Spontaneous Wizards without Metamagic?

[Sigurd]

Another thread has me thinking about relaxed gaming. I'm not interested in getting the upper 5% of effectiveness for monsters or players.


Along those lines I was thinking of letting wizards cast spontaneously if they gave up metamagic? Do people think that's balanced?


Sigurd

 

[AllisterH]

Not really.

Sorcerors use metamagic to basically increase their "spells known". If you know fireball for example, with the proper selection of feats, you can easily triple the number of effects that you can create. There are feats that turn spells into Mass versions, feats that affect energy type and feats that change the duration/shape etc of the spell.

A wizard on the other hand can simply scribe the proper spells into their books so they don't NEED metamagic. Really, there's nothing preventing a wizard from simply creating a spell that is in effect, Still dimension door.

Why not just use the sorceror since that is what the spontaneous caster is judged against.

 

[Sigurd]

Why not just use the sorceror since that is what the spontaneous caster is judged against.

Because the sorcerer gets so many casting times a day. The classic trade off of power vs. versatility should still be in affect. A sorcerer with full access to learned spells and spontaneous casting would be twice as powerful as a wizard - too powerful IMHO.
I'd still require all the trappings of the wizard, spellbook, scrolls, components etc... They would still have to memorize every night but when the day came they could cast anything from their spellbooks so long as they had the slot open.

This makes them more flexible & bookkeeping easier. Removing, quicken, enlarge, extend maximize, etc.... makes them less powerful to try to preserve game balance.


Sigurd


Might remove sorcerers and standard wizards completely.

 

[AllisterH]

Your "wizard" would still blow the doors off the standard sorceror.

In your system, why would a wizard NOT leave all their slots open? Sure, they only get so many castings per day, but given that they will ALWAYS have the best spell at hand, they don't really need that much unlike a sorceror who has to use fireball as a signal flare, damage spell and a door knocker.

 

[Sigurd]

Your "wizard" would still blow the doors off the standard sorceror.

In your system, why would a wizard NOT leave all their slots open? Sure, they only get so many castings per day, but given that they will ALWAYS have the best spell at hand, they don't really need that much unlike a sorceror who has to use fireball as a signal flare, damage spell and a door knocker.

You're absolutely right. Thats why this hybrid would have the Wizards # of spell slots not the greater number of the sorcerer.