Let's Talk About: Vancian Casting

[crunchykoolaid]

Ok this is a topic I've heard quite a bit about during my time in the Playground, and it seems everyone and their Dire Wolf has an opinion about it.

To clarify, Vancian Casting refers to the method of preparing and casting magic spells in DnD, i.e., you have a certain amount of "slots" and can place a spell of a certain level in each slot each day to have it "prepared" for one use that day (this is the classic Wizard example, spontaneous casters have it slightly differently).

My questions are as follows:

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?

2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?

And finally, kind of an offshoot of #2...
3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?

[Masakan]

Ok this is a topic I've heard quite a bit about during my time in the Playground, and it seems everyone and their Dire Wolf has an opinion about it.

To clarify, Vancian Casting refers to the method of preparing and casting magic spells in DnD, i.e., you have a certain amount of "slots" and can place a spell of a certain level in each slot each day to have it "prepared" for one use that day (this is the classic Wizard example, spontaneous casters have it slightly differently).

My questions are as follows:

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?

2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?

And finally, kind of an offshoot of #2...
3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?

1. IMO nothing is really wrong with the magic system itself...it's just that some classes can abuse it more than others, and there are some spells so powerful that you can make entire builds centered around that one spell.

2. I consider Spontaneous Casters to be more balanced than Prepared ones, So I would just get rid of prepared casters altogether, They just get too many spells too soon. And as anyone here will tell you it is VERY easy to make it so you have an answer for everything and anything the dm throws at you. The fact that Classes like sorcerers and bards only have a limited amount of spells they can access, means they have to think about what they wanna specialize in and that means they cant just have an I win button for every situation.

3.I'm honestly a fan of the mana system myself, You can use as many spells as you want or know, but only have you have enough mana to power it. Probably wouldn't work in DnD but I perfer it over anything else.

[EisenKreutzer]

3.I'm honestly a fan of the mana system myself, You can use as many spells as you want or know, but only have you have enough mana to power it. Probably wouldn't work in DnD but I perfer it over anything else.

Psionics is exactly this. It not only works, but is IMO inherently more balanced than Vancian casting.

[Sian]

3.I'm honestly a fan of the mana system myself, You can use as many spells as you want or know, but only have you have enough mana to power it. Probably wouldn't work in DnD but I perfer it over anything else.

Psionics can extremely easily be refluffed into a mana system ... merely change some of the namings (Powers->Spells, PowerPoints->Mana, Psion->Mage etc)

I've run a game with great success where i completely banned all Divine/Arcane magic and let psionics run the whole magical show, merely cherrypicking and adding a few of the healing spells ... It might lack a slight bit of buffing that regular magic can do (easily fixed by letting their buff spells be augmented into being able to be target:touch instead of target:self), but other than that fact it worked very well

Edit: Swordsaged

[crunchykoolaid]

3.I'm honestly a fan of the mana system myself, You can use as many spells as you want or know, but only have you have enough mana to power it. Probably wouldn't work in DnD but I perfer it over anything else.

I've often considered the mana system as a homebrew option, but the problem is assigning a mana cost for every spell in existence. If it was based solely on spell level, that might unbalance what is already a fairly uneven list of spells towards low level spells that are still useful at high levels. If this was fixed, however, I could see it being fairly easy to apply metamagic or other effects to spells, simply increase the mana cost.

Now that I type it out, this all seems eerily similar to the psionic system of power points...

Edit: Holy Double Swordsage'd Batman!

[elonin]

I prefer the psionics system with less spells that scale better than sorc/wiz offerings.

[AvatarVecna]

Vancian Casting seems...arbitrary, at times. A mage can spend their magical power at a steady rate throughout the day, or they can use it all at once; because they have the same total power amount in both scenarios, there's no reason to hold back, since sleeping will reset it. Vancian casting simultaneously requires magic to be more powerful than at-will options, while also encouraging people to essentially make them at-will options (by sleeping every time they're expended). I find myself more than a bit frustrated whenever I think of the obvious inbalance this has resulted in, but since I don't have the power or the knowledge necessary to rebalance the existing system, I work with it however I can.

If we're going for game balance, I would probably prefer a system where using any kind of ability used X power/mana/ki/whatever, and those points regenerated slowly over time; the more powerful the ability, the more points it uses. You can improve your abilities for extra point costs, or give them limits/drawbacks in exchange for a lessened cost. If using an ability would cause your point pool to reach the negatives, a drawback/limit is forced onto the power to make it drain the pool to zero instead of whatever negative number. Becoming more powerful means gaining access to more powerful abilities as well as a much larger point pool. This mechanic would be in place for everything, instead of just mages: martials would have endurance (or ki if that's more appropriate), mages would have mana, sci fi would have Plebtonium, whatever. You'd probably have to put a good bit of work into such a system for it to work better than 4e did without being as boring as 4e was.

[Eldan]

I love prepared casting. (Non-prepared isn't Vancian.) I think it's one of the the most flavourful system out there, certainly better than prepared or psionics.

Why? Because it shows exactly how the mind of a wizard works. Preparation. The wizard has to think about his strategy and his resources and make decisions about what he will need. Unlike other classes, he doesn't always have all his tools at hand, so he needs to plan. It shows intelligence.

It also involves all the rituals of a hermetic spellcaster. Now, I think the solution here is brilliant. The rituals take too long under battlefield conditions, so the wizard finishes them almost and then keeps them locked up in his mind, like a pocket full of cocked and loaded guns.

Which, of course, also features into the arrogance and superiority stereotype. The wizard believes that he has the willpower to take bits and pieces of the universe, put them under immense strain, almost at the point of bursting, and then just locks them up in his head. I like the idea that basically, they are reciting at the back of their minds, the arcane equivalent of neutral gear for a dozen spells.

Now, the implementation is certainly lacking, I'll admit. Mostly because some spells are entirely too versatile. But the base idea is brilliant.

Conversely, I dislike any implementation of "magic points". It's bland, and it's too easy. It removes strategic depth and fluff. I will hate it more when it's called "mana", because mana is an interesting mythological concept that shouldn't be sullied by associating it with magic points.

[Snowbluff]

1. It's k.

2. The 5th edition system combines spontaneous and prepared spellcasting, which makes it a bit more flexible and more forgiving for new players. It also makes it so DCs scale with class level rather than spell level, which means the weaker spell are more usable.

3. I think it works for DND, but you might want a recovering PP/Mana system for more fast paced, action packed shounen type stuff. Of course, that's not balanced in anyway. Fortunately there are Maneuver system (Tome of Battle, DSP's Path of War) in d20 that helps.

Psionics is exactly this. It not only works, but is IMO inherently more balanced than Vancian casting.

Well, inherently more balanced? That's not accurate one bit. Nothing about using PP says you can't get more powerful effect out of it. Otherwise balanced? Maybe.

[Eldan]

Vancian Casting seems...arbitrary, at times. A mage can spend their magical power at a steady rate throughout the day, or they can use it all at once; because they have the same total power amount in both scenarios, there's no reason to hold back, since sleeping will reset it.
.

That is not strictly true. Sleeping is only part of the reset, the other part is waiting for the next day. And honestly, if at any point in an adventure, you can just spare 24 hours for a bit more magic, it probably wasn't that important to begin with.

[Eldan]

Oh, and since it was the question, well, how would I improve it? I did, it's quite long, an almost total magic rewrite. But essentially, what I did:

*Make magic easier to interrupt in combat. Including a possibility of losing control over maintained spells and even prepared spells that aren't yet cast.
*Keep spells prepared, but make preparation more flexible. No need for an "X spells of level 1, Y spells of level 2" list.
*Kick the 1/24 hours preparation limit. The wizard can prepare spells at any time, it just takes time and resources.
*Change how buffs work, so they can be kept up longer.
*Kick out any stupidly versatile spell (planar binding, broad summoning, polymorph, shapechange, and all their damn friends)

[Mehangel]

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?

Bad: (5 Minute Adventure Day) Players more often then not accidentally spend more resources in encounters and thus attempt to retire for the day.


2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?

Replace: Spheres of Power. While psionics isn't bad, spheres of power is far better as players will almost never accidentally spend too many resources in an encounter.


3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?

I believe so yes. It allows low level characters to perform tasks that iconic spellcasters in the media can perform without being overpowered.

[VoxRationis]

Ok this is a topic I've heard quite a bit about during my time in the Playground, and it seems everyone and their Dire Wolf has an opinion about it.

To clarify, Vancian Casting refers to the method of preparing and casting magic spells in DnD, i.e., you have a certain amount of "slots" and can place a spell of a certain level in each slot each day to have it "prepared" for one use that day (this is the classic Wizard example, spontaneous casters have it slightly differently).

My questions are as follows:

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?

2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?

And finally, kind of an offshoot of #2...
3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?

1. The basic Vancian system is just fine. It has certain thematic advantages (like encouraging a cautious, preparation-obsessed kind of wizard, and encouraging calculated spell duels intended to outmaneuver the opponent by forcing them to waste their key spells) that make those using it seem appropriately wizardly (although the level 1 problem of the wizard only being able to do 1 or 2 things a day is an issue). Having a wizard, at least at a basic level, be "fire or forget" lends them a simplicity in terms of use when wargaming that makes me see why Gygax went for it in the first place. There are plenty of reasons why the Vancian system can work in-universe; it especially shuts down the incessant complaints about how silly it is that "waving your hands with a bit of bat guano can produce an explosion," since it's clear that the somatic and verbal components are just triggering an almost-finished effect.

2. Some may say that Vancian casting is imbalanced; I don't see it. Assuming that you can cast the same spells with a mana system, I think the lack of on-the-spot flexibility makes Vancian casting actually less dangerous in a real-world, not-everything-transpired-as-I-had-planned scenario. The lack of flexibility associated with sorcerers in D&D is because their total spell list is smaller than the wizard's total spell list.

3. It works for almost no media designed to emulate the spellcasters of stories that do not begin with Vancian magic. However, you can tell very good stories about wizards with the Vancian system (as Vance did in the first place). I think it works better for books than for television, since it's harder to show that the wizard is running out of spells, or the calculation the wizard does about when to use spells or not, in television (unless you ham-fistedly have the wizard shout it at the top of his lungs).

[Masakan]

I love prepared casting. (Non-prepared isn't Vancian.) I think it's one of the the most flavourful system out there, certainly better than prepared or psionics.

Why? Because it shows exactly how the mind of a wizard works. Preparation. The wizard has to think about his strategy and his resources and make decisions about what he will need. Unlike other classes, he doesn't always have all his tools at hand, so he needs to plan. It shows intelligence.

It also involves all the rituals of a hermetic spellcaster. Now, I think the solution here is brilliant. The rituals take too long under battlefield conditions, so the wizard finishes them almost and then keeps them locked up in his mind, like a pocket full of cocked and loaded guns.

Which, of course, also features into the arrogance and superiority stereotype. The wizard believes that he has the willpower to take bits and pieces of the universe, put them under immense strain, almost at the point of bursting, and then just locks them up in his head. I like the idea that basically, they are reciting at the back of their minds, the arcane equivalent of neutral gear for a dozen spells.

Now, the implementation is certainly lacking, I'll admit. Mostly because some spells are entirely too versatile. But the base idea is brilliant.

Conversely, I dislike any implementation of "magic points". It's bland, and it's too easy. It removes strategic depth and fluff. I will hate it more when it's called "mana", because mana is an interesting mythological concept that shouldn't be sullied by associating it with magic points.

.........This honestly makes me glad that most perfer the mana as a concept.

[Eldan]

Oh? Why is that?

[Masakan]

Oh? Why is that?

