Why Do Many DMs Overlook This Restriction for Spellcasters?

[Hand of Evil]

I also have moved away from components but I did keep track of it at one time and have been an evil DM with my players, saying that they lost a major component after spell failure and that they should have asked if everything was in place or they checked everything back when it happened.

 

[Tsyr]

In reflection, based on how the party wizard gets treated in most groups I play in, I have another reason.

Wizards already have to spend both gold and experience to make magic items that benefit the entire party. No reason for the DM to kick them in the beanbag as well. No non-caster classes, by the core rules, is expected to spend experience in the fashion that casters are.

Yes, I know, I know. Have other people spend the experience for the wizard. Sure. In my experience, that really doesn't happen much, since so many of the items that benefit the party are "wizard gear" that the rest of the party has no direct need for and thus doesn't feel like they should be helping with.

 

[Spatula]

From the title I thought this was going to be about the number of hands it takes to cast most spells...

You need one free hand for any somatic component, and the other hand for any material/focus/divine focus. This means that a cleric using a mace/shield or a mage with a crossbow needs to drop/sheath their weapon and loose their shield if they have one (unless it's a buckler) in order to cast a spell with both S and M/F/DF components. Then you'd need to spend part or all of your next round getting ready for combat before you could fight again. How many DMs enforce that?

Or how many DMs enforce the page limit on wizard spellbooks, as opposed to letting the players just carry around a single book that has all their spells in it?

Back on topic, tracking inexpensive material componenrts is waaayyy too much busywork. If the spellcaster loses his component pouch, then he's SOL, but otherwise it speedes up play to just assume that he has them.

 

[Numion]

IMO it's just too much hassle for the gains involved. But then again I don't keep track of arrows either; would just lead to stupid things like players carrying 1000 arrows with them constantly..

And I rather like the way legolas was going around with seemingly just one quiver, and never running out of arrows. (He ran out in the books, I know. Someone would've brought that up anyway )

 

[Zappo]

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

If I played a wizard, and I had to track the components for each single spell, I would get Eschew Materials instead, just to prevent that hassle.

 

[Pielorinho]

Originally posted by Sagan Darkside

Are you making the fighters and such spend money on whetstones and armor upkeep?

Dangit, Sagan, you stole my point!

I agree that this is an unnecessary hassle in the game. I don't require the fighters to tell me about keeping their weaponry in good shape; the cleric doesn't need to tell me the content of his prayers; the rogue doesn't need to tell me he's oiling his thieves' tools before putting them away; I trust that the bard is practicing and tuning his lute around the campfire at night. And nobody has to inform me about their potty breaks.

All PCs do maintenance during their downtime. Generally, it's no fun to track the maintenance: it's simple, boring stuff for the PCs to do, but our gaming time is limited enough that we don't need to talk about it. I assume that the mage is acquiring bat guano, or fleece, or whatever it is he neds, when the adventure isn't going on.

Of course, I'm really happy when a spellcaster player describes their magic in vivid terms, and I encourage them to do it. It makes the game more fun for everyone. And if they use a spell component in that, excellent.

But I'm not going to force them to do it, and I'm definitely not going to add any more bookkeeping into the game than is already there.

Daniel

 

[Dr. NRG]

Somewhere on the continuum between keeping track of major magic items, which everyone does, and keeping track of squares of toilet paper, which (presumably) nobody does, lies the break-even point in the realism versus fun equation. For some people, keeping track of pinches of bat guano falls into the "too laborious to be fun" category, while for others it doesn't.

I don't think there is a compelling game balance reason to keep track of trivial components. The by-the-book system seems to allow for the real possibility that the spellcaster can lose access to spells by losing their generic component pouch, which is really the main balance issue. Other than expensive components, I'd say this is really a matter of taste as much as anything.

Is it important to the players and DM to spend time on details like this? Only if they want it to be...

NRG

 

[mkarol]

WHY? Is this not a major hassle to being a wizard that many are getting away with? When I finally stopped to think about this restriction, I realized just how exceptional this hassle could be if properly enforced.

You answered your own question. It is such a hassel that it is not worth keeping track. The game would become one of resource managment rather than role-playing.

 

[Endur]

How many hands to cast a spell?

Are you sure it takes two hands to cast a spell that uses a focus and is somatic? Or can you just have the hand holding the focus(or component) wave the component at the target?

I don't really know the answer to this one and I've wondered about it.

Tom

You need one free hand for any somatic component, and the other hand for any material/focus/divine focus. This means that a cleric using a mace/shield or a mage with a crossbow needs to drop/sheath their weapon and loose their shield if they have one (unless it's a buckler) in order to cast a spell with both S and M/F/DF components. Then you'd need to spend part or all of your next round getting ready for combat before you could fight again. How many DMs enforce that?

 

[Sagan Darkside]

Dangit, Sagan, you stole my point!

*Sagan giggles and runs off to bury it in his backyard*

SD