What if Magic had a $PRICE$?

[Chained Birds]

I'm currently working on a 3.P type world based off of Runescape's (MMORPG) Gielinor setting. Magic is very common in this world but requires the sacrifice of rune stones that sometimes very dramatically in price due to the current market. They can be crafted by the PCs and found as loot from caster-type enemies, but this tends to take some time and patience.

So I ask, would mages (wizards, sorcerers, clerics, etc.) be less broken if they had to pay to cast spells? Around 7-17gp for a 0th-1st lvl spell (prices may vary).

Note: still working on (prices + amount of runes) vs (spell type + spell lvl).

[sirpercival]

So basically, they can only cast from scrolls? B/c that seems like what you're talking about.

At that point they're essentially an artificer... without some of the cooler class features, and without infusions.

[The Boz]

It would push them to be more conservative with their spellflinging.
Which I like.

[gbprime]

That could work for a specific campaign world, just as long as the GM doesn't also ramp up the treasure given to the party to compensate.

But then what do you do when a caster runs out of money and cannot use his class features? You might want to designate certain spells that can be cast with non-expendable components so they can do SOMETHING if their coin purse is too light.

[sirpercival]

Or, just disallow wizards and sorcerers, and have everyone that wants to play an artificer, so they can at least craft their own spell runes.

It's a serious nerf on spellcasters. A fighter doesn't have to buy a new set of swords for every encounter.

How about you make the runes expensive, and then whenever they buy a rune they can use that spell a certain number of times per day as an SLA? That way, they're investing in reusable abilities, and if they want one-shots for more versatility they can buy scrolls.

[gbprime]

Actually, the answer is to get a Reserve feat or two. Throwing a fireball might cost $$$, but using Fiery Burst is free.

[CTrees]

You could ban Eschew Materials, make some of the material components actually rare (ex: finding metal attuned to a given plane isn't guaranteed to be cheap or easy), or simply require high grade examples of the component (a handful of spiderweb you clumsily crumpled into your pouch, complete with flies and leaves, may not do it). Also, crafting checks to gather the components yourself.

[Tyndmyr]

I'm currently working on a 3.P type world based off of Runescape's (MMORPG) Gielinor setting. Magic is very common in this world but requires the sacrifice of rune stones that sometimes very dramatically in price due to the current market. They can be crafted by the PCs and found as loot from caster-type enemies, but this tends to take some time and patience.

So I ask, would mages (wizards, sorcerers, clerics, etc.) be less broken if they had to pay to cast spells? Around 7-17gp for a 0th-1st lvl spell (prices may vary).

Note: still working on (prices + amount of runes) vs (spell type + spell lvl).

It's money....in runescape. The economy in there is basically broken. I would not use it as a source for how to design a game.

Note additionally that runestones can be created by investing merely time. The whole system is a grind, designed to extend playing time. This works for the style of game runescape is. It's not at all good for the style of game D&D is.

[ryuteki]

Seems to me that the wizard would end up sucking up all of the party wealth, after just one or two sessions of him saying "sorry guys, if you want me to cast, you're going to have to support my rune habit, I can't afford to throw it all away on your sorry lot."

[Big Fau]

It's a serious nerf on spellcasters. A fighter doesn't have to buy a new set of swords for every encounter.

Did you just invert the "Fighters can't have nice things" ideology?


What are you smoking, and where can I get some?

[Tyndmyr]

Seems to me that the wizard would end up sucking up all of the party wealth, after just one or two sessions of him saying "sorry guys, if you want me to cast, you're going to have to support my rune habit, I can't afford to throw it all away on your sorry lot."

Yeah, the whole "playing nice, buffing others" playstyle would be pretty penalized. Solve the problem yourself and demand more of the loot instead? That won't solve a thing.

[sirpercival]

Did you just invert the "Fighters can't have nice things" ideology?


What are you smoking, and where can I get some?

Well... I mean... uh....

snrk.

[Inferno]

I partially agree with Tyndmyr, in that crafting runes in Runescape essentially only costs time/or costs time +the cost of raw materials(rune essence) and would translate poorly into Dnd.

Also, there is a rather large amount of work to be done in assigning a rune cost to every spell. I would say decide that based on a spells school or subschool, say CLW: conjuration(healing) spell level one so...1 body rune is burned in its casting.
Or you could base the cost on caster level if you want magic to be even more costly: CLW caps at caster level 5, so a level 1 Druid pays 1 rune to cast it, and at level 5+ it will cost 5 runes.

[Doc Roc]

So, this is a cool idea, up to a point. There are huge problems with it, as have already been pointed out. Another problem, though, is depending on how runestones are crafted, it may be possible or even ideal to play an artificer and just whore wands and minor schemas. With charge reduction approaches, it might well completely obviate your intended taxes.