Because I don't have to deal with overly Long and unnecessary speeches justifying why it's so good.
That And I'm sure there have been more than a few instances Official story or other wise, about Prepared casters being somewhat jealous of Spontaneous casters.
Just for the fact that this is probably something they spent years working on, perfecting Trying to get just right. They more then likely spent their whole lives focusing on nothing but being proficient at magic.
And when it comes to sorcerers and bards...it's something they can just do.....maybe it's because they don't care so much about making the universe their bitch, that's always how I saw it.
But I digress.
I always liked the concept of mana, It just sounds more like your....borrowing power or using what you already have rather than just forcibly taking it away.

[Ruethgar]

I like Shpere Casting as a replacement. It has a little higher floor I think, but with a lower ceiling that I feel puts it about on par with ToB near T3 which is a nice medium to work around.

You can also make a mana system with a custom Sculpt Self prestige race based on a staff with a bio charger refluffed as mana. This would require a lot of balancing with the DM but would be awesome to execute character concepts if 3rd party PF is off the table.

One thing I don't like about the current casting system is the lack of flavorful effects at lower levels. If you want to make a plant Druid you're pretty much SoL beyond switching your companion for a tree. But with spheres you get abilities that can instantly define your theme and don't overly gimp your mechanics.

You could fix this with the prestige race as well, though it would obviously would require more work. You could make non-magical martial characters by the same means which you can't through spheres. Just refluff charges as energy/focus.

[stack]

Vancian casting is good if your world fluff is vancian casting. I don't enjoy how it plays or how poorly it corresponds with so many concepts. If you want a world where bloodmages battle spell-singers and runesmiths I prefer to actually make them different. This is why I am such a big proponent of Spheres of Power. (Links are in sig for more info)

[Eldan]

Because I don't have to deal with overly Long and unnecessary speeches justifying why it's so good.
That And I'm sure there have been more than a few instances Official story or other wise, about Prepared casters being somewhat jealous of Spontaneous casters.
Just for the fact that this is probably something they spent years working on, perfecting Trying to get just right. They more then likely spent their whole lives focusing on nothing but being proficient at magic.
And when it comes to sorcerers and bards...it's something they can just do.....maybe it's because they don't care so much about making the universe their bitch, that's always how I saw it.
But I digress.
I always liked the concept of mana, It just sounds more like your....borrowing power or using what you already have rather than just forcibly taking it away.

Oh, I'm not saying it's stronger or anything. (Well, it is, bu that's a different thing.) In universe, there's absolutely reasons why Vancian casters would be jealous of other casters. But I still find them more interesting.

Vancian mechanics are mechanics that help create a story. They give personality to a character, and they flesh out the idea of adventuring and preparing for it. As you said, they spent years learning this. Which means that you have a basis for years of backstory, and a strong motivation and will, somewhere in the character, to do it. On the other hand, the spontaneous character who can just do his magic, well, he's a blank slate. The mechanics don't help you write his life.

[Honest Tiefling]

Because I don't have to deal with overly Long and unnecessary speeches justifying why it's so good.

Then allow me to make you hate it! Firstly, I like mana, because you can work with an encounter system with some tweaking. I prefer encounter systems, especially when people have to break away from the game for some reason (dang pesky real life responsibilities) or don't have a lot of time to understand things. Even if it is a daily limit, I think it is a lot easier for newer players to understand.

Secondly, I think it makes more sense. It does make some sense for certain casters to rely on rituals (which I think Vancian is, somewhat, in that you prepare the spells by performing most of it beforehand?) but not all. Why would a sorcerer or a bard do this?

Thirdly, it is a lot easier for people to grasp the idea, storywise, that mages run out of the magic juice. It's pretty common in a lot of different types of fiction that tabletop gamers are going to be familiar with. Vancian is very fiddly on the other hand, with the idea that spells are 'forgotten' and that there's a lot of prepwork that isn't very well defined. I think if a DM went out of their way to really flavor a world with this casting it'd be much better but I don't think DnD really did in third edition.

[Eldan]

Vancian can absolutely be encounter-based. In fact, I've done it.

Very simple (not like I've done it):

A wizard can remember 3 prepared spells at a time. Preparing spells takes 5 minutes. There is no limit to how many per day. So, between every encounter, the wizard can take a five minute break and prepare new spells.

There. Encounter-based Vancian.

[Masakan]

Oh, I'm not saying it's stronger or anything. (Well, it is, bu that's a different thing.) In universe, there's absolutely reasons why Vancian casters would be jealous of other casters. But I still find them more interesting.

Vancian mechanics are mechanics that help create a story. They give personality to a character, and they flesh out the idea of adventuring and preparing for it. As you said, they spent years learning this. Which means that you have a basis for years of backstory, and a strong motivation and will, somewhere in the character, to do it. On the other hand, the spontaneous character who can just do his magic, well, he's a blank slate. The mechanics don't help you write his life.
I don't know if i would say the spontaneous caster is a blank slate. In the case of the Sorcerer and Bard, I would think theirs is powered by Impulse and Emotion, All they really need is an understanding of the ground work of certain spells they learn and how they work, with the rest being pure instinct.
To an extend I often consider Sorcerers and Bards to be the artists of the Arcane Family, Not bound by regiment or planning. They follow their Guts and Heart as it were, Also leading them to be much more sociable then their wizard counterparts.


Vancian can absolutely be encounter-based. In fact, I've done it.

Very simple (not like I've done it):

A wizard can remember 3 prepared spells at a time. Preparing spells takes 5 minutes. There is no limit to how many per day. So, between every encounter, the wizard can take a five minute break and prepare new spells.

There. Encounter-based Vancian.

Uh...doesn't that kind of add to the problem? or are you saying they can only know 3 prepared spells TOTAL at a time?

[Honest Tiefling]

Vancian can absolutely be encounter-based. In fact, I've done it.

Very simple (not like I've done it):

A wizard can remember 3 prepared spells at a time. Preparing spells takes 5 minutes. There is no limit to how many per day. So, between every encounter, the wizard can take a five minute break and prepare new spells.

There. Encounter-based Vancian.

An interesting idea, but I don't feel as if it really plays to the tone of the Vancian casting, which is semi-ritualistic. That, and there's a bit of a question why the wizard can only prepare so much. With mana, you simply don't have enough/or will kill yourself if you go overboard. An interesting idea, but I think it needs some expansion.

[Masakan]

An interesting idea, but I don't feel as if it really plays to the tone of the Vancian casting, which is semi-ritualistic. That, and there's a bit of a question why the wizard can only prepare so much. With mana, you simply don't have enough/or will kill yourself if you go overboard. An interesting idea, but I think it needs some expansion.

Wizard Magic is more ritualistic than anything? No wonder I felt off whenever I tried to make a character that uses it.

[Eldan]

An interesting idea, but I don't feel as if it really plays to the tone of the Vancian casting, which is semi-ritualistic. That, and there's a bit of a question why the wizard can only prepare so much. With mana, you simply don't have enough/or will kill yourself if you go overboard. An interesting idea, but I think it needs some expansion.


Oh, sure, I made it very simple. If you want more complicated, I have a 20 page version. Increase the preparation time, if you want more ritual.

As for why only so many per encounter, exactly the same reason as with mana. You can only do so much magic. Eventually, the strain of keeping more spells running would be too much.

[Eldan]

Uh...doesn't that kind of add to the problem? or are you saying they can only know 3 prepared spells TOTAL at a time?

Which problem, exactly? It eliminates the problem of wizards not being encounter-based.

If you think it makes wizards too flexible: it absolutely would. The proposed limit is first of all making spells much more situational (eliminate all spells that allow a lot of choices when casting, such as those that allow long or even open lists of possible effects, like Wish, Planar Binding, Polymorph, etc.), second limit them to a list of spells known.

Let's make an example of a brutally cut-down spell list. Much more than sensible, for the sake of example.
THere are three spells in the world. Fire burst, ice burst and lightning burst. There are two casters, the wizard an the sorcerer.

The wizard knows all three, but before a battle, he has to choose one and can only cast that one. SO they have to gain information about what they are facing, somehow. If it's an ice-based enemy, take fire. Occasionally, they will be surprised and have the wrong thing ready. Then they either try and make due with some creative applications and their allies, or they try to run away and re-prepare.

A sorcerer, on the other and, knows only two of those three spells, let's say fire and ice, but he always has both available. He doesn't have to prepare or think ahead as much. Meet an enemy with fire weakness, cast fire. Enemy with ice weakness, cast ice. Enemy with lightning weakness, you have a problem.

Both work. Different approaches. The important thing here is that hte spells are specialized. THis system breaks down if there's four spells, fire, ice, lightning and "summon creature", which allows you to summon a fire, ice or ightning elemental, which you choose at the time of finishing the spell. As soon as that is around, the wizard just always prepares that and doesn't have to plan.

[VoxRationis]

That, and there's a bit of a question why the wizard can only prepare so much. With mana, you simply don't have enough/or will kill yourself if you go overboard.

There's no question at all!
The Vancian wizard must maintain a series of metaphysical reactants (let us make an analogy to chemistry) in a state just below activation energy for a considerable length of time without either letting it slip back to a lower-energy state or pushing past the activation energy barrier by accident, even though the wizard is completing different reactions (some with lower activation barriers!) in the same "beaker" at the same time. Put another way, attempting to have multiple spells prepared is like having multiple songs playing in your mind at once. It's understandable that doing so grows more difficult the more songs you're working with at once.

[crunchykoolaid]

Yikes, I walk away for a few hours and suddenly all the Great Old Ones show up!

Anyways, I just wanted to say that after some thought, having a mana/stamina/ki system prevalent in all classes to fuel powers might make it seem a bit generic. AFAIK, DnD and its offshoots are the only game to have dedicated systems to Vancian casting, spontaneous casting, and others (Incarnum, SoP, etc). Furthermore, it seems like every video game RPG has a mana/stamina system these days, from Pokemon's PP to Final Fantasy's MP. Adding a system like this to DnD might take away some of its uniqueness and charm (I'm looking at you, 4e).

I suppose as much as we complain about it, Vancian casting isn't going anywhere for a while.

[Snowbluff]

You know, PP in Pokemon actually works like Vancian Casting, not mana. :smalltongue:

[Vhaidara]

News report: pokemon are sorcerers.

I personally despise vancian with the burning passion of a thousand suns. While the fluff is kind of interesting, the implementation is horrendous and that fluff fits approximately 0% of concepts I have ever wanted to build.

On top of that, as mentioned earlier as a plus point to Spheres of Power, there are things you just can't do in vancian for most of your career. Things like shapeshifting (level 5), teleportation (level 7), and time manipulation (level 5) just aren't there for the early part of your career. You can't make a character at level 1 who is focused on shapeshifting. Or a level 1 theoretical magiscientist who bends time and space accidentally while giving lectures on how to bend time and space!

[noob]

"News report: pokemon are sorcerers."
No they are prepared casters since they can use each attack X times
Sorcerer Pokemons would have various power of attacks and be able to use X times attacks of the same power spread in any way they want.

[Eldan]

News report: pokemon are sorcerers.

I personally despise vancian with the burning passion of a thousand suns. While the fluff is kind of interesting, the implementation is horrendous and that fluff fits approximately 0% of concepts I have ever wanted to build.

On top of that, as mentioned earlier as a plus point to Spheres of Power, there are things you just can't do in vancian for most of your career. Things like shapeshifting (level 5), teleportation (level 7), and time manipulation (level 5) just aren't there for the early part of your career. You can't make a character at level 1 who is focused on shapeshifting. Or a level 1 theoretical magiscientist who bends time and space accidentally while giving lectures on how to bend time and space!

Why does everything have to be available at level 1? One can just start a campaign at higher level if one wants to have high magic. (A level 1 shapeshifter is a shapeshift druid, by the way).

Honestly, I think some effects not being available to the weakest characters is a feature, not a bug. It means that playstyle is different across different levels. If everything is available early, what's the point of even leveling up? I dislike systems where a higher level character is the same as a low level one, just with higher numbers. It creates a very boring threadmill effect, where your attack goes up and so does an enemy's AC and you do exactly the same and not even adventure structure changes much.

