What aspects of D&D magic do you like?

[TiQuinn]

I looked over my choices and realized that I can't even begin to answer this question fairly. I'm playing a Magister in an Arcana Unearthed game right now, and I'm digging it a lot, so all my answers are mirroring AU.

 

[Desdichado]

Fire and forget: Change. Bleagh! A pure D&Dism that I have little patience for when homebrewing anymore.
Spell slots: Change. See above.
Specific effects: Keep. I'm fine with spells being finite in terms of what they do.
Spell components: No opinion. I typically ignore these anyway.
Arcane/divine distinction: Whatever. I voted change, but I don't have a strong opinion.
Spell failure: Change. Another fairly silly legacy item that I've never really understood.
Unique spell lists: Keep. Helps to give flavor to various classes.

Note: I'm not really talking about 4e here; I think for 4e the D&Disms should stay, so the game can remain D&D. However, for games I like to run, I'd make these changes. Already have, as a matter of fact.

 

[Nightfall]

I like D&D magic the way it is right. Mostly cause now Clerical and Druidic magic are NOT the same thing regardless of how others might see it. At least in of course my home town.

 

[Michael Tree]

I might as well post on how I answered them.

Fire and forget: Change. This is an artifact of D&D history, and could be easily changed without affecting the feel of the game. The most balanced method would be one like the "spells readied" system in AU. Actually I've found this type of system to be even more flavorful and interesting, because characters feel more free to ready cool-but-relatively-useless spells, which they would never prepare in a standard D&D system out of fear of crippling their capabilities.

Spell slots: Keep.
Specific effects: Keep.
These are neccessary for game balance and simplicity. Besides, specific spells are probably the largest sacred cow on this list. If magic was made more freeform, it might not feel like D&D anymore.

Spell components: Change.
I prefer each class to have its own method of casting spells. This influences my answers to the next couple of questions.

Arcane/divine distinction: Change.
I would prefer to get rid of the distinction entirely, and let each class be its own type of magic. Naturally clerical magic is divine in nature, but there's no reason to create an arcane/divine split for other classes. Why should nature magic be more "divine" than song magic? (In settings where druids aren't required to worship gods, anyway.)

Spell failure: Change
Spell failure chance is fairly importance for the balance of the wizard and sorcerer classes, but I see no reason to make it so for all "arcane" magic. I would like spell-failure a characteristic of specific caster classes, not of all magic that isn't "divine".

Unique spell lists: Change.
I had a hard time deciding this question, and don't really have a strong opinion on it. In the end I decided to vote for change because it makes it easier to create a system where multiclass spellcasting stacks. I wouldn't want a totally generic system, or one that's mostly generic like AU, but a "sphere" system could work.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

The really interesting thing about this poll is how evenly the votes are distributed among the alternatives!

I think the poll results (as well as comments on a number of recent threads) show that magic is one of the most house-ruled areas of the game. How magic works in a campaign has significant effects on both the flavor of the campaign and on gameplay. In any future edition of the rules, the designers should (IMO) build in several options for spellcasting, allowing each group to select the one that best fits their needs.

 

[maggot]

I would like an option other than "Keep: Specific spells prepared, and lost when cast. (Vancian "fire and forget")" and "Change: Specific spells prepared, and lost when cast. (Make all magic spontaneous like a sorcerer,or use a "spells readied" system like in Monte's AU)."

My main problem with D&D magic is the time it takes high-level characters to decide what spells to take. In game, the characters have hours to decide each night, but while playing the game, that is unacceptable.

I'd prefer a system more like the sorcerer where you select the spells you know and then you can cast them at any time. This way the time to select spells is during level up, which is usually between games.

BTW, this is how every other RPG spell system I've seen works (except for totally free-form systems).

 

[maggot]

Another thing to change

I would also change the concept of spending money to learn spells. That is insane. Spend feats, skill points, or even XP to learn spells, but not money.

 

[the Jester]

I think that, to change a few of the things above, you really have to change the whole magic system. With metamagic, open slots that you can fill later, etc. I think the Vancian system is more flexible than ever.

What I might want to change is the way metamagic works- more options, more ways to cut the cost down, etc.

 

[Michael Tree]

My main problem with D&D magic is the time it takes high-level characters to decide what spells to take. In game, the characters have hours to decide each night, but while playing the game, that is unacceptable.

I'd prefer a system more like the sorcerer where you select the spells you know and then you can cast them at any time. This way the time to select spells is during level up, which is usually between games. BTW, this is how every other RPG spell system I've seen works (except for totally free-form systems).

That's one of my main irritants of D&D magic, especially after character reach 7th level or so. However, in my experience playing AU, this hasn't been a problem. Casters each tend to have a basic group of spells that they always have readied, and only swap out one or two to suit a particular situation.

The main problem with making all spellcasting work like sorcerery is that there's very little incentive to take any of the myraid of spells that are cool but relatively useless, or only useful in specific situations.

All other games that I know of that select new spells between sessions don't have any hard limit on the number of spells a character can know, while sorcerers have a certain maximum beyond which they will never learn any more spells of a certain level.

 

[maggot]

That's one of my main irritants of D&D magic, especially after character reach 7th level or so. However, in my experience playing AU, this hasn't been a problem. Casters each tend to have a basic group of spells that they always have readied, and only swap out one or two to suit a particular situation.

Interesting. I haven't played AU yet, but I was thinking it would be just as bad. I can see your point, however. I'm joining an AU game soon and I'll see how it works out. You're right, though, it takes until about 7th-9th level to see the problem. My standard D&D game is at 13th-14th and it has come to an almost stand still. It's a travel intensive game, so you could easily need three different spell lists in a game: one list for the days of wind walking around, one list for a day of investigations in the city, and another list for the assualt on the bad guy's keep.

The main problem with making all spellcasting work like sorcerery is that there's very little incentive to take any of the myraid of spells that are cool but relatively useless, or only useful in specific situations.

True. I think other games get around this by charging different amounts. 3 points for a fireball, 1 point for something less useful. That sort of thing.

All other games that I know of that select new spells between sessions don't have any hard limit on the number of spells a character can know, while sorcerers have a certain maximum beyond which they will never learn any more spells of a certain level.

Actually in point based games, you usually spend something like character points to gain new spells, the same resource used for the equivalent of d20's skills and feats. Shadowrun, GURPS, TORG off the top of my head work that way. I don't know of any game other than D&D that has the concept of "buy as many spells as you can afford."