[Chained Birds]

I partially agree with Tyndmyr, in that crafting runes in Runescape essentially only costs time/or costs time +the cost of raw materials(rune essence) and would translate poorly into Dnd.

Also, there is a rather large amount of work to be done in assigning a rune cost to every spell. I would say decide that based on a spells school or subschool, say CLW: conjuration(healing) spell level one so...1 body rune is burned in its casting.
Or you could base the cost on caster level if you want magic to be even more costly: CLW caps at caster level 5, so a level 1 Druid pays 1 rune to cast it, and at level 5+ it will cost 5 runes.

Working on that! I'm still translating Gods --> Alignments/domains at the moment.

I was thinking of having eschrew materials as 4 feats (Sorcerer get his bonus eschew as normal) which negates the need for 1 of the 4 basic runes (air, fire, water, earth) when chosen. So if a mage took all 4, he'd reduce cost by a decent amount.

I don't want to kill mages, just want to make their stuff non-spamable or not as spamable. I'm even working on something for Psionics (They're not off the hook :smallamused:).

[Inferno]

You'll also want to have item creation include any rune costs for spells on top of regular base costs, to keep artificers from replacing all other casters.

[Chained Birds]

You'll also want to have item creation include any rune costs for spells on top of regular base costs, to keep artificers from replacing all other casters.

Wait, I thought people understood that every spell has a material cost with this idea?

So, example, a wand of [blank] made by an Artificer is =
[(spell lvl x caster lvl) + (rune's total price x 50)] / 2
- if I'm correct concerning item creation and charges, then that is still pretty expensive...

You'd be better off casting than creating.

[Big Fau]

I don't want to kill mages, just want to make their stuff non-spamable or not as spamable. I'm even working on something for Psionics (They're not off the hook :smallamused:).

Define spam. Seriously, the definition I'm used to involves repeatedly using the same spell to try and force a bad save.

Because that's actually a bad move on the caster's part.

[Inferno]

So, example, a wand of [blank] made by an Artificer is =
[(spell lvl x caster lvl) + (rune's total price x 50)] / 2
- if I'm correct concerning item creation and charges, then that is still pretty expensive...

I was just making certain that Item crafting was not being overlooked.

Also, about an equivalent item for fueling psionics: perhaps crystal foci which slowly degrade based off of how many power points are used.

So you buy a "Psi foci" which comes with say...100 charges and manifest a 7pp mind thrust, your foci now has 93 charge.
Better yet, give them 100hp and have burning pp damage the foci. Then you can fix/recharge them using craft:something, or the make whole spell.

Edit: Also it gives enemies of a psionics user an item to sunder to prevent manifesting.

[bloodtide]

So I ask, would mages (wizards, sorcerers, clerics, etc.) be less broken if they had to pay to cast spells? Around 7-17gp for a 0th-1st lvl spell (prices may vary).


No. And I doubt this would work. You'd either get:

1.The mages have plenty of money and runes and cast spells just like normal, but do run the imagined risk of running out of money/spells.

OR

2.The mages have no magic and no money so the entire game will revolve around just getting money and runes. No time will be left for adventuring.

[Inferno]

No. And I doubt this would work. You'd either get:

1.The mages have plenty of money and runes and cast spells just like normal, but do run the imagined risk of running out of money/spells.

OR

2.The mages have no magic and no money so the entire game will revolve around just getting money and runes. No time will be left for adventuring.

I don't know that option 1 is such a bad thing. Certainly makes taking casters prisoner simpler.

[Chained Birds]

2.The mages have no magic and no money so the entire game will revolve around just getting money and runes. No time will be left for adventuring.

You can loot intelligent enemies for runes. Some creatures use runes as a sort of currency for doing [blank] or helping them with [blank].
And there is alway the wizard getting off his/her arse and shooting things with a bow or crossbow until they find/buy/make more runes.

Magic should be a luxury, not an indulgence. At least the Druid is fine Bear-slapping people if he runs out of runes.

Edit: A PC will almost always find a way around an obsticle. I just hope the solution is not looting the runecrafting or magic guilds to the West...

[Mockingbird]

I'm currently working on a 3.P type world based off of Runescape's (MMORPG) Gielinor setting. Magic is very common in this world but requires the sacrifice of rune stones that sometimes very dramatically in price due to the current market. They can be crafted by the PCs and found as loot from caster-type enemies, but this tends to take some time and patience.

So I ask, would mages (wizards, sorcerers, clerics, etc.) be less broken if they had to pay to cast spells? Around 7-17gp for a 0th-1st lvl spell (prices may vary).

Note: still working on (prices + amount of runes) vs (spell type + spell lvl).


They'd be less broken, but it'd be pretty cool if you could get the rune tattooed on your skin.. :D

[Diefje]

Pffft Wizards are nothing but glorified Knowledge-bots anyway.

[DeAnno]

Class Features should be a luxury, not an indulgence. At least the Druid is fine Bear-slapping people if he runs out of runes.

