3.5 Spell Points Variant. Scroll price based. (Half-baked, PEACH)

[johnbragg]

A major drawback to using points-based casting in D&D is the "exchange rate". The spell point costs for high level spells are ridiculously low--a 9th level spell is worth far more than 17 1st level spells. With the UA spell point system, a 17th level wizard can burn through 10 9th level spells.

Nobody playtested the Spell Points from UA--it's a variant rule, it "doesn't matter" if it doesn't work well.

There was playtesting on magic item costs, I believe. The rules on what a scroll of an Nth level spell from an Xth level caster cost compared to a Mth level spell by a Yth level caster were important to how 3rd Edition would work.

So why not use the same scaling? Spell point cost = SL x CL. So a 1st level Magic Missile would cost 1x1=1, a 9th level Magic Missile would cost 1x9=9, a 5th level Fireball would cost 3x5=15, a 10th level Fireball would cost 3x10=30?

That gives you the flexibility of a Spell Points system, while reducing instead of increasing the power of Tier 1 casters.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I think it's done the way it is in part to reduce the complicated overhead for the end-user. Especially for higher levels. Not everyone can multiply 7 and 13 together rapidly to determine the appropriate number or spell points to use. Also, a single 9th level spell would cost (9*17=)153 spell points, minimum.

It seems to me that you'd have the same problem as before, except extreme in the other direction. And probably more extreme, actually, since some low level spells have no reason to ever be cast with a higher caster level.

For example, let's say you wanted to improve your saves for your spells for the next battle. A casting of Owl's Wisdom, Eagle's Splendor or Intelligent Intelligencies (I forget that one's name), will serve you well at the lowest level possible, since most battles don't even last a minute. That translates out to (2nd spell slot)*(3rd caster level)=6 spell points. There'd pretty much be no reason to spend more points to extend the duration, as that probably wouldn't provide any benefit. Other spells, like charm person and web also wouldn't have much reason to be boosted. Most of the utility spells don't 'need' that boosting in caster level, so this would give a utility-spell caster much more power.

If a wizard using this system hits 5th level, just from the 3rd spell slot alone, that would give an additional 15 spell points (assuming you're allowing a gain of (3rd slot)*(5th level). That allows them to cast charm person at level 1 an additional 15 times. Or the appropriate buff spell twice more. (If this was used for a class with access to curing spells, it would also be ridiculously broken for this reason, but I think you meant this to be for non-curing classes only.)

Of course, I love using utility and low-level spells, even at high level, so I'd really like this system, because I'd be able to cast all day long once I hit level 8 or so. I just don't think it would be very balanced or fair to the other players. That's the big issue with spellcasters in general, so any variant casting system would need to careful not to make them more powerful.

An all-spellcasting party would probably love it, though.

[lesser_minion]

If you start by giving a wizard 3 casting points per level (+half her level for specialisation), you should end up with something roughly sensible. The ability score modifier can add the lesser of caster level or 4 points per plus.

[DeAnno]

I kind of like it.

" If you start by giving a wizard 3 casting points per level (+half her level for specialisation), you should end up with something roughly sensible. The ability score modifier can add the lesser of caster level or 4 points per plus. "

This is seriously not enough SP though. At level 20 and a stat of 30 you have 3*20+4*10=100 points, which isn't even enough to cast one 9th. SP has to scale correctly too.

A sorcerer of level 2X should be able to cast 3 Spells of level X, 5 Spells of level X-1, and 6 Spells of all previous levels (not counting bonus spells, which we will handle later.)

The simple cost of this is 3*X*(2X-1) - (X-1)*(2X-3) + 6*(X-1)*(2X-3) + 6*(X-2)*(2X-5) + ...

2X^2-5X+3

We can rewrite that as
3*X*(2X-1) -(X-1)*(2X-3) + 6*SUM
6X^2-3X - (2X^2-5X+3) + 6*SUM[2i^2-i,i,1,X-1]
4X^2+2X-3 + 12*SUM[i^2,i,1,X-1] - 6*SUM[i,i,1,X-1]
4X^2+2X-3 + 12*(X^3/3-X^2/2+X/6) - 6*(X^2-X)/2
4X^2+2X-3 + 4X^3-6X^2+2X - 3X^2+3X
[i]4X^3-5X^2+7X-3
Remember the Sorcerer's Level is 2X, so in terms of class level C=2X
(1/2)*C^3 - (5/4)*C^2 + (7/2)*C - 3

We neglected Cantrips, which IMO should cost 1/4 an SP (1/2 is very clearly overpriced compared to 1st level spells). There are 6 of these at every level except first, so we add 6/4 = 3/2 to each level.

(1/2)*C^3 - (5/4)*C^2 + (7/2)*C - 3/2

The conventions we followed are explicitly defied below level 5 (also at level 20, but w/e I'll let level 20 stand as is). Even though we have made the simplification of a formula for odd class levels (to smooth a clunky progression, to degimp the Sorcerer a little at odd levels, and for elegance's sake), levels 1-4 will need some adjustment. I added +2 SP at levels 1 and 2 and +1 SP at 3 and 4.

{table=head]Class Level|Spell Points
1|4
2|7
3|13
4|26
5|48
6|83
7|134
8|203
9|294
10|409
11|552
12|725
13|932
15|1175
15|1458
16|1783
17|2154
18|2573
19|3044
20|3569[/table]

It should be noted that actually needing to pay for CL means blasting is a little weakened and SR breaking is harder. In my system I would deal with these issues by simply saying you cast at your real CL and the price of a spell is based only on its level and minimum CL. I'm aware this isn't how items do things, but I think this way is just more fair and less headache inducing. This would be the table for Spell Costs:

{table=head]Spell Level|Spell Cost
0|1/4
1|1
2|6
3|15
4|28
5|45
6|66
7|91
8|120
9|153[/table]

I still need to do bonus spells, but I'm out of time now so I'll come back and do that later. I could also do Wizards but prepared spells don't really fit with this mechanic as well.

EDIT: Some more inspiration (I might just make a new thread eventually, not sure, I'm aware this is veering off topic into a much bigger thing)

Wizards use SP too, but they still prepare spells (I would use the even levels from the Wizard progression to do spell points in a formula as well.) When he's preparing spells at the start of the day, a Wizard spends all his SP to first create Spell Slots, and then prepares spells into those slots as normal. So a high level Wizard could have a metric ton of first level spells prepared, but he would have had to spend all the SP and prepare them during his prep phase at the start of the day, and it would take away SP from making high level slots and using those to prep higher level spells.

[lesser_minion]

This is seriously not enough SP though. At level 20 and a stat of 30 you have 3*20+4*10=100 points, which isn't even enough to cast one 9th. SP has to scale correctly too.


I'm sorry, that wasn't clear. I meant my suggestion to be read as an alternative to the OP's idea, not as an addition.