Spells as Feats

[Umael]

NOTE: This idea is only one part of a greater whole of re-working the spell system. A number of things have to be assumed.

I am exploring revising the spell system so that spells are Feats. My reasons for attempting this are many, but I guess you could say I want to use some of 4.0 game design with keeping 3.5 flavor. In theory, a wizard, armed with a number of Feats that function as spells, will have the "wizard" feel, and yet still be comparible to the fighter.

In theory.
And yes, I am aware that there are a lot of things I am not addressing. How many times can someone use these Feats, how can I make sure the Feats scale at the same speed as other Feats, etc.

With that in mind, let me give the first Feat.


Summon
Summons a Medium-sized creature to do the bidding of the caster. Said creature can move, attack, pick objects up, and so forth, but does not weight enough or exhert enough magically influence to trigger a trap.
Time to cast: 1 full round
Damage: 1d4
AC: 10 + 1/CL
Hit points: 1
Movement: 30'
Duration: Concentration
Cost: per Fatigue rules (to be examined later)


Problem #1 - Spells for Feats??? You only get 7 Feats by 20th level!
Answer - Bonus Feats. Lots of them. Don't know how many yet.

Problem #2 - That Feat seems kinda weak, like, makes all spell-casting weak.
Answer - By itself, it's only one Feat. A second Feat could be taken to increase the damage. Or the AC. Or the Movement.

Problem #3 - Or the hit points.
Answer - Sure. A 1-hp creature for one Feat seems reasonable.

Problem #4 - So what was that about the traps?
Answer - Summon is abused sometimes by finding traps. Summoning a horse or a cow to walk in front of you to find traps means that the cow dies - not the PCs. This avoid that.

Problem #5 - Why not just say Summon can't do that?
Answer - Because if you have invested enough Feats in the Summon Feat Tree, maybe you should be allowed to set off traps.

Problems #6 - Why Medium?
Answer - More Feats will allow for changing the size.

Problem #7 - It seems so generic. Will a summoner ever be allowed to summon something really fancy?
Answer - Depends on how much you have invested in the Summon Feat Tree.

Problem #8 - What about multiple Summons? Is it only 1 creature at a time?
Answer - Yes, but I'm not sure how yet.

[Milskidasith]

Again, your arguing for your new ideas to be balanced based on mechanics that are not there. The only response is to say that it is completely unbalanced (by which I mean worthless) now, and that the more things you need to balance later, the less likely it is you will ever get the system working at all.

My suggestion, if you want to redo the entire D20 system, is to get some testers, get some people to work with you, and start with the core mechanics first, rather than redoing it by changing spellcasters iterative attacks and making spells feats without knowing how many feats spellcasters get or what the classes are going to be like or even what spellcasting costs. You need to work from the core of the system first, rather than trying to make the feat-spells before you have either a feat or spell system.

[For Valor]

I dunno... I think a better idea would be to create casting trees and then give classes access to certain trees.

So your average necromancer could have access to the "Negative Energy" and "Zombies" trees, but not the "Shooting fire + lightning and being totally awesome" tree.

EDIT: At this point it's obvious that you're just going to rewrite the whole damn combat/casting/saves/class systems. Go ahead and state that, and get some people to work together.

[Temotei]

EDIT: At this point it's obvious that you're just going to rewrite the whole damn combat/casting/saves/class systems. Go ahead and state that, and get some people to work together.

Err...what? Umael's the one reworking the system.

[For Valor]

Err...what? Umael's the one reworking the system.

I said it to Umael, as this is his second thread about re-doing casting and stuff.

Did you think I was talking to Milskidasith?

[Temotei]

I said it to Umael, as this is his second thread about re-doing casting and stuff.

Did you think I was talking to Milskidasith?

Yes. :smallbiggrin:

I must be really out of it from lack of sleep or something. That, or the ending of Metal Gear Solid 4 kicked me in the head three times too hard for me to recover in less than a day.

[Umael]

I dunno... I think a better idea would be to create casting trees and then give classes access to certain trees.

So your average necromancer could have access to the "Negative Energy" and "Zombies" trees, but not the "Shooting fire + lightning and being totally awesome" tree.

That's not a bad idea.

Don't know if it will work for what I have in mind though.


EDIT: At this point it's obvious that you're just going to rewrite the whole damn combat/casting/saves/class systems. Go ahead and state that, and get some people to work together.

Sorry, I thought I alluded to that earlier.

Yes, I want to re-work the system.

But I want to examine these things piecemeal. "Will this work?" - yes, but I have to do that over here. "What about this?" - maybe not, you need to do this and this.

It's like getting yourself a new boat. Do you build from scratch or do you take an existing boat and replace everything until nothing original is left? Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

[Morph Bark]

I dunno... I think a better idea would be to create casting trees and then give classes access to certain trees.

So your average necromancer could have access to the "Negative Energy" and "Zombies" trees, but not the "Shooting fire + lightning and being totally awesome" tree.

EDIT: At this point it's obvious that you're just going to rewrite the whole damn combat/casting/saves/class systems. Go ahead and state that, and get some people to work together.

