"Overcasting" in your campaign.

[Ahnehnois]

To my way of thinking, having "good rules" to cover this kind of idea means having a completely different magic system without spell slots or metamagic and with a very different take on the effects a spell can have and the costs to cast it. So I'm saying no, at least not in the context of anything like 3.X D&D. Casaters can do enough quickly enough already.

 

[Umbran]

Wow. Necromancy of a thread dead some 9 years? Is that a record?

 

[JamesonCourage]

Whoa, really old thread.

I do use an "overchanneling" system, to allow spells to be cast when you're out/low on spell slots, or over what you're normally allowed. And it's based on 3.X spell slots. It's very popular with my players, and is used frequently by spellcaster PCs. Then again, the magic system is different, there aren't bonus spell slots based on high attribute score, and power has been toned down (including save DCs). So, maybe that's why I think it works well.

At any rate, not sure why it's been brought up nine years later. I think it'd be doable in 3.X, but magic is a little trickier to balance in that system at a base level. Definitely doable, in my mind, but I love house rules (and thus have my own game that started out as house rules). As always, play what you like

 

[Jhaelen]

That's a great idea if you feel 15 minute adventuring days are way too long. Suddenly your typical adventuring day is only 6 seconds long - yay!

If you want (limited) overcasting use psionics, e.g. wilders.

 

[MarkB]

I'd strongly suggest checking out the spellcasting rules from the Dresden Files RPG - they live for this topic.

If you know what you're doing, and you have the Fate Points for it, and the situation lets you tap the right Aspects of your character, the opposition and/or your environment, you can go way over your normal limits when spellcasting - but if you don't have the moxy to back it up, and quite often even if you do, you'll take some serious consequences for doing so.

This can happen to some extent with any in-game action, but when it comes to spellcasting it's taken up to eleven.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overcasting is a tricky topic in D&D, though I know other systems allow or even encourage it.

I would go the psionics way as a houserule if I were to do it in 3.5

 

[Dice4Hire]

No, too munchkiny

And I look at dailies (4e) and the top level slot (3.5) as effectively being overchanneling already. Especially once the caster is up to 5th or so.

But if a player asked I would do something like psionics. Let them spend a lower slot to boost a spell a bit. Not 3rd to 9th level, but 3rd to 4th or so.

 

[Aramax]

I like the idea and would consider using this if Pathfider presented some good rules for this,but it seems like something that quickly gets out of hand(Happy 300th post!)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

"No, too munckiny/powergaming."

That's what I voted. See my signature about how I feel how it interacts with psionics.

However, a really well-designed, limited system could probably handle it. Sean K. Reynolds has a good wild magic system somewhere (it has apparently fallen off the tubes, but I used archive.org to find it) and the Wild Mage sorcerer build in 4e may be balanced too (it's a lot less abusable than the psionic variant).

 

[Viking Bastard]

Sean K. Reynolds has a good wild magic system somewhere (it has apparently fallen off the tubes, but I used archive.org to find it) [...].

Is this it?