D&D 3E/3.5 Spells On Demand v1.1 (At-will spells in 3.5 Edition)

[CleverNickName]

I still believe this to be the better option (from previous thread):

Option 4: Assign an adjustment that must be added to the Caster level check for each meta-magic feat. I do not know what the level adjustments are off the top of my head, but I would say if it usually makes the spell 4 levels higher, add it to the spell then double it. So on a 1st level spell a 4 level addition makes it 5, so by your system it would add 10 to the DC. If you feel that is too high, you could add the flat amount to the DC after doubling the level of the spell. So if a feat would add 4 levels, with a 1st level spell you would double that to 2 then add 4 for the feat for a total of 6 added to the DC of the check. If that is too low consider 150% of the levels added for a feat (i.e. if it adds 4 levels, add 6 to the DC of the check).

They can use as many metamagic feats as they want as long as they do not exceed 9 (provided you are using only up to 9th level spells).

So magic missile (level 1) could have: Empower (+2), Quickened (+4), Silent (+1) and Still (+1) used on it bringing the total spell level to 9th. Then using his caster level check as you have described, his DC would be 28 to cast this spell. Meaning an 18th level caster could fire this off 50% of the time.

This really should be a straight caster check...I would not allow them to add any ability bonuses. Their stat already dictates what level spell they can cast.

I think you and I are on the same page here. I've done a lot of playtesting of these feats under my proposed system, and did some reworking of the metamagic feats. I think that we have figured out the best way for them to work. It's a little more math-heavy than I wanted, but there was just no way around it.

In 3.5E, a metamagic feat increases the effective spell level slot. Under this new system, that would change two numbers: the level of the spell you could apply it to, and the caster level DC for casting the spell. So over the weekend, I am going to reword all of the metamagic feats, and write them up like this example.

Enlarge Spell [Metamagic]
Prerequisite: ability to cast 2nd level spells
Benefit: You may cast any spell that you know, up to one level lower than the highest spell level you can cast, as an Enlarged Spell: the range of the spell increases by 100%. Spells whose ranges are not defined by distance, as well as spells with ranges other than Close, Medium, or Long, cannot be enhanced with this spell.

Metamagic spells are more difficult to cast than regular magic. You incur a -2 penalty to your caster level check when casting an Enlarged spell. This penalty stacks with other penalties from additional metamagic feats.

The green text will vary from feat to feat.
[SBLOCK=The math]Caster level penalty = (spell slot adjustment of the original feat) x 2
Spell level prerequisite = (spell slot adjustment of the original feat) + 1
Spell limit = (spell slot adjustment of the original feat) +1[/SBLOCK][SBLOCK=Additional rules to add]1. Include a rule stating that penalties to the caster level check will stack. I.E., casting a quickened, empowered spell would incur a -12 penalty (-8 for quickened, -4 for empowered).

2. Metamagic spells should fail in spectacular fashion, rather than simply "fizzling out" like regular spells. Create a list of "special" spell failures to roll on, and/or recommend the "Major mishap" table from Wild Spellcraft.[/SBLOCK]

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

If in that I wasn't switching to 4E, I would completely adopt these rules in a New York second. I love it!

 

[CleverNickName]

Playtesting Report - March 27th 2008

New vesion of the "Spells on Demand" document is in the works; look for it sometime next week.

-----

So one of my playtesters had an interesting idea: why not test this new magic system right alongside the standard D20 one, in the same party?

So we did. We kept the iconic halfling rogue, elf wizard, and elf wizard, but we replaced the human cleric with a human druid...and this druid used the D20 system for spellcasting, not these "at-will" rules. All four characters were bumped up to 12th level, and ran though an obstacle course of EL 7, 13, 9, and 11 encounters (in that order.) The playtesters did not know how many encounters there would be, or how difficult they would be either, to discourage "spell hoarding."

There were no obvious power gaps between the two different flavors of spellcasters, not even during the later encounters. The druid ran out of good spells midway through the third encounter, but her wildshape ability and mediocre combat skill kept her active and helpful in combat. The at-will wizard always used the same spells in every battle, but he is no longer breaking the game: the changes I made to the metamagic feats, the magic missile spell, and Divination magic in general, have really impacted the wizard's play. Now, instead of just casting true strike on the fighter and rogue all day, or tossing maximized, empowered magic missiles every time something moves, the wizard has to make decisions like everyone else. That, and a botched maximized fireball taught him some healthy respect for the force of magic.