Fixed that for you.

[Flickerdart]

Making each individual spell a bigger drain on resources means that every wizard is forced to end encounters as quickly as possible, with the minimal use of spells possible. So all this rule does is create incentive for Rocket Tag.

[erikun]

It sounds like you want to replace spellcasters with Artificers. This may be fine, but I don't think it really reduces the power level or makes spells less "spammable".

This would greatly encourage the use of Scribe Scroll/Craft Wand, although most spellcasters can make great use of those feats anyways. For that matter, the only really "spammable" spellcasting is a caster with a ton of scrolls/wands to use when needed.

[bloodtide]

You can loot intelligent enemies for runes. Some creatures use runes as a sort of currency for doing [blank] or helping them with [blank].
And there is alway the wizard getting off his/her arse and shooting things with a bow or crossbow until they find/buy/make more runes.

Magic should be a luxury, not an indulgence. At least the Druid is fine Bear-slapping people if he runs out of runes.

Edit: A PC will almost always find a way around an obsticle. I just hope the solution is not looting the runecrafting or magic guilds to the West...

The problem will be if the mages don't have any runes to start. They won't want to fight an enemy and then get runes that they can use to cast spells after the fight is over.

So to 'get around the obstacle' of no runes, they will derail the game, just to get runes first.

You don't want your plot derailed all the time by 'well, we will get to that, but first we need to go on a rune hunt'.

Picture:You have a nice adventure all set and ready to go. The character's all meet and get ready to head off....and STOP. The mage players state that they only have three runes all together. So the group decides to go gather runes, so everyone will be at full power. So instead of your adventure, you get a rune hunt.

[sirpercival]

So are you making changes to the wizard class to make it POSSIBLE for a wizard to go shoot things with a crossbow if they run out of runes? Because that's what every party wants -- dead weight. I hope that wizard's dice are all 20's.

EDIT: Honestly, in this world I would never play a wizard. I'd play a binder with Apprentice: Spellcaster, because then I can buy and use scrolls (and maybe runes, depending on the mechanics) with UMD as much as I want, and I still have amazing class features when I run out of money.

And this is from someone who has four PbP characters right now, all of whom are wizards.

You're also basically nuking everybody ELSE's equipment -- it's going to be much more effective to spend money on runes for the wizard than it will be to spend money on equipment for anyone else.

[Thiyr]

I think the -idea- isn't necessarily a bad one, but this -implementation- wouldn't work well, for reasons already stated. I had been having a similar idea that was mostly unfleshed out (due to lack of good pricing), that at least partially worked off the same idea.In short, don't have to pay for any spell if you don't want to, but spell levels have a scaling increased casting time. Using a higher level spell slot treats it as a spell level lower for purposes of casting time. you can artificially inflate this by way of consumable items. needless to say, no quicken, no rapid spell, no spontaneous caster's metamagic being a full round action, etc. does nothing for out-of-combat world-breaking, admittedly, but nothing shy of reworking -every- spell that does that will fix -that- problem. The thing that does is make spending money an option rather than a tax. Want to spend 6 rounds concentrating on that in-combat wish spell rather than spending a ton of extra cash/souls? Go for it. But if you're just adding material component: credit card to every spell, it's like making regular arrows more pricey. It lowers the power, yes, but not in a particularly fun way, or at least not in one that I would find enjoyable. All it is is more bookkeeping.

[Flickerdart]

The problem will be if the mages don't have any runes to start. They won't want to fight an enemy and then get runes that they can use to cast spells after the fight is over.

So to 'get around the obstacle' of no runes, they will derail the game, just to get runes first.

You don't want your plot derailed all the time by 'well, we will get to that, but first we need to go on a rune hunt'.

Picture:You have a nice adventure all set and ready to go. The character's all meet and get ready to head off....and STOP. The mage players state that they only have three runes all together. So the group decides to go gather runes, so everyone will be at full power. So instead of your adventure, you get a rune hunt.
Actually, that's an interesting idea. Many powerful spells are of a ritual nature (binding Outsiders to serve you, divination, various conjurations and long-range travel) that don't need to be cast in combat. Making these spells require special components that can only be obtained with some difficulty puts an interesting twist on things, since now in order to teleport to Mordor and toss the ring into Mount Doom, you need to go and find the rare material component that is jealously hoarded by some dragon somewhere.

