Wacky pseudo-Vancian casting sytem (long)

[Ainamacar]

Even with a skim of the OP, I can tell that this entails way too much keeping track of stuff.

I don't think it's quite as bad you suggest. In particular, half the stuff in the OP's table is analysis, not information a player needs to make a character. Unless I've missed something really big, the amount of stuff to track in my example is slightly higher than 3.5 below level 10, about equal near level 10, and less than 3.5 above level 10. Of course, if you think 3.5 wizards had too much tracking anyway, I'll have to concede point.

Ignoring cantrips, a typical level 10 3.5 wizard will have about 20 spell slots (including bonus slots), or 25 if a specialist. That entails keeping track of 20-25 pieces of information, namely what spells are prepared. Spells prepared multiple times reduce that burden because one can simply note how many times an individual spell is prepared, but in my experience wizards that frequently prepare the same spells over and over are usually called sorcerers.

Now, in my sample spell progression the 10th level caster will have 10 stacks, 2 of each level up to 5. Each stack requires two pieces of information to be fully determined: The level of the stack associated with a given spell, and the lowest spell slot that has not yet been cast. So this will always be 20 pieces of information to track.

Maybe to make it clearer, suppose the spell sheet looked something like this (for the sake of argument please assume all of these spells have level 1-5 versions.):

(Let the blank define that no spell slots remain.)
Min
Slot Stack  Spell
1     1     Alarm
4     5     Charm Person
      1     Comprehend Languages
2     4     Dimension Door
      2     Disguise Self
4     4     Dispel Magic
1     3     Fireball
      3     Haste
2     5     Magic Missile
      2     Stone Skin

Or in an equivalent format that shows the unused slots explicitly
as "o"s (perhaps a filled circle on a character sheet) and a bar
which cuts off the available slots after the stack level:
Level
123456789 Spell
o|        Alarm
   oo|    Charm Person
 |        Comprehend Languages
 ooo|     Dimension Door
  |       Disguise Self
   o|     Dispel Magic
ooo|      Fireball
   |      Haste
 oooo|    Magic Missile
  |       Stone Skin

This character has already cast the maximum level of the spell for Comprehend Languages, Disguise Self, Haste, and Stone Skin. Thus far this character has not cast Fireball, so all its slots are available. Its best spells are Charm Person and Magic Missile, and the character can tell at a glance what levels of each can still be cast. If the character decided to cast a 4th level Magic Missile on its next turn then on the first spell sheet one simply change 1 to 5 in the appropriate column, while on the 2nd sheet one could "erase" the first three "o"s.

I'm sure there are better presentations possible, but although the information itself is unfamiliar, the volume isn't that large.

Cheers.

 

[Ratskinner]

TL;DR version: I propose a system <snippage>

Wow, that seems...complicated. So like, what is the big advantage this system has over a simple limited slot system? That is, I'm thinking you get X slots (say 5-10) and as you level up, the slots increase in the level of spell they can hold.

 

[Ainamacar]

Wow, that seems...complicated. So like, what is the big advantage this system has over a simple limited slot system? That is, I'm thinking you get X slots (say 5-10) and as you level up, the slots increase in the level of spell they can hold.

I think the primary benefits are five-fold:

1. It lets the caster make a consequential tradeoff between immediate powerful casting and long-term (especially >1 day) spell flexibility, and hopefully makes the entire spectrum in between viable. In particular, if one day a character chooses one extreme and his party member chooses the other, they will both wake up the next day with a difference in potential effectiveness closer to that across a gulf than an ocean...they're probably still on the same continent anyway. This empowers different playstyles, campaign paces, and valuations of spell resources. Moreover, it has greater ability for the players to adjust these to the fictional circumstances. Nevertheless, it hopefully nudges people away from extremes which have historically impeded gameplay. Namely, the caster who always goes nova and the (less common) caster who hardly ever casts for fear of not having a spell when truly needed. Note that this benefit doesn't really depend on how the stacks progress, which could be very simple or (as in my example) more complex.
2. It provides greater but not unlimited ability to match the circumstances of the situation to the raw power actually exercised. Necessary overkill ("I cast Greater Teleport to go 15 feet!") is occasionally frustrating for the player and less-than-elegant in the fiction. Such situations aren't an unqualified problem (often they are tense, fun, hilarious, and usually filled with relief) and eliminating them entirely could be very boring, but my opinion is that a traditional Vancian system, especially one with very few slots, doesn't strike the right balance.
3. It provides a greater depth of possible casting for the same amount of spell preparation decisions. If a system has 5-10 fire-and-forget spell slots that means there are at most 5-10 chances to be magical with them. The proposed system increases the opportunity to behave magically without moving to pure at-will magic (which has an entirely different feeling) or an overabundance of slots (which requires more decision-making in preparation, sometimes too little practical differentiation from at-will magic, and usually a host of balance problems.)
4. Each stack supports its own little casting theme, granting a range of potential abilities. I think this makes it easier for the character to establish their character's aptitudes during play compared to a traditional Vancian system with few slots. If the stack progression is non-uniform (as in my original example) it also helps people weight those spellcasting themes. A traditional Vancian system with enough slots can support the same feeling, but they are also much more likely to turn into flavorless collections of spells. I have nothing against the concept of the generalist wizard, but I'd like him to be more like a traditional Swiss Army Knife, and less like some 100-function monstrosity.
5. It does the above without making book-keeping a nightmare, at least as far as I can tell. If stacks can be of different levels at the same time it is roughly equivalent to a traditional Vancian system with twice as many slots. If all stacks have the same level, it is roughly equivalent to a Vancian system with the same number of slots.

