Discussion on Vancian Magic - Chapter 2

[Bronzebeard]

First part can be found here.

Foreword: I wish to thank faeryn, Eldritch_Lord, Jackinthegreen, Unbeliever, SneeR, and the rest for their invalubale help and all the helpful input.


Onwards!

New arcane spellcasting rules
alpha build - temporary name "Mystery"

• Spells memorized: The arcanist can memorize spells up to his Int. mod. + 1 (e.g. human with 14 int. can memorize 3 spells at any given time).
• Spell level limit: The arcanist can cast spells no higher then his class level divided by 2 and rounded up (e.g. Caster level 5 will be able to cast no higher then 3rd level spells).
• Spellcasting: each spell is cast against relevant save (Illusion vs. mental, disease vs. Fortitude, etc.). Casting a spell will not remove it from memorization. It is possible to recast it multiple times.
• Spells: The only existing spells are 1st level pieces that are very minor and can be combined for greater effect with other pieces. Example:
  Assume I have orb of acid, a 1st level 1d3 ranged attack spell, memorized. I can combine it with daze, another 1st level spell, and the widen metamagic in order to have a different spell in my arsenal. The new spell will be called bronzebeard's acid arrow and will be used as a 5th level spell of cone shaped acid 1d3 damage with daze effect upon hitting an enemy.
  
  (click to show/hide)

  Maybe spells could have 'greater' and 'lesser' manifestations. 'Lesser' would be the normal rules, while 'greater' will expend the spell from memory with some sort of greater benefit.
  

Questions? Comments? For? Against?

[RobbyPants]

So, it's just 1st level spells and metamagic?

If so, I'm assuming this is being used in place of other forms of casters. It seems that this might work for an E6 type of game, the the types of effects you're going to be generating when you're double-digit levels are not going to be the equivalent of 5th to 9th level spells. This won't keep pace with what monsters can do.

[Bronzebeard]

Basically, yes. A plethora of 1st level spells exist as the smallest building blocks that you can combine as you wish. The more you use, the higher the spells level is for casting.

Can you give example as to how this won't keep up with monsters at higher levels?

[Stratovarius]

Timestop, Genesis, Gate, any summoning or planar binding in general, Mord's, most BFC spells, any Death effect, Planar Travel/Teleport, etc.

[Bronzebeard]

Timestop, Genesis, Gate, any summoning or planar binding in general, Mord's, most BFC spells, any Death effect, Planar Travel/Teleport, etc.

You're just saying names now. Please explain cause i clearly don't understand.

[Garryl]

Timestop, Genesis, Gate, any summoning or planar binding in general, Mord's, most BFC spells, any Death effect, Planar Travel/Teleport, etc.

You're just saying names now. Please explain cause i clearly don't understand.

Most of the more interesting and useful mid- to high-level spells have unique effects that cannot be modeled or replicated with any combination of effects present (or even that would be balanced) in low-level spells.

[RobbyPants]

Timestop, Genesis, Gate, any summoning or planar binding in general, Mord's, most BFC spells, any Death effect, Planar Travel/Teleport, etc.

You're just saying names now. Please explain cause i clearly don't understand.

It's two things:

1) All of the spells that Strat listed are interesting mid/high-level effects that this system won't emulate. A lot of story-telling ability is lost.

2) Monsters start bringing increasingly nasty effects against you, which low level spells simply won't counter. Consider things monsters do to you while missing:

• Dispel Magic/Greater
• Break Enchantment
• Stone to Flesh
• Raise Dead/Resurrection/True Resurrection
• Restoration/Lesser/Greater
• Remove Blindness/Deafness
• Remove Curse
• Remove Disease
• Remove Paralysis
• Freedom of Movement
• Death Ward
• Mind Blank
• True Seeing
• See Invisibility
• Freedom
• Delay/Neutralize Poison
• Dimensional Anchor

A lot of fights flat-out kill or cripple PCs. I know there are more spells out there that I didn't list, but without those, you cannot deal with

• Magical debuffs
• Magical crowd control
• Petrification
• Death
• Blindness
• Deafness
• Curses
• Disease
• Imprisonment
• Poison
• Enemies escaping via teleportation

So, either these types of fights wipe the party, or the DM is stuck telling decidedly simpler stories. This pretty much leaves the PCs stuck playing low level adventures... which makes sense for PCs with low level spells/abilities.

[Garryl]

Making all higher level effects be combinations of lower level effects is boring and limits character growth. All getting to higher level does in that system is let you do the same things you could do at level 1 faster and more efficiently.

[Bronzebeard]

The spells that were mentioned could be based on smaller parts, IMO. Teleport is likened to Dimensional Door, Benign Transposition. Timestop resembles Haste. And Summon is an existing list of 9 spells, from 1st level to 9th.


