Mundane Spell Components - Trivial or Vital?

[Tim Proctor]

This question was spurred on by another thread, but do the mundane spell components hurt or help the game?

I'm of mind to say that they help the game, I think spellcasters are fairly OP as it is and the limitations of finding components, time spent getting them, etc. can be a limitation on how powerful they are. I also know they are tedious and can be stupid at times, but wanted to know what everyone thought?

[Chronos]

Mechanically, they make almost no difference. While there are some rare occasions where they won't be available by default and a spellcaster will have to find them, and in principle this acts as a small balancing factor on spellcasters, in practice that's almost never relevant.

But they certainly don't hurt, and they can add a bit of flavor to make things a little more interesting.

[John Longarrow]

Depends highly on the groups preferences. If they players are into the RP aspect and enjoy having the "Lets go shopping" aspect in the game, then YES. If the players are all about kicking in the door and killing the monster, they tend to be a non-issue.

[Agincourt]

They could be a small speed bump for a spellcaster, but by rules as written, they are really easy to come by. 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." Since spell component pouches are mundane and cheap, every place with a general store should have them.

In my own experience, material components that don't have a specific cost are rarely an issue. The only time we pay attention to the "M" in a spell description is if the spellcaster is grappled or otherwise unable to reach their pouch.

[almightycoma]

I dont think they have much impact one way or another. An exception being the cost of resurrection diamonds. the cost of those has put a dent in party funds more than once. I personally find most a little too silly for my taste.

[Story]

It's been said before, but making spellcasting tedious isn't balance, it's boring. All it will do is drive off the players who don't want to abuse it while forcing those who do to employ even more cheese.

[JoshuaZ]

The idea is nice and helps add a little flavor to what is otherwise a pretty flavorless magic system (if you want flavor and mechanics in nearly perfect harmony go play a binder). Unfortunately, a number of the components are a weird mix of sympathetic magic and technology references/attempts at humor. Look at how fireball basically makes you need to use the primary ingredient in gunpowder, lightning bolt uses things you'd use to make an electric charge, scrying requires components to make a battery, see invisibility uses what one would practically sprinkle on an invisible thing to see it.

If one gets past this unfortunately common tendency spell components can be neat.

[Starbuck_II]

This question was spurred on by another thread, but do the mundane spell components hurt or help the game?

I'm of mind to say that they help the game, I think spellcasters are fairly OP as it is and the limitations of finding components, time spent getting them, etc. can be a limitation on how powerful they are. I also know they are tedious and can be stupid at times, but wanted to know what everyone thought?

Mostly trivial.
But one time, there was party who previously let a group of bats get a rare plague.
In the next campaign, the DM reminded them there was consequences of their actions, when the wizard went to replenish his guano supply: he found it was no longer free but 20 gp a teaspoon.
At this point the party soon became black market guano tradesmen.
They decided supply and demand means if they get the bats to poop more they get more money: so they overfeed their bats.
They over did it till none of them were left, sure they had some money but they lost their business.

But their figured dead bats would still poop so they reanimated the bats into ghouls who the Cleric could turn under his command (some of them).
They boarded them up in a cave with a door they opened to collect the goop. They had put signs to warn the townfolk of the undead and their threat so no villagers wouldn't careless go in.

But they didn't expect a rival adventuring group to be so stupid as to try.
Now Bats even as ghouls have a low CR? But when you factor that their are hundreds? Yeah, the adventures were killed, the door was open, and the bats escaped into the countryside.

Starting the Ghoulapocolayse.

[Carth]

Not only will most players hate grinding through the bookkeeping and procurement of trivial spell components as a caster, the non-caster players at the table will likely resent it as a waste of their time, too. It's a nice idea in theory, but in reality it's something utterly boring that will end up taking time away from the other players who wait patiently/doodle/play side games/read while the wizard roleplays through his component hunting. It might be interesting at first for the wizard, but the novelty fades very quickly.

[Chronos]

Quoth JoshuaZ:

scrying requires components to make a battery,...
Everyone always says this, but it's not true. The scrying components won't make a battery; they'll make noxious, toxic smoke. Like the smoke the Oracles of Delphi breathed before making their "pronouncements" that the priests interpreted. Or maybe you're supposed to see patterns in the twists and curls of the smoke-- That's how scrying usually seems to work in movies.

