Material Components a Burden?

[jedipotter]

So is keeping track of Material Components for a spellcasting character such a huge burden? I say no.

Lets take Zelna the 7th level conjurer 7, she has the following spells memorized:



4th -- Dimension door, ice storm
3rd -- displacement, fireball, fly, stinking cloud
2nd -- glitterdust, protection from arrows, see invisibility, shatter, summon swarm
1st -- expeditious retreat, grease, magic weapon, shield, true strike, unseen servant
0 -- arcane mark, detect magic (2), light, mage hand
Opposition Schools enchantment, necromancy

And her spellbook: Spellbook spells prepared plus 0 -- acid splash, dancing lights, detect poison, flare, ghost sound, mending, open/close, prestidigitation, ray of frost, read magic, resistance; 1st -- mount, Tenser's floating disk; 2nd -- locate object, Melf's acid arrow; 3rd -- dispel magic, tongues; 4th -- minor creation

So,

0-arcane mark, detect magic, mage hand, acid splash, dancing lights, detect poison, flare, mending, prestidigitation and ray of frost all have no material components. For light she just needs a firefly or glowing moss. Ghost sounds needs wool or wax. Open/close needs a brass key focus, and read magic needs a crystal prism focus. She can have fireflies (10) no problem, and she only has the spell memorized once anyway. And even if she used it four times a day, fireflies are easy to find and catch at night in temperate woodlands. The player just needs to say something like ''before Zelna sleeps she will catch some fireflies and roll a 1d10.'' Note the action takes only five seconds.

1st level- expeditious retreat, magic weapon, and shield have no material components. Grease needs some butter, unseen servant string and wood, mount needs horse hair, and Tenser's disk needs a drop of mercury. True strike needs a target focus. so she has ''butter(15)'' on her sheet. And again it's only five seconds to ''search of kitchen for butter and roll a 1d20''. String, wood and a horse are no problems. Though she has to keep a very close eye on the mercury(10). That is something she won't find in nature easily. She will need to buy it at a magic shop when she has the chance or loot it off an foe wizard....though she does not have the spell memorized for this very reason.

2nd level- Glitterdust needs ground mica, protection from arrows needs a piece of a turtle shell, See Invisibility needs talc and powered silver, shatter needs mica, summon swarm needs a square of red cloth, Locate object needs a focus of a forked twig and Melfs arrow needs a rubarb leaf and an adder stomach. This level gets harder, a lot of the materials are uncommon. Even her Mica(40) will run out if she spams the spells that use it like crazy. So she does not use glitterdust or shatter in every encounter, but only when she really feels the need too. She knows she can't ''go find mica'' during the game, but she will be sure to buy or loot some if she can. Both talc and powered sliver are things she ''can't just find'', so she needs to keep close track of them, and buy and loot. The rubard leaf is easy, but not the adder stomach. But then she does not have acid arrow memorized.

3rd level- Dispel magic has none, Displacement needs leather displace beast hide so she only has (5) and must be careful, unless she encounters such a beast, she can only loot and buy this one....and it's rare and has a cost. Fireball needs bat guano and sulfur, the bat guano is not too hard, but this is a Survival check she might not make and sulfur is not laying around much. Again she will need to buy/loot this, but at least fireball is a common spell. The fly focus wing is no problem. Sticking cloud needs a rotten egg, easy to find on any chicken farm or kitchen. Tounges needs a bit of clay, easy to find .

4th level- Dimension door has no material components, Ice storm needs dust and water, and minor creation needs a bit of whatever is created.

So over all, half of her spells have no material component, or one she can find in less then five seconds in the right area or location. The other half she needs to be careful. She can't spam the other spells like crazy. She always has to keep an eye out for the rare components, where she can take the five seconds to grab some. She has to overly target other spellcasters to get their pouches. And some times she just needs to target the pouch. She can't use Glitterdust all the time, and she can't use See Invisibility all the time either, and that adds to the overall game balance as she can't spam them spells.

She is much more likely to run out of spells before components in an adventuring day. She can only cast one fireball a day, after all. Though she has to be careful, after a couple days she will run out of material components as well. She has to keep track of them. She might run out of sulfur and not be able to cast fireball for several game play hours.

And if she has not had a fireball in a while...this happens:


The group moves out of the castle doorway, when a fireball flies over from the distance and explodes...burning most. Ev'l Dargorm says ''Haha, we meet again'' as hobgoblin thugs move forward, And the group counter attacks.....except Zelna who casts fly...and zips up and arcs over to crash land into Dargorm! She starts a grapple with him attempting to stop his spellcasting and pin and disarm his spell component pouch. It's a couple of quick rolls but she grabs the pouch, and expeditious retreats away....and then fireballs Ev'l Dargorm to ashes as the hobgoblin thugs run.

[eggynack]

That's a lot of stuff to keep track of, and that's with you underselling things by quite a bit. In particular, this character has relatively few spells over and above those granted by leveling, and the number would obviously increase by a lot at higher levels. It doesn't help that many of the cited components are quite onerous, as you've mentioned. Some components are easy to find, but others are heavily dependent on setting, including your noted firefly solution for light. All I can really see here is what I saw before, which is a massive pile of fiddly little game objects that you have to constantly be tracking, and cross referencing against various locations.

[atemu1234]

That's a lot of stuff to keep track of, and that's with you underselling things by quite a bit. In particular, this character has relatively few spells over and above those granted by leveling, and the number would obviously increase by a lot at higher levels. It doesn't help that many of the cited components are quite onerous, as you've mentioned. Some components are easy to find, but others are heavily dependent on setting, including your noted firefly solution for light. All I can really see here is what I saw before, which is a massive pile of fiddly little game objects that you have to constantly be tracking, and cross referencing against various locations.