I know there are spells that are more difficult to translate that way - like Wish.
There is, probably, a place for bigger basic blocks. For example: 3rd level spell for invisibility or something. I don't know.


In regards to spells countering monster's nasty effects; one way is to use the same spell to counter it. Just like the existing system. I just state I reverse the effect with the same power. Another way is to create a building block for 'restore', for 'release' or for 'replenish' and coupled with other building blocks have the ability to remove negative effects.

Keep in mind that this is all regarding arcane casting and as the current system works, there is no heal, cure or remove disease for arcanists. Whether it should be like that or not is another thing we could discuss.


The present practice where PC's are in danger of straight out dying is something I'm aiming to change. SoD spells are a notorious symptom for this.

Making all higher level effects be combinations of lower level effects is boring and limits character growth. All getting to higher level does in that system is let you do the same things you could do at level 1 faster and more efficiently.

Au contraire, my friend. Creating spells from combinations of low level parts is involving, creating and engaging. It stimulates tactical thinking and presents another layer of game-play. Getting to higher level means opening more options, creating spells with higher power ceiling and more influence on the world.

I would love to hear tips and suggestion on how to improve the draft.

[DDchampion]

1) All of the spells that Strat listed are interesting mid/high-level effects that this system won't emulate. A lot of story-telling ability is lost.

So, either these types of fights wipe the party, or the DM is stuck telling decidedly simpler stories.

Actually, it's the exact opposite that happens.

If the PCs have gate/wish/genesis/planar binding and whatnot, the campaign story will always start and end with "and our infinite army of solars/titans/prismatic dragons took care of every problem while we were sitting in our super safe plane where nothing can hurt us and we have negative reasons to leave". There's really no story-telling at all. Nothing in any MM can hope to challenge the party, in particular because the party can just spam the best monsters do to their bidding.

If you want to tell a story with D&D 3.X, the first rule is to nerf/remove the hell out of at least half the spells Strat mentioned. The game completely breaks if you use gate/wish/genesis/planar binding and whatnot as they are.

[Bronzebeard]

Ooooh!
I forgot a thing.
Both 4th and 5th edition differentiated between combat (or encounter) spells and more 'generalized' spells with the category of rituals. So, I guess, that spells of a certain sort (like, gate, for example) could be parted into another group and be treated as a ritual of sorts. Longer casting time and not constructed out of spell building blocks.

[faeryn]

Keep in mind that this is all regarding arcane casting and as the current system works, there is no heal, cure or remove disease for arcanists. Whether it should be like that or not is another thing we could discuss.

You havn't looked at the Bard's spell list have you? Bards get Cure as an Arcane spell... Heal and Remove Disease however are divine only... but cure could be used as a building block for heal... and potentially for remove disease too...

[Amechra]

This reminds me a bit of something I scribbled about a bit ago.

Maybe you can crib a little? Part D and E add a little extra bit of pomp to wizardry that's normally lost.

[Bronzebeard]

You havn't looked at the Bard's spell list have you? Bards get Cure as an Arcane spell... Heal and Remove Disease however are divine only... but cure could be used as a building block for heal... and potentially for remove disease too...

I have looked at the Bard class, and frankly? I think it's so much of a mess that a much bigger attention is required then what the changes in arcane spellcasting will be able to provide. But yes, you are right. Bard have cure and others as arcane spells. I would still look at the bard as a separate case.

As for cure as a building block; yes, theoretically I can write down a cure building block (something along the lines of cure minor wounds) that would be used for spells from the same family: Light, Moderate, Serious, Critical Wounds, Vigor, and Regenerate. Remove disease needs a different basis. It could use cure block as an additional ingredient for balancing purposes, perhaps.

This reminds me a bit of something I scribbled about a bit ago.

Maybe you can crib a little? Part D and E add a little extra bit of pomp to wizardry that's normally lost.

Mostly what was mention (including the original post from OSR blog) are designed as an in-game flavorful role-playing aspect. It doesn't relate to the book rules, to rolling dice, to the math behind the game. Which is what I'm mainly concerned about.

Also, I'm unable to find a copy of Arcana Evolved (there was another one - blue something?) for inspection.


As a sidenote - I always wondered why you need a feat in-order to write down on a scroll? Isn't craft (scribe) enough?

[YouLostMe]

It looks like your solution to the dearth of high-level effects produced by this system is to write a list of combinations that can produce those effects. So the costs of this system seem to be:

• Someone needs to write out enormous tables of interactions in order to produce the spell effects that would be considered par at high levels.
• Players will need to reference said enormous table when they try to cast their spells.
• Someone will likely minmax the hell out of the system and produce crazy broken things, while someone else could pick bad combinations and perform abysmally.

