Spell Slot : Fail ?

[MysticMind]

I can't figure out what kind of spellcaster runs out of Magic Missiles and Light, but he is still able to cast Miracle or Meteor Swarm. Come on guys, how's that possible ??:smalleek: No offense :smallwink:

[Tenno Seremel]

He is out of magic bullets of that type :}

[Acanous]

You can prepare lower level spells in higher level slots. With Metamagic you can even get increased effectiveness from them.
Usually, there's better things to prep in those slots, but consider running out of bullets for your handgun when you still have a loaded automatic rifle, a Howitzer, and a few intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Really, if the problem is that you ran out of magic missiles, you probably should have burned a Fireball or Cloudkill instead.

[Calanon]

Congratulations you found the Flaw in the "Fire-and-Forget" system of casting

WAY TO GO JACK VANCE! :smallbiggrin: aka Vecna

[MysticMind]

Spell points system seems better. :smallwink:

[Calanon]

Spell points system seems better. :smallwink:

Yes but it gives Wizards the ability to spontaneously cast EVERY spell they know (If i'm reading it right) do you really want your batman pulling out shark repellent?

[Ernir]

Vancian spellcasting isn't so much "I cast spells until I can't any more" as much as it is "load the quantum torpedoes into launch bay four!".


Spell points system seems better. :smallwink:

A spell point system might feel more intuitive. But if you're talking about the spell point system in the Unearthed Arcana/SRD, no, it's not better. It's just broken. :smalleek:

[Alleran]

There's a feat in Lost Empires of Faerun that allows a spellcaster to break higher level spell slots down into smaller ones.

[huttj509]

I like the "loaded torpedos" analogy. Could also use the missiles in various fighter/spaceship games (Wing Commander leaps to my mind, with pre-chosen missile loadouts of different types).

You have a number of slots on your ship. Those slots can hold missiles. Now, some of them are only set up to hold dumbfire missiles, some can hold heatseeking missiles, and the missiles are designed so you can load dumbfire missiles in the heatseeking mounts, but not vice-versa.

You 'load' your missile selection. That's now what you have to shoot. The missiles are loaded, ready to fire, but not armed yet, you do that as you fire them, which let's say you can generally only do one at a time (for various handwavey technical reasons).

You can shoot off all your dumbfire missiles, and still have a few heatseekers in reserve, even if the heatseekers were higher yield. Once you have your loadout, that's what you've got.

Magic-wise, wizards kinda "pre-cast" the spell. They prepare the mystical energies in advance so the spell can be activated quickly and easily (though it still takes concentration, so as to keep the mystical energies from unravelling with no effect).

If you dislike that, you may prefer sorcerer. He can cast on the fly. 8th level spell slot left but you want to cast magic missile? You can do that (you can put a dumbfire in a heatseeker slot just fine, remember), while the wizard needed to plan for it.

And I'm pretty sure I was introduced to the idea of 'hanging' spells before being introduced to DnD. My dad had the entire "Nine Princes in Amber" series available for me to read (...no, I don't personally refer to the system as 'Zelaznyan' or anything, not at all...). Though honestly I don't recall when I first read them, compared to when I first played DnD.

[Kadarai]

Generally, the most reallistic system i saw for casting was in the World of Warcraft d20 system.

1)No Sorceres. U can have the gift, but u must study to improve it.
2)U get slots based on inteligence.
3)U prepare spells for every lvl. U can prepare 1 spell +1 for every 4 ranks in the Spellcraft skill per spell lvl
4) U cast spontaneously whatever u have prepared.

Effectively u use your prepared spells as sorcerers spells known pretty much like the Spirit Shaman from CDiv. Realistic? Maybe. Balanced? Mages are the most powerful class in WoW RPG.

Even with the most basic books wizards can call forth the spells they need at will so, don't pick on little Vance for wanting to give the rest of the non casters a ghost of a chance

[Laniius]

Vancian spellcasting isn't so much "I cast spells until I can't any more" as much as it is "load the quantum torpedoes into launch bay four!".



A spell point system might feel more intuitive. But if you're talking about the spell point system in the Unearthed Arcana/SRD, no, it's not better. It's just broken. :smalleek:

Is it really? I love psionics and have always wanted to try the spellpoint system.

[Yora]

Because the spell-point conversion simply takes the spells from the spell-slot system instead of creating new ones.
Psionics is perfectly fine and the best magic system in D&D.

And I refuse to read "ur" post. :smallbiggrin:

[Prime32]

Is it really? I love psionics and have always wanted to try the spellpoint system.It's called playing a psion and wearing a pointy hat. :smalltongue:

[Eldan]

I think I need to dig out my counter argument again that I do on every thread involving vancian :smalltongue:

Vancian is awesome. The wizard sits down for an hour and grabs the primal energies of creation, beats them with a hammer until they form the spells he wants, and then locks them up in his head until he wants to let them out and release them.