The druid might have been a poor choice for playtesting, especially compared to a wizard...she had many more combat options at her fingertips than ol' Merlin did. Outside of combat, the druid's healing spells were what really made her shine...where the at-will cleric could only cast cure serious wounds once per character, the D20 druid was able to drop three of them onto the fighter, one right after the other, and bring him to full health.

The restricted magic catalog is starting to show, however. At higher levels, the at-will casters don't enjoy the vast selection of spells that their D20 counterparts do. The temptation is to flood their spellbooks with combat spells and buffs, at the cost of utilitarian spells like water breathing...you hardly ever need water breathing, but man...when you need it, you REALLY need it. I don't know if this is a problem with the system, or a problem with the player's character design. I mean, is it fair for a ranger to complain about lackluster ranged attacks, when he chose to focus on two-weapon fighting?

The easiest solution would be for the players to plan ahead, and start stocking up on potions, scrolls, and wands. If you are heading out to sea, maybe it would be wise to invest in a few potions of water breathing, for example. This is the obvious solution if these magic items are always available for sale in every major town...but what if the party is 500 miles from the nearest town? What if this particular part of the country (or this particular game setting) doesn't have magic items for sale?

So I am working on a way to allow "emergency" spells. It should be difficult, but it should at least be possible, IMO. I've got a couple of ways to handle it...one is probably too easy, and the other is probably too difficult.

[SBLOCK=Maybe Too Easy?]Casting an "unknown" spell is possible, but at a -10 penalty to the caster level check. The caster must meet all requirements for learning the spell (the spellcaster must be of the appropriate level, must have a high-enough ability score, the spell must be on the spellcaster's class list of spells, etc.) Casting a spell in this manner requires a full-round action, and cannot be done defensively.[/SBLOCK]

[SBLOCK=Maybe Too Difficult?]Casting an "unknown" spell is possible, but requires a Spellcraft check (DC = 20 + caster level required). The caster must meet all requirements for learning the spell (the spellcaster must be of the appropriate level, must have a high-enough ability score, the spell must be on the spellcaster's class list of spells, etc.) This check requires at least one hour of preparation and study.

If the Spellcraft check succeeds, the character can temporarily swap out one of her "known" spells of equal or greater spell level for the new spell. The new spell remains available for casting at will for the next 24 hours. Only one such check may be attempted in the same 24-hour period.[/SBLOCK]

What do you guys think?

 

[CleverNickName]

On Spell Specialists

I am not getting the right "feel" for specialist spellcasters...you know, wizards who choose to specialize in a particular school, or clerics with spell domains, that sort of thing. I want to do more with it than simply hand out free spells; I want it to actually be a meaningful part of a character.

In short, I want Earth clerics to have a different feel from Healing clerics, and I want Evokers to have a different feel than Conjurers.

I really don't know how to handle it, honestly. I wanted it to be open, to give the player the freedom to select spells without restriction, operating on the assumption that if the player wanted a specialist wizard he would only select spells of a particular school. Sounds good in theory, but it is terrible in practice: wizards still pick the most popular spells (we have even started calling it the Top Ten List at our table), and while they may call themselves Conjurers, they are no different from Abjurers or Evokers. Not different at all.

Clerics seem to work much better...since they automatically learn their domains' bonus spells, they are forced into a fixed stack of "flavor" spells that follows a theme....of course an Earth cleric will know all of the spells for shaping stone, and of course a Healing cleric will know most of the spells with the [Healing] descriptor. I had to restrict the number of domains that a cleric has access to (only one, not two like the PHB says) for balance reasons, but the cleric is only better for it IMO.

So I am thinking about taking a page from the cleric's book, and writing a list of "domains" for the wizard. Only they wouldn't be called domains; they would be called "schools" and the wizard would choose one at 1st level. Like domains, it would give the wizard a "granted power" related to the spell school (in place of the free Scribe Scroll feat.) This is something like what I have in mind:
[SBLOCK=Wizard Schools]School of Conjuration
Granted Power: you gain the Spell Focus [Conjuration] feat for free as a bonus feat.
Bonus Spells:
1. Mount: Summons riding horse for 2 hours/level.
2. Summon Swarm: Summons swarm of bats, rats, or spiders.
3. Phantom Steed: Magic horse appears for 1 hour/level.
4. Summon Monster IV: Calls extraplanar creature to fight for you.
5. Mage's Faithful Hound: Phantom dog can guard, attack.
6. Summon Monster VI: Calls extraplanar creature to fight for you.
7. Instant Summons: Prepared object appears in your hand.
8. Summon Monster VIII: Calls extraplanar creature to fight for you.
9. Summon Monster IX: Calls extraplanar creature to fight for you.

