Spells per encounter instead of per day??

[Matrix Sorcica]

A wizard can only cast from the spells he's memorized for that day, whereas a sorcerer could cast from any of his spells as normal.

Sorcerers get shafted (as always).

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

What if you have a spell point pool of whatever size or regeneration rate. You then add that if you use a spell of your your highest level during an encounter, you lose that level for the rest of the day.

I.e. A 20th level Wizard with 25 SP (spell points = to level + Int mod), casts fireball six times in one encounter, is spent for that encounter, but otherwise fine later in the day. If he casts meteor swarm once or twice in one encounter, he is stuck with a maximum spell level of 8th for the rest of the day. This would allow more low level spells across a day, while making high level spells a truly taxing choice.

Variants.

Subtract two levels if the highest or second highest level spell is used. This places even more emphasis on being judicious with your spells.

Subtract one level from the highest level spell available per encounter, regardless of what spells were cast. I.e. encounter one, the level 20 Wizard has 9th level spells available, whether he casts magic missile or meteor swarm. In the second encounter, only 8th level spells are available. This would encourage using high level spells early, and would not work well with the setup of most adventures.

 

[Li Shenron]

Personally I think that there are two main problem with 'recharge magic' variants, like also the one in UA, which incredibly overlooks these problem completely...

One problem is that every long-duration buff spell automatically becomes a MASS spell. If you play 3.5 this problem is maybe not so serious, since buffs had their durations seriously reduced. But just think of a spellcaster that has a spell which gives a certain benefit to one target for half a day or more. With a recharging magic variant, if you don't actually have LONG recharging times, that spell can suddenly be cast on the entire party in a few minutes, and just needs 1 slot to be used.

The second problem is that obviously with this variant spellcasters are boosted much more than non-spellcasters. Of course even a Fighter is going to like to have unlimited healing in a day! But that benefit applies to everyone. However, the Wizard now suddenly has the ability to use all his top-level spells EACH FIGHT, and in general these spells will be definitely more powerful than the top-level abilities of non-spellcasters since these are designed without a daily limitation.

 

[humble minion]

How do you intend to deal with spells that are not designed purely for in-encounter use? Examples could be Hallow, Alarm, Wall of Stone, Permanent Image, Discern Location, See Invisible, Teleport, Planar Binding/Ally, Forbiddance, Spider Climb, Fly, Sending, Charm Person, Suggestion, Major Creation, Remove Disease etc, etc, etc.

You'll need to put some sort of limitation on this sort of thing or else do some serious thinking what the implications of near-unlimited utility magic means in terms of your world setting. A world where any level 1 apprentice wizard living comfortably in the city can cast unlimited Charm Persons on passers-by, for instance, would be a rather scary place...

 

[Li Shenron]

i think you should narrow focus of your solution

That also I agree with. You're just going too far with your system at the moment, way beyond the main purpose. That means you're having fun with it but keep in mind that the more different from the core rules, the more problems it can have that you might overlook and need to fix later... Furthermore, your players will have a much easier time with a variant that changes little rather than with a completely different system!

So I'd definitely suggest to try making as small changes as possible first, and evaluate the result with some trial game before twisting it further. For example, why do you need "spell points" at all?? You can achieve your first target (avoiding having to rest too often) even if you keep the normal rules of spells slots, and PHB spells per day tables, just by introducing recharge times.

BTW don't make recharge times random, it's a TOTALLY unnecessary complication.

 

[Vrecknidj]

It looks to me (not that I'm an expert) that what's required here is a re-working of the spell system to accommodate the play style you're after.

Let's consider the wizard and cleric (someone else can consider the other casters).

Perhaps what's needed is two abilities rather than one. One of the two is the spells, and they work essentially as they do now. The other is something else, very much like spells. Let's see, we need a name for them...let's go Harry Potter for now and call them charms. (Not the best choice, but it serves my purpose.)

A wizard, in this system, has so many spells per day, and so many charms per encounter. Now it's the job of the person making this system to go through all the things that are spells in the 3.5e game, and decide which ones are better as per-encounter charms and which ones are better as per-day spells. Break them into two groups, and the problem is solved.

