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Stormthorn
2009-06-15, 10:08 AM
It seems that a level 20 sorcerer is limited to the same number of 1 or 0 levels spells per day as they are 9th level. Considering how much more powerful a 9th level spell is it would make more sense for a sorcerer that can cast 6 spells of that level to be able to cast more like 60 low level spells per day. This is especialy noticable with level 0 cantrip spells since you could cast them an infinite number of times a day and at that level not be getting much out of it. Sure you could spam Ray of Frost but 2 or three points of cold damage every round is probably less effective than if the sorcerer where banging on the enemy with his staff. whats up with this

Krrth
2009-06-15, 10:14 AM
It works the same for all the base casters. Some of those level zeroes can be abused, like acid splash and daze.

Jair Barik
2009-06-15, 10:15 AM
Their not all dreadful

Detect magic, prestidigation, ghost sound and dancing lights are all pretty useful.
Also your post implies that the magical prowess the sorcerer gains forms a mana pool of sorts like the psion classes. Technically sacrificing a 9th lvl slot would give you a lot of 1st or 2nd lvl spells due to the difference in magical power but the improved capacity on levelling up is used to gain those high lvl slots. But hey if you want to debate it with your DM i'm sure hed let you swap a lvl 9 spell slot for 50 odd lvl 0 slots

Zeta Kai
2009-06-15, 10:35 AM
It works the same for all the base casters. Some of those level zeroes can be abused, like acid splash and daze.

In my last campaign, I had a player who was running a 16th level Sorcerer. Every player got a boon (basically a non-WBL bonus given out before the game started, so I could go about my day assigning treasure unhindered), & the sorcerer's boon was the ability to cast 0th-level spells at-will. It had something to do with her bloodline, I seem to recall. Regardless, it didn't affect the campaign in the slightest; it just made her more "magical" without increasing her effective power level. She eventually went epic & gained the power to cast 1st level spells at-will. That game flew apart at the seems, but her at-wills only contributed a little to that; most of the collapse was due to RAW cheese.

Krrth
2009-06-15, 10:46 AM
In my last campaign, I had a player who was running a 16th level Sorcerer. Every player got a boon (basically a non-WBL bonus given out before the game started, so I could go about my day assigning treasure unhindered), & the sorcerer's boon was the ability to cast 0th-level spells at-will. It had something to do with her bloodline, I seem to recall. Regardless, it didn't affect the campaign in the slightest; it just made her more "magical" without increasing her effective power level. She eventually went epic & gained the power to cast 1st level spells at-will. That game flew apart at the seems, but her at-wills only contributed a little to that; most of the collapse was due to RAW cheese.

Depending on the player they might not abuse it. As I recall, acid ignores hardness...being able to do 2 pts of acid per round at will could be abused...

Same with create water (cleric/druid). 2 gallons of water/level at will?

Not saying they would be abused, but they most certainly can be.

Devils_Advocate
2009-06-15, 10:47 AM
Considering how much more powerful a 9th level spell is it would make more sense for a sorcerer that can cast 6 spells of that level to be able to cast more like 60 low level spells per day.
He can. Any spell slot can be used to cast a cantrip, not just 0-level slots. Similarly, any 1st level or higher spell slot can be used to cast a first level spell, and so on and so forth.

If that's not good enough for you, use psionics or spell points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm).

Duke of URL
2009-06-15, 11:06 AM
Forget spell points -- just go for the recharge magic variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm) to get the feel you seem to be aiming for.

Stormthorn
2009-06-16, 04:54 PM
Depending on the player they might not abuse it. As I recall, acid ignores hardness...being able to do 2 pts of acid per round at will could be abused...

Same with create water (cleric/druid). 2 gallons of water/level at will?

Not saying they would be abused, but they most certainly can be.

But any player with a little money can ignore hardness or generate water and do both in greater amounts. It doesnt seem game breaking to let someone do 2 damage a round to an object if you have a fighter with a +3 Adamantium Longsword doing five times that amount.


