"Siloing" Class Abilities

[IceFractal]

One possibility is that spellcaster will get a much smaller number of spells known/prepared, but those spells will be significantly more versatile. For instance, take a look at the Swordsage - at level 20, it gets just 12 manuevers prepared. So maybe "Fire Sphere" is your only fire spell available, but it can do several things: blast people like a fireball, make a spherical flame barrier, or create a long-lasting light/heat source.

That could be pretty interesting - I'd like it if most spells had an obvious use, a subtle/tricky use, and a niche use. Some spells already have this, without being stated as such. For instance, Grease:
Obvious Use: Make people fall over.
Tricky Use: Make people sneak-attackable.
Niche Use: Make heavy things easier to push.

 

[Merlion]

One possibility is that spellcaster will get a much smaller number of spells known/prepared, but those spells will be significantly more versatile. For instance, take a look at the Swordsage - at level 20, it gets just 12 manuevers prepared. So maybe "Fire Sphere" is your only fire spell available, but it can do several things: blast people like a fireball, make a spherical flame barrier, or create a long-lasting light/heat source.

That could be pretty interesting - I'd like it if most spells had an obvious use, a subtle/tricky use, and a niche use.

We've already pretty much covered this idea. Overall, it seems pretty unlikely. In 3.5 a great deal was done to reduce spell flexibility...and from the information we've been given, it looks more like Wizards will be getting supernatural and/or spell like abilities in addition to regular spells...and that perhaps their may be for instance a tie between the type of spells prepared, and the type of abilities availble.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Is that implying that you can prepare utility spells and then convert them into perhaps a variety of basic attack magics?

That would be a BAD way to go about designing it, IMO. If you're trying to simplify a system and you want to encourage use of more utility spells you're not doing yourself any favors by building in "conversion" mechanics. What you do is build in mechanics where casting ANY general utility spell simply DOES NOT AFFECT your ability to cast combat spells.

You make combat spells a constant, repeatable ability with little or no limit on the number of times it can be cast. Like shooting arrows or swinging a sword you cast your combat spells and simply DO DAMAGE. But then you've got a list of spells you can cast once in every encounter - maybe certain buff spells, debuff spells (reducing enemy ability to hit or reduced enemy damage) or standard useful combat NON-damage effects like slow, sleep, hold, and of course some of your utility spells would likely fall into this category. Using them won't cut into your basic combat spells at all. Then you've got a list of per-DAY spells which are much more powerful and which you'll only get to use a few of them in a given day. Those would probably be the Vancian spells so as you increase in level you get more slots but still have a very limited number of them available so you need to be more selective about when you use them and what you want them to do. Some utility spells would fall into this category.

THAT is the kind of system I think they're talking about. People seem to locked into thinking of things in terms of how they are done NOW and trying to apply the same principles. Probelm is those principles are being thrown OUT for new and better methods. Spell CONVERSION, is what you do to an all-Vancian system to get around it or make it act more flexibly. We're talking now about the system being more flexible in how the spells are actually USED (or not used) in the game and not NEEDING to do stupid, clunky things like conversions.

At least I hope so...

 

[Merlion]

That would be a BAD way to go about designing it, IMO. If you're trying to simplify a system and you want to encourage use of more utility spells you're not doing yourself any favors by building in "conversion" mechanics. What you do is build in mechanics where casting ANY general utility spell simply DOES NOT AFFECT your ability to cast combat spells.

You make combat spells a constant, repeatable ability with little or no limit on the number of times it can be cast. Like shooting arrows or swinging a sword you cast your combat spells and simply DO DAMAGE. But then you've got a list of spells you can cast once in every encounter - maybe certain buff spells, debuff spells (reducing enemy ability to hit or reduced enemy damage) or standard useful combat NON-damage effects like slow, sleep, hold. Then you've got a list of per-DAY spells which are much more powerful and which you'll only get to use a few of them in a given day. Those would probably be the Vancian spells so as you increase in level you get more slots but still have a very limited number of them available so you need to be more selective about when you use them and what you want them to do.

THAT is the kind of system I think they're talking about. People seem to locked into thinking of things in terms of how they are done NOW and trying to apply the same principles. Probelm is those principles are being thrown OUT for new and better methods. Spell CONVERSION, is what you do to an all-Vancian system to get around it or make it act more flexibly. We're talking now about the system being more flexible in how the spells are actually USED (or not used) in the game and not NEEDING to do stupid, clunky things like conversions.

At least I hope so...

I am begining to have a few doubts about this conceptually. I hope they dont run TOO rampant with the per-whatever-time-period abilities. Generally, magic and magic use, in fiction etc, behaves like an energy or power source, with the limitation being that you run out. Having a wizard only be able to create certain affects on a certain time schedule...well, I guess thats a lot of what the Vancian system already is, but you can have multiple copies. I would just like magic to move to being more intuitive and less rigid both mechanically and conceptually.

I mean, you don't usually here mages in stories say "Oh I can't do X because I already did X today." Its usually more like "I cant do X because I used up too much of my power doing Y" sort of thing.