There will be some charms that are also spells, and some spells that are also charms. To some limited degree, this is already handled by things like swift and immediate spells, and by feats and magic items and class abilities that allow for multiple uses per day of certain things (for example, as spell-like abilities and the like).

Switching to the cleric for a moment... But, if you want there to be both healing during encounters and healing between encounters, now there's a mechanic. Maybe cure moderate wounds is both a spell and a charm. Maybe it's one level as a spell and a different level as a charm (?), but, that's up to the designer.

Charms will regenerate between encounters; but there should be a time limit (we need a way to tell when one encounter ends and another begins). Spells will regenerate with rest. And, big battles (such as the massive battles in Lord of the Rings, or near the end of Harry Potter's latest) will be much harder on casters as they deplete their charms and have to start using up their spells during combat.

Dave

 

[Cheiromancer]

I like Vrecknidj's notion of charms vs spells. Reserve feats are a gesture in that direction.

I like Firelance's approach more than any spell point variation, but it should exclude some of the out of combat spells.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Problem 2: Long term buffs. How do you handle Heroes' Feat that lasts for 12 hours or Heroism that can last for a few hour or even a 10 minute Bull's Strength.

My group has ruled that buff spells only last for the encounter.

Instead of spell points, we have simply gone with giving 1/4 of a classes spells per day, per encounter.

So a character's spells per encounter might look something like: 2/2/1/1/1/1 etc.

 

[llamatron2000]

Couldn't this be solved via a 'soft' encounter-based system? This has the advantage of fixing stuff without making a lot of changes which increases balance issues.

Something like:

Casters get half their usual spell slots. This is done by capping spell gain on the chart, rather than taking the number on the chart and halving it, which gimps low level casters. Bonus spells are given as normal, allowing you to get more slots.

To encourage metamagic, casters should be able to prepare metamagic as a spell itself that counts as a free action. This also removes the penalty for spontaneous casters using metamagic. i.e., Maximize Spell becomes a lv3 spell, rather than using up 3 spell slots.

Casters recover (caster level/4) spell levels per hour, rounded up, filling lowest slots first(lv0 spells get refreshed for free).

Recovery only happens when the mage is able to relax. They can walk around and do stuff amd adventure and even cast spells out of combat, but it is assumed they're gathering energy/chi, or studying their spellbook, practicing incantations, or praying or something while walking about the dungeon or riding their horse or whatnot. Combat/strenous situations(DM's call) ruins recovery for the hour. If this is too harsh, recovery can be halved. I'm not sure which is better.

This keeps the flavor of resource management, while giving casters a bit of freedom, and also keeps mages from utilizing their most powerful spells every encounter, unless if they're exceedingly careful. It requires a little extra bookeeping on the DM's part, but is otherwise pretty clean, unless if I've missed something. Metamagic allows casters to go nova(some people like to do it), but is limited by the fact that high-level spells get refreshed -after- lower-level ones.

 

[Slapzilla]

My only problem with this situation is that Fighters, for instance, don't have to rest for eight hours to get thier Mighty Cleave back. This natural imbalance needs to be addressed but beyond fatiguing melee combatants (no thanks) a heckuva lot.... The eight hour recent casting limit rule is a good one, I think, as it does put some sort of limit on power but melee combatants have no daily limits on thier Dodge, Combat Expertise, etc. So, what about keeping the spell limits but replenishing the ones that last 1 minute/level or less (including Concentration +X# rounds and, of course, instantaneous) after 15 minutes of prayer, meditation or re-checking notes. Want to go all instantaneous all day long? You can. Feel you need the longer lasting spells for what you need to do? Easy.
Also, one of the best solutions for this I've seen in a while is the Reserve Feats. It gives casters combat options that can last all day. All you need is a spell of a certain energy type available and you get that energy to shoot rays around with. Very neat.
And certainly, DMs could tone down the hp damaging encounters so as not to chase the PCs out of the dungeons nearly as often.