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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5859349" data-attributes="member: 22779">Who gives a flying fig what Jack Vance thought?&nbsp; Good grief, while the spell system might be called vancian, it's about as far from the actual texts as Harry Potter.&nbsp; The only part of the system that is Vancian is the fact that it's fire and forget.And, yes, the power is exponential, not linear.&nbsp; The direct damage spells might be linear, but, not any of the rider effects.&nbsp; Dominate Person (thank you for the correction) isn't broken in this system.&nbsp; It's just that the spells scale that way.&nbsp; Charm person at 1st.&nbsp; Charm Monster at 4th.&nbsp; Well, what's the next step?&nbsp; Stronger Charm Person - which makes the target my effective slave for a signficant period of time.&nbsp; It's the nature of the scaling.As far as expensive material components go - well, there goes 3e's game balance if you try.&nbsp; The wealth by level presumes that you can actually cast your spells fairly often.&nbsp; If you whack in difficulties casting the spell (and actually go beyond just needing coin value) then the game balance goes off.&nbsp; Like I said, for my way of doing it, anything that has a duration longer than about 1 minute would require a ritual - probably a 30 minute casting time, magic circles and the like, and some specific material components with in-game consequences.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 5859349, member: 22779"] Who gives a flying fig what Jack Vance thought? Good grief, while the spell system might be called vancian, it's about as far from the actual texts as Harry Potter. The only part of the system that is Vancian is the fact that it's fire and forget. And, yes, the power is exponential, not linear. The direct damage spells might be linear, but, not any of the rider effects. Dominate Person (thank you for the correction) isn't broken in this system. It's just that the spells scale that way. Charm person at 1st. Charm Monster at 4th. Well, what's the next step? Stronger Charm Person - which makes the target my effective slave for a signficant period of time. It's the nature of the scaling. As far as expensive material components go - well, there goes 3e's game balance if you try. The wealth by level presumes that you can actually cast your spells fairly often. If you whack in difficulties casting the spell (and actually go beyond just needing coin value) then the game balance goes off. Like I said, for my way of doing it, anything that has a duration longer than about 1 minute would require a ritual - probably a 30 minute casting time, magic circles and the like, and some specific material components with in-game consequences. [/QUOTE]

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