A simpler choice for stack progression would still have these basic features. Fixing the number of stacks and making sure they all increased in lockstep is perfectly reasonable. I chose the more complex progression in part to see if the math could be made to work for something that looks like pre-4e D&D spell progressions, because I figure 5e is probably going to return to something that looks like it, and because I generally like the idea of keeping the broad base of abilities afforded by many spell slots while closely limiting (at least in principle) the number of really powerful spells that can be cast.

Thanks for asking, it is a question that should be answered in depth for any system that adds complexity.

 

[keterys]

Why not have, say, 4 stacks, and you can have 1 spell of each spell level in each stack? You could even require that spells in a stack share a school or descriptor (or domain) to be flavorful.

 

[Ainamacar]

(Welcome to my 250th post!)

Why not have, say, 4 stacks, and you can have 1 spell of each spell level in each stack? You could even require that spells in a stack share a school or descriptor (or domain) to be flavorful.

I like it! When one considers multiple spells per stack it opens up a lot of room to explore. It could also mitigate some problems D&D-styled spells might have with stacks due to minimum levels above one, and sparsely spaced (or no) upgrades to higher levels. The one thing I'd avoid is making each spell associated only with a specific slot as opposed to the stack as a whole, because even in themed stacks that might lead to strange situations where casting Harm completely removed the possibility of casting Enervation. When you said that each stack might have one spell of each level, however, I don't think that is what you meant.

Here are some interesting tradeoffs one could imagine. For example, a caster with 10 stacks but only one spell per stack (as in the OP) vs. a caster with 7 stacks but 3 stacks per spell. The latter would be more similar to a classic D&D wizard, while the former to a sorcerer.

Taking your idea of having each stack have spells from the same school gives me an idea for how to implement something like Wizard specialization. For example, maybe a generalist wizard has exactly one stack for each available spell school, and each stack contains all the spells the wizard prepares from that school. Specialization could be reassigning an entire stack from one school to another when. That effectively makes one school of spells forbidden (since there is no stack in which to prepare them) while simultaneously increasing the flexibility and overall potential with the specialized school. Compared to the traditional method of simply giving the specialist more slots, this strikes me as more balanced because it doesn't increase the overall potential of the specialist compared to the generalist, but it does make it easier to use a particular school of spells efficiently.

One could even take this to its extreme, by letting a wizard assign stacks to schools in any combination. For example, one might choose 3 necromancy stacks, 3 abjuration stacks, and 2 transmutation stacks. That would effectively make all other schools forbidden, but the caster would have comparatively amazing flexibility in the schools that remain, all without increasing the actual maximum spell-casting potential.

For domains the idea is even more intriguing to me. For example, maybe a cleric has 4 stacks, and 3 of those are determined by its domains, while the fourth is a stack made of "generalist" cleric spells. That would make 3/4 of a cleric's spellcasting power come from its domains (and I really want domains/spheres/deities/etc. to matter to an individual cleric) while making sure every cleric has some access to the spells we traditionally associate with the group as a whole. (It's also a natural module: if the DM wants clerics to be completely defined by domain she declares all the stacks are from domains. If she wants them to be completely generic, she declares all the stacks generic. Or anywhere in between. In any case, the overall spellcasting power is fairly closely preserved because the number of stacks remains invariant.)

Furthermore, it might reduce some of the difficulty in writing balanced domains. In 3/3.5 it was often frustrating to choose domains because some were simply superior in terms of spells. The fact that a domain slot filled with a crappy spell you'll never use effectively means you have a spell slot you'll never use. Choosing two domains mitigated this, but not all the time. In a stack-based setting, however, a few bad spells has a smaller impact because one can still use slots to cast whatever good spells are in the domain. A stack-based domain with all good spells would still be superior to one with only 5 decent spells, with better flexibility, but the impact on overall casting potential would be muted compared to 3/3.5.

Another annoyance of 3/3.5 was that domains with the same spell at the same level provided no benefit, and in fact had the effect of reducing flexibility rather than demonstrating in any way just how much some deity loved to, say, disintegrate stuff. If domains were stack-based then both stacks would have that spell, which enhances rather than restrains that aspect of the deity. One might even let a cleric use the same domain for multiple stacks to reflect the focus of their devotion. It would also means domain writers and homebrewers wouldn't have to worry about stepping on the toes of other domains so much, and could just pick the spells they think best fits the idea behind the domain. Considering all the toe-stepping that occurred as domains proliferated (I count at least 144 domains) I think this would be a significant improvement.

Thanks for your really thought-provoking comment, keterys!