Adapting Spell Points to be more like Videogame MP

[Maginomicon]

Many videogame RPGs (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy et al, etc.) essentially run all-caster parties (even some of them are martial-flavored casters) and use a numeric MP system not all that different from the UA spell points system (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm).

The dynamic of D&D casting in combat is admittedly very different once you implement spell points (in some fashion). For example, in a spell points system, you aren't limited to an explicitly-stated number of castings of your highest level spells. As a result, personally, If I had the spell points to cast Fireball 5 times when with spell slots I'd only be allowed 3, the way I prioritize castings would change. I'd probably be more likely to cast Fireball 5 times even if that would use up almost all (if not all) of my spell points.

Would that really be so terrible? Sure you'd probably have to raise the EL of encounters by a level or two to accommodate for more castings of higher-level spells, but that's not on-its-own a bad thing. Maybe you want (or maybe your players want) the party to be facing more interesting creature encounters than their APL would normally allow.

Setting aside the number of spell points earned (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15256702) and how much spells of each level cost (to which changes would largely be a matter of tweaking), what would you change about the UA spell points system (and a campaign that uses them) if you wanted a more videogame-like play dynamic and experience? Further, how do you feel players would react to those changes?

(NOTE: For me personally, I make a distinction between "my house rules" and "this campaign's rules", but that's because I run a campaign with UA-variants out the wazoo. The normal understanding of house rules may not be entirely pertinent here, since as I have, there's no reason you couldn't make a set of base house rules and then make a campaign with its own set of specific broad-spectrum changes like implementing spell points does. I could go into the details of what variants my campaign uses and how, but that would probably quickly become boring to places like this.)

[Razanir]

I'd just use this: Vancian to Psionics (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194002k)

Ernir did a great job of rebuilding casters from the ground up to use the psionics subsystem. It's not quite identical to an MP system (because of augmenting), but it's still better than UA's spell points

[Maginomicon]

Ernir did a great job of rebuilding casters from the ground up to use the psionics subsystem. It's not quite identical to an MP system (because of augmenting), but it's still better than UA's spell pointsI've seen it. That system's untenable for the simple reason that it relies on rewriting all spells, many feats, and a number of items to fit the mechanics. Any system that requires you manually rewrite vast amounts of pure content could be great in theory... but is ultimately untenable in practice because it instantly becomes an "oh great more work" situation any time your players want to try something unorthodox (and if they're doing that, you just know they're going to be doing unorthodox stuff throughout their character's adventuring career).

And no, before you ask, "well then don't let them pick stuff that's outside of core" is not an acceptable solution (at least, not for me), as that'd be just a cop-out.

[Zombimode]

Uhh... maybe I just don't get what you're after, but you are aware of psionics (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/psionicRacesClassesSkillsSpells.htm), right?

[Maginomicon]

Uhh... maybe I just don't get what you're after, but you are aware of psionics (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/psionicRacesClassesSkillsSpells.htm), right?

You don't. I'm very aware of psionics. It's perhaps a little less reasonable to say this, but by me saying that I've seen Ernir's thread, it would imply that.

I have my own set of changes to the spell points system so that it does what I like, but I want to hear what other people would do to change the as-is spell points system. (Ignoring it in favor of something else, which is essentially Ernir's method, isn't a change to the system, it's avoiding the question.)

[Fates]

Uhh... maybe I just don't get what you're after, but you are aware of psionics (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/psionicRacesClassesSkillsSpells.htm), right?

I think he's looking for a way of reworking magic as it stands, rather than implementing a splat-book alternative magic system with a different selection of powers.

EDIT: OP-Ninja'd

[Slide]

The standard video game trope is that magic is something you can use to burst really hard, but you need to wait a little while to regenerate mana so you can do it again.

So let's do that. Take the UA spell points table, chop it to 15% for wizards/clerics, adjust other classes to taste. That's your new mana pool. You regen (casting stat bonus/2) per round.

