too fast for the cleric to take in all the events. When I have 20 zombies shamble after my party, I don't say "20 zombies" I call it the zombie hoard because it sounds more terrifying. But I'm really derailing the thread here I think...

Back on track

The wizards spellbook is one of those things that I feel was horribly done in 3E. The designers made sure to set the cost of scribing a spell into the book at a high enough level so that wizards just didn't go around getting every spell they could and just put it in their spellbook. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of practically eliminating the concept of the "travelling spell book." The cost was so great, even for a limited selection of spells that no one bothered. You pretty much only saw them when someone found a Boccob's Blessed Book.

Because of the lack of the back-up spell book, spellbooks became the wizard. If he loses the spellbook completely, you might as well retired the wizard. Regaining the spells was cost prohibitive, and no one ever took Spell Mastery. Why didn't they take that feat? Because DMs never removed spellbooks because doing so was completely crippling to the wizards.

I think 4E needs to take a different approach to spellbooks, if it doesn't eliminate them all together. Perhaps the cost can be tied to imprinting the spell on the wizards mind. He needs a spellbook to prepare the spells, but creating a book with the spells is much less expensive.

Get rid of the problem that having an extra copy of a spell costs the same as getting a new spell. In that case getting a new spell wins almost every time.

I don't even recognize what Spell Mastery is, heh. But then again I haven't DM'd a 3.5 game in almost 2 years. I'm not in the habit of permanently destroying magic items, I find that it's just not fun. I like temporarily releaving (sp?) the PCs of some of their favorite toys, but that's usually as far as I'll go. I just don't think that anyone will be able to convince me that a spellbook's cost is too much for a wizard to handle. Fighters need to spend a hell of a lot of gold on magic items to stay balanced for play. True, Wizards need scrolls and wands and Staves, etc. but overall I see a good balance in costs. I've seen some of my players with fighters keep a back-up magic weapon when they could have sold that to help upgrade their primary one, if a Wizard wanted the insurance of a backup spellbook he should have to spend the resources on it.

But then again, we're creative people right? There are other ways to backup your spells. Having apprentices and teaching them is a cost free way of making sure that you've got a spare copy. How about being a member of a Wizarding College? There are other solutions.

That being said, I only enforced the rules on that because I hadn't seen anyone else do so, and thought it would make for a good experience. In fact that player (who has been DMing longer than I have) never even read the rules on scribing spells before, and I believe that overall it really added to his game.

But in any case there is at least one person who is as frustrated as you with the scribing rules

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Hong, you just do not get it so there is no reason to even try to explain it to you but I will try. I don't care if the game is basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, or 4e just as long as the game is recognizbly Dungeons and Dragons. The Vancian Spell system, spell components, the whole way Magic is done in DnD is one of the key aspects that marks DnD different from all the other RPGs out on the market. When my group gets together to play DnD we want to play DnD. Plain and simple.

Where were the spell components in OD&D?

 

[italianranma]

edited: Math in public. How embarrassing.