One of the biggest strengths of D&D is that it supports both brutal and gritty styles s (level 1) to sword and sorcery heroes (level 3-5) to high fantasy (levels 5-10) to wuxia and superhero-like styles (11-15) to beyond many mythological gods (15+). One can pick and choose where to play.

[Vhaidara]

Why does everything have to be available at level 1? One can just start a campaign at higher level if one wants to have high magic. (A level 1 shapeshifter is a shapeshift druid, by the way).

Because most of my play now is Pathfinder adventure paths, aka 1-15+. And there isn't a shapeshifting druid. And I have no desire to be neutral with a nature connection, or have any of the other baggage a druid brings along (like a monk's chassis for a frontliner).

Why shouldn't those magics be available at level 1? Why should someone who is level 7, beyond the scope of normal people, only just be getting the first spell in the field he is supposed to be a prodigy? And why is it almost useless as a focus (dimension door)?

[stack]

In with Keledrath. With SoP I can, at level 1 with 0 cheese build an ice mage that can toss blasts of cold, make ice walls (small) and encase (small) objects in ice. Same with other themes. Your theme comes online at level 1.

[SimonMoon6]

I would prefer a system where spells are not a resource to be expended. That means: no Vancian casting, no limited number of castings per day, no mana pool, nothing like that. If you know a spell, you can cast it as many times as you want to, period.

Obviously, that would require rebalancing things if one still wanted to use the D&D chassis for things.

But I come from a superhero background, where it is very rare for someone to say, "Oh, I've used my superpowers ten times today, I guess I should go home and rest." No. That doesn't happen.

[Eldan]

Why shouldn't those magics be available at level 1? Why should someone who is level 7, beyond the scope of normal people, only just be getting the first spell in the field he is supposed to be a prodigy? And why is it almost useless as a focus (dimension door)?

Why "just getting"? Again, I dislike the idea that every character has to start at level one and then go up. Many creatures are born at high level. That level 7 character could well have been level 7 all their life and have known dimension door for years.

[Necroticplague]

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?

2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?

And finally, kind of an offshoot of #2...
3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?

1. Lack of connection to any fantasy I've seen. Sure, running out of the magic juice is a relatively common trope in fantasy. However' it's pretty universal that more powerful magics require more juice. The idea of a quantum 'slot' doesn't seem to have much basis on anything I've seen before. The closest I've ever seen was Runescape's magic system, where every spell had material components, and thus you had to prepare your components before you head out. But once you had the components, even then you could decide which spell you could use them on.

2. Psionics. It's basically the mana pool that both fantasy has commonly shown us, and that everyone's familiar with already. Except it also has the nice perk where you don't need to learn 3 versions of the same freaking spell in different potencies (thanks to augmentation). Maybe have components be something that you can add to a power in exchange for a feat and lowering the PP cost. Something like this feat:
Somatic Spell
You are capable of using the motion of your arms to more efficiently direct your energies while casting.
Requirements: CL1.
You may add somatic components to a spell. When you do so, the mana cost of the spell is reduced by two points.

3. I think it works pretty well for most fantasy I know of. As long as you know how to cast a spell and have the energy for it, you can cast it. This is how I see it working for most fantasy, with some exceptions (many of which are tabletops specifically trying to make their magic system unique). The main exception I can think of is ritualistic casting, which I would separate from normal spellcasting.

[Vhaidara]

Why "just getting"? Again, I dislike the idea that every character has to start at level one and then go up. Many creatures are born at high level. That level 7 character could well have been level 7 all their life and have known dimension door for years.

Did you read the rest of my post, where I mentioned I'm pretty much stuck playing games that start at level 1?

And no, I'm pretty sure that creatures are born with no levels. No, the newborn baby is not a 7th level wizard, complete with 7 hit dice.

Also, why shouldn't I be able to play a concept at any level? Why is the game Improved because, if I want to start off with the ability to do X, the game must start past point Y? Level should not impact viable concept. You should be able to take your fantasy archetype's abilities, and play them at any level.

And before I am misconstrued, breaking continents in half, while part of a fantasy archetype, is a scale issue. You can have the powers that lead up to that, but at low levels maybe you just create tectonic disturbances that unbalance people (knocking them prone). It makes no sense that the first teleportation effect you get is the ability to jump 400+ft at level 7, with absolutely minimal combat usefulness (because you're a level 7 wizard who just dazed himself doing his thing).

[daremetoidareyo]

Why "just getting"? Again, I dislike the idea that every character has to start at level one and then go up. Many creatures are born at high level. That level 7 character could well have been level 7 all their life and have known dimension door for years.

DMs that start campaigns at levels higher than 1 can be rare in certain social circles. There was only one guy in our group who would start us at level 5. The rest of the time, you're level 1.

There is also a regimented nature to how all the D&D spells are worded, and the more open source quality to spheres of power helps to alleviate that. Your ice wizard in dnd needs different enumerated spells to encase his fist in ice to smash a window or to make a slippery puddle to trip the barbarian. The SoP wizard can totally do both of those things, at first level, without putting any pencil marks on his sheet or (likely) making a note on his spreadsheet, or using up vital resources for later. Why cant the summoner summon a single normal sized wasp? Because there isn't a 0 level spell already dedicated to that in a source book, and if the duration is longer than 1round/level, it would probably be a 1st level spell, competing with much stronger spells.

The levels of the spells themselves are a bit borked. I have a hard time understanding why a wall of ice is like a 4th level spell, while summoning a giant 5x5 cube of wood is 1st. The cube of wood needs to be "re-skinned" to be a cube of ice In game that can be done with spell thematics, but you have to blow a feat on it??? Even if you can simply reskin it, how kind is your DM on making the ice-blockade spell have the temperature conditions of ice, and possible to slide around as if it is ice.

[Eldan]

There's no rules for babies or children. A child might have spells. What I msotly mean is that, other than dragons, many creatures don't have rules for their young. If we have a high-level creature with spell-like abilities or innate casting, they just have it. Every Rakshasa, as an example, has 7th level sorcerer casting, they are just born with it. There's nothing to say that an incredible human prodigy couldn't be born with much of the same.

[crunchykoolaid]

I always assumed the Monster Manual entries were for a typical adult specimen of its kind. Just because there aren't rules for something doesn't mean it doesn't exist in DnD (RAI, of course). I assume this was done mainly to prevent issues with the media reporting stories such as "Local DnD Players Slaughter Children in Their Spare Time!" It's only by strict RAW that you can say, to use your example, a newborn Rakshasa can cast Finger of Death. That would make for some really terrible twos :smalleek:.

Also, my bad on the Pokemon mix up, you're right in saying they are actually using Vancian casting.

[Snowbluff]

News report: pokemon are sorcerers.

I personally despise vancian with the burning passion of a thousand suns. While the fluff is kind of interesting, the implementation is horrendous and that fluff fits approximately 0% of concepts I have ever wanted to build.

On top of that, as mentioned earlier as a plus point to Spheres of Power, there are things you just can't do in vancian for most of your career. Things like shapeshifting (level 5), teleportation (level 7), and time manipulation (level 5) just aren't there for the early part of your career. You can't make a character at level 1 who is focused on shapeshifting. Or a level 1 theoretical magiscientist who bends time and space accidentally while giving lectures on how to bend time and space!

Is it on PFSRD? I always wanted to check it out after hearing you talk about it.

[Vhaidara]

Not yet. It's really extensive, and the pfsrd people haven't had time to put it up yet.

[stack]

Is it on PFSRD? I always wanted to check it out after hearing you talk about it.

There is a preview PDF here (http://paizo.com/products/btpy96pr?Spheres-of-Power), slightly out of date, that shows how the system works, with a few sample spheres and class excerpts. As Keledrath said, the system will hopefully be on the SRD at some point.

[NightbringerGGZ]

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?

It is a relic of a time when most fantasy stories used Merlin as the template for their wizards. An old guy in a tower who spends a bunch of time studying, but can do amazing & god-like things with his magic. The system does a great job at providing mechanics to match that particular fluff, but a horrible job at providing rules that are easy for players to use. Just look at how many times new players are given the advice that they not jump right into playing a Wizard.

2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?

I've been toying with systems as part of my own d20 system for years now. Something that I keep coming back to is that I really like how cantrips are handled in Pathfinder as infinite use abilities. I'm working through a system where you have a max of 6 spell levels, which spaces out the power increases of spells significantly. I'm also limiting spells known severely for most classes, but all spells are essentially at-will. This is obviously a complete replacement for D&D/Pathfinder rules.

And finally, kind of an offshoot of #2...
3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?[/QUOTE]

It works out ok, but only because there are so many years of community knowledge for new people to fall back on. Like I said earlier, it matches the image of wizards from 40+ years ago, but does a poor job emulating how they're portrayed in modern media.

[Jay R]

This is exclusively a balancing issue.

Early versions of D&D were mostly balanced. Magic-Users had more overall power but also more risks - lower hit points (which matters much more if the characters are likelier to die), slower saving throw progression (ditto), and Vancian casting, which made many spells not available for an immediate need.

Over the decades, the risks have been evened out, and the balance has gone away. Vancian casting is really the only limit left on wizard powers.

Dropping it makes casters more powerful, while not helping non-casters. So it is 100% an issue of balance between casters and non-casters.

If you think casters are too powerful, then get rid of Vancian casting. But if you think they are more powerful than non-casters, then don't eliminate a rule whose only purpose is to limit casters.

[Ssalarn]

***
My questions are as follows:

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?


I think part of the thing I don't like about it, is that it doesn't really match up with any kind of magic you see in most media. Outside of the works of Vance or Zelazny, you're unlikely to see a character who goes "Oh no! I'm all out of magic missiles! Now all I have is these gosh darn meteor swarms". Even Ed Greenwood, the creator of Forgotten Realms and one of the big influences on the direction D&D has taken, has never written a wizard who actually uses the Vancian casting system; Elminster and all his peers and enemies are constantly breaking down spells and using the energy to power other spells, or heal themselves, etc. That rigidity just doesn't make for good storytelling, and it isn't particularly intuitive.
There's also the lack of internal consistency in progression. I can never learn a fire spell in my entire career, but then my very first 9th level spell can be meteor swarm, essentially the most powerful fire spell available. Or you can learn summon monster IX without ever having to learn any of the lower level SM spells.




2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?

There's a couple different systems out there that I like more than Vancian casting. My own Akashic Mysteries is obviously a personal favorite, with balanced "all day" magic, and Spheres of Power from Drop Dead Studios is also a favorite. In Spheres of Power in particular, I like that learning to cast "fireball" first requires you to learn how to blast with magic, then how to control fire, then how to shape it into an explosive sphere. There's an internal logic to progressing your magical power that you just don't see in Vancian casting, and the fact that magic progresses in "trees" similar to the way martial characters master more powerful feats serves as an inherent balancing factor in the system.



And finally, kind of an offshoot of #2...
3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?

I think Vancian casting exists because Gygax was a fan of Jack Vance's work, and it has persisted since because now it has the weight of "tradition" behind it. It's a horrible medium for storytelling in most any setting (which is why even authors who are part of the same company pimping the idea in the first place almost never use it, or twist it to suit their story needs until it's almost unrecognizable from the game version), and I think it's actually detrimental to the game system as a whole. Even in the works of authors whose magic systems can be readily identified as "Vancian", such as Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny, you don't see these ridiculously powerful magical super heroes who can simultaneously master all the most powerful spells of multiple schools and elements; in Vance's books, memorizing something like time stop would eat up the mental space required for lower level spells, ironically creating a situation where point based systems like psionics actually do a better job of emulating Vancian materials than Vancian casting.