[lytokk]

The only issue I've ever had with the material component to a spell being way beyond what it should be, would be the Identify spell. For every casting of the spell, it takes a 100gp pearl, which is destroyed in the process. I'm sorry, but the cost of that spell is too high. Or am I alone in my thinking? I only started playing in 3.5, so there could be some reason for the cost of the spell from previous editions that I'm not aware of, or I give my parties too many magical items.

[Lightlawbliss]

The only issue I've ever had with the material component to a spell being way beyond what it should be, would be the Identify spell. For every casting of the spell, it takes a 100gp pearl, which is destroyed in the process. I'm sorry, but the cost of that spell is too high. Or am I alone in my thinking? I only started playing in 3.5, so there could be some reason for the cost of the spell from previous editions that I'm not aware of, or I give my parties too many magical items.

There are ways around it (looks at cloistered cleric) completely around it.

[Chronos]

Nah, all you have to do is rescue Deckard Cain and he'll do it for you for free.

[Story]

I'm sorry, but the cost of that spell is too high. Or am I alone in my thinking?

WOTC apparently thought so too, seeing as they later created the Artificer's Monocle.

I believe the original Identify is a legacy from previous editions when not knowing what your items did was considered fun.

[eggynack]

I don't have many thoughts about expensive mundane components, but I find cheap mundane components stupid. They have nearly no actual negative effect on wizards, and material component pouches cause a good number of issues. You have that thing where the line between costless and priceless is incredibly thin, and the thing where specific material components are ridiculous, like in the case of stone shape, and you have the thing where you can pull out an infinite number of a given thing, allowing you to fuel chicken infested, along with some likely other things. Seriously, you can just keep removing components from the bag and dropping them on the ground, and you could make a massive pile in a single round. I'd just get rid of components that you can get from a pouch entirely.

[Roguenewb]

If you wanna track components, track uses on a pouch. Otherwise, go kill yourself. Its just miserable. Oh I learned this cool new spell! Oh, I don't get to use it till we go back to town...4 levels later, voila, my spell! Plus the "guys, how many guanos (btw, these cost nothing and have no wieght by RAW, so 10^1237294354283579834 is probably the correct choice) and how many nitric acid should I buy? How many tiny live spiders? Hawk feathers?" Games are defined by possibility space, too much is bad, too little is bad, this adds waaaaaaay too much.

I did play in a component where Spell Component Pouches came in levels (1-9) and had all material components of that level or lower in them, and had 25 "charges". There was a vague balancing act going on there, but once I hit like level 6, I was able to always have enough with like 10% WBL, and that was before we realized the rogue couldn't be caught by standard cops anymore and just started steealing them for me whenever he went into a store for whatever else he wanted to steal.

[Story]

and that was before we realized the rogue couldn't be caught by standard cops anymore

Isn't this explicitly discouraged by the DMG? There's supposed to always conveniently be higher level guards.

[TuggyNE]

I'm of the opinion that all costless material components should be done away with. That wipes out all the dumb inside jokes, the relatively meaningless* sympathetic magic references, the weird rules glitches, and the bizarre nature of having a small pouch contain ALL OF THE THINGS EVER**. The only real problem left by that is that grappling is now not quite as good at dealing with spellcasters. For that, I suggest adding a simple arcane focus requirement (something that applies to large swathes of spells; either a single "default arcane focus" like a holy symbol for divine casters, or one arcane focus for each school, or similar).

This is why all my homebrew spells lack material components. (Come to think of it, I should probably go through again and apply whatever focus solution I come up with to them.)

*Meaningless because they don't interact with anything; they're literally just a random name stuffed on something with no mechanical implications whatsoever.
**Well, all of the free/priceless component things, at least.

[eggynack]

For that, I suggest adding a simple arcane focus requirement (something that applies to large swathes of spells; either a single "default arcane focus" like a holy symbol for divine casters, or one arcane focus for each school, or similar).
That sounds pretty great. Focuses let you keep the effect where certain spells are inaccessible when you're captured in some fashion. It's never been the biggest balancing factor in the world, but it's nice to have. I rather like the fluff behind having eight delicious flavors of arcane focus as well. You might even be able to have some vague crunch aspect to it, though I can't come up with one offhand.

[TuggyNE]

That sounds pretty great. Focuses let you keep the effect where certain spells are inaccessible when you're captured in some fashion. It's never been the biggest balancing factor in the world, but it's nice to have. I rather like the fluff behind having eight delicious flavors of arcane focus as well. You might even be able to have some vague crunch aspect to it, though I can't come up with one offhand.