[Fable Wright]

I think the -idea- isn't necessarily a bad one, but this -implementation- wouldn't work well, for reasons already stated. I had been having a similar idea that was mostly unfleshed out (due to lack of good pricing), that at least partially worked off the same idea.In short, don't have to pay for any spell if you don't want to, but spell levels have a scaling increased casting time. Using a higher level spell slot treats it as a spell level lower for purposes of casting time. you can artificially inflate this by way of consumable items. needless to say, no quicken, no rapid spell, no spontaneous caster's metamagic being a full round action, etc. does nothing for out-of-combat world-breaking, admittedly, but nothing shy of reworking -every- spell that does that will fix -that- problem. The thing that does is make spending money an option rather than a tax. Want to spend 6 rounds concentrating on that in-combat wish spell rather than spending a ton of extra cash/souls? Go for it. But if you're just adding material component: credit card to every spell, it's like making regular arrows more pricey. It lowers the power, yes, but not in a particularly fun way, or at least not in one that I would find enjoyable. All it is is more bookkeeping.

I actually like this idea. In theory, at least, but maybe not in application. Something like a casting time of 1 round per spell level, minus one round (until you get to normal casting time) for each spell level you have access to above that spell without runes. So if you have 9th level spells, it takes 3 rounds to cast a 6th level spell, 5 rounds for a 7th level spell, and just 1 round for 5th level spells. If you have fifth level spells, it's 3 rounds for 4th level spells, 1 for 3rd, etc... low level spells that stay relevant can be cast without too much cost, and the little money you have at starting levels isn't completely nuked before high levels. Runes could cost a base, say, 15gp for each round you reduce the cost by. If you want to be slinging around high level spells, it adds up, but you can still cast lesser spells for relatively small price.

[Inferno]

I feel like people are overreacting to the added expense (unless i misunderstand the OP) I imagine the Runes costing few silver pieces each for lower leveled ones(1-3rd level spells) up to maybe 25~75 gold at high levels (6-9).

Really more of a material and roleplaying limitation than a huge mechanical tax on your WBL.

[Big Fau]

I feel like people are overreacting to the added expense (unless i misunderstand the OP) I imagine the Runes costing few silver pieces each for lower leveled ones(1-3rd level spells) up to maybe 25~75 gold at high levels (6-9).

Really more of a material and roleplaying limitation than a huge mechanical tax on your WBL.

Yeah, let's go ahead and make mini-scrolls of 9th level spells that cost 75gp.


As if magic wasn't broken all ready.

[Inferno]

Yeah, let's go ahead and make mini-scrolls of 9th level spells that cost 75gp.


As if magic wasn't broken all ready.

It was already mentioned that the rune costs are ADDED to base cost of crafted items.
If anything this makes magic less broken, if only slightly.

[DeAnno]

It was already mentioned that the rune costs are ADDED to base cost of crafted items.
If anything this makes magic less broken, if only slightly.

This victimizes very low level casters (ESPECIALLY at levels 1 and 2) which were usually between weak and average anyway. Levels 1-4 are pretty solidly the domain of the "always on" tier 3 classes such as martial adepts, incarnum users, and invocation users. Mr. 2nd level Wizard who has 3 first level slots per day really doesn't need to burn 3% of his total WBL per day of casting to be balanced.

Higher level casters will simply put as much of their wealth as required into runes and continue to do whatever they did before, just with less gear. Also, you run into the great situation where if the DM gets stingy with treasure for too long the Wizard is reduced to a commoner for a session, which I don't think is a particularly good way to balance a class.

[flabort]

So, if this is based on Runescape...
Well, you know those elemental staffs that are effectively unlimited runes of that element?
You know how most damage type spells in that game require a number of wind runes?

Yeah, most wizards (at least low-level or free-to-play wizards) use wind staffs to save inventory space and money. But, Wind runes are also the cheapest.

But, runes should get exponentially more expensive as the level they are needed for grows (so air runes are like 15 gp, chaos 155), and/or, you need exponentially more of them for higher level spells.

[Coidzor]

So I ask, would mages (wizards, sorcerers, clerics, etc.) be less broken if they had to pay to cast spells? Around 7-17gp for a 0th-1st lvl spell (prices may vary).

They'd be unplayable at first level when you don't have jack in terms of gold and it'd make being a wizard and trying to ever scribe a spell into one's spellbook before 3rd or 4th level a major pain in the butt and then it'd be irrelevant at the levels where casters make the economy go cry in a corner. And then there's the bit about SLAs and summons.


I feel like people are overreacting to the added expense (unless i misunderstand the OP) I imagine the Runes costing few silver pieces each for lower leveled ones(1-3rd level spells) up to maybe 25~75 gold at high levels (6-9).

Really more of a material and roleplaying limitation than a huge mechanical tax on your WBL.

The OP said 7 to 17 GP for a single 1st level spell or 0th level cantrip. It starts out as a mechanical tax on the character's WBL and then become an irrelevant bit of fluff, which means on the surface it's not very good at giving Magic a Price, and given that he used all caps, that implies he doesn't want something completely negligible.


Magic should be a luxury, not an indulgence. At least the Druid is fine Bear-slapping people if he runs out of runes.


Fixed that for you.

Then you'd be wrong or would need to ban certain classes from being PCs because you're effectively saying they can't use their class features except at your whim.