It's also very unintuitive, unless you happen to have a background in other games that have prepared you for it, like the Baldur's Gate games on PC. Point-based systems like Spheres of Power or psionics tend to be much more intuitive and easy for new players to pick up. In fact, that curve is so severe that I've actually had experienced players who used to flat out refuse to play traditional casters because of the complexity leap into playing psychic warriors or armorists, excited to finally have a simple and logical option that doesn't inflict analysis paralysis and gives them the option to play "magical" characters. I've seen people suddenly realize that they don't really like Fighters, what they actually liked was having a simple set of linear choices to make at the table. When they can be "magical" with the same simplicity as being "martial", suddenly it's a whole new game for them.


This is exclusively a balancing issue.

Early versions of D&D were mostly balanced. Magic-Users had more overall power but also more risks - lower hit points (which matters much more if the characters are likelier to die), slower saving throw progression (ditto), and Vancian casting, which made many spells not available for an immediate need.

Over the decades, the risks have been evened out, and the balance has gone away. Vancian casting is really the only limit left on wizard powers.

Dropping it makes casters more powerful, while not helping non-casters. So it is 100% an issue of balance between casters and non-casters.

If you think casters are too powerful, then get rid of Vancian casting. But if you think they are more powerful than non-casters, then don't eliminate a rule whose only purpose is to limit casters.

I disagree. Vancian casting isn't the last limit left on spellcasters, it's the tool enabling them to break the game. If casters feel underpowered, ditching Vancian for SoP or point-based casting can help them feel more powerful, giving them more time to feel "magical" and removing option paralysis. If they're overpowered, removing ridiculously powerful options theoretically balanced by their limited availability will drop the ceiling and help bring them back down to earth. Regardless of whether you think casters are too powerful, or not powerful enough, dropping Vancian casting is the first step in solving the problem.

[Eldan]

But a powerful options isn't a problem of Vancian casting. It's a problem of that powerful spell.

Let's take, say Shapechange. I can take that exact same effect and give it to a Vancian wizard or a spellpoint caster. The wizard has to prepare it ahead of time. The spellpoint caster just has it at hand whenever he needs it.

Without other factors, Vancian is a limit. The reason why wizards are powerful is down to the fact that wizards have too many spells known (unlimited) and that some spells are too good. If we give the same effects and the same number of effects known to another magic system, just about any other system will be better.

[VoxRationis]

That rigidity just doesn't make for good storytelling, and it isn't particularly intuitive.
So you think it's a necessary quality of the ability to bend the laws of space and time with one's mind that the process to do so be intuitive? (And it's your personal opinion that Vancian magic doesn't allow for good storytelling—it works quite well in Vance's short story Mazirian the Magician, which is almost solely based around the tactical calculations of a wizard managing his memorized spells.)



There's also the lack of internal consistency in progression. I can never learn a fire spell in my entire career, but then my very first 9th level spell can be meteor swarm, essentially the most powerful fire spell available. Or you can learn summon monster IX without ever having to learn any of the lower level SM spells.

That can be an issue, depending on the setting. It makes sense in a setting like Vance's Dying Earth, or like a large number of sword-and-sorcery settings where the world is in a period of decline after a high point of greater knowledge. The wizard can learn meteor swarm without knowing lower-level fire spells because at a basic level, they're just copying what they've found without really knowing the principles behind it. This worked wonderfully for early D&D; the real problem with the situation you've brought up is that 3rd edition decided that wizards could just spontaneously learn new spells out of the blue during level-up.



Even in the works of authors whose magic systems can be readily identified as "Vancian", such as Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny, you don't see these ridiculously powerful magical super heroes who can simultaneously master all the most powerful spells of multiple schools and elements; in Vance's books, memorizing something like time stop would eat up the mental space required for lower level spells, ironically creating a situation where point based systems like psionics actually do a better job of emulating Vancian materials than Vancian casting.


That is not an issue of Vancian v. non-Vancian; that is an issue of the spell level-based implementation and the number of spell slots given to D&D wizards (which is typically greater at mid- to high-levels than traditional Vancian wizards have). Having a power-point system would emulate the increased difficulty of time stop, but fail at the other basic tenets of Vancian principles, and thus would not do better at emulating Vance than the D&D setup. A "space" system would do better than either.



It's also very unintuitive, unless you happen to have a background in other games that have prepared you for it, like the Baldur's Gate games on PC. Point-based systems like Spheres of Power or psionics tend to be much more intuitive and easy for new players to pick up. In fact, that curve is so severe that I've actually had experienced players who used to flat out refuse to play traditional casters because of the complexity leap into playing psychic warriors or armorists, excited to finally have a simple and logical option that doesn't inflict analysis paralysis and gives them the option to play "magical" characters. I've seen people suddenly realize that they don't really like Fighters, what they actually liked was having a simple set of linear choices to make at the table. When they can be "magical" with the same simplicity as being "martial", suddenly it's a whole new game for them.
Obviously, calculating spell point costs (which often are variable) of a dozen different spells is much simpler than putting pegs into correct-sized holes.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Vancian Casting, The Good

1. It's basically a system of casting that's unique to D&D and a certain very old series of pulp fantasy novellas. You don't see much like it elsewhere.

2. It forces a certain amount of strategy to go along with playing casters. The Wizard does not simply become all-powerful when he knows All The Spells, he has to know what he's doing with them too. It's a bit like.... well, Magic the Gathering (which I've never played cuz I hate CCGs). You gotta use some degree of strategy when you're building your deck.

3. It forces casters to diversify, so two Wizards/Sorcerers might play very differently even if specializing in the same school.

4. Scrolls and wands, and later staffs, become very valuable indeed. Creating them yourself represents a significant investment of resources (namely, XP) but frees the caster to a great degree.


The Bad

1. Nobody likes to be a wizard without spells. You sit in the back and plunk at things with your crossbow and if you're lucky nothing eats you. This can lead to people feeling useless and not having fun.

2. The school specialization system may keep you from being Exactly the Kind of Wizard you Envision.

3. At a certain point, who freaking cares about low-level spells, honestly? A level 15 wizard still worrying about what he wants to put into his level one spell slots is wasting time.


Overall I like the Vancian system. Its very "rigidity" is what forces players to get creative and plan out their spell uses, what they want to prepare, what kind of scrolls and wands they want, etc.

[Andreaz]

Vancian mechanics are mechanics that help create a story. They give personality to a character, and they flesh out the idea of adventuring and preparing for it.

That is entirely arbitrary, nothing that it does compared to other spellcasting system is exclusive to it.

In fact, many of the best wizards in stories that revolve around them, both modern and ancient, has the elements of extensive preparation, the arrogance common to the masters of the art, the paranoia of preparing the right spells...
Take for example Elric of Melniboné, Zorayas and Kaschak (night's master), or go back to Persian magi. They have all of that, and often more.

[Sian]

So you think it's a necessary quality of the ability to bend the laws of space and time with one's mind that the process to do so be intuitive?

complexity might be nice and dandy from a fluff perspective, but its critically missing the point to expect people to jump though extremely counterintuitive loops to Play a Game

[Eldan]

That is entirely arbitrary, nothing that it does compared to other spellcasting system is exclusive to it.

In fact, many of the best wizards in stories that revolve around them, both modern and ancient, has the elements of extensive preparation, the arrogance common to the masters of the art, the paranoia of preparing the right spells...
Take for example Elric of Melniboné, Zorayas and Kaschak (night's master), or go back to Persian magi. They have all of that, and often more.

Sure, sure. But I'm talking about game rules here. For a game, you need defined rules for your magic, of some kind. And I don't know any other rules that actually make a wizard prepare. If you know any, I'd like to hear.


Also, I'll just come out and say it: I don't like simple rules. I like complexity.

[noob]

"3. At a certain point, who freaking cares about low-level spells, honestly? A level 15 wizard still worrying about what he wants to put into his level one spell slots is wasting time."
Some low level spells are awesome like prestidigitation or detect magic or that ray who reduce the strength of opponents or yet false life.

[Eldan]

I'll admit, it's a bit of a problem. Low level spells should either scale better or slots should be more open. Really, in general, the slot system isn't the best.

[noob]

You think low level spells are not cool?
I really like them and would feel like if I was missing something if I had only the high level spells.

[Eldan]

Many spels are still useful at high levels, sure. Unseen Servant, Silent Image, Grease, Identify. But there are also many which aren't. At all. Shocking Grasp. Mage Armor. Sleep. Jump.

[VoxRationis]

complexity might be nice and dandy from a fluff perspective, but its critically missing the point to expect people to jump though extremely counterintuitive loops to Play a Game

1. It's not that complex; there are a number of useful metaphors to help people grasp it (such as a revolver with different kinds of bullets in each chamber), and the concept isn't that difficult on an abstract level.

2. This isn't Angry Birds. Immediate gratification and mindless simplicity have never been the principle draws of a role-playing game, particularly not a rules-heavy system such as D&D.

[Ssalarn]

So you think it's a necessary quality of the ability to bend the laws of space and time with one's mind that the process to do so be intuitive? (And it's your personal opinion that Vancian magic doesn't allow for good storytelling—it works quite well in Vance's short story Mazirian the Magician, which is almost solely based around the tactical calculations of a wizard managing his memorized spells.)


No, I think it's a positive property of good game design that the mechanics be intuitive and accessible. People aren't actually learning how to bend the laws of space and time, they're just playing a character who can.
As I already mentioned, actual D&D 3.x / PF Vancian casting is a poor model for the casters of Jack Vance's work, due to the level-based slot system where your 1st level spells exist completely independently of your 9th level spells.



That can be an issue, depending on the setting. It makes sense in a setting like Vance's Dying Earth, or like a large number of sword-and-sorcery settings where the world is in a period of decline after a high point of greater knowledge. The wizard can learn meteor swarm without knowing lower-level fire spells because at a basic level, they're just copying what they've found without really knowing the principles behind it. This worked wonderfully for early D&D; the real problem with the situation you've brought up is that 3rd edition decided that wizards could just spontaneously learn new spells out of the blue during level-up.


Again, the Vancian system as currently implemented isn't a good representation of even Jack Vance's work. The fact that a theoretical Vancian system that doesn't currently exist may be a good fit isn't really relevant to the topic at hand.



That is not an issue of Vancian v. non-Vancian; that is an issue of the spell level-based implementation and the number of spell slots given to D&D wizards (which is typically greater at mid- to high-levels than traditional Vancian wizards have). Having a power-point system would emulate the increased difficulty of time stop, but fail at the other basic tenets of Vancian principles, and thus would not do better at emulating Vance than the D&D setup. A "space" system would do better than either.


Again, we're talking about the Vancian system that exists, not a theoretical one. Part of the current Vancian system is spell-level based slots, which do not conform to even Vance's material that inspired the system.



Obviously, calculating spell point costs (which often are variable) of a dozen different spells is much simpler than putting pegs into correct-sized holes.

Yeah, point based systems are generally much easier. You don't have a giant flip-book of spells with tags to indicate how many of each you have for the day, you don't have to worry about whether using fly now is going to screw you over later, and everyone playing this could presumably has a basic familiarity with basic math. And I'm not just spit-balling here; I'm speaking from experience as someone who GMs multiple games a week with groups of all kinds of players, many of them new. Statistically, in my gaming area (by which I mean basically all of Idaho, Washington, and Alaska), point based systems, particularly simple math ones paired with at-will abilities the way Spheres of Power does it, are much more intuitive and much more likely to be adopted by a larger number of players.

Vancian casting, as it is currently done in editions other than 5E, isn't even good game design; it creates awkward design paradigms and forces you to balance two disparate systems around nebulous expectations. It only exists now because for most designers and publishers in the industry it has always existed, and it has reached golden cow status amongst enough of the gaming population that not using it would draw attention and possibly lead to negative press and sales impact.


Regardless, your argument seems to boil down to "Vancian casting as I believe it should exist can make perfect sense" not "the system as it currently exists is fine", sooo..... I feel like you're arguing about some Vancian ideal, whereas I'm talking about what people are actually being presented with. I'm sure there's a world where your Vancian ideal works; as mentioned, it wasn't too terrible in 2E, but that's a completely different game.