With a little bit of elbow grease, I could also open it up to other wizard concepts, such as elemental magic or energy types:

School of Fire
Granted Power: you gain the Spell Focus [Evocation] feat for free as a bonus feat.
Bonus Spells:
1. Burning Hands: 1d4/level fire damage (max 5d4).
2. Produce Flame: 1d6 damage +1/level, touch or thrown.
3. Resist Energy: Ignores 10 (or more) points of damage/attack from specified energy type (fire only).
4. Wall of Fire: deals 2d4 fire damage out to 10 ft. and 1d4 out to 20 ft. Passing through wall deals 2d6 damage +1/level.
5. Fire Shield: Creatures attacking you take fire damage; you're protected from heat or cold.
6. Fire Seeds: Acorns and berries become grenades and bombs.
7. Fire Storm: Deals 1d6/level fire damage.
8. Incendiary Cloud: Cloud deals 4d6 fire damage/round.
9. Elemental Swarm: Summons multiple elementals.[/SBLOCK]

Sure, it is shoehorning the wizard a bit...but it is still better than "forbidden schools," IMO.

Thoughts?

EDIT: You know what? This is totally beyond the scope of my project. I think I will leave it up to each individual GM to decide how and why the spellcasters specialize in magic, and just stick to making at-will spellcasting a balanced alternative to the Vancian system. That is enough of a challenge in and of itself...no need to make extra work for myself.

 

[CleverNickName]

Whew. Made a ton of changes over the last couple of weeks, then compiled them into an official-looking document. I suppose you could say that it is a "licensed d20 product" now, since it meets the requirements of the d20 System license.

DOWNLOAD HERE (738 KB PDF) (Right-click, "Save Target As...")

This release is still very much a "draft" version. I still need at least one more revision process to get all the bugs ironed out and the text cleaned up, and it would be nice to get some illustrations in there as well. But this is a good "working copy" suitable for playtesting.

Changes:

- Reduced the number of zero-level spells given at 1st level
- Clarified the text regarding the Mystic Theurge
- Changed the gnome's focus
- Made druidic staffs more expensive (balance reasons)
- Clarified the rules regarding foci and the Craft skill
- Removed ability modifiers to the caster level check
- Added an optional spell failure table
- Added an optional, skill-based magic system
- Changed the Counterspelling rules to make it more viable
- Softened the spell requirements for crafting magic items
- Clarified the rules on Disarming and Sundering a caster's focus
- Added rules for spellcasting monsters
- Changed the Improved Counterspell feat
- Changed the Natural Spell feat
- Nerfed the Practiced Spellcaster feat
- Rebuilt the way that metamagic feats work
- Reduced the number of cleric domain spells given
- Removed wish and limited wish.
- Revised several spells: disintegrate, imbue with spell ability, imprisonment, magic missile, simulacrum, stone shape, trap the soul, wall of iron, wall of stone and word of recall.


Other Stuff:
- reformatted the entire document
- added some cover art
- licensed the product

You might also notice my publishing imprint on the front cover: Floating Reroll Press. It is just an idea that we are kicking around, and we aren't sure if we are going to take it anywhere, so don't read anything into it. Maybe someday we will put up a website for all of our stuff, maybe not. In the meantime, it means absolutely nothing...I'm more concerned about making these house rules balanced and fun.

 

[Duckforceone]

interesting project...

personally, i would implement a cooldown on a power. So that you have to wait a round per level of the spell you just cast, to cast that one spell again. This would make the player think a bit more instead of just throwing around the best spell at all times, making him overshadow the figthers.

Also, what i feel is that the cleric just became hugely underpowered, and cannot complete it's class as intended. If a party works best, only one person takes damage, and since the cleric can only heal once per 24 hours, then that mechanic goes out the window, again making the fighter shine less.

my solution would be either make it so that if you cast a lvl 2 heal on a fighter, you cannot use another heal for 1 round, and on the second round you can cast another type of heal, but not the lvl 2 heal you used before. That one you can only cast again after the second round is over.
or make it so that you cannot cast another heal on the target, equal to the time of the spell minus 1. So if you cast a lvl 4 spell, it would be 3 turns before you could cast a lvl 2 heal on it, and 4 turns before you could reuse the heal.

besides that, it's looking cool....