I agree with eggy.

[Barbarian Horde]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Eschew_Materials
Your other option is to get the above feat.
And at epic levels get Ignore Material Components

Well I mean you could house rule it to not matter.
I think our house rules were nothing over 500g.
As an example. You would not have diamond dust. But you would have a turtle shell.

[Flickerdart]

"I am sworn to carry your burdens."

Just get a housecarl and charge them with supplying you with all this stuff. The party fighter probably isn't doing anything important anyway.

[P.F.]

So is keeping track of Material Components for a spellcasting character such a huge burden? I say no.

Lets take Zelna the 7th level conjurer 7, she has the following spells memorized:



4th -- Dimension door, ice storm
3rd -- displacement, fireball, fly, stinking cloud
2nd -- glitterdust, protection from arrows, see invisibility, shatter, summon swarm
1st -- expeditious retreat, grease, magic weapon, shield, true strike, unseen servant
0 -- arcane mark, detect magic (2), light, mage hand
Opposition Schools enchantment, necromancy

And her spellbook: Spellbook spells prepared plus 0 -- acid splash, dancing lights, detect poison, flare, ghost sound, mending, open/close, prestidigitation, ray of frost, read magic, resistance; 1st -- mount, Tenser's floating disk; 2nd -- locate object, Melf's acid arrow; 3rd -- dispel magic, tongues; 4th -- minor creation

So,

0-arcane mark, detect magic, mage hand, acid splash, dancing lights, detect poison, flare, mending, prestidigitation and ray of frost all have no material components. For light she just needs a firefly or glowing moss. Ghost sounds needs wool or wax. Open/close needs a brass key focus, and read magic needs a crystal prism focus. She can have fireflies (10) no problem, and she only has the spell memorized once anyway. And even if she used it four times a day, fireflies are easy to find and catch at night in temperate woodlands. The player just needs to say something like ''before Zelna sleeps she will catch some fireflies and roll a 1d10.'' Note the action takes only five seconds.

1st level- expeditious retreat, magic weapon, and shield have no material components. Grease needs some butter, unseen servant string and wood, mount needs horse hair, and Tenser's disk needs a drop of mercury. True strike needs a target focus. so she has ''butter(15)'' on her sheet. And again it's only five seconds to ''search of kitchen for butter and roll a 1d20''. String, wood and a horse are no problems. Though she has to keep a very close eye on the mercury(10). That is something she won't find in nature easily. She will need to buy it at a magic shop when she has the chance or loot it off an foe wizard....though she does not have the spell memorized for this very reason.

2nd level- Glitterdust needs ground mica, protection from arrows needs a piece of a turtle shell, See Invisibility needs talc and powered silver, shatter needs mica, summon swarm needs a square of red cloth, Locate object needs a focus of a forked twig and Melfs arrow needs a rubarb leaf and an adder stomach. This level gets harder, a lot of the materials are uncommon. Even her Mica(40) will run out if she spams the spells that use it like crazy. So she does not use glitterdust or shatter in every encounter, but only when she really feels the need too. She knows she can't ''go find mica'' during the game, but she will be sure to buy or loot some if she can. Both talc and powered sliver are things she ''can't just find'', so she needs to keep close track of them, and buy and loot. The rubard leaf is easy, but not the adder stomach. But then she does not have acid arrow memorized.

3rd level- Dispel magic has none, Displacement needs leather displace beast hide so she only has (5) and must be careful, unless she encounters such a beast, she can only loot and buy this one....and it's rare and has a cost. Fireball needs bat guano and sulfur, the bat guano is not too hard, but this is a Survival check she might not make and sulfur is not laying around much. Again she will need to buy/loot this, but at least fireball is a common spell. The fly focus wing is no problem. Sticking cloud needs a rotten egg, easy to find on any chicken farm or kitchen. Tounges needs a bit of clay, easy to find .

4th level- Dimension door has no material components, Ice storm needs dust and water, and minor creation needs a bit of whatever is created.

So over all, half of her spells have no material component, or one she can find in less then five seconds in the right area or location. The other half she needs to be careful. She can't spam the other spells like crazy. She always has to keep an eye out for the rare components, where she can take the five seconds to grab some. She has to overly target other spellcasters to get their pouches. And some times she just needs to target the pouch. She can't use Glitterdust all the time, and she can't use See Invisibility all the time either, and that adds to the overall game balance as she can't spam them spells.

She is much more likely to run out of spells before components in an adventuring day. She can only cast one fireball a day, after all. Though she has to be careful, after a couple days she will run out of material components as well. She has to keep track of them. She might run out of sulfur and not be able to cast fireball for several game play hours.

Wow when you put it like that it sounds like quite a hassle just keeping track of which things go with which spells, let alone keeping track of which ones you have.

[Deophaun]

My eyes glazed over halfway through the cantrips. So, to answer the question in the thread title: Yes.

[icefractal]

Depends what the focus of the game is supposed to be. Like, if this is a survivalist game based on being in inhospitable/uncivilized areas and scrabbling for resources, then this sounds entirely appropriate. Or if it's an all-Wizard game, with a significant on-screen focus on spell components, spellbooks, knowledge trading, and so forth, then likewise, fits in great.

If it's a more general exploration game, then I'd be less keen on it, seems like it takes a lot of fiddlyness for something that's not supposed to be the point. And if it's a campaign about mythic heroes on a world-spanning quest, then no, doesn't sound like a good addition at all.