Well, you could have it that (arcane) spell component pouches come with one each of the default foci, and replacements are 1 sp or 1 gp or something. Then if one gets lost or stolen or broken, well, it's lost or stolen or broken and you can't just pull a brand new one out like a rabbit from a hat.

Glad you like the idea. :smallsmile:

[Deophaun]

For that, I suggest adding a simple arcane focus requirement (something that applies to large swathes of spells; either a single "default arcane focus" like a holy symbol for divine casters, or one arcane focus for each school, or similar).
Like a wand, orb, staff, tome, or dagger? :smallbiggrin:

[Grod_The_Giant]

This question was spurred on by another thread, but do the mundane spell components hurt or help the game?
Everyone I've ever gamed with has just written "spell component pouch" on his sheet and never paid attention to them. Or sometimes not even that. They're a minor bit of flavor, nothing more.

If you make obtaining random meaningless spell components a major part of the game, you'll just turn Eschew Materials into a feat tax for casters to sidestep the whole ****show.

[Big Fau]

Isn't this explicitly discouraged by the DMG? There's supposed to always conveniently be higher level guards.

When the setting allows for it, kinda. In a city like Waterdeep or Sharn I could understand the Uberpolice showing up to deal with the 10th level Rogue, but there is definitely a point where it becomes unrealistic (like in Skyrim, when the town guards of Falkreath can massacre dragons that are meant for a 40th level Dragonborn). The actual way to deal with a disruptive Rogue robbing an entire town is to sick an NPC adventuring party on him.

On-topic: The only time it ever comes up with my group is when the players are using something like Shapechange (when the focus costs 1000gp).

[Eldariel]

Between Eschew Materials being a single, prerequisiteless feat, divine magic not requiring focus, etc. the system seems to be built with the expectation that the minor spell components are mostly glossed over.

If that expectation were to be altered, Eschew Materials probably has to be made harder to acquire or go entirely. And of course, it would tip the balance of magicks towards divine.

[Jack_Simth]

This question was spurred on by another thread, but do the mundane spell components hurt or help the game?

For the most part, minor spell components are a stale joke (as are minor focuses). Sending requires "A short piece of fine copper wire." - it's a telegram (also hence the 25 word limit). Mage armor requires leather. Why? Because a mage makes his armor out of leather. Sleep requires " A pinch of fine sand" (aka, you're the sandman - there's other options, that are other references). I could go on, but don't feel like it.

Yes, they're a minor inconvenience to low-level spellcasters (can't get them as quickly in a grapple)... but that's it. The game doesn't suffer much without them.

[eggynack]

Well, you could have it that (arcane) spell component pouches come with one each of the default foci, and replacements are 1 sp or 1 gp or something. Then if one gets lost or stolen or broken, well, it's lost or stolen or broken and you can't just pull a brand new one out like a rabbit from a hat.
That's about what I was figuring at the basic level. I mean, it's basically a divine focus for arcane casters, so it'd work like that. Still, I imagine it as a set of color coded talismans that glow when you use them, so it's vaguely a letdown when they don't do arbitrary cool stuff. Maybe if you cast one out of each school you have access to, without casting out of the same school twice, the next spell you cast gets a +1 on the save DC. Either that or it gives you a single use of color spray to use by the end of the day. I just have some odd desire for cool stuff to happen when your spells are accompanied by magic rainbow power discs, but it's matched against my opposite desire to not give cool stuff to wizards.

[TuggyNE]

Like a wand, orb, staff, tome, or dagger? :smallbiggrin:

That, or just a small carefully-constructed device (palm-size at most) that allows you to, well, focus magical energy.

Not tomes though, carrying a big heavy book around in combat is kind of silly unless you actually need to read out of it (or there's some unique property that can't be replicated by any other form).


That's about what I was figuring at the basic level. I mean, it's basically a divine focus for arcane casters, so it'd work like that. Still, I imagine it as a set of color coded talismans that glow when you use them, so it's vaguely a letdown when they don't do arbitrary cool stuff. Maybe if you cast one out of each school you have access to, without casting out of the same school twice, the next spell you cast gets a +1 on the save DC. Either that or it gives you a single use of color spray to use by the end of the day. I just have some odd desire for cool stuff to happen when your spells are accompanied by magic rainbow power discs, but it's matched against my opposite desire to not give cool stuff to wizards.