A 9th level caster has a 20 primary casting stat, and a +2 stat bonus item. That gives them a mana pool of 12 mana. They can lead off with a 5th level spell for 9, down to 5. Round 2, they regen back to 8, so they can throw a 4th level spell. Round 3, they regen up to 4, and from here out they're limited to 2nd level spells.

Alternatively, they can moderate their casting and throw 3rd level spells for 6 rounds, before being restricted to 2nd level spells for the rest of the encounter.

Also, because you're using the UA system, everyone's a sorcerer, except some sorcerers get to choose a different spell loadout every day.

[Fouredged Sword]

I like the spell points regenerating per round, but here is what I would do.

I would give all casters 1/2 the listed spell points. When a spell caster is at half spell points, they are fatigued. At 1/4 they are exhausted, at zero they become unconscious and automatically start meditating to recover SP.

A spell caster can regenerate his caster level worth of spell points after 15 min of meditation.

At CL 10, a spell caster gains 1 automatic AP regeneration per round.

[AuraTwilight]

The thing about Spell Points is that it makes casters even more powerful, favoring the casters that don't need the boost (Wizard, Cleric, etc) over partial-casters.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Never use the UA spell points system for ANYTHING other than a lesson in failed game design. It manages to make spellcasting even more broken and imbalanced.

If you really want video game type casting, OP, then don't half-ass it. Go all the way and get rid of this crap where spells are given "levels" and the cost is based on that. Let's face facts. Fireball and Haste should not cost nearly the same amount. Make the points specific for every spell, not at tiered levels, like in the videogames you cite. Get rid of metamagic. Use the 10 + 1/2 HD + ability mod setup for all save DCs.

EDIT: On the topic of videogames, how about bringing in all the arbitrary, blanket status effect immunities or high resistances videogame enemies tend to have, too? Part of the reason casters aren't overpowered in games is because the stuff that's really broken in D&D either never freaking works or *doesn't exist*.

[TuggyNE]

As always, making sweeping general changes to an already imbalanced system can only have the effect of worsening balance and creating still further oddities and quirks. There is no spell system silver bullet, no free lunch, no way to safely transform the system to something else without hand-editing a whole lot of spells.

Ernir's approach, therefore, slow and tedious as it may be (especially for Ernir), is the only one that's really viable.

[JusticeZero]

Easy, just do like my campaign did. Ban all arcane and divine casting full stop, and throw the doors open on all the PF psionics stuff. Psionics is balanced and it all runs on a MP battery.

Lots of people scoff at it, but the only one that usually sticks is "Do we really need a completely different power source when we already have arcane finger wigglers, slightly diffent arcane X-Men, nature worshippers, and priests of urban gods? Plus if we use splats people who bind thingies from beyond, people who have infernal pacts, people who....." I'm surprised that they got through all those different kinds of magic user without getting annoyed at that proliferation but whatever.

[Fizban]

I'll weigh in on the second question: if you make it more like a video game then your players will treat it like a video game. And that's pretty bad if you want to play DnD and/or roleplay. Even if you eventually have to stop at an inn to recover magic, think about how most video game RPGs work: you go out and fight wave after wave after wave of enemies that post no significant threat to you, slowly leaking magic as you heal/AoE when needed. Eventually you either run out of mana and run into town long enough to hit the rest button, or you have a gradual MP recovery mechanic that makes it so you never stop fighting until the end of the game.

While the CR system is built to ensure the party is usually fighting things weaker than them, in DnD you still burn through resources quickly and can only fight a few times per day. This means that you can challenge players in ways other than bosses, by running them out of resources and forcing them to avoid combat or stretch themselves thin, then they have to find a safe place to rest, and so on. If you party never runs out of spells they won't even stop to sleep unless you force them too (there's already magic to ward off sleep after all). And for roleplay? Well once you realize you're a terminator that can fight for days without rest most people stop acting human and start acting like terminators. That could make for some interesting roleplay, but it's a different type of story than you might have intended.