The benefits of this system seem to be:

• No spell slots
• If you put in all of the work writing & vetting those tables, you could theoretically bring casters to a manageable level
• Theorycrafting is fun

The 3 problems are pretty huge, each one being enough to turn me off a subsystem entirely. The benefits can all be accomplished by something else, like adopting the Spellcasting Codices or writing new Invocation-using classes. I would be hard-pressed to accept this as a workable starting point for a new ability subsystem.

Also, this has nothing to do with Vancian magic. It looks like a new casting system that you want to substitute for standard casters, which is a different topic. I know it's the sequel to the thread, but it's a little weird to use that title.

[Bronzebeard]

Well, not necessarily. I thought of creating only the basis with the minor spells, as akin to Ars Magika way of spell casting thereby providing more room to improvisation and fantasy as opposed to the 'Scientific feel' that some have complained about.
The spell slot being used to fuel the casting will determine how hard you can punch (e.g. 1d6/level or the number of targets).
So no reason to create giant ass tables. And if it is required then I'm the first in-line to announce this creating as, dare I say, stupid.

As for minmaxing: well, current system are pretty rife with minmaxing so any change is probably for the better, I think.


I think that the suggested (or discussed) system mentioned above is still in the framework of Vancian as they grant a few magical tricks after memorization process. For me, I mainly regard the slots dividers, the 1 to 9 split, as what constitutes Vancian.
There is a merit to what you say. I probably should dedicate part of the discussion to what is Vancian. What will still be considered Vancian and where the is the line that make players go "Hey! That's not d&D" (like when 4th ed. came out).
Or I should just, as you correctly stated, declare that I'm creating a substitute to spellcasting. And while you are correct, I lean more to the attempt at "fixing" (yeah, I know, presumptuous much) the current system according to community's input.


All in all, I do thank you for joining us. And for what you wrote.
Did what I answered makes sense?

[RobbyPants]

In regards to spells countering monster's nasty effects; one way is to use the same spell to counter it. Just like the existing system. I just state I reverse the effect with the same power. Another way is to create a building block for 'restore', for 'release' or for 'replenish' and coupled with other building blocks have the ability to remove negative effects.

This could potentially work if the Restore/Release/Replenish portion of a spell can be added on for free. If it is not (and requires you to gain another level, or whatever, before it can be used), you are going to have a situation where monsters of level X can hit the party with effect Y, and the party cannot counter/deal with effect Y until a level later than X.

And making it "free" could be workable. If each player has a certain number of "known effects" that it can stack, and can only stack so much based on their level, the "clerics" would blow one of their known effects on countering, which would be a cost to them, even if they can stack "Remove" on top of "Blind" to get Remove Blindness, and have both of those be the same effective level.

The one side effect I see with this solution (I won't strictly call it a down side) is that then, in order for you to be able to counter X, you have to be able to do X. So, in order to remove blindness, diseases, and petrification, you need to be able to blind, cause disease, and petrify. In order to be able to counter fire damage, you have to be able to deal fire damage. Not necessarily a problem, but it might make your characters look different than you were imagining.

Actually, it's the exact opposite that happens.

If the PCs have gate/wish/genesis/planar binding and whatnot, the campaign story will always start and end with "and our infinite army of solars/titans/prismatic dragons took care of every problem while we were sitting in our super safe plane where nothing can hurt us and we have negative reasons to leave". There's really no story-telling at all. Nothing in any MM can hope to challenge the party, in particular because the party can just spam the best monsters do to their bidding.

If you want to tell a story with D&D 3.X, the first rule is to nerf/remove the hell out of at least half the spells Strat mentioned. The game completely breaks if you use gate/wish/genesis/planar binding and whatnot as they are.

We're getting somewhat off topic, but yes, a lot of effects need to be fixed to work. Removing them is one way to do that, and addressing the problems is another. The first option yields "low level" games, and the second would yield "high level" games that (supposedly) work better than they do, now. I consider this a separate issue from whether or not spells should be made up of stackable low-level effects.

[Bronzebeard]

This could potentially work if the Restore/Release/Replenish portion of a spell can be added on for free. If it is not (and requires you to gain another level, or whatever, before it can be used), you are going to have a situation where monsters of level X can hit the party with effect Y, and the party cannot counter/deal with effect Y until a level later than X.

And making it "free" could be workable. If each player has a certain number of "known effects" that it can stack, and can only stack so much based on their level

I wholeheartedly agree with you.
I would also include things like damage-types in certain scenarios. If you recall, there is this feat called Energy Substitution that swaps spell's elemental damage types. I read about GM's giving the feat pro-bono or a similar ruling so that the players would have his sorcerer in a "different colour", so to speak.
There's also the notion that if you know how to cast something, then you probably know how to undo it (I'm not sure that's a 100% true).