Heh. Yeah, I think "lets you cast most spells" is enough of a cool thing. :smalltongue: Although if you want, you could have MW/magically-enhanced versions that give you, I dunno, bonuses to Spellcraft or Concentration for that school, or something like that.

That reminds me, do silver holy symbols have any special properties, or are they just shiny?

[eggynack]

Heh. Yeah, I think "lets you cast most spells" is enough of a cool thing. :smalltongue: Although if you want, you could have MW/magically-enhanced versions that give you, I dunno, bonuses to Spellcraft or Concentration for that school, or something like that.

Ooh, yeah, letting them be enchanted in minor ways bypasses the whole issue where it gives wizards a buff. It also creates a nifty avenue for resource allocation where there's a generic set of enchantments that increase your powers along specific schools. I dunno if there's currently a thing that does that, but attaching it to wacky rainbow items is cool. Random skill bonuses could definitely work, though I'ma keep thinking of weirder things, cause it's a thing I like to do.

[tyckspoon]

That reminds me, do silver holy symbols have any special properties, or are they just shiny?

They're just shiny. There are some alternate/improved holy symbols in... one of the divine splats.. that give an extra Turn Undead attempt or improve your Turning level, tho.

[Seclora]

They're just shiny. There are some alternate/improved holy symbols in... one of the divine splats.. that give an extra Turn Undead attempt or improve your Turning level, tho.

Exalted Deeds I think, it's got a bunch of material components you can add to spells to get, usually, percentage chances of added effects on spells and that sort of thing.

Which is really the only place for material components, cheap ways to improve a few spells and a little fluff in the sort of campaign that has room for it.

[Story]

Complete Champion has holy symbols which can be used by arcane casters and give minor boosts to certain types of spells.

[Lightlawbliss]

...
That reminds me, do silver holy symbols have any special properties, or are they just shiny?

depends. the default silver holy symbol has nothing extra (I've had DMs that applied penlites when using wood but that was house rule). There are better holy symbols in a book or two, forgetting which one(s) at the moment.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

In Pathfinder, they can serve an interesting purpose for some spells, like Polymorphing spells. For example, if the game is low fantasy and dragons aren't around, where are you getting a scale for Form of the Dragon? In one game, I was adamant on collecting yeti fur for Monstrous Physique.

[Deophaun]

That, or just a small carefully-constructed device (palm-size at most) that allows you to, well, focus magical energy.
I hear what you're saying. But you only need to add 0.5 to the version number to get them.

Complete Champion has holy symbols which can be used by arcane casters and give minor boosts to certain types of spells.
And Planar Handbook has true holy symbols, made from material from the deity's plane.

[TuggyNE]

I hear what you're saying. But you only need to add 0.5 to the version number to get them.

3.10? What is this crazy talk? :smalltongue:

No, but seriously, I dun wanna switch systems just to fix this little bitty thing when the solution is, like, right in front of me.

There might be other, more pressing, reasons, but this one isn't nearly significant enough.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I like it for the flavor, but I don't like it for the occasional tedium it brings on. I've tried using it as a limiting factor before, by making it so that component pouches only had so many uses. I'll give the player credit. He kept up with it long after I gave up.

Yeah. Not doing that again.

[Maginomicon]

Non-costly material/focus components exist for two balancing reasons:

So that spellcasters have to be using both hands to cast most spells (between material/focus components and the somatic component, both of your hands have to be free to cast most spells)
So that a significant chunk of your casting ability can be stolen at any time at the GM's discretion. Any pickpocket can potentially make your caster temporarily useless by swiping your components pouch.

There are ways around #2. For example, Summon Instrument for bards, Summon Holy Symbol for clerics/paladins, and Summon Component for bard/sorc/wiz. There are even ways to get around #1. But generally, most casters don't mess with them because GMs don't bother taking advantage of this weakness.

I strongly enforce both of these aspects and the action economy involved for things being in your hands (I insist players maintain a "default loadout" notecard) and this severely reins in how often casters can multitask.

[eggynack]

Non-costly material/focus components exist for two balancing reasons:

So that spellcasters have to be using both hands to cast most spells (between material/focus components and the somatic component, both of your hands have to be free to cast most spells)
So that a significant chunk of your casting ability can be stolen at any time at the GM's discretion. Any pickpocket can potentially make your caster temporarily useless by swiping your components pouch.

There are ways around #2. For example, Summon Instrument for bards, Summon Holy Symbol for clerics/paladins, and Summon Component for bard/sorc/wiz. There are even ways to get around #1. But generally, most casters don't mess with them because GMs don't bother taking advantage of this weakness.