Which is kinda completely disregarding the philosophy of class features and how it evolved over the course of 3.5.

Or, I suppose, you could create a houseruled homebrew system that doesn't resemble 3.5 instead of just picking another system.

[Suddo]

First off I'd guess that cantrips are free.

Second off this turned into a rant. I wasn't expecting and I apologize for the wall of text. It had enough numbers and other things I like to argue.

I've always hated keeping track of money. I like that money is a number that builds til a threshold then I buy something and then it builds up again. Making the wizard do that much book-keeping is a little annoying.

Anyways lets look at how much money a spellcaster could make. I'll make mine a basketweaver (what else). He has skills in appraisal, social skills (sense they all help in haggling) and craft(basketweaving). He's a warforged. So if you can make a basket in say 4-5 hours (Example (http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/825093/)) you make about 4.5-6 baskets a day if you do it non-stop. If a finished good is worth say 2 times the value of the material. You look at making 200% profit on average. Baskets have no specification on material and there are many types of woods and materials you could use to make your baskets increase in value as you get more money thusly not capping it for a while.
So lets do math. Lets say you can make and sell 4 baskets a day. And lets say you spend all your gold (50 lets say as a starting value) on materials for those 4 baskets. The equation for how much money you have after X days is 50*2^(X). This means after a month you have... 53,687,091,200gold.

Now sure the town you probably start in doesn't have that much money and you probably can't find materials that are that costly and the demand will eventually become so little that you can't sell them. So what have all your other skill points be in other crafts. Make bread a lot of that time is just waiting for bread to come out of the oven. So you can make the baskets to carry your bread in.

These are issue you don't want to have to argue with your players about. You as the DM/storyteller are suppose to suspend disbelief. If they can start doing this type of logic then you haven't done your job. And the game changes.

Plus this also enforces doing some more lawful evil type things. Like creating a mob to keep all the competing bread makers out of town.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I dump my wizard-in-the-making-for-this-game and just play a UMD rogue.

[Flickerdart]

Suddo, there are actual crafting rules that dictate what you do when crafting, and those are not them.

A basket, per the DMG, costs 4 sp. The DC to make it is 10 (for typical item). For the average 1st level Wizard (taking 10, +4 Intelligence modifier, +4 skill ranks, +2 Aid Another from familiar for a total of 20, meaning that he can double the DC to 20 and always succeed), he can make 100 baskets per week. This costs him 133sp (since you pay 1/3 of the raw materials), giving him a net profit of 266sp, or 26.6gp, per week. After a month, you have 106.4gp, not 53 billion.

[Suddo]

Suddo, there are actual crafting rules that dictate what you do when crafting, and those are not them.

A basket, per the DMG, costs 4 sp. The DC to make it is 10 (for typical item). For the average 1st level Wizard (taking 10, +4 Intelligence modifier, +4 skill ranks, +2 Aid Another from familiar for a total of 20, meaning that he can double the DC to 20 and always succeed), he can make 100 baskets per week. This costs him 133sp (since you pay 1/3 of the raw materials), giving him a net profit of 266sp, or 26.6gp, per week. After a month, you have 106.4gp, not 53 billion.

I apologize I'm doing this away from my books.

You assume that you can't change materials when making the baskets. If you make 100 baskets a week. That's 10 baskets a day assuming you leave time to sell them, which actually doesn't matter for how I'm doing math. Then when you sell them buy better stuff to make the baskets with. I know there are fancy woods that can be made into armor they probably have similar ability to be crafted into baskets with proper soaking and such. Then you add in gold lining or other precious metals. You assume that you can only make baskets out of crummy material. No where in the rules does it state what material the baskets have to made out of.

[Flickerdart]

I apologize I'm doing this away from my books.

You assume that you can't change materials when making the baskets. If you make 100 baskets a week. That's 10 baskets a day assuming you leave time to sell them, which actually doesn't matter for how I'm doing math. Then when you sell them buy better stuff to make the baskets with. I know there are fancy woods that can be made into armor they probably have similar ability to be crafted into baskets with proper soaking and such. Then you add in gold lining or other precious metals. You assume that you can only make baskets out of crummy material. No where in the rules does it state what material the baskets have to made out of.
The time it takes you to craft is directly proportional to the item's cost - a basket that's worth twice as much takes twice as long to make. You gain absolutely nothing (zip, zilch, nada) from making more expensive baskets.

[Chained Birds]

Well, I did say it was a work-in-progress... I just wanted to incorporate Runescape's runes into 3.P magic without changing the system entirely.

The 7-17gp idea was an "idea" which appears to be far too much for most players. Once I've selected what runes are needed to cast [blank] and debated with some of my d&d friends on the price of each rune, I'll make a new thread explaining the system in full.