Spellpoints can't compete with that. I find them boring and generic. You have so much magic, then you have no magic left. That's all.

[Tr011]

I can't figure out what kind of spellcaster runs out of Magic Missiles and Light, but he is still able to cast Miracle or Meteor Swarm. Come on guys, how's that possible ??:smalleek: No offense :smallwink:

any wizard
you get maybe 7 slots to prepare lvl 1 spells. Maybe you don't prepare Magic Missles or Light. I.e. my wizard has Pearls of Power for lvl1 slots, but not enough lvl 0 spells to cover light (Detect Magic, Detect Magic, Read Magic, Prestidigitation and a +2 insight skill buff).

[Morty]

I don't really see what's so difficult to understand here. A wizard prepares spells. Then he casts then and they're gone from his mind. The prepared Magic Missile spell has nothing to do whatsoever with the prepared Meteor Swarm spell. Simple.

[2xMachina]

I think most people are introduced to a magic system with Mana Points, from all those computer/console games. It gets stuck on us that MP is the way it goes, and the fire-and-forget is odd.

[Particle_Man]

But how else can you have the famous "cleric's duel" between Redcloak and that human cleric of Azure City? :smallsmile:

Actually this makes me think of a possible house rule - you can't cast spells of level X unless you have already cast spells (expended all spell slots) of all lower levels. Maybe that would stop the "Tier 1" casters from owning the show too early. Although I guess some casters would just stop memorizing/preparing low level spells. Hmmm.

[Venger]

I think most people are introduced to a magic system with Mana Points, from all those computer/console games. It gets stuck on us that MP is the way it goes, and the fire-and-forget is odd.

well, yeah, because that makes sense, it's how math works. that's why I find the psionics system to be the most inherently logical and intuitive to keep track of. if you have 100mp, and your 1st levels take up 1mp and your 9ths take up 17, then it's easy to follow, it's just subtraction, and it lets you keep burning through your "detect psionics" or "psionic grease" spells if you're going up against low level thugs past the point where you would've ran out of 1sts and be annoyed you need to waste higher level slots, or the inverse when you're at a final boss fight you can go nova and hit him with a bunch of meteor swarms instead of being tapped out after 3 at the price of not having points for 50 million "mind thrusts" or whatever weak little powers he would've saved against anyway

[Ernir]

Is it really? I love psionics and have always wanted to try the spellpoint system.
The UA spell point system really is rather bad. And aside from being point-based, it doesn't really have much in common with the Psionic system. Prepared casters become versatile to the point where spontaneous casters get left in the dirt, there are only suggestions on how to handle metamagic, blasting is punished in ways other types of casting aren't... it's just a hack. =/

I've done a bit to convert the core vancian spells and classes over to psionic mechanics myself, it's in my signature if you want to check it out.

It's called playing a psion and wearing a pointy hat. :smalltongue:
Kind of works. Leaves you with options missing and quite a bit of a refluffing project on your hands, though...

I think I need to dig out my counter argument again that I do on every thread involving vancian :smalltongue:

Vancian is awesome. The wizard sits down for an hour and grabs the primal energies of creation, beats them with a hammer until they form the spells he wants, and then locks them up in his head until he wants to let them out and release them.

Spellpoints can't compete with that. I find them boring and generic. You have so much magic, then you have no magic left. That's all.
Vancian can be cool, if you're looking at it on its own terms. Thing is, people often look for generic.

[Kuulvheysoon]

And this right here is why I prefer playing a psion to a wizard, 'power' be damned.

[Deepbluediver]

Why not just have 2 different systems? A "spell points" system for spontaneous casters, like sorcerers, and a prepared spell system, for wizards and the like. Now everyone can get what they want.

[drew2u]

Why not just drop the meteor swarm spell in order to cast a non-metamagic magic missile?

I always viewed prepared spells as being a mental preparedness in a 1-hour study or whatever. You prepare yourself to be able to cast those spells without error (spell failure if you rush your preparation) and then have access to those spells.
If you run out of magic missiles that you prepared, you're just sort of out that amount of effort. You still know how to cast magic missile, but in order to execute another one, you'd have to expend the energy/vitality/mental acuity you had prepared in order to cast that meteor swarm.

It's sort of an exhaustion system that's not quite spell pooling, not quite spontaneously casting, nor preparing specific - and only those amounts - spells.

[Flickerdart]

A soldier has two guns - a sidearm and a rocket launcher. He doesn't engage any vehicles, and so runs out of bullets in his sidearm before running out of rockets for his launcher.

Perfectly normal.