Spell point system

[Question]

Dont sorcerers get the shaft in the spell point system?

At level 20 the sorcerer can cast 6 spells of each level, not counting any bonus spells.

In the spell point system this translates to :

6 1st level : 6 points

6 2nd level : 18 points

6 3rd level : 30 points

6 4th level : 42 points

6 5th level : 54 points

6 6th level : 66 points

6 7th level : 78 points

6 8th level : 90 points

6th 9th level : 102 points

Total : A staggering 486 spell points

However in the spell point system sorcerers only gain 249 spell points! WTH?

This translates to roughly 3 spells of each level. And you need to spend MORE spell points to use spells at full power.....so a full power fireball is going to cost 10 spell points. A 20th level sorcerer using the vancian system would be able to pop off a total of 42 fireballs at full power, and still have his 1st and 2nd level spells. A 20th level sorcerer using the spell point system cant even fire off 25 full power fireballs.

How is this anywhere close to being balanced? Im too lazy to do the maths for the other classes, but i know the wizard is forced to cast less spells as well under this system.

 

[Bad Paper]

What the heck is the vancian system?

 

[Ilium]

What the heck is the vancian system?

The normal D&D spell slot system, inspired by the fiction of Jack Vance.

The flexibility of being able to cast more higher-level spells than usual makes spell points inherently more powerful than slots. So you reduce the number to compensate. I have cooked up a spell point system of my own and I figured out how many points it woudl take to cast the standard sorcerer's allotment and cut it in half, because my homebrew has some other stuff going on. These numbers look about right to me.

 

[superkurt13]

Dont sorcerers get the shaft in the spell point system?

...

How is this anywhere close to being balanced? Im too lazy to do the maths for the other classes, but i know the wizard is forced to cast less spells as well under this system.

I haven't been playing 3.5 for too long but I'm a little confused with your post. How does the vancian system or the spell point system even matter for casters since their spells are based off of spell slots anyways?

 

[Thanee]

I haven't been playing 3.5 for too long but I'm a little confused with your post. How does the vancian system or the spell point system even matter for casters since their spells are based off of spell slots anyways?

The vancian system is a name for the system using spell slots.
Spell points are an alternate system, where spell slots are no longer used.

The spell point system is also completely unbalanced, and yes, sorcerers are weaker than wizards when you use that, since wizards also gain a lot of flexibility with their spell preparation (only need to prepare each spell once and can cast it as often as they want on the day; the best there is, that wizards actually have more 'spells known' each day there than a sorcerer does, and they can change that selection every day) and metamagic on top of the ability to cast more high level spells, while sorcerers do not really gain anything else, and also seem to get a little less mileage for their better spells per day (though they probably based the wizard's spell points somewhat on a specialist wizard's spells per day, considering they are on par with a cleric there; another advantage for the wizard here, since that's essentially for free, they still get a benefit (though another one than normal) for specialization).

Of course, you cast less spells overall in a day under that system. If there were no downsides to it, and there certainly are a few upsides (especially the higher number of high level spells you can cast in a day, at a cost of less lower level spells, of course), it would be even more ridiculously overpowered as it already is.

And noone will cast damaging spells anymore under that system, if they use dice for damage and thus do not scale anymore. You can basically remove all those spells from the spell lists (along with the sorcerer class), won't make much of a difference. With the increased cost to cast them, there is not much incentive to learn them at all.

Bye
Thanee

 

[moritheil]

For those confused - Question's question seems to be "Why does the alternate spell point system give more spells per day to a wizard than to a sorcerer?"

It's a valid question because the fundamental difference between wizard and sorcerer is generally thought to be that the latter casts more spells per day, but knows fewer spells overall.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

I'd like to add to this that both the psion and the wilder each receive the same number of powerpoints: 343 at 20th level. Now, I realize the psion is limited to 36 powers and the wilder to even less than that! but the 343 of the psionic ability seems to outpace the UA's suggested system for converting vancian to spell point system. Anyone know the reason for the disparity?

 

[Thanee]

Augmentation.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Ilium]

For those confused - Question's question seems to be "Why does the alternate spell point system give more spells per day to a wizard than to a sorcerer?"

It's a valid question because the fundamental difference between wizard and sorcerer is generally thought to be that the latter casts more spells per day, but knows fewer spells overall.

That is weird. My homebrew spellpoint system can only be used by spontaneous casters, so it doesn't come up. I actually use it as a way to make sorcerers more different from wizards.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Augmentation.

Bye
Thanee

Well, that's what I thought. But then I read this part our your earlier post:

And noone will cast damaging spells anymore under that system, if they use dice for damage and thus do not scale anymore. You can basically remove all those spells from the spell lists (along with the sorcerer class), won't make much of a difference. With the increased cost to cast them, there is not much incentive to learn them at all.

And for some reason I thought you were saying that the spells didn't scale under the UA system - thus they would need to be augmented. So in my mind I thought that it was rather unfair for the arcanists to have to augment on~250 spell points when a psion gets to augment on 343. But now I see that you weren't saying UA's method doesn't scale. Youwere saying that if it doesn't scale it makes it much more difficult fon the caster.