Vancian Caster Alternative in future sourcebook?

[Tinker Gnome]

Do you all think it is possible that WoTC may release a future 4E sourcebook that shows how to do a Vancian Style caster in 4E? Maybe in 4E's version of Unearthed Arcana?

 

[Tewligan]

Probably not.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Do you all think it is possible that WoTC may release a future 4E sourcebook that shows how to do a Vancian Style caster in 4E? Maybe in 4E's version of Unearthed Arcana?

No, but with the 3E and 4E SRDs, it's a sure bet a third party company will create a PDF that does that. If it sells well enough (or they set it up for POD at Lulu), you'll have your book.

 

[freyar]

That would be highly amusing, but think about the number spells per day you'd need to keep up with the "siloed" characters!

 

[Plane Sailing]

I wouldn't expect to see it. After all, they are moving away from 'pure vancian' for playability reasons, so what purpose would there be in reintroducing something that they have already determined is essentially unplayable?

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I wouldn't expect to see it. After all, they are moving away from 'pure vancian' for playability reasons, so what purpose would there be in reintroducing something that they have already determined is essentially unplayable?

To bring those who like the Vancian system into 4E?

 

[Mouseferatu]

In a system balanced under the assumption that all classes have some "at will" abilities, some "per encounter" abilities, and some "per day" abilities, it would be exceedingly difficult to balance a class that only had "per day" abilities. In fact, I'm not 100% certain it could be done, at least not with any degree of accuracy.

If it were to be done, though, I can see two possible ways of going about it.

1) Give the caster a whole crapload of per day abilities. I think this is a bad idea, as it becomes very cumbersome to keep track of, and it means trying to balance per day abilities against per encounter or even at will abilities from other classes. Maybe possible, but not recommended.

2) Give the class some spells to choose from that say "When you cast this spell, you gain the ability to do X once per round" or "When you cast this spell, you gain the ability to do X once every five minutes." In either case, the spell would last for 24 hours.

In other words, you basically use a portion of the Vancian system spells to duplicate the newer per encounter/at will system.

It's a bit of a cheat, but I think it's the only viable way to make it work.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To bring those who like the Vancian system into 4E?

Er, I imagine that they will all already be playing 4E, frankly, or fundamentally opposed to OTHER changes to the point where they are sticking with 3.5E, 2E, C&C or whatever.

I really don't think the number of people in the world who like "Vancian magic" in the D&D sense to the point that they'd suddenly change their mind on a game if it included it is a number beyond the triple digits.

I imagine we'll see a 3rd-party sourcebook or game that takes a lot of 4E elements and brings back Vancian magic, but an official one? I doubt it.

 

[kerbarian]

Do you all think it is possible that WoTC may release a future 4E sourcebook that shows how to do a Vancian Style caster in 4E? Maybe in 4E's version of Unearthed Arcana?

I doubt it, and the reason is that Vancian casters mess up the game flow for the whole party, not just their own character. If you have one character who blows his entire load of spells in the first encounter and is then useless for the rest of the day, that will make the party want to rest -- the whole 9:00-9:05 work day problem -- even if some of the party is still ready to go (like fighters/etc. are in 3.x). I think what they're trying to do is make it not possible for any character to burn himself out that quickly, so that they can't slow down the rest of the party in the same way that casters can in 3.x.

 

[Chocobot]

It should be no problem to do Vancian magic in 4e. Simply change all the 1/encounter spells into either 4/day, or 4 equivalent spells each 1/day. Problem solved. Of course then you're stuck with 3.x's problems with the 4 encounters per day assumption, but if you've already learned to handle those that shouldn't be a big deal.