For a logistics and dragons type of thing, the concept of components you care about tracking sounds good, but I'd change the specifics. Right now, spell potency and component difficulty are orthogonal. If you wanted component access to be a major strategic thing, you'd want to revamp things so that spells with more difficult components were the better ones.


A while ago, I was thinking about fleshing out the mechanics for trading spells, and I realized you could expand that into the entire focus for a campaign - make some of them rare and jealously monopolized, have numerous arcane colleges, guilds, and orders with shifting alliances between them, introduce ideas like putting a hidden weakness in a spell when you create it, then trying to distribute it widely so you can take advantage of that fact, and so forth.

Which I still want to do some time, but I realized that's only going to work if you make the game about that and have everyone interacting with it.

[eggynack]

Depends what the focus of the game is supposed to be. Like, if this is a survivalist game based on being in inhospitable/uncivilized areas and scrabbling for resources, then this sounds entirely appropriate.
As I noted in the other thread, even for a game of that sort, this seems like a bit much. Most survival stuff is reasonably substitutable, even across a variety of needs on occasion, but everything about material components is incredibly specific.


For a logistics and dragons type of thing, the concept of components you care about tracking sounds good, but I'd change the specifics. Right now, spell potency and component difficulty are orthogonal. If you wanted component access to be a major strategic thing, you'd want to revamp things so that spells with more difficult components were the better ones.
Definitely true. A system where displacement is very difficult to use, while alter self is trivial, doesn't really make all that much sense if you're going for balance.

[Svata]

Burden? Maybe, maybe not. Massive pain in the ass? Oh, most definitely.

[Blackhawk748]

My eyes glazed over halfway through the cantrips. So, to answer the question in the thread title: Yes.

seconded, thirded, fourthed etc

[AvatarVecna]

In before Grod_the_Giant gets the chance to quote his own rule.

More seriously, I don't think this is a good rule. That's not to say I don't think there should be a more mechanically-supported check on casters beyond Rule 0, because I do, but I can't think of any game where this would be viable. The process of collecting spell components could be played in one of two ways: it could be a series of tedious tasks the spellcaster must perform the act of collection in game-time (IOW, taking lots of time to focus on tedious tasks being carried out by one PC, to the detriment of the others), or it just gets hand-waved into a background activity, much like it already was. In both cases, there's another major difference, in that the player must now either optimize their down-time or give themselves infinite time to collect stuff before going on adventures.

Of course, this is all circumvented by the caster spending a feat on Eschew Materials, which solves the problem of finding all inexpensive materials (what with there already being rules in place governing the acquisition of expensive components).

[Renen]

{scrubbed}

[Invader]

In 15 years of playing,I've never been in a group where anyone cared about material components (player or dm) except for especially expensive ones or in some cases, very rare ones.

[Qwertystop]

And then you add in odd other things regarding the unusual quantities. Light requires a firefly? If they have to be alive, that's quite a lot of trouble to keep them that way while adventuring. If, more likely, they don't have to be alive (or can be stored in suspended animation somehow so you don't need to keep them fed and jarred, which comes to the same thing), it's kind of crazy to only be able to hold on to ten.

Shatter is even worse - "a chip of mica" is probably smaller than your smallest toenail, and thinner, and if it happens to break in half you just have two chips, so there's no need to carry padding. Enough mica to fill a vial the size of your thumb is probably several hundred chips. And depending on the geology of the area, it'll probably be either pretty easy to find in massive quantities (relative to the amount you need for a single Shatter) or nigh-impossible.

[Kanthalion]

In 15 years of playing,I've never been in a group where anyone cared about material components (player or dm) except for especially expensive ones or in some cases, very rare ones.

This has always been my groups MO. With the exception of really expensive/rare/plot McGuffin type stuff, we just hand wave that the magic user in question has what he needs.

EDIT: Correction, he IS expected to buy a component pouch. THEN we do the hand wave.

[questionmark693]

The way I've always seen it played (let me know if this is out of the ordinary) is if it has no cost listed and you either have eschew materials or a spell component pouch, then you cast it with no issue. If it has a listed price, you pay that price at the time of casting, based on the assumption that you bought components last time the party stocked up. Pretty much avoids the issue, you only need to remember the cost associated with specific spells, keeps things smoother

[Grod_The_Giant]

So, correct me if I'm wrong, jedi: isn't one of your major pet peeves players who steal the spotlight? Because that's pretty much the opposite of what this kind of bookkeeping will do. You'll force the mage player to spend a significant amount of gametime making sure that he can keep using his powers-- which will be just as game-changingly powerful when they are cast, mind you. So you're saying "you can either play a commoner with Knowledge skills, or you can put the rest of the game on hold while you look for bat ****."

And let's be honest-- the reason the spell component pouch exists is that it's tedious to do this sort of thing. It might be interesting for a little bit, but after the second or third session I'd give up and hire people to collect the stuff for me. (And there's not much you can do in-game to prevent that, not and still have the world operate with any semblance of logic)

It could work in the right kind of game... but that sort of game would probably be a gritty, low-level, solo game, where it doesn't matter if tracking down spell components takes a bunch of time. But overall... this is exactly the sort of "balance fix" that I coined Grod's Law in regards to:

Obnoxious players will insist on having time to gather their components
Powergamers will figure out how to circumvent the restrictions, and continue to operate as before
Normal gamers will look at the rules, say "yuck," and refluff a psion or warlock or something.
Newbies will get frustrated with the massive hassle (especially when they go through all the trouble only to see an enemy make their save) and either change classes or give up on gaming altogether (because it's just a bunch of boring nit-picking)


A better way of giving the flavor, perhaps, would be to reduce spell components to a few broad categories based on location: urban items, desert items, whatever. Say that items have to be harvested within the last day-- a background task that takes about one hour, reduced by an appropriate check (Survival or Gather Information, probably). If you can only harvest urban components, you can only cast urban spells (and those with no components, which should be fairly common). That way you get the need to use different spells, without any major increase in bookkeeping. (Casters with limited lists could get mauled by this, though-- they might need extra spells known to compensate for some percentage always being unavailable)

[Telok]

I've seen it done back in AD&D, I've done it back in AD&D.