Maybe I can give lvl 1 casters a free bag of 10 runes or something at the start of the game? (Just another idea)

Casters will still be erked by this idea, but I truly wasn't trying to kill magic or anything... :(
But it was still interesting to see positive feedback on this idea.

[MukkTB]

Screw that price.

How about we make it a real price?

How about 1 HP permanently removed form a sentient creature per spell level?

How about spells drain mana from the land as in Dark Sun?

How about the deity chooses when and how to bless you with magics?

How about a small handful of mana that can only be reconstituted by specfic difficult acts the way the 3.P gunslinger deals with grit?

How about the entity you entice for magic always asks for a real in game price? Your firstborn child? The eyeball you aren't using? A long and arduous quest?

The world doesn't care about gold pieces. The world cares about conservation of energy and the static nature of momentum. Changing the world with magic should not be spamable, it should use up finite resources, it should result in horrible consequences when used without caution, it should be difficult to control.

[Coidzor]

Screw that price.

How about we make it a real price?

How about 1 HP permanently removed form a sentient creature per spell level?

How about spells drain mana from the land as in Dark Sun?

How about the deity chooses when and how to bless you with magics?

How about a small handful of mana that can only be reconstituted by specfic difficult acts the way the 3.P gunslinger deals with grit?

How about the entity you entice for magic always asks for a real in game price? Your firstborn child? The eyeball you aren't using? A long and arduous quest?

The world doesn't care about gold pieces. The world cares about conservation of energy and the static nature of momentum. Changing the world with magic should not be spamable, it should use up finite resources, it should result in horrible consequences when used without caution, it should be difficult to control.

AKA, the play a different game response. Which is certainly a valid choice.

[vitkiraven]

Screw that price.

How about we make it a real price...


Love this... This is even better than the money idea, but why not just check out call of cthulhu d20 technically put out by
those depraved "sorcerers of the ocean's neighbor". It even includes notes about conversions to regular d20. When that contact outer plane spell knocks off several wisdom, and some sanity to boot, those foul energy wielders will be a bit less free with their batmanery. :smallamused:

[Acanous]

You know, Wizard Spells already DO have a cost. Most gaming groups ignore it, but almost all the spells from level 3 onward have a material component over 1 GP. Further, EACH spell costs minimum 25 GP per spell level to scribe into your book. Even the ones you get for levelling up. There's an ADDITIONAL fee for researching non-level-up-granted spells.

The only spells a wizard ever gets for Free are the ones he starts with at level 1.

Here's a nifty list detailing how much money a wizard must spend on writing new spells into his book, by level, not counting extra spell research;

Lv 1: Free (Total:0)
Lv 2: 50 GP (Total: 50)
Lv 3: 100 GP (Total: 150)
Lv 4: 100 GP (Total: 250)
Lv 5: 150 GP (Total: 400)
Lv 6: 150 GP (Total: 550)
Lv 7: 200 GP (total: 750)
Lv 8: 200 GP (Total: 950)
Lv 9: 250 GP (Total: 1200) -At this point, the wizard must buy a new spellbook
Lv 10: 250 GP (Total: 1450)
Lv 11: 300 GP (Total: 1750)
Lv 12: 300 GP (Total: 2050)
Lv 13: 350 GP (Total: 2400)
Lv 14: 350 GP (Total: 2750)
Lv 15: 400 GP (Total: 3150)
Lv 16: 400 GP (Total: 3550)
Lv 17: 450 GP (Total: 4000)-At this point, the wizard must buy a new spellbook
Lv 18: 450 GP (Total: 4450)
Lv 19: 450 GP (Total: 4900)
Lv 20: 450 GP (Total: 5350)

Including the costs for the 2 new spellbooks, the total cost at level 20 for just the spells you get from levelling up, is 5550 GP. Minor for a 20th level character, but still significant. Now, add in the normal material cost for each spell that you cast. Add the Material Focus costs, like "A polished silver mirror worth at least 1000 GP" for Scry.

Truth be known, there's a lot of ways to limit the effectiveness and availability of spellcasting in D&D, but there's also a lot of ways to subvert each case, individually. Most DMs give up the arms race, and rely on the player to track resource expendature, and most players aren't as rules-savvy as the people on this board. That leads to people not deducting costs for spellcasting in most cases aside from the REALLY big name spells that the DM has costs memorized for (Ressurection, Wish, any "Symbol Of" spell, Permanance)

Personally, I enjoy tracking the party resources, what plans cost how much gold, and where the material foci are kept. It leads to more immersive RP for me, but I know some folk find it annoying to track.

Many of my wizards rely heavilly on Illusion spells for run-of-the-mill adventuring. The material components for the vast majority of the *Entire School* are less than a GP per spell, with two notable exceptions. Illusion is also great because it lets the rest of the party do their thing and have fun beating down the bad guys without it looking so much like the Wizard is owning everything and they're just on cleanup, the way Conjuration and Transmutation do.

