Monte Cook's Design Thoughts On Spellcasters

[Kunimatyu]

ToM's binder does this well: You get a few abilities you can use more or less continously, and then a few powerful ones that take time to recharge.

Another way to do it would be to have a system like Tome of Battle's -- you only have a handful of powerful effects, and after you use them, you have to spend actions in combat to regain them.

How about a wizard who has 3-6 powerful spells in a given encounter, but after he uses one, it's gone unless you make a difficult Spellcraft check as a full-round action, or wait 5 rounds for it to recharge? In the meantime, he can let loose with his minor magical offensive/defense abilities. I think there's the gem of a good idea here.

 

[Delta]

I disagree with Monte, I think he often overlooks the core of what makes D&D compelling in the first place. I think having a separate track for "newbie players" (fighters) and "expert players" (wizards) is reasonable and a really good idea for play longevity.

However, it was an assumption, particularly in early D&D, that everyone started out being a fighter and only much later did anyone choose (as their second, third, or seventeenth character) a spellcasting class, after they had experience with the game...

So we gave spellcasters access to more spells, even at lower levels. We gave them easy-to-use options that expanded their abilities (metamagic, item crafting, etc.).

The counter-argument here is "spellcasting was too complicated for new players -- so we made it even more complicated". Truthfully, the "more spells" in 3E isn't servicing new players, it's servicing already-expert players who know all the basic spells already.

In my experience the 3E brand of spellcasting (reams of options, all spells to select from, all cantrips available, metamagic modifications) is totally overwhelming to new players. Introducing mixed, distinct mechanics for spellcasters would exacerbate that. Great for expert players, opaque for new incoming players.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Magic points are probably the way to go. Have magical feats that provide basic attack/defense stuff ala warlock, and then have a small reservoir of MP that can be expended to cast spells. It recharges at a rate of X per hour or something, or completely recharges after a full day's rest.

 

[RangerWickett]

I've been having the same thoughts.

What I'm planning to do for the final revision of Elements of Magic is to give spellcasters mana. You get an amount of mana as you take levels in the 'Mage' class at the same rate that you get a Will save bonus (+2, then 1 more every even level, maxing out at 12).

Whenever you cast a spell, it costs 1 mana, but that mana replenishes if you rest for five minutes. Some spells, however, have effects that require more enduring energy, so they cause mana drain. Mana drain only replenishes once per day when you rest.

Spells that cause mana drain are those that have long durations, or that replicate effects that normally take a long time to complete. For instance, teleportation covers a lot of distance quickly, so teleportation above a certain distance causes 1 mana drain instead of just costing 1 mana which you could replenish after 5 minutes. Magical healing, seeing the future, and almost any effect that lasts longer than a minute causes mana drain.

If you're out of mana, you can still cast a few spells in a pinch, but doing so fatigues, then exhausts, then knocks you out. So normally a mage will cast a few spells per encounter, but have only a few 'broken' spells per day. The spells you cast will have all the variety of core D&D spells (moreso, actually, since you have the option to make spells up on the fly), and you'll have to balance the desire to create long-duration effects with the need to save mana for efforts later in the day.

I think it's actually a lot like what Monte is looking for. Now I just need to finish writing it.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Hmmm...
So severely cut the number of spells for a spellcaster... BUT, make certain "universal" abilities into simple "I can do this anytime" magical effects...

Maybe... maybe... if Wizards had both a pool of "magic points" AND specific spells they memorized...

For in-play example: Orcs. Pie. You kno the drill.

THe modern wizard says "I cast Magic Missile" and marks off thatthey have cast it.,

The FUTURE wizard says "I cast Magic missile using 1 mana point." and reduces his mana count by one.

Later in the campaign... (orc pie factory, you know)

The Modern Wizard says "We should scout around. I'm going to cast two spells on myself, first, I'm going to cast Mage Armor, then I'll cast Invisibility. The mage armor is just in case everything goes pear-shaped."

