D&D 5E UA Spell Versatility: A deeper dive

[RobertBrus]

My apologies if this has already been covered, as i didn't have time to read all the posts.

What about a sorcerer that is truly different than a wizard. By using Sorcerer Points (spell point system), you place the sorcerer into a unique class - as I suggest it should be. The narrative might go something like this: The sorcerer is instinctively connected to the Arcanum, and doesn't need to study, rehearse, practice spells. He simply draws the power into himself and releases it. As this act requires a great deal of control, there are only so many times a day they can do this (mechanically handled via Sorcerer Points).

The limits on this class: Less spells available - perhaps even less than what is allowed in RAW. As the sorcerer doesn't learn this power, they also don't chose all their potential spells (Of course the player will chose which spells out of all available in RAW which will be in their sorcerer's purview). Less spells; far more versatility with the spells they do have.

An idea I have not fleshed out yet, but one I think worth trying out in game play. As we have past rules to draw upon with regard to "Spell Point Systems."

As a side note, this could be replicated by Divine Magic users. A sort of "Holy Person" born with the mark. A Joan d'Arc (at least the mythologized Joan).

My apologies for some thinking out loud. Thanks for listening.

Bruce

 

[tetrasodium]

My apologies if this has already been covered, as i didn't have time to read all the posts.

What about a sorcerer that is truly different than a wizard. By using Sorcerer Points (spell point system), you place the sorcerer into a unique class - as I suggest it should be. The narrative might go something like this: The sorcerer is instinctively connected to the Arcanum, and doesn't need to study, rehearse, practice spells. He simply draws the power into himself and releases it. As this act requires a great deal of control, there are only so many times a day they can do this (mechanically handled via Sorcerer Points).

The limits on this class: Less spells available - perhaps even less than what is allowed in RAW. As the sorcerer doesn't learn this power, they also don't chose all their potential spells (Of course the player will chose which spells out of all available in RAW which will be in their sorcerer's purview). Less spells; far more versatility with the spells they do have.

An idea I have not fleshed out yet, but one I think worth trying out in game play. As we have past rules to draw upon with regard to "Spell Point Systems."

As a side note, this could be replicated by Divine Magic users. A sort of "Holy Person" born with the mark. A Joan d'Arc (at least the mythologized Joan).

My apologies for some thinking out loud. Thanks for listening.

Bruce

I'm not really sure what you are trying to suggest, can you expand on that a little or maybe give an example of how this would be different than sorcerers as they are or just expanding spells known to the class list?

As to the divine list sorcerer thing you ponder there at the end, both eberron & Dark Sun handle healing/divine magic differently than what's presented in the phb/dmg where it's mostly power granted by/drawn from the gods. In eberron where magic is a science, divine magic just comes from the caster's faith in something & that something can be as powerless as anobject symvol or ideal. In darksun it gets more complicated, I'm probably not quite right*, but in a nutshell the gods are dead/in hiding/etc and anything similar to divine magic is either a psionic thing or from an elemental priest channeling power from something akin to elementals/planar energies/etc

*someone feel free to correct that if the spirit is too far off the reality to stand as a vague directionalguidepost

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not really sure what you are trying to suggest, can you expand on that a little or maybe give an example of how this would be different than sorcerers as they are or just expanding spells known to the class list?

Sounds like an idea that's been floated before:
The original sorcerer was different by virtue of spontaneous casting, which had an edge in tactical versatility over traditional Vancian. 5e has a spell point variant presented as an option you'd presumably give all casters as an alternative to slot casting. Spell points also give you some added tactical versatility. Ergo: give the Sorcerer spell points, possibly rolling sorcery points right into them, giving them more flexibility to use metamagic, or different mixes of spell levels/up-casting over the course of the day. As a minor bonus, metamagic could be handled as a variation on upcasting.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sounds like an idea that's been floated before:
The original sorcerer was different by virtue of spontaneous casting, which had an edge in tactical versatility over traditional Vancian. 5e has a spell point variant presented as an option you'd presumably give all casters as an alternative to slot casting. Spell points also give you some added tactical versatility. Ergo: give the Sorcerer spell points, possibly rolling sorcery points right into them, giving them more flexibility to use metamagic, or different mixes of spell levels/up-casting over the course of the day. As a minor bonus, metamagic could be handled as a variation on upcasting.

I'm planning on rewriting the sorcerer using this, the only issue I'm running into is the higher level slots.

Feels weird to say "you can only cast one 7th, 8th, or 9th level spell" but have all these points that you can work with. I haven't decided how I want to deal with that, since obviously letting them cast 5 or more 9th level spells is too much, but it feels weird to artificially limit a pool of points.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Feels weird to say "you can only cast one 7th, 8th, or 9th level spell" but have all these points that you can work with. I haven't decided how I want to deal with that, since obviously letting them cast 5 or more 9th level spells is too much, but it feels weird to artificially limit a pool of points.

If they tap themselves out casting 9th level spells, presumably they'll be spending the rest of the 6-8 encounter, 25-or-so-round day plinking away with cantrips and it'll sorta balance out.

Not that mana systems like that didn't prove problematic back in the day, but they were stacking up against heavily-restricted old-school Vancian, not 5e best-of-spontaneous-and-prepped neo-Vancian.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If they tap themselves out casting 9th level spells, presumably they'll be spending the rest of the 6-8 encounter, 25-or-so-round day plinking away with cantrips and it'll sorta balance out.

Possibly, just been the biggest issue with the converting everything into spell points, which feels thematically awesome

 

[NotAYakk]

If they tap themselves out casting 9th level spells, presumably they'll be spending the rest of the 6-8 encounter, 25-or-so-round day plinking away with cantrips and it'll sorta balance out.

No. 5e is quite clear; no multiple 9th level spells period.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No. 5e is quite clear; no multiple 9th level spells period.

Well, this'd be a variant.

But, even though you do eventually get two 9th level slots?

 

[NotAYakk]

Well, this'd be a variant.

But, even though you do eventually get two 9th level slots?

Huh? Not on the spell advancement table.

Are you talking those post 20 boons?

 

[Salthorae]

If they tap themselves out casting 9th level spells, presumably they'll be spending the rest of the 6-8 encounter, 25-or-so-round day plinking away with cantrips and it'll sorta balance out.

Not that mana systems like that didn't prove problematic back in the day, but they were stacking up against heavily-restricted old-school Vancian, not 5e best-of-spontaneous-and-prepped neo-Vancian.

Not sure it would balance out really.

A 20th level sorcerer (if not limited to 1/day) could cast 10x 9th level spells in a day. That's a lot of oomph from whatever spell they know in that 9th level category. 10x wishes per day? yes, please.

At a minimum, I would at least let Spell Point casters mimic the pseudo-Vancian casting chart that full casters get. So at 19th level, they could use Spell Points to cast 2x 6th level spells per day and at 20th they could use points to cast 2x 7th level spells per day.

I do think that letting Spell Point casters have more castings of the most powerful slots is going a bit too far on unbalancing them vs. other casters.

"Stress of casting" as explained in the variant itself is a fine enough explanation and then if/when you get to the very top end, your ability to cast the "lesser" of the top end spells expands just a bit.