Nobody minded then because you were getting the power to tell reality to go cry in a corner and you expected some sort of balacing to happen. Back then it was limited spells, automatic spell failure if you got hit, 15 minute per spell level prep time, and spell components.

A 3.5 caster has roughly double the number of spells, can avoid spell failure, 15 minutes preps all spells, and doesn't have to track things like how many gold dragon scales he has in his bag.

People complain about casters being overpowered. By reintroducing the 15 minute per spell level prep time I got a year long campaign with zero PC prepared casters. Traditionally ultimate magical power came at a price, choose your price. If your price is zero then expect casters to either rule the game or have spells be exactly as powerful as swinging a sword.

[fishyfishyfishy]

The way I've always seen it played (let me know if this is out of the ordinary) is if it has no cost listed and you either have eschew materials or a spell component pouch, then you cast it with no issue. If it has a listed price, you pay that price at the time of casting, based on the assumption that you bought components last time the party stocked up. Pretty much avoids the issue, you only need to remember the cost associated with specific spells, keeps things smoother

Yes, that is correct. Jedipotter is asserting that forcing spell casters to tediously keep track of all of their components is not only a good thing to house rule, it's somehow making the game more fun. Personally I think the whole concept of arbitrary material components that are really just bad jokes is stupid. I like the style of the Arcane Focus of 4e and 5e. Its much more thematic and flavorful to have a staff that you channel your magic through than bat guano and sulfur.

[TheIronGolem]

The player just needs to say something like ''before Zelna sleeps she will catch some fireflies and roll a 1d10.'' Note the action takes only five seconds.
Triple that at least, because you forgot the time she needs to look at the equipment list on her character sheet, find "Fireflies" among all the other material components (and all her other gear), erase the number that's currently next to it, and write in the new number. The search time will only get longer as the campaign progressses, as her growing spell list demands more and more materials to search through before she finds the right one. And that's one component for one spell. Now multiply that by the number of spells she wants to refresh after a few encounters. Even if you assume half her spells don't need MC's, that's going to add up quick - especially as some spells require multiple components. Over the course of a campaign, that can easily mean hours doing your pointless busywork - hours that could otherwise have been spent on the fun parts of D&D.

Also, what about the in-game time that this requires? I recall you saying in other threads that you take issue with a player going off to collect material components before the party goes into a dangerous unknown area, because that's somehow "solo adventuring" or something. Why didn't it only take "five seconds" then?




The group moves out of the castle doorway, when a fireball flies over from the distance and explodes...burning most. Ev'l Dargorm says ''Haha, we meet again'' as hobgoblin thugs move forward, And the group counter attacks.....except Zelna who casts fly...and zips up and arcs over to crash land into Dargorm! She starts a grapple with him attempting to stop his spellcasting and pin and disarm his spell component pouch. It's a couple of quick rolls but she grabs the pouch, and expeditious retreats away....and then fireballs Ev'l Dargorm to ashes as the hobgoblin thugs run.


The degree to which your "steal his material components and use them against him!" example is contrived (a wizard intentionally starting a grapple?) shows how narrow the list of situations in which it can make any kind of dramatically-relevant difference is. This kind of scenario might come up in one game out of ten, which is a pretty poor return on the fiddly homework you're assigning.

Besides, knowing you I suspect that this scenario wouldn't actually play out the way you describe, but instead you'd suddenly decide that she has to spend a round or two rifling through the baddie's spell component pouch to see if he has any leftover bat guano, while the hobgoblins bear down on her. And she probably wouldn't find any, even though you'd been planning to have the guy fireball them again.

RPG's already have a problem with bookkeeping requirements. Increasing those requirements does not make the game better.

[eggynack]

Nobody minded then because you were getting the power to tell reality to go cry in a corner and you expected some sort of balacing to happen. Back then it was limited spells, automatic spell failure if you got hit, 15 minute per spell level prep time, and spell components.

Balance is fine, but as Grod notes, annoyance based balance just leads to annoyance. Those other things are just fine, because they pull from the character rather than the player, but material component based balance is a bad idea, at least in this form.

[TheIronGolem]

Nobody minded then because you were getting the power to tell reality to go cry in a corner and you expected some sort of balacing to happen. Back then it was limited spells, automatic spell failure if you got hit, 15 minute per spell level prep time, and spell components.

Actually, plenty of people minded that, which is why it was frequently ignored at 2E tables (just like other silly 2E elements like race/class restrictions), and then dropped for 3E and on.

And it never "balanced" things anyway; Caster Supremacy was worse back then, not better.

Material components weren't even added for the purpose of balancing anyway. They just picked components that seemed thematically appropriate and weren't actually trying to weigh the difficulty of finding and keeping a component against the power of the spell in question.

Unbalanced plus annoying does not equal balanced, it equals unbalanced and annoying.

[Marlowe]

{scrubbed}

Anyway, on a certain other games forum there is a certain poster who claims to have played with Gygax and invented the Gelatinous Cube. He doesn't pull out the grognard stick very often, so he's taken fairly seriously. His comments on spell material components (at least, those without a listed price) were interesting: That they are stupid jokes. That they have always stupid jokes. That they have never been intended as serious parts of the game mechanics. That they seemed funny at the time and that if they'd known people would still be arguing about them 40 years later they'd have cut them entirely.