So, if you're going to add additional costs for spellcasting, be aware that there's two kinds of player: The ones that are going to be heavilly annoyed at having to track and spend resources, and the ones that are going to seek low-cost alternatives while still playing the class.

[NNescio]

You know, Wizard Spells already DO have a cost. Most gaming groups ignore it, but almost all the spells from level 3 onward have a material component over 1 GP.
Uh, no. Or at least not most of the good ones. Fly, Haste, Slow, Shrink Item, Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, Phantom Steed, Evard’s Hentai Tentacles, Wall of Stone, Cloudkill, Maze, Foresight, Summon Monster I~IX, the Planar Binding, Polymorph (sans Shapechange, but foci are reusable), Dispel, Teleport, and Invisibility lines... it's a far cry from "almost all", and the examples I gave are all core staples.

And if you are going to nitpick components that don't have listed costs:


Spell Component Pouch

A spellcaster with a spell component pouch is assumed to have all the material components and focuses needed for spellcasting, except for those components that have a specific cost, divine focuses, and focuses that wouldn’t fit in a pouch.

Next,



Further, EACH spell costs minimum 25 GP per spell level to scribe into your book. Even the ones you get for levelling up. There's an ADDITIONAL fee for researching non-level-up-granted spells.

The only spells a wizard ever gets for Free are the ones he starts with at level 1.

Certainly not.


Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook

Once a wizard understands a new spell, she can record it into her spellbook.
Time

The process takes 24 hours, regardless of the spell’s level.

Space in the Spellbook
A spell takes up one page of the spellbook per spell level. Even a 0-level spell (cantrip) takes one page. A spellbook has one hundred pages.

Materials and Costs
Materials for writing the spell cost 100 gp per page.

Note that a wizard does not have to pay these costs in time or gold for the spells she gains for free at each new level.

[Rowan Arquest]

Are you including Psionics into this campaign, cause if you do, then I just found another hole...

[Ravens_cry]

The trouble is it is kind of all or nothing. You either are shooting money and doing fine or you're out and not really having fun except with role playing about how your broke and it sucks.
It does give an interesting incentive for spell casters to become movers and shakers, to gets the money to pay for their ability to do their class feature.

[vitkiraven]

Don't forget about Boccob's Blessed Book. If IRC, that drops the cost down to 1gp per page.

[Endarire]

I'm not seeing how playing this is any fun.

You add a layer of bookkeeping to discourage casters, but you effectively turn them into Artificers.

What do you hope to achieve?

[Zaq]

I could see a game in which this happens, but you'd have to build it from the ground up with this premise in mind. I really don't think you can just staple it to D&D 3.5 and end up with anything that's more fun than the base game.

[Yahzi]

How about we make it a real price?

That's more like it. My idea is this:

It takes the following amount of time to prepare a spell:

Level Time
1 Hour
2 Watch (6 hours)
3 Day
4 Week
5 Month
6 Season (3 Months)
7 Year
8 3 years
9 Decade

Yes, it's a big nerf to spellcasters, but it would cause them to think about using their spells, and to try and find other solutions first.

To be fair I would double the base save DC of all spells (or even make them no save). If you spend 10 years preparing a spell, you should expect it to work.

[DeAnno]

Yes, it's a big nerf to spellcasters, but it would cause them to think about using their spells, and to try and find other solutions first.

So either casters are getting a couple 2nd level spells per day during the course of adventuring and are entirely unplayable, or the party sits around doing nothing for years between fights so the caster is at full strength. Sounds real fun.

[Telok]

Here's a thought. Have all spells cast at the minimum caster level, the minimum attribute, and without metamagic. Then have the runes be required to apply your full CL, Int mod, and metamagics.

This allows for primary casters to still use spells without runes (a few spells will never need them) but to still want all the runes they can get. Better, if you price runes by CL/stat+ then you don't need to price them by level and even the lowest power runes will still be useful on your highest level spells.

Example: Fireball starts at CL:5 and 13 Int for a 5d6 Ref:14 and does not increase if the caster is level 10 with a 20 Int. So to get full effect you want a CL+5 rune, a +7 stat rune, and possibly an Energy Admixture rune to top it off with.

By keeping the CL runes cheap or reusable and the other runes reasonably priced you might be able to get casters away from metamagic stacked damage overload and save/suck spells. It also opens the door to magic items that act a permanent runes for certain spells or magic schools.

[MukkTB]

Yeah I agree. With what I suggested the game wouldn't be recognizable as classic D&D afterwards. That's not always a bad thing but not what we're looking for all the time.

The biggest problem with determining a cost system is the fact that D&D is a fantasy kitchen sink. Certain cost systems don't seem compatible with others or the magical elements in the game.

I think I'd use a grit based system if I was going to redesign it. I could tie a bunch of different kinds of magic in by how each system gained grit.