[Maginomicon]

I'll weigh in on the second question: if you make it more like a video game then your players will treat it like a video game. And that's pretty bad if you want to play DnD and/or roleplay. Even if you eventually have to stop at an inn to recover magic, think about how most video game RPGs work: you go out and fight wave after wave after wave of enemies that post no significant threat to you, slowly leaking magic as you heal/AoE when needed. Eventually you either run out of mana and run into town long enough to hit the rest button, or you have a gradual MP recovery mechanic that makes it so you never stop fighting until the end of the game.

While the CR system is built to ensure the party is usually fighting things weaker than them, in DnD you still burn through resources quickly and can only fight a few times per day. This means that you can challenge players in ways other than bosses, by running them out of resources and forcing them to avoid combat or stretch themselves thin, then they have to find a safe place to rest, and so on. If you party never runs out of spells they won't even stop to sleep unless you force them too (there's already magic to ward off sleep after all). And for roleplay? Well once you realize you're a terminator that can fight for days without rest most people stop acting human and start acting like terminators. That could make for some interesting roleplay, but it's a different type of story than you might have intended.

Personally, in my regular game I run, I use an auto-regen method, but it's slow (~1/CL/hour), usually requires rest, and I also use the "lack of sleep" rules from Elder Evils (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=280467). If they don't sleep, they'll start to take fatigue, exhaustion, wisdom damage, and eventually go insane.

As for the CR issue, I use "APL+2"-rated CRs constantly using UA's Level-Independent XP Awards system with PF's encounter generation method. You'd think that's killer-DM level, but considering the above paragraph, it's justified.

[ArcturusV]

I dunno. There's a weird dynamic that video games with MP tend to have that DnD doesn't have.

This comes down to a few things, which are so fundamental that I don't know if the gap can be bridged between the two or if they should even attempt it.

In a video game, excepting some VERY niche examples (Poison Cures, Haste, Magic defense statuses) where you might only have 5 out of your 100+ spells counting as... low level spells are not viable after a certain point. Least not viable in combat. There's usually an exception made that MP=>HP via curing magics is more efficient on the exchange rate with low level spells than high level spells (Thus out of combat you're better spamming Cure 1 seven times to top the party off instead of casting Cure 4 twice).

And thus most spells are linear upgrades of previous spells. Your initial fire spell is only half as strong as your second fire spell, which is half as strong as your third fire spell, etc. And typically this means you also fall behind a curve where your Magic becomes less effective. You're spending more MP (As costs will tend to triple or better while your output is only something like +50%) for less results. And thus end up with the typical FF RPG solution of "I might as well just hit Attack".

DnD is... not at all like that. Outside of a very few exceptions, spells like Sleep, Color Spray, Fear, a low level spell is pretty much still just as viable in high level encounters as it was in low level encounters. You don't end up with "junk" spells like the Video Game caster will, that you never have a reason to use. There's a lot more of those "Utility" spells that are always valuable compared to the Video Game caster, where you end up with something like 600 out of 1000 low level spells are still useful to you, instead of 5 spells out of 100. Not to mention there will still be lots of time where effectively a 3rd to 5th level spell will shut down an entire fight with just one casting even after you already have 9th level spells unlocked. Something completely unheard of in the Video Game MP spending world.

As well DnD spells tend to be quadratically more powerful rather than linear power. That level 2 spell might deal damage as a 1d8+10, but that level three spell will be doing 10d6 instead.

So you'll be spending linear MP costs for exponential throughput rewards. Unlike the Video Game counterpart where you have to keep using your best stuff basically not to be completely pointless to a battle. You're using your best stuff because it's your best and far, far more effective for the cost than anything else.

This is kinda the problem with the MP ideals for DnD that I see. It just doesn't really equate, and when you go into it thinking that somehow it will equate out, you end up with weird, wonky games. And often don't realize why it's so wonky.

But as long as you keep those fundamental differences in mind you have a shot at making it go.