I strongly enforce both of these aspects and the action economy involved for things being in your hands (I insist players maintain a "default loadout" notecard) and this severely reins in how often casters can multitask.
So, I presume that you support the theoretical arcane focus solution (with or without magic rainbow beams of love, tolerance, and death). It basically presents casters with both issues you mentioned, without having the side effect of being inconceivably stupid sometimes. Seriously, I haven't broken out my full on rant yet, but how does the component for stone shape work? Does your material component pouch contain every shape in existence, or can you somehow mold wads of clay into a spiky floor shape as a non-action? It's just stupid. That's leaving aside the whole thing where you can pull out the body parts of gods or whatever, because they don't have a listed cost (I'm not clear on the details of this one, but it's a thing). Having a bag that actually contains infinite stuff causes massive problems on its own, and it just gets worse from there.

Edit: Why is a "default loadout" necessary when you can just reach into your pouch and pluck stuff out? You're not keeping this stuff on hand. I guess you could, and not buy a pouch, but that just seems inadvisable.

[Maginomicon]

So, I presume that you support the theoretical arcane focus solution (with or without magic rainbow beams of love, tolerance, and death). It basically presents casters with both issues you mentioned, without having the side effect of being inconceivably stupid sometimes. Seriously, I haven't broken out my full on rant yet, but how does the component for stone shape work? Does your material component pouch contain every shape in existence, or can you somehow mold wads of clay into a spiky floor shape as a non-action? It's just stupid. That's leaving aside the whole thing where you can pull out the body parts of gods or whatever, because they don't have a listed cost (I'm not clear on the details of this one, but it's a thing). Having a bag that actually contains infinite stuff causes massive problems on its own, and it just gets worse from there.

Edit: Why is a "default loadout" necessary when you can just reach into your pouch and pluck stuff out? You're not keeping this stuff on hand. I guess you could, and not buy a pouch, but that just seems inadvisable.

I assume during play that the actual contents of the material component line (if it's non-costly) is pure fluff and should be treated as such, ridiculousness of the practical implications (such as the case with stone shape) be damned.

The "default loadout" is something I have everyone do (not just casters) and is simply the collection of things they have out and ready (most importantly, what they have in their hands) by default when an encounter starts.

[TuggyNE]

So that spellcasters have to be using both hands to cast most spells (between material/focus components and the somatic component, both of your hands have to be free to cast most spells)

Hmm. I always assumed that you held the material component in the hand making the gestures, and that it perhaps burned away or dissolved or whatever while doing so. Similarly for the focus.

Not that it matters for my proposed replacement, of course, since it retains any hand restrictions you might place, and still requires access to the SCP to store the foci in.

Fakeedit: largely ninja'd, of course, by the good eggynack and something I hadn't noticed about the standard loadout. (Which is actually a houserule, but I suppose 137 pages naturally does contain all sorts of minor stuff like that.)

Real edit: Thing about the SCP is that, by default, you can pull stuff out of it while spellcasting as a free action, so no caster would ever actually be carrying any of the numerous spell components in their hands.

[eggynack]

The "default loadout" is something I have everyone do (not just casters) and is simply the collection of things they have out and ready (most importantly, what they have in their hands) by default when an encounter starts.
Ah. That makes more sense. In my head, I had a bunch of casters with access to only some percentage of their spells at any given moment. It sounds not absolutely horrible in theory, but the micromanaging on a mechanic like that would probably be pretty terrible. It'd be like picking your prepared spells every five minutes. Anyway, the basic idea of, "You need to actually hold your pouch," is a halfway reasonable one, though I'm not necessarily sure that it's an actual rule. It's kinda in that gray interpretation-space, so it's fine, but I've gotta figure that you could tie your pouch to your belt and leave both hands free most of the time, while leaving casting available.

[Maginomicon]

Ah. That makes more sense. In my head, I had a bunch of casters with access to only some percentage of their spells at any given moment. It sounds not absolutely horrible in theory, but the micromanaging on a mechanic like that would probably be pretty terrible. It'd be like picking your prepared spells every five minutes. Anyway, the basic idea of, "You need to actually hold your pouch," is a halfway reasonable one, though I'm not necessarily sure that it's an actual rule. It's kinda in that gray interpretation-space, so it's fine, but I've gotta figure that you could tie your pouch to your belt and leave both hands free most of the time, while leaving casting available.
Since withdrawing any item from a material component pouch is a free action, I assume it's on a belt-clip-like-thing with the tie that keeps it closed being separate. Therefore, you can "move a hand to your material components pouch, untie it, rummage around, pull out the needed component, and retie the pouch" all as a single free action (ridiculous as that may sound for practical implications). Given the variety of things in a material components pouch, it might as well be considered in-fluff a "non-magical" handy haversack. :smallconfused:

[Squirrel_Dude]

That spell component pouch is probably the best magical item per gold in the game. It's either the best bag of holding of all time (with a very specific set of goods), or it's an endless decanter of usefull things.

