Preparation time for divine casters

[AuraSeer]

The key here is "IMC" - which means "In My Campaign". Not "in the rules", which your limitation is not, in fact, in.

See my first response to you. Spell slots are defined as the number of spells a character can cast per day.

The rules do not specify precisely what "per day" means. A strict DM may rule that it means a 24-hour period, starting when spells are prepared. My campaign is slightly more lenient than that, but that does not change the base rule, which specifically states that spells are limited per day.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

In our campaigns, we sort of ignore this and let them prepare together with the arcanists. But then, we ignore some other things, too, like item weight (unless it gets ridiculous, like a halfling mage wanting to carry a solid gold icon of his deity - on a 1:1 scale...)

But I plan to make my next campaign very strict in these things. A little less heroic (or rather anti-heroic, as my campaigns an evil one), a little less larger-than-life. Though not particularly restrictive, as I hate that.

 

[FrankTrollman]

The rules do not specify precisely what "per day" means.

They sure do. They give a comprehensive list of when you can and cannot prepare spells. That list is 3 pages long, and never ever mentions specific calendar restrictions other than those laid out above.

If they meant it to have anything to do with midnight or noon, or "friday" they would have said so.

But they didn't.

The restriction is 8 hours of rest and the recent casting limit. The recent casting limit is 8 hours long. It does not care when the sun(s) rise or set (or even if the sun rises or sets if you are on another plane or planet).

Everything not in this discussion is stuff you made up. In the actual rules things work as I describe.

Not the way you describe.

That you don't like the description in the rules and have house ruled additional restrictions is a thread for you to make on the House Rules forum. Not on this board at all.

-Frank

 

[Saeviomagy]

That you don't like the description in the rules and have house ruled additional restrictions is a thread for you to make on the House Rules forum. Not on this board at all.

-Frank

Well, the original term "day" IS in the rules, vague though it is.

Furthermore, you did challenge him to supply a method which didn't arbitrarily hose characters, which kind of ties his response and therefore his houserules to this thread.

The big problem for me with the standard rules is that anyone who doesn't prepare spells at dawn (supposedly most non-good divine casters) gets majorly nailed if he happened to cast spells slightly late during the hours of daylight (ie - the most likely time to go adventuring). Specifically, if someone with a midnight service is forced to cast a spell after 4pm, he can't recover it again the next day. It's even worse if you have a midday service, or heaven forbid a dusk service.

Personally I'd suggest that the 8 hour limit shouldn't apply to divine casters for precisely these reasons...

 

[FrankTrollman]

The big problem for me with the standard rules is that anyone who doesn't prepare spells at dawn (supposedly most non-good divine casters) gets majorly nailed if he happened to cast spells slightly late during the hours of daylight (ie - the most likely time to go adventuring). Specifically, if someone with a midnight service is forced to cast a spell after 4pm, he can't recover it again the next day. It's even worse if you have a midday service, or heaven forbid a dusk service.

I don't see that as a problem.

That doesn't affect any group more than any other - it just triggers at different times. If you prepare at midnight - it means that you have to start praying within an hour of midnight. So the latest you could start would be 1 AM. That means that anything cast after 5 PM that day is going to jack you.

But if you prepare at Dawn (which I will call 6 AM), the latest you could start would be 7AM. Thus, anything you cast after 11 PM the previous day is going to jack you.

The time period is 7 hours of screwage in either case. If you cast a spell between 5 PM and Midnight you are going to get screwed out of a spell slot if you prepare spells at midnight. If you cast a spell between 11 PM and 6 AM the next day you are going to get screwed if you prepare spells at dawn.

If you are a human, and you normally sleep at 3 AM, the whole preparing at dawn thing sounds pretty good. But if you are a Kobold, you suffer penalties during the day, so those night time hours are important to you. Getting double whammy for casting spells between 11 PM and 6 AM is awful - it would leave you only 5 hours of darkness in which you could act freely.

Meanwhile, preparing at Dusk sounds just as good to Kobolds as preparing at dawn did for humans.

And that's balanced. It means that every group actually has a time during the day when they can attack their enemies in such a way as to screw the opposing divine casters. That's why Orcs try to attack at 2 in the morning, and Humans try to attack in the late afternoon.

-Frank

 

[Saeviomagy]

I don't see that as a problem.

That doesn't affect any group more than any other - it just triggers at different times. If you prepare at midnight - it means that you have to start praying within an hour of midnight. So the latest you could start would be 1 AM. That means that anything cast after 5 PM that day is going to jack you.

-Frank

The main problem is that there's an awful lot of groups who don't have darkvision, and are therefore tied to a standard day/night cycle of activity (or alternately are tied to a reversed cycle due to something like the orc's light aversion). Using spells during your own sleep cycle tends to be a rare thing, and a problem which may warrant some extra difficulty to overcome. Using spells during your active cycle is far more common. Hence any god with a prayer time at the end of, or halfway through the active cycle of it's supplicant race is, quite frankly, suboptimal.

 

[pyk]

They sure do. They give a comprehensive list of when you can and cannot prepare spells. That list is 3 pages long, and never ever mentions specific calendar restrictions other than those laid out above.

If they meant it to have anything to do with midnight or noon, or "friday" they would have said so.

But they didn't.

The restriction is 8 hours of rest and the recent casting limit. The recent casting limit is 8 hours long. It does not care when the sun(s) rise or set (or even if the sun rises or sets if you are on another plane or planet).

Everything not in this discussion is stuff you made up. In the actual rules things work as I describe.

Not the way you describe.

That you don't like the description in the rules and have house ruled additional restrictions is a thread for you to make on the House Rules forum. Not on this board at all.

-Frank

There was a whole discussion over at WotC's boards on this. The end result is that a "day" for arcane spellcasters is the time between sleep periods. An arcane spellcaster can theoretically get 5 "days" worth of spells cast during 2-24 hour periods. An arcane spellcaster's "day" could be only 9 hours long: 8 hours sleep, 1 hour preperation, cast spells during first activity of day, go back to sleep. This is what the rules state, as there is no definition of "day" in the books.

 

[Winternight]

And rememeber that some Deities have assigned prayer hours as in the FR. If you check the major dieities in Faiths and pantheons, you'll notice that clerics have to prepare spells at some pre-ordained time. My Tempuran Battleguard preppares his at noon.

That`s pretty tough noon:

Recent Casting Limit: As with arcane spells, at the time of preparation any spells cast within the previous 8 hours count
against the number of spells that can be prepared.

That means:
any spell you cast between. 0400 and 1200 takes a spell slot of the next day from 1200-1159.

but to answer the original question. which only Kreynolds tried to before those flames started to ignite:
It up to your DM, but I'd say (heck IMC You have about an half hour give it or take.
Normally it is no problem, but sometimes i say: you should prepare now! or never. If they are doing something else (tracking some orcs the last time) it is their problem.
The DM should always asume, that u rest and prepare spells unless you said otherwise.
If he says "you didn`t said u would stop and prepare", either stop playing with such a nerd or ask him to play the hole evening in turns. Maybe you forget the next time to eat....
Also for arcane spellcasters:
you can asume they memorize each morning. That`s like breathing for them.

 

[AuraSeer]

This is what the rules state, as there is no definition of "day" in the books.

So if the rules don't state a game-specific definition of a term, we can ignore the standard English definition and make up a new one?

That sounds like fun. Since the PH does not define the word "die," I declare that it now means "cheeseburger." When attacking your enemies, determine success by throwing a Big Mac on the table.

 

[Artoomis]

Arrrggghhhh.