[noob]

What if we had a dnd wizard casting spells with points?
Well it is called PTS erudite and it is crazily easy for it to fall in TO.
Would you allow a PTS erudite at the table after saying that Vancian casting is horrible?
The problem in DND is not the casting system it is just that people did not understood that either you have only casters or you have no casters because they are barely comparable it is like a GOD summoning an infinite number of infinitely powerful gods for smashing a rock pebble.
the spells that they have would make them always omnipotent no matter the system even if you could cast only one spell in your life and that you had to make a ritual taking 3333333 years the dnd spells would make your character omnipotent.

[VoxRationis]

Yeah, point based systems are generally much easier. You don't have a giant flip-book of spells with tags to indicate how many of each you have for the day, you don't have to worry about whether using fly now is going to screw you over later, and
You do too have a giant flip-book of spells; the difference is now the flip-book marks base point cost plus any situational point costs, instead of just spell level. At best, it's a wash; in many cases using point costs increase the number of numbers you must keep track of.


everyone playing this could presumably has a basic familiarity with basic math.

Everyone presumably has a basic familiarity with sorting "objects" into appropriate receptacles. They're both comparatively simple intellectual tasks for anyone over the age of 7, but you seem to think that addition is dramatically easier for some reason, and based on the fact that toys for infants incapable of basic arithmetic do involve object-receptacle matching, you are wrong.

[Ssalarn]

1. It's not that complex; there are a number of useful metaphors to help people grasp it (such as a revolver with different kinds of bullets in each chamber), and the concept isn't that difficult on an abstract level.

2. This isn't Angry Birds. Immediate gratification and mindless simplicity have never been the principle draws of a role-playing game, particularly not a rules-heavy system such as D&D.

1) We get it, you like Vancian casting. But just because you were weaned on it, doesn't mean it's actually that intuitive to other people who haven't been exposed to those influences. And the pistol metaphor isn't all that great; it'd be more accurate to say "It's like a revolver, with different bullets in each chamber. Actually, it's like 9 revolvers, and most of them have different numbers of chambers. And once you fire one type of bullet, it's gone, and you can't add another one of those bullets until tomorrow. And sometimes you can leave a couple chambers empty so you can pick what type of bullet to load later. And....."

2) Despite your superiority complex, the point of a game is that it be played. The less intuitive it is to play the concepts you want, or when certain concepts that are equivalent in media are manifestly not equivalent in game play, you have fewer total people playing, which means less material gets sold, which means fewer designers make enough to devote their time and energy to it, which means the overall quality goes down for new materials. "LTP n00b" is a piss poor defense for any game, and it's no defense for making people actively work against the mechanics.


What if we had a dnd wizard casting spells with points?
Well it is called PTS erudite and it is crazily easy for it to fall in TO.
Would you allow a PTS erudite at the table after saying that Vancian casting is horrible?
The problem in DND is not the casting system it is just that people did not understood that either you have only casters or you have no casters because they are barely comparable it is like a GOD summoning an infinite number of infinitely powerful gods for smashing a rock pebble.
the spells that they have would make them always omnipotent no matter the system even if you could cast only one spell in your life and that you had to make a ritual taking 3333333 years the dnd spells would make your character omnipotent.

Vancian spells are balanced around the Vancian system. Changing the system, changes the assumptions. Just look at Dreamscarred Press' Ultimate Psionics, a 5 star rated, gold bestselling product publicly endorsed by the guys at Paizo. It uses a point based casting system with powers that are balanced to a point-based system, and the general ceiling is Tier 2 with the "full caster" Psion. The basic design assumptions of Vancian casting dictate much of the power of the various spells that get written, particularly since they're designed on a curve to the lowest common denominator (leading to spells that are designed to be powerful in the hands of a guy who has no idea what he's doing that become horrifically broken in the hands of someone whose read up on what they want to do).

You can go even simpler than the psionic version of point-based systems and still have a complex and robust option. Spheres of power gives you a pool of spell points that will probably never reach much higher than 30, and will generally be spent in units of 5 or less, making the math extremely easy. You end up with an easy-to-play character who has an array of fun and balanced at-will magical abilities, and the ability to spend a set number of points to emulate his higher level spell effects. Because each magical Sphere is balanced on an individual level, you also allow "magical" characters to embody their particular character concept from level 1. If you want to be a time mage, you can use time magic from 1st level, but it's going to be 1st level appropriate power, which you can eventually scale up to effects on par with the slow, haste, or even time stop spells. There's even rules in there to allow some of the "discovering ancient magic scrolls/staves/etc." progression for your character if you want to emulate that type of world.

[Necroticplague]

I don't see why a spell point system would require each spell have a different cost. You could just make spell point costs based on spell level. Then its not any more complex than the mana system every video game and its dog has.

[Ssalarn]

You do too have a giant flip-book of spells; the difference is now the flip-book marks base point cost plus any situational point costs, instead of just spell level. At best, it's a wash; in many cases using point costs increase the number of numbers you must keep track of.



Everyone presumably has a basic familiarity with sorting "objects" into appropriate receptacles. They're both comparatively simple intellectual tasks for anyone over the age of 7, but you seem to think that addition is dramatically easier for some reason, and based on the fact that toys for infants incapable of basic arithmetic do involve object-receptacle matching, you are wrong.


Okay, now you're being rude. I've been careful to avoid directly accusing anyone of being right or wrong, because this an opinion thread.

You want to call me wrong? What are your credentials?
Have you designed 5 star-rated materials for the game? Do you have a degree in education? Do you routinely GM for a huge pool of rotating players ages 6-60 where you can observe their table habits and see where they struggle?

I ask because I'm a designer whose name is on several 5 star-rated bestselling products, who has a degree in education, and who GM's for 20+ people (more during certain times of year) a month, in both regular weekly games and single day events. My experience says that your opinions are wrong, and that a smaller number of scalable abilities with a pool of points is much easier for men and women of all ages to learn than Vancian casting. That is my opinion, based on experience.

So feel free to disagree with me, but learn some ****ing manners, because I have actual reasons for saying the things I say.


I don't see why a spell point system would require each spell have a different cost. You could just make spell point costs based on spell level. Then its not any more complex than the mana system every video game and its dog has.

Yep. Everyone knows how to use it, most people have been exposed to it in multiple formats, and it doesn't lead to the levels of analysis paralysis and option indecision that Vancian casting lends itself to.

[VoxRationis]

Okay, now you're being rude. I've been careful to avoid directly accusing anyone of being right or wrong, because this an opinion thread.

So it's not rude to clearly disagree with every word that comes out of someone's mouth, and directly contradict each argument, but it's rude to actually use the word wrong? We clearly have thought each other's opinions wrong from the get-go, but saying it outright crosses some sort of line? That seems somewhat arbitrary to me. If that is an issue, however, I will refrain from using the word "wrong" from here on out.



You want to call me wrong? What are your credentials?
Have you designed 5 star-rated materials for the game? Do you have a degree in education? Do you routinely GM for a huge pool of rotating players ages 6-60 where you can observe their table habits and see where they struggle?

I ask because I'm a designer whose name is on several 5 star-rated bestselling products, who has a degree in education, and who GM's for 20+ people (more during certain times of year) a month, in both regular weekly games and single day events. My experience says that your opinions are wrong, and that a smaller number of scalable abilities with a pool of points is much easier for men and women of all ages to learn than Vancian casting. That is my opinion, based on experience.

So feel free to disagree with me, but learn some ****ing manners, because I have actual reasons for saying the things I say.

The experience of someone who is, to the perspective of another on the Internet, little more than a cartoon with a male symbol under it is worth less than the eraser next to my laptop. Particularly not one whose purported experience gives him a personal incentive to disparage other people's designs.



Yep. Everyone knows how to use it, most people have been exposed to it in multiple formats, and it doesn't lead to the levels of analysis paralysis and option indecision that Vancian casting lends itself to.
Are you calling Vancian casting out on terms of being too hard to learn, or of taking too long to set up on a daily basis? Because I concede that it takes longer to do a prepared-spell setup than it does to just charge into a day of adventuring with a character whose spellcasting has on-the-spot flexibility. But that's arguably a feature, rather than a problem. Forcing people to stop and think and prepare ahead of time is a big draw for a certain kind of player.
And the reason most people have been exposed to it is because it's easy to program a video game to use a power-point setup, on account of how computers... well, compute quickly, and people who have not been playing tabletop games for decades already have generally been exposed to video games first. It's not really a fair comparison to say that a particular design is easier to learn if the people "learning" it have already been taught it elsewhere.

[Vhaidara]

So it's not rude to clearly disagree with every word that comes out of someone's mouth, and directly contradict each argument, but it's rude to actually use the word wrong? We clearly have thought each other's opinions wrong from the get-go, but saying it outright crosses some sort of line? That seems somewhat arbitrary to me. If that is an issue, however, I will refrain from using the word "wrong" from here on out.

Disagree does not equal you are wrong.



The experience of someone who is, to the perspective of another on the Internet, little more than a cartoon with a male symbol under it is worth less than the eraser next to my laptop. Particularly not one whose purported experience gives him a personal incentive to disparage other people's designs.

So basically, the opinions of other people in an opinion thread, including someone with verifiable credentials, mean nothing to you. Why are you in this discussion again?

[Ssalarn]

So it's not rude to clearly disagree with every word that comes out of someone's mouth, and directly contradict each argument, but it's rude to actually use the word wrong? We clearly have thought each other's opinions wrong from the get-go, but saying it outright crosses some sort of line? That seems somewhat arbitrary to me.

I'm sorry no one taught you manners? Saying "You are wrong" implies-

1) That you yourself have some position of authority to make such a statement. You don't.

2) That your stance is provably correct. It isn't.

3) That you are privy to some information or formula that proves your opinion. You aren't.

Saying "I believe X" is a statement of personal opinion and preference. Stating "you are wrong" is both an assault on someone's credibility that you better be able to back, and a verbal maneuver designed to place yourself in a position of authority.



The experience of someone who is, to the perspective of another on the Internet, little more than a cartoon with a male symbol under it is worth less than the eraser next to my laptop. Particularly not one whose purported experience gives him a personal incentive to disparage other people's designs.

Then, as Keledrath so eloquently put it, why are you in this discussion? If you feel that the eraser on your desk would provide more/equivalent stimulating and relevant discussion, then why even come in here? If you aren't actually here to have a conversation, then you're just, by definition, trolling.



Are you calling Vancian casting out on terms of being too hard to learn, or of taking too long to set up on a daily basis?

Both.



Because I concede that it takes longer to do a prepared-spell setup than it does to just charge into a day of adventuring with a character whose spellcasting has on-the-spot flexibility. But that's arguably a feature, rather than a problem. Forcing people to stop and think and prepare ahead of time is a big draw for a certain kind of player.

And then forcing them to stop and think every time they want to cast a spell because they may only have one, and creating other weird interactions. I actually described this earlier when I addressed your "revolver" metaphor.



And the reason most people have been exposed to it is because it's easy to program a video game to use a power-point setup, on account of how computers... well, compute quickly, and people who have not been playing tabletop games for decades already have generally been exposed to video games first. It's not really a fair comparison to say that a particular design is easier to learn if the people "learning" it have already been taught it elsewhere.

"It's not really fair to say that it's easier to use a system that everyone is probably already exposed to instead of one whose only analogue is the work of an author most people haven't read, and whose work isn't even accurately modeled by it." That's what you said. You're literally arguing that it's not fair to endorse a system that most players have already been programmed to understand over one that most players will never even really understand the roots or inspiration of. I find that "argument" ridiculous. The fact that people are more likely to be exposed to point based systems before coming to the table is all the more reason such a system is superior.