Jedi, you missed the joke.

[P.F.]

Yes, that is correct. Jedipotter is asserting that forcing spell casters to tediously keep track of all of their components is not only a good thing to house rule, it's somehow making the game more fun.

The biggest problem I can see here is that players might try to make the game less fun by taking the Eschew Materials feat. For the explicit components style of play to work Eschew Materials would need to be a metamagic feat, and spells prepared without materials take up a slot, say, four levels higher than the original. That would put it on par with quicken spell, and in such a campaign it would be every bit as useful.

[Amphetryon]

Yes. As presented, material components are a burden imposed by the DM, above and beyond the generally agreed-upon design intent of 3.X.

[Coidzor]

Haven't we already had this thread happen earlier? :smallconfused:

Or was it just part of one of the three or four initial jedipotter megathreads? :smallconfused:

It feels like this particular topic has been covered fully in the past year with most of the same people having responded.

[Svata]

Haven't we already had this thread happen earlier? :smallconfused:

Or was it just part of one of the three or four initial jedipotter megathreads? :smallconfused:

It feels like this particular topic has been covered fully in the past year with most of the same people having responded.

Yes, yes, and yes. It was the heart of the "balancing bad mechanics" thread, and has been chimed in on as bad by most everyone in the forum.

[Qwertystop]

Haven't we already had this thread happen earlier? :smallconfused:

Or was it just part of one of the three or four initial jedipotter megathreads? :smallconfused:

It feels like this particular topic has been covered fully in the past year with most of the same people having responded.

Pretty much, yeah. It was a major but nontotal part of one of the big threads. Maybe the same one with the extradimensional space ban? They feel related.

[kellbyb]

Pretty much, yeah. It was a major but nontotal part of one of the big threads. Maybe the same one with the extradimensional space ban? They feel related.

It was the realistic economy thread.

[eggynack]

It was the realistic economy thread.
It was that one, and as Svata noted, it was also the balancing bad mechanics thread, and then it probably popped up a couple of times in other threads in lesser roles, and now it's another two or three threads, depending on how this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?392682-What-components-for-what-school) plays out.

[P.F.]

What we really need is a Spell Component Compendium. Like a massive index of spell components and which spell or spells they go with, and where to find them. Put in a fair market value, too. How much does one fireball's worth of sulphur cost? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Renen]

{scrubbed}

[Kraken]

Add my name to the list of people who have never encountered a table where you need to keep track of any component that would otherwise be taken care of by eschew materials.

[AuraTwilight]

{scrubbed}

[Necroticplague]

I've seen it done back in AD&D, I've done it back in AD&D.

Nobody minded then because you were getting the power to tell reality to go cry in a corner and you expected some sort of balacing to happen. Back then it was limited spells, automatic spell failure if you got hit, 15 minute per spell level prep time, and spell components.

A 3.5 caster has roughly double the number of spells, can avoid spell failure, 15 minutes preps all spells, and doesn't have to track things like how many gold dragon scales he has in his bag.

People complain about casters being overpowered. By reintroducing the 15 minute per spell level prep time I got a year long campaign with zero PC prepared casters. Traditionally ultimate magical power came at a price, choose your price. If your price is zero then expect casters to either rule the game or have spells be exactly as powerful as swinging a sword.

Well, in any ideal situation, the latter. Making magic onerous to perform doesn't make it weaker, just more onerous. After all, if I manage to cast Astral Projection, it doesn't matter how much effort it took me to do so, I'm still getting the same game-breaking potential. All it does is make playing a spellcaster less desirable, without making them weaker. And having very few spells/day to balance powerful spells is a horrible game design decision, as it creates a binary situation where the spellcaster is either incredibly powerful (if they have spells left), or completely useless (if they are out of spells/don't have any relevant ones prepared), both of which are both boring and bad for balance.

[Brookshw]

As to the OP, I never considered it especially burdensome in previous editions but rather added a layer of depth/roleplay to the game rather than some nebulous hammer space. In today's world, I wouldn't require a player to track anything outside of xp or gold cost associated with spells. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to players having to track the resources for all spells, and would silently applaud those that chose to do so, but making it a requirement is perhaps asking too much for a return not everyone will place value on.


Well, in any ideal situation, the latter. Making magic onerous to perform doesn't make it weaker, just more onerous. After all, if I manage to cast Astral Projection, it doesn't matter how much effort it took me to do so, I'm still getting the same game-breaking potential. All it does is make playing a spellcaster less desirable, without making them weaker. And having very few spells/day to balance powerful spells is a horrible game design decision, as it creates a binary situation where the spellcaster is either incredibly powerful (if they have spells left), or completely useless (if they are out of spells/don't have any relevant ones prepared), both of which are both boring and bad for balance. I don't think I ever had any of those experiences when the memorization times were based on spell level and took much longer than the current edition. It did, likely, do something to balance out how much power a caster was bringing to the field at any given time from a resource management perspective. Sure, there were still powerful things a caster could do. There are supposed to be, they're casters after all. Having to take a good chunk of a day to regain a 9th level spell retained the power but limited there use in a dungeon crawl or any time crunch situation.

[prufock]

Not only is it a burden, it's an annoying one, and adds nothing useful to the game. Is it fun? No. Is it challenging? No.

There might be one in a thousand players who would appreciate this level of detail, but for the most part, it's taking up time, effort, and other resources for no added benefit.