I have to admit, I'm suddenly interested in trying to find a roleplay use, as a rogueish type character, for the random things in a component pouch.

[Deophaun]

So that spellcasters have to be using both hands to cast most spells (between material/focus components and the somatic component, both of your hands have to be free to cast most spells)
Not quite. While material components (generally) must be in hand, there is nothing that says that you need a hand free to use a material component (as it says with somatic components). With your default load out card, a wizard would be in line keeping some guano and sulfur in the tips of his gloves, just in case he wants to cast a fireball while using a metamagic rod, for example.

[Maginomicon]

Not quite. While material components (generally) must be in hand, there is nothing that says that you need a hand free to use a material component (as it says with somatic components). With your default load out card, a wizard would be in line keeping some guano and sulfur in the tips of his gloves, just in case he wants to cast a fireball while using a metamagic rod, for example.
Yeah I was just thinking about that. If the loadout affected casters to the extent that I normally have been doing, duskblades and other classes that use items in hand while casting would become broken (as in non-functional).

Oops.

[Roguenewb]

That spell component pouch is probably the best magical item per gold in the game. It's either the best bag of holding of all time (with a very specific set of goods), or it's an endless decanter of usefull things.

I have to admit, I'm suddenly interested in trying to find a roleplay use, as a rogueish type character, for the random things in a component pouch.

I played this once. Acid, lemons, live spiders, wire, molds, ladders, it's a pretty sweet bag. Not to mention all the varying bits of metal of different types and shapes. Plus, there are infinite longswords in there. Longswords are cool. Pools of mercury are also a wierd pouch item. There is also snow and ice (for snowcasters) and a bit of every creature to ever exist or ever will exist. If you can't find a use for that...

Thanks to BoVD, there are also infinite artifacts of good dieties. And a 1 ounce piece of everyone's brain. Even yours. Throw it on the ground. Draw another piece. Repeat until greater than your own body mass of YOUR OWN BRAIN is lying on the ground in front of you. AS A FREE ACTION. WAT.

[JeenLeen]

The contents of the pouch never came up in our games, but the pouches themselves came up as a tactic to sunder a spell component pouch and thus disrupt the caster.

But all arcane casters held about 3 to 5 pouches on their person, to counter that.

[Maginomicon]

Come to think of it, since you have to touch a material component to cast a spell, but don't have to have a hand free, doesn't that necessarily mean that you can't cast a stilled spell while bound? (I would have said paralyzed/gagged, but then you wouldn't be able to speak anyway so it's moot)

[tyckspoon]

Come to think of it, since you have to touch a material component to cast a spell, but don't have to have a hand free, doesn't that necessarily mean that you can't cast a stilled spell while bound? (I would have said paralyzed/gagged, but then you wouldn't be able to speak anyway so it's moot)

It means you couldn't cast a spell that required a material component, yes. There are a fair number of spells that inherently do not have said components, and you could cast those Stilled while bound.

[Lightlawbliss]

Come to think of it, since you have to touch a material component to cast a spell, but don't have to have a hand free, doesn't that necessarily mean that you can't cast a stilled spell while bound? (I would have said paralyzed/gagged, but then you wouldn't be able to speak anyway so it's moot)

if your bound, you might still be able to get the components. may take some interesting maneuvering depending on pouch location, but you could do it.

[TuggyNE]

All right, I've taken the time to write up the full material component replacement idea, complete with the ability to spend more money to get Spellcraft or Concentration bonuses, so please let me know what y'all think!

[Invader]

I never liked the bookkeeping of the trivial items but I'm not opposed to something like you have a component pouch with XX gold pieces worth of components in it. For every 1st level spell it'll cost you 10gp worth of components, 2nd level 25gp, 3rd level 50gp, 4th level 100gp, 5th level 200gp, etc. etc. for whatever price you think is fair. Spells with specific costs still have those costs.