[Andreaz]

The experience of someone who is, to the perspective of another on the Internet, little more than a cartoon with a male symbol under it is worth less than the eraser next to my laptop. Particularly not one whose purported experience gives him a personal incentive to disparage other people's designs.I hope you realized you're admitting that you are acting like you do because you don't empathize with the person behind the text, even when you intelectually know full well there's a complete person on the other end, with a full range of emotions, memories and preferences.

[crunchykoolaid]

Do you routinely GM for a huge pool of rotating players ages 6-60 where you can observe their table habits and see where they struggle?

60 people? How on earth do you handle this? I assume you don't know them all personally, but if you do that's just even more impressive. I don't think I've met even 20 people in person total who play DnD :smalleek:

[Hal0Badger]

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?
Vancian system is actually not that bad, it opens new doors for people who are used to mana based system. I always considered prepared casting system is something like this:

You cast most of the spell during your preparation time; and in the heat of battle, with a simple gesture and words, sometimes materials, you complete it. Some classes like clerics, have power to implement certain spells (like cure branch) into each preparation, so they can easily turn them into something else. This adds complexity both in fluff and mechanics, and actually are very good in my opinion.

The real problem with the system is, not the casting method, but fricking spells and their scale power. Some spells, even schools (polymorph) are so broken that they are beyond fixing. I usually ban polymorph/binding entirely, alongside with spells that increase action economy (like celerity).

As others mentioned, the spells are not very flexible. You cannot get a real theme or customize your spells, until you hit a mid-high level ground, therefore it is not very fun for some. Spheres of Power, fixes most of these problems. With practiced caster drawback, you can simulate a Vancian based system


2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?
Spheres of Power. Easy to learn, easy to build "themed" casters starting from level 1 and can simulate something close to Vancian system. Your starting power is higher, but the limit you hit is much much lower, especially if some certain options are out (like advanced talents). System also encorogues creativity, because most of the spells and their uses are flexible, and there is an entire chapter creating new "special mark" spells, depending on your abilities. Example:
Someone who focuses on craetion and animating object, can create a armor suit like Ironman.


And finally, kind of an offshoot of #2...
3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?

It does indeed.

[Vhaidara]

60 people? How on earth do you handle this? I assume you don't know them all personally, but if you do that's just even more impressive. I don't think I've met even 20 people in person total who play DnD :smalleek:

That was an age range :smalltongue:

And as far as I can tell, Ssalarn is a semi-professional GM. On top of an amazing writer, and probably a secret member of the Avengers.

[Eldan]

Ah, well. This is getting way too hostile. Have fun.

[Andreaz]

That was an age range :smalltongue:

And as far as I can tell, Ssalarn is a semi-professional GM. On top of an amazing writer, and probably a secret member of the Avengers.

Probably. I have a similar experience running a small business that offers GMing for a variety of games. That and the events we always visit gives each gm about a hundred unique players.

[Ssalarn]

60 people? How on earth do you handle this? I assume you don't know them all personally, but if you do that's just even more impressive. I don't think I've met even 20 people in person total who play DnD :smalleek:

6-60 was an age range. Even with the 20ish players I do have, Lord no, I don't know everyone's names. There's a lot of "Hey you"s because they show up just often enough that I know their face, but not often enough that I've learned their name. I've got a couple open table sessions for an event I host every week called "Third Party Thursdays", plus Tuesday rotating games, a Saturday home game, and the occasional one off event for new book releases, 3pp or Paizo core.

Living near Seattle means there's actually a pretty robust player base around here (and pleasantly, a pretty even split between male and female players, which I think really helps balance table dynamics).

[druid91]

Vancian Casting seems...arbitrary, at times. A mage can spend their magical power at a steady rate throughout the day, or they can use it all at once; because they have the same total power amount in both scenarios, there's no reason to hold back, since sleeping will reset it. Vancian casting simultaneously requires magic to be more powerful than at-will options, while also encouraging people to essentially make them at-will options (by sleeping every time they're expended). I find myself more than a bit frustrated whenever I think of the obvious inbalance this has resulted in, but since I don't have the power or the knowledge necessary to rebalance the existing system, I work with it however I can.

If we're going for game balance, I would probably prefer a system where using any kind of ability used X power/mana/ki/whatever, and those points regenerated slowly over time; the more powerful the ability, the more points it uses. You can improve your abilities for extra point costs, or give them limits/drawbacks in exchange for a lessened cost. If using an ability would cause your point pool to reach the negatives, a drawback/limit is forced onto the power to make it drain the pool to zero instead of whatever negative number. Becoming more powerful means gaining access to more powerful abilities as well as a much larger point pool. This mechanic would be in place for everything, instead of just mages: martials would have endurance (or ki if that's more appropriate), mages would have mana, sci fi would have Plebtonium, whatever. You'd probably have to put a good bit of work into such a system for it to work better than 4e did without being as boring as 4e was.

They fixed this in 5e pretty simply and the rule can be backported as a house rule. You can only take one 8 hour rest every 24 hours.

[Eldan]

That seems silly. I can totaly sleep 16 hours in one day.

[Ssalarn]

They fixed this in 5e pretty simply and the rule can be backported as a house rule. You can only take one 8 hour rest every 24 hours.

5E actually has a pretty solid version of Vancian casting. It's one of the better versions I've seen, though that's not too surprising given the designer line-up they have working on the product line.


That seems silly. I can totaly sleep 16 hours in one day.

I think it's less about how much sleep you can get, and more about how much benefit you can derive from it in a given period.

I, personally, would have to be either getting over a fairly serious illness or smoking a lot of not-tobacco to get 16 restful hours of sleep out of one 24 hour period. Otherwise I'd have 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of staring at the ceiling wondering why the hell I'm in bed at 3 in the afternoon.

[Eldan]

It was a joke. I just mean that I am not aware of any editions that give a benefit for more than 8 hours of Rest.

[zergling.exe]

I think it's less about how much sleep you can get, and more about how much benefit you can derive from it in a given period.

I, personally, would have to be either getting over a fairly serious illness or smoking a lot of not-tobacco to get 16 restful hours of sleep out of one 24 hour period. Otherwise I'd have 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of staring at the ceiling wondering why the hell I'm in bed at 3 in the afternoon.

Also the fact that divine casters can only prepare once a day at a certain time and don't even need rest.

[Necroticplague]

Presumably, gods of night or darkness have clerics who groggily drag themselves out of bed in the middle of the night, pray for spells, then go back to sleeping. I find this mental image oddly funny.

[ryu]

Presumably, gods of night or darkness have clerics who groggily drag themselves out of bed in the middle of the night, pray for spells, then go back to sleeping. I find this mental image oddly funny.

Nocturnal race worshipers or simply changing the sleep schedule outright would be far more practical.

[Jay R]

There's no problem with games of determining the best use of limited resources. In Monopoly, you start with a set amount of money, and if you blow it all on the cheap properties, you might not be able to buy Boardwalk when you land on it.

In Civilization you have to balance producing science with making money, and decide when to build units and when to build city improvements.

In chess, you have one queen, two rooks, etc. A large part of the game is deciding when trading your knight for his knight is a worthwhile exchange.

And choosing the day's spells is not that fundamentally different from choosing which magic items to buy in town, making a choice you can't change later on when you need the other one.

And in any event, D&D with Vancian casting has grown more than any other role-playing game. It is clearly not preventing growth of the hobby.

Oh, and by the way, the pistol analogy isn't bad, for walking through the east Texas woods. Bullets are better against small varmints, but shot shells are better against snakes. I tend to load my pistol alternately, so that any two shots will produce the best option.

[Tectorman]

Sure, sure. But I'm talking about game rules here. For a game, you need defined rules for your magic, of some kind. And I don't know any other rules that actually make a wizard prepare. If you know any, I'd like to hear.

Rules for a preparing Wizard? I've got one for you: Onmyodo casting in Anima Beyond Fantasy.

The default rules (the Cliffnotes version):
You know a certain number of spells. As long as you have the supernatural oomph (called Zeon) to cast the spell, you can. Casting involves accumulating the necessary amount of Zeon, which may take one or several turns.

For example, if you have an accumulation of 50 and you need to cast a Fireball that costs 200, then it would take you four turns to rev up the necessary Zeon to cast it.

The book Arcana Exxet introduces Onmyodo casting:
Onmyodo is an alternate casting tradition to the default method. If you use this tradition, then you gain the ability to set aside some of your Zeon (half the cost of the spell) ahead of time in a ritual scroll called an Ofuda.

So in this example, the Onmyodo caster has 100 Zeon already available for his Fireball, only needs to take two turns accumulating Zeon on his own, and can cast his Fireball sooner than an equivalent Wizard using the default tradition.

The drawback to the Onmyodo tradition is that casting without an Ofuda makes the Zeon cost of the spell double. So if our Onmyodo caster only pre-made one Fireball Ofuda and needs to cast two, then his second Fireball will cost 400 and it will take him eight turns to accumulate enough Zeon to cast it.

So he is rewarded for his prepwork and is hampered if he does not plan ahead sufficiently well. It's inefficient and costly, but he at least still has the option if he needs it. Not preparing an Ofuda or not preparing a sufficient number of Ofuda does not prevent him outright from casting a spell he needs. He still knows it regardless, and as long as he has the time and Zeon, he can still use any given spell he knows.



That's Onmyodo casting (in a nutshell) for Anima Beyond Fantasy, translated into English by Fantasy Flight Games. It's not d20-based, but I can't imagine that sort of thing being difficult to translate into d20 terms.

[Sian]

1. It's not that complex; there are a number of useful metaphors to help people grasp it (such as a revolver with different kinds of bullets in each chamber), and the concept isn't that difficult on an abstract level.

2. This isn't Angry Birds. Immediate gratification and mindless simplicity have never been the principle draws of a role-playing game, particularly not a rules-heavy system such as D&D.

So, being cumbersome and unwieldy is a quality in itself? ... why don't you demand that everyone that runs a marathon does it in Classical Greek armor then, since thats how the legend states that the first one did it?

Wanting to have something to be as intuitative as possible to use, doesn't mean that it has to be easy to use efficiently without knowing your way around the system ... and your quip about Angry Birds is simply the biggest strawman i've seen in quite some time (... since Bush vs. Gore i believe)

[Elderand]

5E actually has a pretty solid version of Vancian casting. It's one of the better versions I've seen, though that's not too surprising given the designer line-up they have working on the product line.

It's nothing new, that system has existed since 2003. It's quite clearly from Monte cook arcana unearthed.

[Necroticplague]

Didn't PF arcanist have pretty much the exact same thing going on? you prep your spell known every day, then it's like you're a spontaneous caster for the rest of the day?

[DrMartin]

I like prepared caster in an environment like 2nd edition, when they are the only casters around. It's a quirky and memorable system with a lot of flavor, even if the concept can be odd at first. Of the many interpretations of it, I like the one according to which spells are weird, kind-of-living entities that reside in the wizards' brain till they are "let loose" best, more than the "rituals almost finished" one. I think it's more in line with the vibe of magic in the tales of the dying earth, where sometimes the caster had very little control on what a certain spell actually does when it's been cast.

If spontaneous casters are available, I prefer them over prepared casters. You may be less powerful and versatile than a correctly played prepared caster, but every spell you pick is something that defines your character, and that you will never be without. See for instance Elan, when he picks Remove Poison.

Of all kinds of spontaneous caster, I like non vancian ones better - the whole thing of spell slots feels clunky and poorly suited for a spellcaster that should be spontaneous.

So in short, I like Vancian for wizards, but I think that Sorcerers should have had Psion-like mechanics from the get-go of 3rd edition.

[Masakan]

I like prepared caster in an environment like 2nd edition, when they are the only casters around. It's a quirky and memorable system with a lot of flavor, even if the concept can be odd at first. Of the many interpretations of it, I like the one according to which spells are weird, kind-of-living entities that reside in the wizards' brain till they are "let loose" best, more than the "rituals almost finished" one. I think it's more in line with the vibe of magic in the tales of the dying earth, where sometimes the caster had very little control on what a certain spell actually does when it's been cast.

