Spell-less spellcasters?

[1Mac]

A paradox! But one that aptly describes a project I'm working on for Pathfinder. Basically I'm working on taking the spellcasting classes from Pathfinder and replacing standard spells with spell-like and supernatural abilities. Think witch hexes, or oracle revelations, or specialist wizard powers, and using those sorts of powers to represent all kinds of magic. If you think it sounds a little like 4e, you'd be right. I like a lot of what is happening in Pathfinder, but Vancian spellcasting still bugs me, so I'm hoping for the best of both worlds.

Nothing can dissuade me from continuing work on this, but I was curious if anyone else would be interested in my results, or if this was a completely eccentric and idiosyncratic venture on my part.

 

[Kaisoku]

Mutants and Masterminds has an approach to abilities that might work for what you are looking at. A set amount of "points" with a hard cap on how much effect it can have (so no pooling to get ridiculous damage, etc), with the ability to change it in some fashion (likely with "memorization" or something at rest time).

The other option is Words of Power rules that will be coming out with Ultimate Magic. You can find the free playtest rules here. It still uses the vancian system, after a fashion, but it can be a good base on spell-building rules.

 

[Scott DeWar]

what about elements of magic? is that considered vancian? and is the definition of 'vancian ' in the wikipedia? Just that this is the second thread about this magic system, as used since E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's (pre?) 1st edition.

 

[1Mac]

"Vancian" is common shorthand for "memorize, fire and forget" (or just "fire and forget" for sorcerers, bards, and the like), which I don't like. I'm also not a fan of spell slots or spells that take the place of skills, though neither are particularly "Vancian".

EoM is certainly not Vancian, but it's more freeform and generalist than what I'm after.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I actually did something like this for a base-class I called the Innate- few if any real spells, with a tightly grouped set of spell-like abilities. Somewhere between the 3.5 Spellfire Wielder, the Warlock and the Shadowcaster.

 

[1Mac]

That sounds like something I'd be very interested in, DA. Any chance I/we could take a look?

 

[Glade Riven]

If you have (or can get your hands on) the 3.5 books Book of 9 Swords or Tome of Magic, there are alternate magical systems. 4e's system is based on the Book of Nine Swords blade magic.

Adapting Book of Nine Swords would be fairly easy - use the swordsage progression for spellcasters and narrow down the spell list so that certaint spells couldn't be abused (maybe make those ones dailys that replace stances). I've played a paladin that had I got permission to hot-swap the paladin spells for Crusaider maneuver/stance progression and it work out surprisingly balanced.

 

[1Mac]

By the way, I appreciate all the advice and recommended resources. What I'm really interested to know is if anyone else would be interested in this, or if I'm just a weirdo.

That is, who here likes Pathfinder, and would like it more if 3e style spellcasting was replaced with something else?

 

[thundershot]

By the way, I appreciate all the advice and recommended resources. What I'm really interested to know is if anyone else would be interested in this, or if I'm just a weirdo.

That is, who here likes Pathfinder, and would like it more if 3e style spellcasting was replaced with something else?

I'm interested... One of the things I liked about 4E was how spells were sooooo much easier. Not a huge list...

 

[Glade Riven]

I see the pros and cons, and if the book is good I may buy it. Ultimate Magic is suppose to have Words of Power as an alternate system, but I'm not sure what it entails at this point.