[Haruki-kun]

The Winged Mod: People, please stick to the topic at hand and be more civil towards each other. Do not post just to negate the purpose of the thread (threadcrapping) or to predict the thread will end badly(doomsaying). Both of these things are explicitly forbidden by the Rules.

[Xelbiuj]

I like the idea of it. It adds a richness and depth that I think they're lacking. Seems like much needed balancing for the arcanes.
Yeah it adds clutter and bookkeeping but all the better for roll playing.

In Ultima Online, my brother had (among his many characters) a thief mage, and would often initiate his attack by stealing their spell components, specifically the ones to cure poison, garlic I think it was.

[Flickerdart]

Yeah it adds clutter and bookkeeping but all the better for roll playing.
The opposite is the case. If you aren't forced to waste your time on spreadsheets, you have more to devote to roleplaying.

[Vhaidara]

Personally, I remove material components costing less than 10gp completely. If the players want to have their character playing with bat crap to cast a fireball, that's entirely a flavor decision they make. Maybe they prefer to use coal or a tindertwig. Or maybe they don't have material components. It has no impact on balance either way.

[Coidzor]

The opposite is the case. If you aren't forced to waste your time on spreadsheets, you have more to devote to roleplaying.

And even if they meant roll-playing as in the actual looting and killing of orcs - y'know, the fun parts! - then your statement still applies, since this material components rule would detract from the amount of time spent on that as well.

[Telok]

And it never "balanced" things anyway; Caster Supremacy was worse back then, not better.
You opinion differs from my opinion. In my experiences the limits on casters in AD&D kept them from being the Superman to the fighter's Aquaman that is so often the case in 3.+ and which everyone complains about.
The people in my groups back then did not find the material components horribly bad and they were one of the limits on caster power. It probably helped that we never needed to know more than about 20 components anyways, what with the fewer spells and smaller lists back then. The tone change in the game at around levels 10 to 12 probably factored in too, once you had enough spells for components to be bothersome you stopped being murder-hobos and had followers to keep you supplied with the boring bits.

If you want casting to be as easy as swinging a sword then it can't be any more powerful than that or you get the whole caster vs martial thing.

[icefractal]

Over time, spells have been getting steadily less powerful but also easier to cast. I think the apex of caster power is probably 3E, not sure if 3.0 or 3.5 would be the peak. Earlier editions have more powerful spells, but also non-trivial obstacles to using them. 4E has easier spells, but they're nowhere near as powerful.

5E's a bit of an exception. From what I've seen, spell ease is somewhere between 2E and 3E, spell power is mostly between 3E and 4E except that some spells have pretty big loopholes.

[ellindsey]

My players and I have limited time for gaming. We meet every other week and have 2-3 hours to game. None of us are there to play Spell Component Shopping: the RPG, so we tend to handwave a lot of the tracking of more mundane and routine supplies in the interest of getting to the parts of the game everyone finds fun. Nobody bothers keeping track of free spell components, and even stuff like diamond dust I track and handle by Email rather than force them to waste table time dealing with.

[Allianis]

{scrubbed}

Anyway, on a certain other games forum there is a certain poster who claims to have played with Gygax and invented the Gelatinous Cube. He doesn't pull out the grognard stick very often, so he's taken fairly seriously. His comments on spell material components (at least, those without a listed price) were interesting: That they are stupid jokes. That they have always stupid jokes. That they have never been intended as serious parts of the game mechanics. That they seemed funny at the time and that if they'd known people would still be arguing about them 40 years later they'd have cut them entirely.

Jedi, you missed the joke.

I don't mean to speak for others without their consent, but I would venture to guess if they had known people would still be arguing about spell components 40 years later...it would have just made the joke THAT MUCH FUNNIER.

:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Of course, just to chime in, I side with the crowd on this one. I've never even heard of anyone caring about spell components so long as the wizard has his spell component pouch. I always assumed it was a decent mechanic to take the wizard prisoner, similar to taking away the fighter's sword.

[Doc_Maynot]

In my opinion, if you really wanted to do some form of material tracking, just make the Spell Component Pouch work like the Packrat feat, but that would involve going through the spells and pricing the components they use. But I don't think any one wants to have that sort of burden, just like the player's should not have to have the burden of tracking the components.

[TheIronGolem]

If you want casting to be as easy as swinging a sword then it can't be any more powerful than that or you get the whole caster vs martial thing.

I do, and it shouldn't. Not sure why you're presenting that as an undesirable option.

From the player's point of view, casting damned well should be as easy as swinging a sword. "I cast Fireball" should never have to be preceded by "wait, how many bat poops do I have again?" or followed by "okay, now to decrement my bat poop count by 1". Going on about how mastering the merest cantrip takes years of dedicated study that the stupid fighter could never handle is all well and good in-universe, but there's no need for that narrative trope to translate into busywork for the player.

And casting shouldn't be any more powerful than swinging a sword - at least, not when it comes to fighting bad guys.

As for why your 2E experience differs from mine? Maybe you were playing at the same low levels of optimization that often mask 3.X's issues. Maybe you had some solid gentleman's agreements going. Maybe the DM was skewing things (intentionally or not) towards the martial types. Maybe something else. I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Casters ruled the day before 3E even more than they did after it, and material components were a speedbump at best. As noted already, they were never created to be a balancing factor, just as flavor.

[Brookshw]

And even if they meant roll-playing as in the actual looting and killing of orcs - y'know, the fun parts! - then your statement still applies, since this material components rule would detract from the amount of time spent on that as well.