The FUTURE wizard says "We should scout around. I'm going to channel 4 mana points into my Arcane Defensive Discipline, and then cast invisibility. The Arcane Defense is just in case everything goes pear-shaped.

Or something... I might be overcomplicating it. i'd really like to know where he goes with this...

 

[IceFractal]

On the one hand, I actually like many aspects of this idea - especially the fact that it would allow for both powerful expandable spells and unlimited weaker magic. It seems like a solid concept that could have a very interesting implementation.

However ... there's this idea again. The idea that every class has to be equally playable for a newbie. The idea that player skill should be subtracted from the equation. This is an idea I don't like. In other types of games, people accept that more experienced players do better - this is a fundamental component. But for some reason, I keep hearing this concept that player skill should not be a factor in character power. Why the heck not? The players are the ones playing, at the end of the day - not the characters. If decisions were based entirely on the character's skills and knowledge, you may as well hand over the character sheets and come back in a few weeks to see how the campaign went.

This said, it isn't necessary that the Wizard be the experienced class and the Fighter the newbie class. By all means, have a simple spellcasting class or a complex tactical melee class - just don't take the complex options away.


One way to do this would be for base classes to have a choice of paths. For instance, the Fighter could pick the Weapon Master route (gets scaling bonuses to attack/damage/criticals/etc through the levels, predetermined), or the Tactical route (get bonus feats and manuevers). The Wizard could pick the Inherent Arcana route (Warlock-like abilities, usable at will) or the Dweomermaster route (spells, with all the complexity and strategy ramped to the fullest). And so forth.

You wouldn't even have to put the paths in the same book - you could have a Basic Player's Handbook that was fairly brief and easy for new players to pick up, and then an Expanded Player's Handbook, with the more complex paths and options in it. And even for experienced gamers, the simple paths would be great for DMs to stat up foes, followers, and so forth, for when you just wanted a break from strategy, and for one-offs.

Now that might be worthy of the title 4e, if they did it right.

 

[delericho]

I like the 'per encounter' abilities. I like the token pools from "Iron Heroes" rather more.

I really really dislike the fight/rest paradigm that seems to be a feature of the current game.

So, I kinda like where Monte's coming with his article. However, I think I might be tempted to do things a bit differently:

Wizards have a pool of available energy. At the start of an encounter, this pool is refreshed. As he casts spells, the pool is depleted. However, during the course of the encounter, the wizard can take an action to rebuild his pool by some amount. This allows him to cast more spells, if required. (However, he cannot regain the energy expended on spells that remain in effect - so if you buff the party then that power is gone until you dismiss the spell.)

(Oh, for added fun, how about this: the 'rest' level of the pool is lower than the highest the wizard can attain. So, in order to use those really cool high level spells, the wizard must first spend time building his pool up to the required level. Or he could choose to start blasting away with his low-level spells right at the start of the encounter.)

You would need to bump up the difficulty of encounters, since the party will always be coming in 'fresh'.

For added complexity, give Wizards a pool of energy per school, and force them to choose which type of energy to refresh. This would work really well for specialist wizards (which I think need a big overhaul at the moment), but would probably be excessively complex.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Reading the article made me think about what a great system True20 has for magic.

Basically the D&D vancian magic system has had certain discontinuities with pretty much every kind of fantasy novel magic outside of vance's work, right from day 1! I can see why Gygax & Arneson went with it in the first place, but it is long overdue replacement IMO.

Cheers

 

[Treebore]

Wow. I thought spellcasters were hard to "balance" against the other classes before.

 

[Nyaricus]

Monte's Article is intriguing, frankly. I'll be damned if it works, but it's very intersting.

I, for one, tried my hand over in house rules a few weeks ago making an unlimited spellcaster class which is a prepared and spontaneous caster, and who can, well, cast unlimited spells per day.

But what he's suggesting is so much cooler!