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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Treebore" data-source="post: 3750853" data-attributes="member: 10177">I have to admit if they can give a "good logic" explanation behind how and why its done it will make it much easier for me to accept.Still, I can't help but think most fo the "problems" mentioned with Vancian magic have more to do with DM's throwing too much at a group.I mean at low levels you know the mage only has one, maybe two first level spells, and if he is lucky and imaginative, he can even make zero level spells effective. Still, the DM knows those spells will be gone after one encounter. So why throw any more at the party that day?This same basic fact remains for many levels. I find, as a general rule of thumb, that a mage is good for one encounter for every two levels they have. Granted, that does vary dependent upon the circumstances of the encounter, such as saves made and saves failed affect the number of spells that end up being cast. IE the longer the enemy stays standing the longer you throw spells.So as far as the problems I have seen mentioned go, I wonder if they would be perceived as problems if better DM decisions took spell reserves into "proper" account. Meaning I wonder how many DM's really understand and take into consideration the number of spells mages can throw for how many combat rounds.Then do they have a good sense of how long combats will last? For instance, most combats last 2 to 5 rounds. At higher levels, like around 8th, you'll start seeing battles lasting 6 to 10 rounds, depending on difficulty, resistances, DR, and immunities. Then around 15th level you'll see combats last 10 to 15 rounds, again depending on immunities, resistance, DR, and difficulty (difficulty being a combination of AC and HP's).After that, in my experience only, combats actually became shorter. I don't think I ever saw a combat last more that 10 rounds after that, except in situations where we essentially went from fighting one group to another without a break. Then in the Epic level games I played in (I've never DMed Epic) the combats often lasted 2 or 3 rounds. Especially in the two games that went above 30th (one lasted to 48th, and the other lasted until 63rd). This is with wizards becoming practically useless because so many opponents at those levels are Highly resistant or totally immune to so many spell effects. The fighter types were that devastating.So I have to ask, maybe this "shortcoming" of Vancian magic would be better taken care of by better teaching of the DM's. To give them strong guidelines on "guesstimating" how long combats will take, and how long, and for how many encounters, spellcasters will remain potent.Then plan out their game accordingly.Still, if they give a good premise, this new way of handling encounters could be very cool. Depending on how they justify how fast mages recover. Like Coyote 6 mentions, there is a lot of literary sources to pull from for ideas to turn into the "magic mechanic".</blockquote>

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