Depends on how it was enacted I'd imagine. If something a bit lower key such as ammo seems a bit easier. Knowing you're starting the dungeon crawl with, using Fireball as an example, enough components for 10, just write the 10 in parenthesis on the sheet and start tallying when it's used. The time sink would come in during the shopping (or gathering, whatever) period but you could plan out what you wanted to buy between sessions so as to avoid reduced play time "at table". Of course if you're having to scavenge for supplies during an adventure that could certainly be another matter. If we're talking specifics (guano, sulfur) that's a level of tracking that probably doesn't need to happen. I could certainly see some form of limit akin to "ammo" assisting verisimilitude for some and being helpful for resource deprived adventure types. Of course by the time bags of holding and such come on line why someone wouldn't be carrying several hundred spells worth of each is a whole other matter and makes the idea practically useless. Some form of middle ground between hammer space full of infinite guano and scrapping for a single bat dropping should be possible, I'm not sure I like the idea of being up to my eyeballs in bat droppings and watching that level rise and I pour out the spell component pouch :smallannoyed:



As for why your 2E experience differs from mine? Maybe you were playing at the same low levels of optimization that often mask 3.X's issues. Maybe you had some solid gentleman's agreements going. Maybe the DM was skewing things (intentionally or not) towards the martial types. Maybe something else. I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Casters ruled the day before 3E even more than they did after it, and material components were a speedbump at best. Think so? I always found the time required to re-memorize things helped maintain parity to some extent. How did the games play out for you?

[Grod_The_Giant]

The time sink would come in during the shopping (or gathering, whatever) period but you could plan out what you wanted to buy between sessions so as to avoid reduced play time "at table".
Yeah... that almost never happens in my experience.

I think any effort to actually care about components in a game should be paired with a system to cut down the number of components to something easy to keep track of. Maybe by school, maybe by level, whatever-- there's a discussion going on in the other thread. Keeping track of ammo is kind of irritating, but an archer will only have at most a handful of different arrow types to keep track of. A wizard could easily have upwards of a hundred different components to keep track of separately.

[P.F.]

Over time, spells have been getting steadily less powerful but also easier to cast. I think the apex of caster power is probably 3E, not sure if 3.0 or 3.5 would be the peak.

Third edition D&D, hands down. Because Haste 3.0.

At my table we treat the petty spell components as binary. At any given time, you can either cast spells that require material components or you can't. It usually comes up about twice in a caster's lifetime: there's the "Can't Use 'Em 'Cause You're Tied Up" encounter, and the obligatory "You Have to Fight Without Your Stuff" encounter.

[icefractal]

Re: Ease of casting / power of spells vs sword swinging.

1) Abilities that are harder to use but more powerful are completely viable to balance, and IMO a desirable feature for the game. The cost should be something that consistently matters though. For example, extra time taken in combat. An ability that takes a turn to set up before being usable can be 2-3x as good as a standard one, for instance. Or per-encounter abilities. Per-day may or may not be a good way to balance, depending on your campaign style. This doesn't only have to apply to magic - assassination-type abilities (setup delay) and adrenalin-surge boosts (per encounter) are good examples.

2) For anything in the D&D niche, it had better have strategic-scale abilities that can be used in outside-the-box ways, with mechanical support, or I'm not interested. Ideally, all classes would have access to these, but that's secondary. I'd rather play an unbalanced mess where I can have those kind of abilities than a perfectly designed game that omits them. 4E Rituals were actually the best implementation of this - they were just waaay too conservative with them. 4E rituals with less cost and closer to 3E power would be perfect.

[Deadline]

@OP - Yes, having to deal with the bookkeeping on specific components over a campaign would be awful. For a one-shot or short vignette, it wouldn't be as bad, because it (hopefully) wouldn't turn into ComponentQuest often.


Think so? I always found the time required to re-memorize things helped maintain parity to some extent. How did the games play out for you?

I know this comment wasn't directed at me, but I noticed the same things as IronGolem, after a certain level, casters overshadowed the martials almost entirely. To the point where the only place the martials were truly useful was against creatures with high Magic Resistance. If I remember right (and it's been a while), the tipping point was right around 9th level or so.

[Rogue Shadows]

For the record, I despise most full casters in this edition for the sheet level of bull**** they can bring to the table...

...and I still wouldn't force this kind of bookkeeping on one. Oh, I'd want them to keep track of things like diamond dust or perfect snow replicas, but not bat guano. They can have all the bat guano they like. And even stuff with actual values fade over time as the players level up and get access to more money.

Here's what I propose instead if I felt I absolutely had to force a regular upkeep cost...

Spell Component Pouch: A character wearing a spell component pouch can be presumed to have any material component of Small or smaller size required for a spell, as long as the material component has no price listed or a price of less than 1 gp (such as detect thoughts's 1 cp or gentle repose's 2 cp). At the end of each day in which a spellcaster cast a spell, roll a d20. On a 1, the components in the pouch have been consumed and the pouch must be replaced.
Spell Component Pouch, masterwork: This comes in five grades. Each grade works just like a normal spell component pouch, as outlined above, except that the pouch contains components of up to a give value in gold, and the player only has to roll to see if his pouch has been consumed if he cast a spell with a material component within the pouch's contents range



Item
Cost
Contains...


Spell pouch
5
Material components with costs of less than 1 gp


Spell pouch, odd
500 gp
1 gp - 100 gp


Spell pouch, irregular
2,500 gp
101 gp - 500 gp


Spell pouch, unlikely
12,500 gp
501 gp - 2,500 gp


spell pouch, fortuitous
62,500 gp
2,501 gp - 12,500 gp


spell pouch, extemporaneous
312,500 gp
12,500 gp - 62,500 gp



Alternatively, a player may buy components for spells individually.

