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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreatLemur" data-source="post: 3481429" data-attributes="member: 28553">I'd like to point out the (admittedly obvious) truth between the extremes of opinion, here: Yes, resource management can be fun.  No, it is not fun for everybody.Personally, I'm hoping that we'll see a variety of balanced magic systems that all refer to the same pool of spells or effects.  (Kind of like the way prepared, spontaneous, arcane, and divine casters all use different subsets of one big spell catalog now, obviously.  I just want more magic systems with better modularity than, say, things like invocations and such have now.)I'd like some elements of those games, certainly.  D&D could do a lot worse than to steal from the Hero System's character generation or Talislanta's magic system.That sums it up pretty nicely (and reminds me a lot of <a href="http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?otherd20_Spellcasters%22" target="_blank">this great Monte Cook article</a>).  It's not a lack of mechanical power that makes Vancian magic grate so badly (oh, most definitely not!); it's just the weird idea of magical capability being divided every morning into big, pre-set lumps that leave nothing behind once they're expended.Yeah, I've gotta say, I really like the role I've seen wands taking in computer RPGs.  Instead of being charged with several uses of a powerful spell, they're basically just ranged weapons that only spellcasters can use.  Obviously, you can add in some more mechanics and flavor to make them more interesting, but power-wise, and role-wise, they're basically the same thing as the D&D Wizard's crossbow.  Only, you know, more wizardy.Yeah, that's a point I cannot ignore, as much as I'd love a modular, point-based magic system.  Just like resource management, fiddling around with points ain't for everyone.  But "spend one more point to make this touch spell short-ranged" and "one point per additional die or damage" can't be too bad, can it?  Right?  Right?I dunno if I really need them to recharge all their power, and certainly not in the middle of a fight.  What if they used the regular amount of spell points (or maybe less, for balance purposes), and were able to regain either a quarter or half of their maximum by resting for an hour?  I don't mind the party having to take a break, as long as they're not fleeing back to the inn or bedding down for the night in the lich king's tomb.For a while, I've been thinking about a system where all spells are castable at will, but they all require long casting times, unbroken concentration, and access to a spell book.  Which would mean, of course, no more casting in the middle of combat.  Instead, casters could grant themselves some kind of "toss minor energy bolts at will" kind of buff before any fight begins.  And, of course, there'd be a hard, level-based limit on how many such buffs a caster could maintain at a given time.Please excuse my absurdly long post, folks.</blockquote>

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