Monte Cook's Design Thoughts On Spellcasters

[Kapture]

One more thing ... his essay seems to assume that a caster becomes useless when all the spells are used, and less fun. Last I checked, wizards and sorcerers could still choose to use weapons and armor, and can always fall back on the old staff or crossbow. And they have the hardest time -- clerics and druids are pretty capable even when they stop casting.

The wizard in my current game, who largely refuses to make (or use) magic items and often runs out of appropriate spells, uses his bow in large chunks of combat. Hasn't hit anything for half a year or so. His BAB is too low, and his unmagicked arrows don't pierce damage resistance.

The warlock in the party has hauled the fat of the party out of the fire on many occasions.

It seems to me that what Monte is talking about, the Warlock, Tome of Magic, Players Handbook 2, and Incarnum are fiddling with already. I can see the efficiencies. There are a lot of wizardy tricks I don't see used for one reason or another. Some people don't like making magic items because it costs XP. If you choose the wrong spell for an encounter, that slot is essentially a wasted resource. My current group never buffs, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

I think more warlocky wizards is a great idea, and idea that the sorcerer wanted to be but so totally missed. I find the noise about "every class playable for newbies" to be a little sad. There should always be lower barriers for entry to a hobby as niche-y as our is. As someone who sometimes has a hard time filling a table, I would always like a larger pool of players.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Reposting my thoughts from a thread on Monte's boards.

The party stops, despite having wands, potions and other non-spell-dependant resources because their flexibility* decreases as the higher level slots of spells exhaust. Enemies are scaled based (in part) upon the assumption that PCs have their highest level slots available.

3.5 took away certain "all day" buffs in an attempt to "solve" what wasn't a problem. The perceived problem wasn't the caster. It was the target of the spell, which was not "personal". (If it were only Personal, that would lead to separate sets of arguments that "Wizards get to do more! Wah!" of course. ) Monte's suggestion of "all day powers" ties into that.

D&D design could have, but did not, head down far down a path toward what I call the Championizing of D&D. Champions is a superhero RPG where you designed all your powers "off the rack". D&D is getting closer to that with all the options. You want to be able to deal hand to hand damage? Buy this feat and that weapon. In Champions, it's covered with buying it as a power with a focus, or a skill. Different methodology, but ultimately the same idea. Take X effect, add Y modifier, and get Power Z. Ironically, AE moved a little close to this with spell templates and weapon templates and so forth.

Extension of play (or not stopping when the party is out of spell slots) has loomed larger in 3rd Edition because there are more options for players. I somewhat disagree with the following statement:

previous editions' ways trained players of spellcasting characters

Because I don't think it was just spellcasting characters who had to think a lot more about their environment and how to use it effectively. Over the past three years of running a lot of convention games, I've seen the occasional First Edition player who comes up. They invariably look at the locale of the adventure before thinking about abilities upon their sheet. (Sometimes when they look they go "Oh wow, cool!" though.) They think in terms of clever uses of mundane items and normal terrain. This is not to say that the typical 3rd Edition player doesn't do that. They do. But they tend toward looking at a) what their abilities are, b) what other PCs abilities are and c) what other magics the party might have before trying a "mundane" solution to an unusual problem. Unusual problems don't crop up every encounter though, so I ultimately think 3E made some very right decisions for better play.

To address one point in the article:

No longer does a spell like fireball need to be regulated in the same way that a spell like confusion does.

Fireball however has area. The one reason that wizards are so highly prized over archers is area. You can toss a 10d6 smackdown on a large crowd, clearing out quite a few opponents, or softening them up for a couple blows or arrows from the rest of the party to take out. Certain high level games demonstrate that fighters can also start to duplicate this feat. Having Cleave, Great Cleave and some Complete abilities and dealing out hundreds of points of damage in a single round, for example.

One notion that would be fun to toy with is the idea that certain abilities like adding area, greater range, or other form of increased effect are powers. (Getting back to the Champions analogy above.) That would tie into Monte's idea. You could choose a daily "power", like Modify Spell, for example.

All of that said, the idea has a lot of merit. It would be very cool to see something developed from it! I think the system Monte is proposing might actually fly better if it were not constructed specifically for D&D. I'd like to see it as a D20 game, or something further afield.

*Flexibility is akin to movement. Both are highly desirable abilities in 3.5 because they let you cross greater distances, ie access more options. If you have a fifth level caster who can cast third level spells, think of it in terms of having "Move 30". Isn't that more desirable than being stuck at Move 20? At move 20, or worse, 10, you have a very limited number of squares. Tactically, you are much more of a sitting duck.

 

[Gold Roger]

Sounds like the solution to about 95% of the problems I have with 3.5 (more a monument to the low amount of problems I have with the system rather one to Monte's suggestion). I'm all for it.

Besides, it makes sense that a mage can throw out smaller attacks all the time and can have his magical protections up all the time, but can teleport only rarely and divine.

 

[Staffan]

What about this: When a wizard becomes even more powerful and skilled, what once had to be meticulously prepared as a spell becomes a spell-like ability.

The Shadowcaster in Tome of Magic works like this. He uses his highest-level Mysteries (magic abilities) as spells, those a little lower as spell-like abilities, and even lower than that as supernatural abilities. The specific split is that they're divided into 1st-3rd, 4th-6th, and 7th-9th level abilities, and when you get into a new bracket the lower brackets become one step easier (so you need to be able to use 7th level mysteries to get any of them as Su abilities).

 

[Acid_crash]

This is just Monte thinking outside the box again.....and I am glad he is.