[Qwertystop]

Very round numbers. Are there actually spells in all of those ranges?

[TheIronGolem]

Think so? I always found the time required to re-memorize things helped maintain parity to some extent. How did the games play out for you?
In most games I played (and this still holds true), memorization time rarely affected things in any meaningful way. The reason for this is the disconnect between game-time and real time.

Basically, it might take hours for a wizard to memorize all his spells, but it only takes a second for the player to say "I memorize all my spells", followed by a couple of minutes to write down the new spell list. And because the other players only have to wait a couple of minutes, they don't mind the fact that their characters are waiting around for hours for the wizard - especially if they have spells of their own to memorize, or other downtime activities they can take care of. If nothing else, they set up watch in case something tried to jump us in the middle of spell-prepping. It's rare that anyone minds this, because everyone wants the whole party to be at full strength for whatever's coming next. Any grumbling was purely in-character.

Sure, once in a while there would be a situation where the party had to press on without preparations, due to some kind of time constraint. But they were the exception, and because they were often contrived they tended to come off as a clumsy, artificial way to create challenge (I must confess to doing this as a DM a few times myself; it's a rookie mistake). The few times it was done well, to be fair, did work in a "let's change up the formula for this one" sense, but only because it was unusual.

And in any case, casters still tended to dominate the game once we got past level 6-7 or so, due to the fact that they have so many more options than non-casters (hacks like "Antimagic fields everywhere!" notwithstanding).

So in short, memorization time was occasionally a catalyst for novelty, and a non-factor the rest of the time. As I mentioned, that's still the case in games I play now, the only practical difference being that the DM says "An hour passes" instead of "Ten hours pass" before we continue playing.

[Amphetryon]

I know this comment wasn't directed at me, but I noticed the same things as IronGolem, after a certain level, casters overshadowed the martials almost entirely. To the point where the only place the martials were truly useful was against creatures with high Magic Resistance. If I remember right (and it's been a while), the tipping point was right around 9th level or so.
In my memory of my experiences, 4th level spells represented 'the tipping point' in 2E, where casters no longer needed the martial types along except in niche cases. I'm sure there was some variance across different tables.

[Coidzor]

{scrubbed}

[Grod_The_Giant]

Here's what I propose instead if I felt I absolutely had to force a regular upkeep cost...
That's actually really clever. I might have to steal that idea, if you don't mind...

[Necroticplague]

Re: Ease of casting / power of spells vs sword swinging.

1) Abilities that are harder to use but more powerful are completely viable to balance, and IMO a desirable feature for the game. The cost should be something that consistently matters though. For example, extra time taken in combat. An ability that takes a turn to set up before being usable can be 2-3x as good as a standard one, for instance. Or per-encounter abilities. Per-day may or may not be a good way to balance, depending on your campaign style. This doesn't only have to apply to magic - assassination-type abilities (setup delay) and adrenalin-surge boosts (per encounter) are good examples.

Actually, its simply flat-out impossible to balance a high-power ability with limited use/difficult to use outside of one encounter. You can either cast it, in which case you're more powerful than a character should be, or you can't, and you're weaker. Both of these statuses are problematic from a game design perspective.

And from a non-game design perspective, its kinda stupid and versimilitude-breaking to have arbitrary/day limits regardless of amount of encounters. Encounter limits make sense, because we all know the amount of force you can summon at once (keep in mind a lot of encounters are over in less than half a minute) is limited, but how often have you seen in fiction someone who just suddenly runs out of steam because of something that wasn't related to something recent? When did harry dresden go "sorry, can't cast any more fireballs because I cast some this morning"? We see "dang, I'm burnt from repeating this in succession" fairly commonly in fiction, on the other hand, which matches fairly well with /encounter.

[P.F.]

Actually, its simply flat-out impossible to balance a high-power ability with limited use/difficult to use outside of one encounter. You can either cast it, in which case you're more powerful than a character should be, or you can't, and you're weaker. Both of these statuses are problematic from a game design perspective.

And from a non-game design perspective, its kinda stupid and versimilitude-breaking to have arbitrary/day limits regardless of amount of encounters. Encounter limits make sense, because we all know the amount of force you can summon at once (keep in mind a lot of encounters are over in less than half a minute) is limited, but how often have you seen in fiction someone who just suddenly runs out of steam because of something that wasn't related to something recent? When did harry dresden go "sorry, can't cast any more fireballs because I cast some this morning"? We see "dang, I'm burnt from repeating this in succession" fairly commonly in fiction, on the other hand, which matches fairly well with /encounter.

I think there is a balance between can (too powerful) and can't (too weak) which is could but prefer not to. Ideally, spells with an expensive (or rare) material component are spells that you still cast when you need to but don't just use on every Tom **** and Harry you come across.

And I don't think that "once every 1d4 rounds" or "per encounter" really makes any more sense than per day, but what I see in literature is much more like a combined set of once every and per encounter and per day. So like, I can use my special power no more than once every other round but not more than three times per encounter and not more than five times per day. "No, I'm worn out from all that fighting earlier, I need to rest" is not at all the same as "oops I cast one this morning."

And I do consider exertion of my very best powers this morning to be "something recent," if I had to wrestle in a championship match this morning you can bet I'll not be on my best game this afternoon. Major League pitchers don't even like to start two games in a row, and they have a whole day to recover! That screaming hot fastball must have an arbitrary limit of only a few per week! Except for Aroldis Chapman, apparently

[Blue1005]

Even veterans would opt to be meaty shield with all the tax rules required to cast light on a rock.

[Haruki-kun]

The Winged Mod: Closed for review.