He can. Any spell slot can be used to cast a cantrip, not just 0-level slots. Similarly, any 1st level or higher spell slot can be used to cast a first level spell, and so on and so forth.

If that's not good enough for you, use psionics or spell points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm).

Oh. I thought that only applied to spell slots over 9th level.
But it still doesnt make sense that a 9th level spell can be traded for one 0th level spell and not 20. If its 1 for 1 then it should work backwords too since that implies the game designers consider to be of even power.

Zaq
2009-06-16, 05:18 PM
Oh. I thought that only applied to spell slots over 9th level.
But it still doesnt make sense that a 9th level spell can be traded for one 0th level spell and not 20. If its 1 for 1 then it should work backwords too since that implies the game designers consider to be of even power.

Welcome to Vancian casting. It doesn't have to make sense.

There are a couple feats that let you effectively shuffle around your spell slots. Versatile Spellcaster, from Races of the Dragon, is spontaneous-only and lets you spend two slots to cast one spell of one level higher; Arcane Manipulation, from Lost Empires of Faerun, lets you break down higher level slots to get more lower level slots. Arcane Manipulation has a prereq of being a wizard, but (stupidly) does not in fact specify that you must use Wizard or even prepared spell slots for it, so there's that.

But yeah. If you want to treat your arcane power as a well from which you draw, rather than an inexplicable stack of discrete magical packets, Vancian casting isn't for you.

(Personally, I hate Vancian casting. I've grown to accept it, but give me psionics any day...)

Yuki Akuma
2009-06-16, 05:21 PM
Why does "you can use a 9th level spell slot to cast a 1st level spell that you really need to cast" equal "all spell slots are of equal power"?

Devils_Advocate
2009-06-16, 09:41 PM
OK, I'll bite. Why does being able to cast stupidly huge numbers of low-level spells "make more sense"?

As it is, eventually running out of spells is one of the few limits on what casters can do. High-level casters already get so many spell slots that they can usually avoid reaching that limit. They're quite overpowered enough.

Unless you're asking "Wouldn't it make more sense for high-level casters to get loads of low-level spells, but very few high-level spells?" In which case the answer is "Yes, that would be considerably more balanced."


If its 1 for 1 then it should work backwords too since that implies the game designers consider to be of even power.
Um, no. Allowing spellcasters to use spell slots for lower-level spells in no way implies that spells of all levels are equal in power. If you could use any spell slot for any spell, that would imply that they were all equal in power. So you've got it precisely backwards, in fact. The way it is now correctly implies that higher-level spells are more powerful.

As an analogy, you'd sell someone a peanut for one hundred dollars, right? But you wouldn't pay a hundred dollars for the peanut. You're only willing to allow the exchange to happen one way, because you consider one thing to be more valuable than the other.

Stormthorn
2009-06-17, 05:13 PM
As an analogy, you'd sell someone a peanut for one hundred dollars, right? But you wouldn't pay a hundred dollars for the peanut. You're only willing to allow the exchange to happen one way, because you consider one thing to be more valuable than the other.

Ok. But which item is the 9th level spell: the golden butter or the $100

If the butter is the 9th level spell (which im giving up) then i just gave away a 9th level spell for money (or points or somehting) i should be able to use then to buy 30 normal jars (0 or 1st level spells)


So i see that a 1st level spell should turn into a 9th level spell. But why is it that only one 1st level spell goes into that 9th level slot? The idea in this system is that higher level spells are harder to memorize right? Shouldnt that extra mental space allow me to remember several much easier spells? 10 spells at 100mb or 1 spell at 1gb right?

kc0bbq
2009-06-17, 05:21 PM
So i see that a 1st level spell should turn into a 9th level spell. But why is it that only one 1st level spell goes into that 9th level slot? The idea in this system is that higher level spells are harder to memorize right? Shouldnt that extra mental space allow me to remember several much easier spells? 10 spells at 100mb or 1 spell at 1gb right?The idea is they require more training to memorize, not that they take more space.

lsfreak
2009-06-17, 05:31 PM
There is a feat that lets you split spells into lower levels for prepared casters. One level-9 spell because 9 level-1 spells.