Just bought Ptolus, AWESOME book, it's my new love and I don't even like D&D all that much, so I am going to use True20 with it.

One of my biggest reasons why I don't like D&D that much is the spellcasting system and how magic works. What he proposes is by far one of the best alternatives I've read to an alternative magic system to the current generation D&D game. A wizard/warlock hybrid is an awesome idea, using Disciplines and Spells for spell effects. AWESOME.

I think he should go one step further, and have spells be also skills, kinda like how True Sorcery has some basic spells now spellcasting skills.

And he should look at Alternity (heck, I think the whole 4th edition design should look at how skills work in Alternity). Here's my reason:
---Skills provide a basic talent. As the skills increase in rank, at certain ranks the skills provide more and more options.
---By doing this, it blows open the doors for new and more powerful spell effects. Not only spells, but also combat effects for basic combat skills.

That's my .02 cents.

Congratulations Monte for Ptolus, it's by far one of the best books I've ever seen.

 

[SteveC]

For what it's worth, I think this is an excellent idea.

I am currently running The Shackled City, and in our first chapter, we find a group of first level characters presented with not one but two dungeon crawls with time constraints. I have managed to curtail the need for rest by my action point mechanic (use an action point to regain a spell as you cast it) but it may very well strain credibility in the end.

The idea of encounter managed spell casting is sounding great to me at this point, because then we get to balance spells against purely their usefulness, rather than their utility and the opportunity cost for the rest of the day when you cast them.

Good start.

--Steve

 

[ruleslawyer]

You end up with Doctor Strange. In fantasy, spells are typically effortful, and often involve ritual preparations. A world in which a wizard simply floats around everywhere, can literally sit and shoot flame from his hands all day, and so forth is a world in which magic is a) not rare, and b) not pseudo-technological. What you end up with is a superheroic scenario, where magic is better than any other method at virtually anything, and carries little inherest costs or dangers.

I don't agree; I think you're generating a hypothetical outcome out of the approach Monte suggests, and then arguing with that specific outcome.

Casters having some always-on powers and other limited-use powers does not necessarily get you Doctor Strange; Iron Heroes provides a direct counter-example to this, since the arcanist is a substantially weaker class with much more severe restrictions on its spellcasting than the D&D wizard, despite the fact that it uses exactly the kind of mechanic Monte's talking about.

Imagine, if you will, a class that can generate AC bonuses, some bonuses to specific skills, a minor healing ability, a light or darkness effect, and a low-level magical attack (like the arcanist's eldritch dart) at will. Now balance the class by making the big-ticket powers (flight, summoning, teleportation, area-effect combat spells, save-or-dies, etc.) much weaker than they are in current D&D; heck, give them some risk of failure or negative consequences, unlike the current fire-and-forget model of D&D. That sounds a lot closer to a classic S&S wizard than the current D&D wizard.

 

[Felon]

I always wanted this to be what wands were for. Rather than just contain a heap of charges like a can of aerosol deoderant, a wand would be a magician's equivalent of sword, buckler, and bow, giving him an ever-ready means of attack and defense.

 

[Quickleaf]

It's somehow gratifying to know that Monte and I were thinking along the same lines . I actually came up with a warlock/wizard base class some time ago, which I called the Incantor.

Nice work there - sounds exactly like what Monte was talking about.

Perhaps the "incantations/disciplines" could replace the "spell school" system and would influence which spells the magic-user has access to. Basically combine Monte and FireLance's idea with a domain-based caster.

For example, the "incantation/discipline/spell school" of Divination would grant you access to all spells of the Divination school in addition to some divinatory ability you could use whenever you wish (perhaps you could choose from a menu). Thus, specialty magic users would be handled thus: Magic-User 14 (of which 6 levels are diviner, 4 abjurer, and 2 illusionist). For example...

Divination
Spell List: 0th...1st...2nd...3rd...4th...5th...6th...7th...8th...9th...
Incantations (choose one every 3 levels as a diviner):
* Anticipatory Defense: Gain a bonus to AC/defense equal to 1/3 your diviner level (rounded up).
* Hunch: Gain a bonus to a Gather Information, Research, Sense Motive, or Survival check equal to 1/3 your diviner level (rounded up).
* Visions: When you sleep you may ask the GM for a hint. In addition you may have spontaneous visions which the GM relates to you.
* and so on

 

[Celtavian]

re

I'm on the same page with Monte on this one. In the next edition, I"m hoping they move to a spontaneous casting mechanic for all casters. Wizards in books do not memorize spells each day, they learn them and can cast them when needed. D&D needs to move closer to a literary version of a wizard IMO. The sorceror was one step, but the sorceror is to limited in its spell selection. They should do the same thing for the cleric. The cleric should know prayers for handling a variety of situations and be able to use them when those situations arise.

I'm hoping for the casting power of a sorceror and the unlimited spell selection of a wizard in the next edition for all casters. I did this in my own campaign and there were no problems. The limit of being able to cast one spell a round still limited the power of casters. The enemy casters could do exactly the same thing, that was also a check and balance on caster power.

I've for a long time disliked the D&D magic system because it does not lend itself well to literary interpretation of adventures. Their method of spell memorization seems awkward and unbelievable (even in a fantasy reality). No books use this method of magic, not even D&Ds own novels show the D&D magic system at work.

I'm really hoping D&D moves into the modern era with their magic system in future editions. It seems they are trying to move that way with many more spontaneous casters. The spontaneous casting system lends itself much better to literary adaptation and would take pressure off their writers to explain why the casters in their stories don't feel like the casters we play in the game.