• Bottom line is that casting an 'on' effect should be as high level as casting an 'off' effect. This is for balance sake, as you mentioned.

The one side effect I see with this solution (I won't strictly call it a down side) is that then, in order for you to be able to counter X, you have to be able to do X.

I would view such a thing as negative attribute.
As much as it makes sense for it to exist that way - I would still like to have difference in types of casters, necromancer who knows how to sap strength and transmuter who knows how to enhance strength with no crossover between their powers.
That is why I'm not so inclined to use an "opposite" building block. Still, not so sure. Peers input will be greatly appreciated on the matter.

...the "clerics" would blow one of their known effects...

Thing is I never intended to include the clerics in this. I know that their spellcasting is the same, mechanically. Yet the class is treated differently for many aspects (Being granted turn undead that also fuel certain powers, Spontaneous godly casting, Domains, etc.). Therefore I'd say that they are outside the scope of this discussion.

...addressing the problems is another ... the second would yield "high level" games that (supposedly) work better than they do, now.

Any ideas?

[Bronzebeard]

Regarding the main issue. I tried spitballing some items as a start for this system.
For the moment I'll refer to them as block (name as placeholder)

I found 3 types of block:

Type of casting:

• summon
• figment
• charm
• shift
• damage/ray
• boost
• know/detect
• fright
• drain
• protection

Type of damage or energy:

• continuous
• area
• wall
• delay
• chain
• echo
• ((dual?))

Types of energy or damage:

• Fire
• Ice
• Electric
• Necrotic

Few things to note:
A. This is not a full list. A omitted some things on purpose, others I was not so sure about, and others I simply didn't think of.
B. The blocks have no weight. Would continuous spell be the same as delayed one? Probably not. But I didn't try to balance them, just write them down.
C. This is not a final item. Just a draft. Everything is up for change. Including the use of blocks itself. As par with the suggestion of readers, maybe it would become so that this block use thing is irrelevant and another, more elegant solution will arise.

[RobbyPants]

...addressing the problems is another ... the second would yield "high level" games that (supposedly) work better than they do, now.

Any ideas?

It might be outside of the scope of this, but I can list a few potential problems. They'd need to be addressed with the existing spells or with a new system.

• Don't allow summoned creatures to use spells/SLAs of higher level than the spell that summoned them. Basically, don't allow efreet summoned with Planar Binding to cast Wish.
• Be wary about allowing a called creature to summon/call others. 3E doesn't allow summoned creatures to summon others (good), but there is no such limit on called creatures. You want to avoid "infinite"-sized armies.
• Avoid stacking effects with no limitations.
• Direct damage is going to need to do enough damage to keep pace with other effects. In 3E, DD is usually a sucker's game, unless you've pumped enough resources into metamagic effects to deal the kinds of damage that most groups consider cheesy. An easy way around this can involve attaching rider effects to damaging spells or damage riders to other spells. In either case, you're not just dealing HP damage.
  
• Polymorph effects are always going to be hard to handle because 3E isn't really set up to allow open-ended polymorph effects to work. Your best to options are to either have a pick-list of level-appropriate forms (kind of like how Summon Monster works) or to have the spell grant certain buffs to your stats and change your appearance (kind of like how the Shape Shift variant of the Druid works).
• Be careful about any open ended effect. Being able to select any monster from all of the published MMs with certain HD or being able to fabricate any vegetable matter ends up with crazy effects. You tend to get crazy things like +18 AC from Alter Self or thousands of doses of black lotus extract from Minor Creation.
  
• Avoid granting extra actions, or you end up with casters who can end fights before they begin.

I'm sure there are lots of others that are escaping my mind, right now. A lot of the problems with 3E are systemic and built in. They won't be easily addressed with a spell system, but you can help narrow the caster/non-caster divide with a new magic system. Redoing classes and feats after that could patch the rest.

Type of casting:

• summon
• figment
• charm
• shift
• damage/ray
• boost
• know/detect
• fright
• drain
• protection

One big combat aspect I see missing is crowd control. That's a very broad term that can be done in many ways, but it's very important. Also, mobility (flight and teleportation, specifically) would need to be addressed.

As far as non-combat goes, you're probably going to want some utility in there. You can likely get some good utility from summon, figment, charm, shift, and know/detect. You may or may not want something to help bypass hazards, things to boost mundane tasks (be they boosts to normal skill checks, or things that work outside of the skill system), as well as stuff like reading thoughts or detecting lies. It's possible those effects could get added into boost and know/detect.

You weren't planning on each of those things as being a single effect, were you? I'm assuming each would contain a list of effects.