If spontaneous casters are available, I prefer them over prepared casters. You may be less powerful and versatile than a correctly played prepared caster, but every spell you pick is something that defines your character, and that you will never be without. See for instance Elan, when he picks Remove Poison.

Of all kinds of spontaneous caster, I like non vancian ones better - the whole thing of spell slots feels clunky and poorly suited for a spellcaster that should be spontaneous.

So in short, I like Vancian for wizards, but I think that Sorcerers should have had Psion-like mechanics from the get-go of 3rd edition.

Of course then we would have people complaining about Sorcerers being too powerful. But yeah I agree

[TheIronGolem]

Didn't PF arcanist have pretty much the exact same thing going on? you prep your spell known every day, then it's like you're a spontaneous caster for the rest of the day?

Yes, and this is by far my favorite version of prepared casting. Less paperwork, but the thematic aspect remains intact.

[LTwerewolf]

Yes, and this is by far my favorite version of prepared casting. Less paperwork, but the thematic aspect remains intact.

Slap the spell points system on there and that's how I envision casters. Although this thread was the first time I've seen talk of the spheres of power, something I clearly need to check out.

[Yahzi]

There. Encounter-based Vancian.
That's actually really good, and closer to what Vance wrote. His characters never memorized more than 3 or 4 spells.

Vancian is fantastic for novels, which is why Vance invented it. For games it's just plain wonky. Especially for clerics, the whole thing just doesn't make sense at all.

But it's D&D. It's part of the flavor; it's the reason you play D&D instead of some sensible game, like GURPS.

[Vhaidara]

But it's D&D. It's part of the flavor; it's the reason you play D&D instead of some sensible game, like GURPS.

You say that like its fact. The only class in my games that still uses vancian casting is Alchemist, because it actually makes sense for them. I play dnd/PF in spite of vancian, not because of it.

[noob]

Vancian spells are balanced around the Vancian system. Changing the system, changes the assumptions. Just look at Dreamscarred Press' Ultimate Psionics, a 5 star rated, gold bestselling product publicly endorsed by the guys at Paizo. It uses a point based casting system with powers that are balanced to a point-based system, and the general ceiling is Tier 2 with the "full caster" Psion. The basic design assumptions of Vancian casting dictate much of the power of the various spells that get written, particularly since they're designed on a curve to the lowest common denominator (leading to spells that are designed to be powerful in the hands of a guy who has no idea what he's doing that become horrifically broken in the hands of someone whose read up on what they want to do).

You can go even simpler than the psionic version of point-based systems and still have a complex and robust option. Spheres of power gives you a pool of spell points that will probably never reach much higher than 30, and will generally be spent in units of 5 or less, making the math extremely easy. You end up with an easy-to-play character who has an array of fun and balanced at-will magical abilities, and the ability to spend a set number of points to emulate his higher level spell effects. Because each magical Sphere is balanced on an individual level, you also allow "magical" characters to embody their particular character concept from level 1. If you want to be a time mage, you can use time magic from 1st level, but it's going to be 1st level appropriate power, which you can eventually scale up to effects on par with the slow, haste, or even time stop spells. There's even rules in there to allow some of the "discovering ancient magic scrolls/staves/etc." progression for your character if you want to emulate that type of world.
Except it fix nothing at all: casters stays 10^22 light years above all the other character it does make very few difference compared to vancian casters a^a^a^a^a^a^a light years above the rest with a = 234^5556.
1: You still can not have a caster-less party fight casters
2: You still have completely crazy shenanigans like the psion fusing with all the creatures he ever met and using astral seed for becoming unbeatable by any mundane(in the case of psionics for sphere casting I do not know) and ridiculously reality changing abilities like mind seed(Why is not everyone a copy of a megalomaniac psion wanting everyone to be his copy)
3: Non vancian magic is generally infinitely harder to play: usually you have an hard time learning new spells and find yourself super annoyed when you discover you would actually need more spells and/or that you messed up one spell selection and that because of that you will be useless against the encounters the GM make(because GMs makes 99% of the time only encounters designed to counter the players and that becomes boringly easy when you can just put monsters which can not be defeated at all without spell X and no matter the magic system there will be Gm acting like that)

[Vhaidara]

You wanna know how easy spheres is? My friend who has only played 4e picked it up after about 15 minutes with the pdf.

You have abilities that are at will. You have spell points. You can spend spell points to supercharge your abilities. You have talents. You can spend the talents to get new ways to spend your spell points, within the theme of your spheres.

[noob]

You wanna know how easy spheres is? My friend who has only played 4e picked it up after about 15 minutes with the pdf.

You have abilities that are at will. You have spell points. You can spend spell points to supercharge your abilities. You have talents. You can spend the talents to get new ways to spend your spell points, within the theme of your spheres.

You still do not understand why it is harder to play the reason is ridiculously simple: if you mess up with your build it is infinitely ultimately horrible for 10 years or you must re-roll a new character and then the new one will be blank and not as much well integrated in the campaign than the old one.
It is horribly harder than vancian because with vancian you can just grab five scrolls and your previous spell selection is forgotten and you can fix your build errors super easily and you have time to learn while playing what are your mistakes in your spell selection and fix it in one day.
Vancian is way more newbie friendly because you do not need a build at all and so you do not have to think while making your character to"if I choose to death sphere we might find that the GM will spam opponents adapted against undead(and resistant to the spells of this sphere) and then I might see that at level 10 it is an horribly poor choice but since I did not played with that I can not know"
While with vancian you just say "light have a funny name I will prepare only this spell" and then the next day you will have fixed everything by grabbing the minor image scroll in the loot of the opponents treasure and you will have discovered how awesome it is.
with sphere casting if the campaign goes into an construct heavy area you might find that your spheres are not adapted and you will not be able to fix that in one day.
Basically omnipotence without needing to do permanent choices is more new player friendly.
Also still spheres caster are still probably better than most magic less people.

[Vhaidara]

Except you get more talents every level, which can be used to access more spheres. And you can take feats for more talents. And the spherecasting base classes, with the exception of Incanter (who gets like twice as many talents as everyone else), all have really solid class features aside from casting.

So you are saying that because your enchantment specialist can stop being an enchantment specialist if the GM decided to screw you over by running a campaign that counters you, vancian is better? How about a system where you can level up and take a talent to counter that weakness instead of abandoning your character concept?

[zergling.exe]

Except you get more talents every level, which can be used to access more spheres. And you can take feats for more talents. And the spherecasting base classes, with the exception of Incanter (who gets like twice as many talents as everyone else), all have really solid class features aside from casting.

So you are saying that because your enchantment specialist can stop being an enchantment specialist if the GM decided to screw you over by running a campaign that counters you, vancian is better? How about a system where you can level up and take a talent to counter that weakness instead of abandoning your character concept?

Because in a world of DM fiat, players lose. You use the spells the DM wants you to use and the concept they want you to play.

[Vhaidara]

Because in a world of DM fiat, players lose. You use the spells the DM wants you to use and the concept they want you to play.

And you're still sitting at a table where the GM does this in a passive aggressive "I'll hard counter everything else you try" manner instead of just letting you know "heads up, the way I have this written, focusing on x will probably be a bad idea"?

Seriously, that was exactly my point. The magic system can't fix jackass gms.

It can allow for players to actually fulfil their concepts when them GM is competent enough to not be a total douche. Vancian casting is terrible for that. Spheres is incredibly easy for that.

It can allow players to find a balance between getting stomped and stomping. Vancian is terrible for that (too many options fall into both categories). Spheres is very easy for that.

It can affect how much homework you have to do to fulfill your concept. Vancian is terrible for this, outside of a small number if concepts. Spheres is fantastic for this. Name any fantasy archetype for a magic user, and you can probably replicate abilities (not necessarily power or scale) by level 5. And it's generally a very logical build. t
Teleportation focus? Warp sphere. Plant focus? Nature sphere. Shapeshifter? Alteration sphere.

The only archetype that isn't really supported is mass minionmancy, because dear lord that is a nightmare to balance. And that might also change, depending on if I can come up with a balanced way to write it for the Conjuration Handbook.

I grew up on vancian casting. I've used it for over half my life. I picked up spheres and within a week I was able to build characters I had dismissed as impossible under vancian without significant houseruling or being played at levels exceeding 15.

[noob]

Maybe(if it works) beholder magi + a way to have divine spells too in your beholder magi + mystic theurge(For an increase in caster level of four per level)
Else you can just use that base class with both divine and arcane spells and take levels in mystic theurge for only double progression.
Or you can turn yourself into a cheese elemental(commoner level 1 + dmm cleric up to level 7) and throw infinitely big things(real infinite not an hyperbole you can also create them) at level 8
Doing something at low level does not makes it necessarily better balanced or funny.
explain why it is more balanced outside of the selection of the effects.
Would it be balanced it they added the sphere of awesome which would automatically convert all the opponents in cultists of you and makes you immortal and able to create whatever you want no matter how costly it is.
No but it is exactly the same thing for vancian the reason it does not works is the spell the creators did made not the fact you can change them every morning and the spells are not a part of the spell system.

[Vhaidara]

So, your solution is
Break the game
Break the game
Or
Break the game?

What if I actually wanted to, I don't know, use this character in a game? With people?

Seriously, you might as well have just advertise punpun as a major feature with that attitude.

[noob]

I was still editing some stuff in my previous post before you spoke it was just for saying that on this point you could also have the spells you want at low level with current dnd but it is sure that if spheres of powers were the base casting system of the game there would be the same kind of tricks for spheres you find it balanced only because there was not 50 manuals adding unbalanced stuff to it.
What I want to say is that The system and what you do with it are completely independent stuff. if there was only 100 spells vancian casting would be simpler to use than with all the spells of dnd.
And if there was no broken spells or spell combination you would not be able to do broken stuff.
vancian casting is only a mechanic it does not includes the spells of dnd and you could use it with only spells like "fireball 1" "fireball 2" and "fireball 3" and it would not only be simple but it would also not break the game.

Also I do not advertise pun pun it is not my favorite god: he does deals finite damage instead of blasting people for infinite damage..

[Vhaidara]

Vancian, as it exists in dnd, is horribly broken. It is also stupidly restrictive in terms of its ability to fulfill fluff requirements. I want a character who can teleport short distances? Wait until level 7 to get dimension door. And now you have it 1/day. The combination of spell levels and an extreme limit on use make it highly uncooperative with creating interesting characters, because you have to either wait a long time to do your thing rarely, or cheese the game so hard no one reasonable will play with you.

You're saying ignore the reality of the system we have. I don't see any point in that. Vancian casting does not match up to how magic works in ANY fantasy setting I have read. Not a single one of them.

You're saying that vancian is only unbalanced because of all the splatbooks adding to it? Bull****. It's well established that a lot of the most broken spells are core, aka, were in the game on launch.

Edit: and with that edit you have devolved into nonsense speak, so I am abandoning this conversation and placing you on my ignore list. Goodbye.

[noob]

Nope I said that a casting system is completely independent from its spells: a casting system is a set of rules for casting spells and the spells you can cast are not part of the rule system.
It is like saying "This computer is bad: the current movie which is played on this computer is awful"
The movie is not a part of this computer.
With better chosen spells vancian could be better than what is is in dnd.

[Abithrios]

I think one major problem with vancian casting as it exists is the reliance on uses per day. By giving spellcasters only daily abilities, the designers can give themselves the false sense that they can predict how scarce those abilities are. As a result, they have to assume a particular schedule of how many encounters a party will have per day and balance around that. That assumption is necessarily not true for every group. Some groups are under more time pressure and have more encounters. Some groups have the luxury to better control the pace of the adventure. Either one of those has a negative impact on balance and can make the game worse.

I have seen two solutions to this problem that I like.

