Variant rules: semi-spontaneous casting for Wizards, Clerics, and Druids (3.5 PEACH)

[TihiZmaj]

I've always prefered Sorcerers over Wizards simply because they require much less book-keeping. And a couple of days ago, while cooking up a campaign setting I got an idea how to make the non-spontaneous casters more spotnaneous, without giving them an insane increase in power.

What I'm interested to hear from you guys is how you think this would affect balance. Did I overdo it and casting is now too cumbersome? Would the casters be roughly as powerful as in standard rules? Or is it perhaps just what the doctor ordered to bring them down a notch?


Wizard

Basics

A Wizard no longer prepares all her spells once per day. Instead she must prepare each individual spell before casting it by spending an action to read it from her spellbook. The action depends on the level of the spell and how powerful spells the Wizard can cast.

1) Preparing a spell of the highest level that the Wizard can cast is a full round action.
2) Preparing a spell of the 2nd and 3rd highest levels that the Wizard can cast is a standard action.
3) Preparing a spell of the 4th - 6th highest levels that the Wizard can cast is a move-equivalent action.
4) Preparing a spell that is 7 or more levels below the highest level spell that the Wizard can cast is a swift action.
5) Preparing a cantrip is always a swift action, no matter what level of spells the Wizard can cast.

Example #1: A 16th level Wizard can cast 8th level spells. For her preparing an 8th level spell is a full round action, preparing a 7th or 6th level spell is a standard action, preparing a 5th, 4th, or 3rd level spell is a move-equivalent action, and preparing a 2nd or 1st level spell or a cantrip is a swift action.

Example #2: A 5th level Wizard can cast 3rd level spells. For her preparing a 3rd level spell is a full round action and preparing a 1st or 2nd level spell is a standard action. But she only needs a swift action to prepare a cantrip.

Preparation conditions and duration

Preparing the spell requires the wizard to be able to read from her spellbook. If for whatever reason she can't do so, then she can't prepare spells for casting.

Once a spell has been prepared it stays prepared until it is cast, until the Wizard prepares another spell, or for 1 round. If after 1 round the Wizard hasn't cast the spell, but neither did she prepare another spell, she can make a Concentration check to keep the spell prepared (DC = 10 + level of the spell). The Wizard must also make this Concentration check every time she takes damage.

If she succeeds the spell stays prepared for another round and she can keep repeating Concentration checks at the end of each round to maintain the preparation of the spell. If the Concentration check fails the preperation is wasted and the Wizard will have to start over. However, this does not use up any spell slots.

Metamagic

Metamagic feats are applied during preparation of the spell and do not prolong casting time. However, some will be less sueful than before. Still Spell and Silent Spell in particular will only be useful in situations where the Wizard can secretly read the spell and then maintain concentration until the time when the spell is cast.

Spell Mastery feat

The Wizard selects one spell from her spellbook. She can now prepare this spell from memory as a swift action and no longer needs her spellbook to do so.


Cleric/Druid/Paladin/Ranger

Basics

As Wizard, except the Cleric spends the action of preparing the spell holding her holy symbol and praying instead of reading from a spellbook. Paladins cast spell the same way as Clerics, except they can use their weapon in place of a holy symbol.

A Druid spends the action of preparing her spell touching an animal, a plant, natural ground or a natural object and meditating on her connection with nature. Rangers cast spells the same way as Druids do.

Spontaneous curing/inflicting/summoning

A good Cleric (or neutral cleric of a good deity) can always prepare cure spells as a swift action. An evil cleric (or neutral cleric of an evil deity) can always prepare inflict spells as a swift action. A neutral cleric of a neutral deity must pick one of the two. A Druid can alwas prepare summoning spells as a swift action.

[Rizban]

It seems like a pretty significant nerf to prepared casters, as they have to waste actions in combat to use their spells. Considering how much more powerful full casters are than the other classes, that's not an inherently bad thing. It also makes casting from scrolls a lot better, as you don't have to waste actions to prep/cast but do have to spend gold.

My only suggestion would be that they are able to choose one spell per point of their primary casting stat modifier but no more than one spell per spell level that they keep memorized and do not have to prepare to cast them. So, a wizard with 18 Int would have 4 spells, one each from different spell levels, that he could just cast. It would still count against his spells per day.

[TihiZmaj]

So basically you're saying this needs a playtest. :smallbiggrin:

I've been thinking it over some more and the thing that worries me is that taking a full round action to prepare the top spells might be overkill. On the other hand looking up and reading a low level spell as a swift action seems unrealistic. So now I'm thinking to changing it so top 3 spell levels require a standard action and the rest requires a move-equivalent action (unless you have mastery with the spell and it's a swift action). Thoughts?

Noted on giving them some spells for fleixble usage, but I'm thinking about doing it slightly differently. The number of spells you can have prepared at once is equal to your modifier for the primary spellcasting ability, but each additional spell increases the DC of the Concentration check by 2. By default you'd roll for each spell individually, though if that ends up wasting too much time you could also make one Concentration roll for all of them.

A level 1 wizard would struggle to keep up more than one spell at a time, but a level 20 Wizard with 23 ranks in Concentration could keep up three level 9 spells or four level 8 spells without any risk of failure.

I'm also thinking about changing Spell Mastery so that the Wizard once again picks a number of spells equal to her Int modifier. I made it only one spell becasue I was worried it would become a backdoor for Wizards to get entirely spontaneous casting with all the spells that matter to them. Or maybe it could be a fixed 2 or 3 spells each time you take the feat?

[Quellian-dyrae]

I would probably make the minimum a move action, mainly because, in most cases, you'd probably rather prepare as a move action, since swift actions can be used to Quicken.

In terms of overall balance, the hit to action economy will probably mitigate the versatility in combat. However, in terms of out-of-combat utility (potentially including pre-battle buffing), this is a big improvement.

I wouldn't allow casters to have more than one spell maintained at a time. That still lets them go into a combat encounter with one of their biggest spells (whichever they deem will be most useful for that combat, if they have even slight prep time) ready to use. Being able to keep a few spells ready basically removes the big disadvantage of the system, I think.