 

[CleverNickName]

my solution would be either make it so that if you cast a lvl 2 heal on a fighter, you cannot use another heal for 1 round, and on the second round you can cast another type of heal, but not the lvl 2 heal you used before. That one you can only cast again after the second round is over.
or make it so that you cannot cast another heal on the target, equal to the time of the spell minus 1. So if you cast a lvl 4 spell, it would be 3 turns before you could cast a lvl 2 heal on it, and 4 turns before you could reuse the heal.

Healing spells are...complicated...

The difficult thing about healing magic is that it is more powerful than most other types of spells. Unless it has some sort of daily-use restriction, it will be used over and over again, both in and out of combat, until everyone is at full health. Even with the "cool-down" timers you suggest, having a healer in the party will have the same result as giving all members of the party Fast Healing 1...even if the only spell they could cast was a zero-level cure minor wounds.

My rule for [Healing] spells came from the Basic D&D boxed set. In it, there is a magic item called a staff of healing that a cleric could use to cast cure light wounds as many times as needed. The catch was, it could not be used on the same creature more than once per day. I know that it isn't perfect, and I know that it is still placing an arbitrary "x times per day" restriction on magic (something I was trying to get away from in the first place), but so far it is the only thing that has playtested well.

(sigh) I dunno. I could change it to "cannot be used on the same creature more than once per hour" or something...but even then, I think it might be too generous at high levels. Right now, it is only a problem at low levels, and only for parties who do not regularly buy healing potions.

There is the "scaling DC" option for the caster level check, however. We will playtest this next weekend.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

(sigh) I dunno. I could change it to "cannot be used on the same creature more than once per hour" or something...but even then, I think it might be too generous at high levels. Right now, it is only a problem at low levels, and only for parties who do not regularly buy healing potions.

There is the "scaling DC" option for the caster level check, however. We will playtest this next weekend.

I don't know if it'll count for anything, but here's my experience regarding healing magic...

I played a Dragon Shaman for a while, and was the main source of healing for the group I was with, as nobody felt like playing a cleric after the TPK that resulted in my playing a Dragon Shaman to begin with.

The DS basically can do Fast Healing in an area for all allies, an unlimited amount. The catch is, it only heals people up to half their hit points. After that, they need to come up with some other source of healing.

The second bit of experience I've got is the game that I'm currently running, in which the group has an item that casts Cure Light Wound an unlimited number of times. The item in question has an activation word and can only heal the person that's holding it and activates it, so if someone drop unconscious there's going to have to be something else done.

I'd say that the heal up to half HP an unlimited amount of times is fine.

The healing item I've let the party have is too much.

 

[deanruel]

I just wanted to chime in quickly and tell you how incredible this system is. I've seen a lot of good house rule systems in my day and this ranks up there with the best of them. Kudos, really.

In the vein of helping the project out I will offer up a few ideas. The first being to eliminate the rule that says an "instantaneous" caster's spell with a duration fails if he tries to cast more than one. I would allow the spell to succeed but the initial target to lose the benefit. So he can cast fly on himself and then next round cast fly on the fighter but the moment he does he falls. I think it would feel more intuitive, believable, and allow for some really interesting choices.

On your previous idea for a better Specialized Mage progression I will reccomend that you check out Paizo's Pathfinder alpha. It's got just what you seem to be asking for and with the OGL you could just lift the damn thing word for word if you liked it.

Finally I will work on trying to think up something for your healing system. It isn't terrible as it is but I think with enough brainpower put into it something will come out that'll really shine.

 

[deanruel]

Here's something. I found out after a little playtesting that your healing system works well when combined with the Unearthed Arcana "Reserve Points" houserule. The basic idea is that you have a reservoir of "reserve hp" equal to your regular hp. And when you take hp damage the "Reserve hp" slowly replenishes your health at a rate of 1hp per minute. As an alteration to this house rule I have often made the hp regeneration equal to "Character level per minute". The big reason for this is so that it doesn't take 1st level characters 2 minutes to heal back to full and 15th level characters 2 hours.

Something to think on.