Sort of like the Shadowcaster then, or more like what I heard the Cleric was like in 2nd?

[Tinydwarfman]

I think the problem here is that you really tell us almost nothing about your new magic system. There is nothing to compare it to. The answer to every question is "Maybe, I don't know"

[Hyooz]

This doesn't strike me as all that different from getting spells at level up (save for the rework of what spells look like and do exactly.)

I'd say keep feats as feats, and spells as a separate system that still looks like what you want to do.

[Chambers]

Hmmm. Not spells as feats perhaps, but taking feats to learn spells maybe?

A spell feat may be taken by a spellcaster to add a single spell or group of spells to his list of spells known.

Used in this way spellcasters do not automatticaly learn spells when they level up - they have to take feats that grant them known spells. You could have feats that allow characters to choose from a specific school of magic, a specific type of spell, or have a single powerful spell for one feat.

Examples.

Abjuration Spell
Prerequisites: 1st level Sorcerer or Wizard casting
Benefits: Choose 3 1st level Abjuration spells from the Sorc/Wiz list. You learn these spells and may prepare and cast them in your spell slots.

Fiery Magic
Prerequisites: 6th level Sorcerer or Wizard casting
Benefits: Choose 3 Fire spells of up to 3rd level. You now know these spells and may prepare and cast them (if Wizard) or cast them from your spell slots (if Sorcerer).

Time Stop
Prerequisites: 18th level Sorcerer or 19th level Wizard casting
Benefits: You learn the spell Time Stop and may prepare and cast it (if Wizard) or cast it from your 9th level spell slots (if Sorcecer)

[Hyooz]

Hmmm. Not spells as feats perhaps, but taking feats to learn spells maybe?


That's... interesting, but I don't think it'll fix anything.

I actually like the idea of 'generic' spells that you can augment, but making spells feats just requires your casting classes to be huge masses of bonus feats, and at that point, why not make the spells a separate system so you can better control when they get spells and when they get feats? It also makes feats super powerful, so casters will just do whatever they can to get more.

A generic spell system, where you can either get more spell 'seeds' as you level up or delve deeper into the particular 'seed' you started with is an interesting idea. The trick balancing there becomes how many upgrades you get/level, but it could definitely be done well by the right person.

[Chambers]

A generic spell system, where you can either get more spell 'seeds' as you level up or delve deeper into the particular 'seed' you started with is an interesting idea. The trick balancing there becomes how many upgrades you get/level, but it could definitely be done well by the right person.

Isn't that what Fax is doing? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103250)

[Hyooz]

Isn't that what Fax is doing? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103250)

Yeah, actually. Seems a lot like what the OP wants, too, without the spells being feats part.

[Umael]

I talked to Fax about my idea, actually.

There is a lot to it that is all over the place, but I suppose I should start at the top.

On one hand, I'm trying to do a "do-it-yourself" design on character classes, where I take the bare minimum each character class has and transform it into a collection of feats. Then I tried to see if I couldn't keep the feel of the game, while doing something about the parts that were continuely mentioned as being broken.

The results were, shall we say, interesting.

For example, one of the things that bothered me are the save-or-suck spells. From a stylist viewpoint, they are very much a part of the atmosphere of the game. From a mechanics viewpoint, they make the game horrible.

It makes sense that if a person looks into the eyes of the medusa, they turn to stone. That's the mythical power of the medusa. It also makes sense that a wizard could cast a spell and put everyone to sleep. That is very much a part of the genre.

But giving that power and versatility to the casters made it very difficult to allow the non-casters to match them. So I wanted a way that would keep the idea of the one-shot-you're-dead without allowing it to cripple the effectiveness of non-casters.

So I considered the mechanics again. Non-casters usually just roll to hit and then roll damage. Shouldn't casters use the same mechanics, even when casting save-or-suck spells?

4E gave me the idea of lumpy AC with Reflexes, Fortitude, and Will, but it didn't make sense to have something like a medusa or a sleep spell do damage.

So I came up with the idea of spirit points (spp), the spiritual equivalent of hit points. Like hit points, spiritual points have to be kept in the positive, or bad things happen. It seemed to follow that if 0 hp greatly incapacitated a character, that 0 spp would do likewise.

At that point, I had two thoughts - was this a good idea to follow, and how would it work?

I answered the first part with a I don't know - but I won't know until I pursue it. As for how it would work, I decided to do a balance between the hit dice and the spirit dice such that the maximum total equals 16.

d12 hit points gets d4 spirit points. d10 hp, d6 spp. d8 hp, d8 spp. d6 hp, d10 spp. d4 hp, d12 spp.

So if a sleep spell does, say 4d8 spirit damage, if it knocks someone down to negative spp, that person falls asleep.

"But a caster will have higher spirit points than a non-caster!"

True. But instead your fighter failing his Will save, the wizard has to beat the fighter's Will AND roll enough spirit points to put the fighter into negative spirit points to put him asleep. Furthermore, it leaves open the possibility of other mechanics that might balance things out if this is STILL not enough to reign in the wizard's power.

(I probably have more to say about all this, but I'm starting to have problems concentrating. I hope I wasn't too incoherent.)