[Chained Birds]

Here's a thought. Have all spells cast at the minimum caster level, the minimum attribute, and without metamagic. Then have the runes be required to apply your full CL, Int mod, and metamagics.

This allows for primary casters to still use spells without runes (a few spells will never need them) but to still want all the runes they can get. Better, if you price runes by CL/stat+ then you don't need to price them by level and even the lowest power runes will still be useful on your highest level spells.

Example: Fireball starts at CL:5 and 13 Int for a 5d6 Ref:14 and does not increase if the caster is level 10 with a 20 Int. So to get full effect you want a CL+5 rune, a +7 stat rune, and possibly an Energy Admixture rune to top it off with.

By keeping the CL runes cheap or reusable and the other runes reasonably priced you might be able to get casters away from metamagic stacked damage overload and save/suck spells. It also opens the door to magic items that act a permanent runes for certain spells or magic schools.

I was leaning towards this idea for a while but wasn't sure how to do it until I saw your example. I really like it!

[Dusk Eclipse]

Exactly what part of the Runescape Magic system you want to emulate?

Really save for the Lunar Magik spellbook almost all spells in RS are designed for combat hence why they need a cost in order to keep the combat triangle "balanced".

(Curious note about runescape combat theoretically Mages should beat melee who beats rangers who in turn beat melee; but in the game Melee is overpowered, just a side note comparing the paradigms of different games.)

Adding gold cost towards magic in a game which just abstracts those cost (the Spell component pouch by RAW contains everything from a Live Spider to bone fillings from Vecna) so I don't think it is that applicable.

If you really want to emulate RS magic the only option I see, is to trim the spell list leaving mostly blast spells with really few battle field control thrown in. (Really other than teleblock which other curse spell do you see in use either in PVP or PVM?).

Having said that please PM if you want help with converting the Gods and stuff like that, I really like RS and would love to help with a project like that.

[Chained Birds]

Exactly what part of the Runescape Magic system you want to emulate?

Really save for the Lunar Magik spellbook almost all spells in RS are designed for combat hence why they need a cost in order to keep the combat triangle "balanced".

(Curious note about runescape combat theoretically Mages should beat melee who beats rangers who in turn beat melee; but in the game Melee is overpowered, just a side note comparing the paradigms of different games.)

Adding gold cost towards magic in a game which just abstracts those cost (the Spell component pouch by RAW contains everything from a Live Spider to bone fillings from Vecna) so I don't think it is that applicable.

If you really want to emulate RS magic the only option I see, is to trim the spell list leaving mostly blast spells with really few battle field control thrown in. (Really other than teleblock which other curse spell do you see in use either in PVP or PVM?).

Having said that please PM if you want help with converting the Gods and stuff like that, I really like RS and would love to help with a project like that.

Okay, I'll PM you once I've established a few things.
Hmm, Melee is the strongest? I would have sworn Ancient Magicks mages were the strongest, but I was usually on the recieving end of PvP and I guess never really noticed. :smalltongue:

[Narren]

Screw that price.

How about we make it a real price?

How about 1 HP permanently removed form a sentient creature per spell level?

How about spells drain mana from the land as in Dark Sun?

How about the deity chooses when and how to bless you with magics?

How about a small handful of mana that can only be reconstituted by specfic difficult acts the way the 3.P gunslinger deals with grit?

How about the entity you entice for magic always asks for a real in game price? Your firstborn child? The eyeball you aren't using? A long and arduous quest?

The world doesn't care about gold pieces. The world cares about conservation of energy and the static nature of momentum. Changing the world with magic should not be spamable, it should use up finite resources, it should result in horrible consequences when used without caution, it should be difficult to control.

I have an unfinished story like this. There were two types of magic. One belongs to witches, which is inherited. They're all female and asexual, they reproduce via magic. They're also immortal if they never use their powers. Using their magic is addictive and almost orgasmic, but the more they do so the more they age and go insane, until they're gnarled old crones that wither away into dust. The other magic-users drain energy from the planet, but they don't realize they're doing it. Fringe eco-terrorist groups are trying to stop them. I always meant to rewrite that last group when I realized I was ripping off FFVII.

My point was that magic MUST have a cost. While I think this can work in a narrative, it's a little harder to squeeze into an RPG (especially D&D). Call of Cthulu did an interesting job of it, but it requires making magic sit very much on sidelines.

[panaikhan]

In one campaign I was in, casting a spell caused it's level in subdual damage - but this damage could NOT be healed by magical means, it had to be healed by resting (or at least, non-vigorous activity).

In the Newhonian world (spelling?) spellcasters were seriously nerfed - their allotment was reduced to 1/week, not 1/day, and casting times were seriously lengthened.

There are many ways to 'curb' spellcasters, that cannot be solved by simply spending loot. These work better, because they don't put the party into 'miser-mode' to scrape every copper piece from the environment.