Let's deal with lower levels though, because at high levels things break down so much. If you wanted to split a 5th-level spell into more slots, how many should it be? An equal number of spell slots is probably questionably useful, but then how many? Should I be able to cast both haste and wings of flurry with that 5th level slot, using up 7 spell levels worth of spells for one 5th level slot?

Devils_Advocate
2009-06-17, 06:17 PM
Ok. But which item is the 9th level spell: the golden butter or the $100
... I said "peanut", not "golden butter". Where did you get "golden butter" from?

Seriously, dude, what are you on?

Anyway, the peanut is analogous to a first-level spell slot, the hundred-dollar bill is analogous to a 9th-level spell slot, and you are analogous to a game designer who doesn't want it to be trivially easy to break the game all to hell.

You think that a hundred-dollar bill is more valuable than a peanut. So you'll give someone a peanut for a hundred-dollar bill if they really want to make that trade, but you won't give someone a hundred-dollar bill in exchange for a peanut.

Analogously, a game designer recognized that a ninth-level spell slot is more valuable than a 1st-level spell slot. (DUH.) So he decided to let you trade in your ninth-level slot for a first-level slot if you really want you, but obviously he won't let you trade in a first-level slot for a ninth-level slot. Because that would allow you to get something valuable for something significantly less valuable, and he doesn't want it to be trivially easy to break the game all to hell.


But why is it that only one 1st level spell goes into that 9th level slot? The idea in this system is that higher level spells are harder to memorize right? Shouldnt that extra mental space allow me to remember several much easier spells? 10 spells at 100mb or 1 spell at 1gb right?
No, spells are more like liquids than solids. (Why do you think you need containers (spell slots) to hold them in? :smallamused:) Pour two drinks into the same bottle and they can mix together into something horrid and useless. Even if this worked, you'd just get a single spell that was a combination of the spells you stuck in. Casting a spell smashes its "bottle" open; you don't get to just pour out a bit at a time.

You need lots of little mental bottles if you want to put lots of little spells in them.

Look, if what you're getting at is that "mana" is more intuitive than Vancian spellcating, then I agree with you. But it's not like Vancian casting is logically impossible or something. It's internally consistent, whatever that's worth.

Hawriel
2009-06-17, 11:31 PM
If you really want a mana point system I liked the Sword & Sorceries.

Here is a paraphrase of their idea.

Each spell slot is worth mana points equal to its level. 3rd level spell equals 3 points. So if you have a caster that would have three 3rd level spells thats 9 points. Pritty simple. If your ability score would give you bonus slots, you just change thoughs to bonus points accordingly.

This does leave a potemtial problem. With the points system a character can cast their highest level spells more than they should under the normal system. S&S thought of that. If the caster casts more spell of a level than you can under normal rules. The caster makes a fort save vs 10 + spell level + 2 for every consecutive over casting he takes nonleathal damage equal to spell level.

The book is Sword & Sorcery Advanced Players Guide.
Damn cool book.

tyckspoon
2009-06-18, 12:26 AM
There is a feat that lets you split spells into lower levels for prepared casters. One level-9 spell because 9 level-1 spells.

Let's deal with lower levels though, because at high levels things break down so much. If you wanted to split a 5th-level spell into more slots, how many should it be? An equal number of spell slots is probably questionably useful, but then how many? Should I be able to cast both haste and wings of flurry with that 5th level slot, using up 7 spell levels worth of spells for one 5th level slot?

Fibonacci to the rescue! Seriously- think about a progression of 0 (the level above your current max- you can't break that into anything because you don't have them) 1-1 (your two highest level spells are more or less interchangeable, although the very highest still has more value) 2 (go two levels down, you get twice as many spells in return for sacrificing a spell that is probably more than twice as powerful) 3-5-8-13.. ok, it might get a little silly there, but practically speaking you probably aren't going to severely break anything that wasn't already broken by converting a 7+ spell slot into a couple dozen level 1 or 2 spells.