The first is the Tome of Battle/Path of War solution. This simply shortens the time scale on regaining used powers. As a result, there is way less worrying about whether to use a particular ability this fight or next. Instead you use either this round or next. The time scale is actually tied to things actually relevant to the balance of the game--the natural way of determining how often someone can use a special ability to stab someone is as a fraction of how many times they try to stab people in total, not based on cycles of celestial bodies. This allows developers to better predict exactly how scare the resources really are.

A second system I like is found in Spheres of Power. In this system, you have many abilities available at will. The resource system is not the source of all your magic. Instead, spending spell points lets you do things like increase effects or durations. Some of the more powerful effects require a spell point to activate at all. There are a couple of benefits I see in such a system. The first is that you can still do things related to your theme even if you run out of points. A sphere caster doesn't turn into a commoner with a crossbow if they use their abilities too much. Another benefit is that when designing for such a system, not every ability has to be awesome. Some of the abilities can be merely decent. The merely decent abilities can still see use because they have a lower opportunity cost when using them.

I am not sure this last one is robust enough to make a full magic system around, but I will mention it because it is interesting. Pathfinder's swashbucklers have a resource known as panache which powers some of their abilities. They have a certain maximum they start with at the beginning of the day and can spend on some of their abilities. The interesting thing about it is that they also have ways to get it back over the course of the day by being swashbucklerish, such as finishing off an enemy or getting a critical hit.

[Mehangel]

Nope I said that a casting system is completely independent from its spells: a casting system is a set of rules for casting spells and the spells you can cast are not part of the rule system.
It is like saying "This computer is bad: the current movie which is played on this computer is awful"
The movie is not a part of this computer.
With better chosen spells vancian could be better than what is is in dnd.

While I agree that the individual spells are a huge proportion of the problem with vancian casting, it isn't the entire problem. Lets say for example that you throw out all the CORE spells and just hombrew your own.

You create level 1 spells that teleport short distances, or manipulate time, etc. These spells would be written in such a fashion that would be level appropriate, scales with level, and yet rarely (if ever) game breaking. That is great.

Now lets see you at level one if a wizard are likely to have anywhere from 2-5 level 1 spells. Now in average a party of pc's are supposed to have 4 encounters in a single day. So that means, your average wizard can only afford to spend 1 spell in a single encounter (if that).

----------

Lets compare this to a sphere caster. For these purposes lets pick a sphere wizard, just to keep things in perspective.

You dont need to throw out spells and homebrew new ones because they are all level appropriate, scale with level, and yet rarely (if ever) break the game. That is great, you now have more time to play the game.

As a level 1 sphere wizard you are going to begin with 4 talents from which to choose its spheres and talent options. So, because the sphere wizard wants to focus on manipulate time and space, the wizard choose to spend 2 of those talents to gain the spheres: Time and Warp. Now the sphere wizard not only wants to be able to increase his own time or slow someone elses, but actually stop time around him. So he spends an additional talent on Freeze Time, the sphere wizard also wants to be able to attempt to fix past mistakes, so he spends his last talent on the Rewind talent.

In short the sphere wizard can do the following:
Time Sphere
Haste: At-will
Slow: At-will
Freeze Time: 1 SP
Rewind: 1 SP

Warp Sphere
Teleport: Teleport 25ft At-will

Now the sphere wizard only has a limited number of spell points (SP) per day which will likely range from 4-6. But if the sphere wizard accidentally uses more than 1 SP per encounter, the sphere wizard can still manipulate time and space at-will by using the Haste, Slow, and Teleport options.

Does this explain why Spheres of Power is ultimately better than Vancian casting?

[Elderand]

Does this explain why Spheres of Power is ultimately better than Vancian casting?

But it's not better (not for the reasons you give), you just like it more. And that's fine. And for some people having a wizard who need to plan ahead and really think about when and how to use his limited ressources is something they prefer.

[Vhaidara]

But it's not better (not for the reasons you give), you just like it more. And that's fine. And for some people having a wizard who need to plan ahead and really think about when and how to use his limited ressources is something they prefer.

There's even a degree of that, with the Prepared Casting Drawback. It requires you to assign your spell points to certain spheres at the beginning of the day. And guess what? When you've used them, you aren't a commoner.

[Elderand]

And guess what? When you've used them, you aren't a commoner.

So what ? That's still just a preference. Some people like that their spellcaster are useless once out of mojo.

[crunchykoolaid]

So what ? That's still just a preference. Some people like that their spellcaster are useless once out of mojo.

While that certainly is a valid preference, and you are able to play DnD the way you have the most fun, from a game design perspective taking away all of someone's power after an arbitrary number of uses might not appeal to some players. So in this case Vancian and Sphere casting cater to different styles of player, making them equally valid depending on the group or DM. However, sphere casting, with its infinite source of at-will abilities, inherently will support more playstyles than Vancian casting.

Just to clarify, this is not to say that preferring Vancian casting is "wrong", it is just that you are in a minority of possible playstyles.

[Der_DWSage]

While fair that you can prefer the Wizard and his limited resources...another important thing to note is that Mehangel was able to build a time-and-space Wizard from level one, without unbalancing the entire game because he has 3rd level spells. (He forgot to note that everything from the Time sphere is single target or small radius only, or that the haste and slow is 'at will' only if he spends his subsequent standard actions concentrating, but that's another matter.)

Really, to sum up, the advantages of Spheres of Power are as follows.
1)Able to build thematic spellcasters from level 1 to 20, rather than having a sweet spot where their mastery of spells finally kicks in.
1a)Spherecasting FORCES you to be somewhat thematic. It's difficult to become the master of illusion/teleportation/damage dealing/etc. unless you spend a few spells known that way, whereas Vancian casting just goes 'Oh, I've never touched fire spells in my life. Time to pick up Meteor Swarm!' (This has always bugged me.)
2)Still able to perform magic, if severely limited, even if they run out of 'spell slots.' This magic usually requires they spend their standard actions concentrating, or they're using half their level in D6s of damage against a single target.
3)Most of the spellcasting in Spheres doesn't break the game wide open. Even Invisibility offers mages a way to compete, not to dominate. The worst offender is probably teleport, and that's just because it offers ways around most obstacles.

With all that said, the name of the topic is discussing Vancian Casting. I've really become jaded to it over the years, but it DOES support one particular bit of fluff quite well-the person that makes almost-finished rituals, and treats them as a loaded gun in the back of his mind. Really, most of the issue I have with Vancian casting is twofold-it became too broad at the base, (With the Wizard and Cleric learning almost every spell possible) and it became too powerful too quickly. (To justify the 10 levels of spells and the idea of 'they're only going to use this a few times a day, we may as well make it worth using!')

[Eldan]

Vancian, as it exists in dnd, is horribly broken. It is also stupidly restrictive in terms of its ability to fulfill fluff requirements. I want a character who can teleport short distances? Wait until level 7 to get dimension door. And now you have it 1/day. The combination of spell levels and an extreme limit on use make it highly uncooperative with creating interesting characters, because you have to either wait a long time to do your thing rarely, or cheese the game so hard no one reasonable will play with you.

Class features:
Abrupt Jaunt

LEvel 1 teleport spells:
Benign transposition
Scramble True Position

Level 2 teleport spells:
Baleful Transposition
Dimension Hop
Dimension Leap

LEvel 3 teleport spells:
Node door
Regroup
Scattering Trap



As for not matching other settings, how is that a drawback? It's original. I call that "creativity". A lot of interesting things have it, perhaps you've heard of it.

[Eldan]

There's even a degree of that, with the Prepared Casting Drawback. It requires you to assign your spell points to certain spheres at the beginning of the day. And guess what? When you've used them, you aren't a commoner.

What if I like the idea that a hero (not just a wizard, any hero) will occasionaly end up battered and bruised and out of power after a long and arduous battle? Why shouldn't a wizard ever run out of power?

[Necroticplague]

What if I like the idea that a hero (not just a wizard, any hero) will occasionaly end up battered and bruised and out of power after a long and arduous battle? Why shouldn't a wizard ever run out of power?

Why would that require Vancian? Mana pool systems can get the same thing. If you're out of spell slots, or out of mana points, either way, you're up a creek sans paddle.

[Eldan]

Yes. I was specifically talking about Spheres here, since I'm getting a bit annoyed at the praise that gets endlessly parroted in this thread.

[Vhaidara]

Congrats, digging through about a dozen splatbooks you managed to track down a few abilities that are still highly limited in their usage. Outside of being a wizard, there is still no "I'm over there now" until level 3, a core component of this character type. In fact, the defining part of it. Hell, the Mageknight (full BAB half caster spheres class) can grab the Warp Sphere at level 1, and now you have your teleporting warrior. Or he takes Telekinesis and is wielding his weapons with his mind.


As for not matching other settings, how is that a drawback? It's original. I call that "creativity". A lot of interesting things have it, perhaps you've heard of it.

What if I want to play someone who doesn't follow the rules of one obscure setting, in one of the most popular and mainstream games out there? there are no rules available for any kind of casting that emulates anything else. It does not encourage creativity on the side of the player, because every time they go "I want to do this!" the system goes "**** YOU SIT DOWN AND EAT YOUR ****ING PORRIDGE!"

I also find the comment at the end there quite unnecessary, since you know full well that it is a strawman. You are referring to creativity from the designers, I'm referring to creativity from the players. Guess which one is more important?

[Eldan]

So? Spheres is an entire book devoted to one power system. The player's handbook has to define the entire system of D&D and introduce a dozen classes, and it isn't written with the benefit of a dozen years of experience with the 3rd edition system.

If you want to argue on that level, there's also a lot of concepts that Spheres doesn't cover. Why can't I build a nonmagical rogue with just that book? What a ripoff.

D&D core presents one magic system, for D&D. IF you want to emulate magic from another source, there's other systems for that. There's psionics, warlocks and binders. Don't blame Vancian for not emulating every source of fiction out there, or I'll start listing Brandon Sanderson books that Spheres doesn't cover.

D&D is, by now, it's own thing. It covers the fluff of D&D, and a few other things. None of the monster manuals feature creatures from, oh, I don't know, Perdido Street Station either. They feature creatures from Greyhawk, Planescape and Forgotten Realms.

[Der_DWSage]

What if I like the idea that a hero (not just a wizard, any hero) will occasionaly end up battered and bruised and out of power after a long and arduous battle? Why shouldn't a wizard ever run out of power?
If you want people who eventually run completely out of magical power, and the Wizard can get reduced to Commoner with a crossbow, then that's a benefit of Vancian casting. (Assuming you don't play Pathfinder, where they still have cantrips of infinite use.) However, it's important to recognize that not everyone sees that as a benefit, just like not everyone sees it as a bad thing. SoP and Vancian casting allow two very different styles of play, and after 15+ years of 3rd edition and Vancian casting, is it any surprise that a solidly made subsystem is garnering love?

EDIT:And to your more recent post:Because Rogues aren't covered in the book. Neither are any purely nonmagical classes. It's a supplement to core, not the core rules in their entirety.

[Eldan]

EDIT:And to your more recent post:Because Rogues aren't covered in the book. Neither are any purely nonmagical classes. It's a supplement to core, not the core rules in their entirety.

Which is exactly my argument. The player's handbook simply did not have the space to cover everything, it had to cover the basics how to make a character, equipment, a dozen other classes, how combat works. While Spheres of Power only as to cover a magic system, and therefore has much more space to include options.
For that reason, I think it's a bit unfair if one says that spells from splatbooks shouldn't be considered here. Some concepts had to be moved away from core, that is why Splatbooks exist in the first place.

[Mehangel]

Which is exactly my argument. The player's handbook simply did not have the space to cover everything, it had to cover the basics how to make a character, equipment, a dozen other classes, how combat works. While Spheres of Power only as to cover a magic system, and therefore has much more space to include options.
For that reason, I think it's a bit unfair if one says that spells from splatbooks shouldn't be considered here. Some concepts had to be moved away from core, that is why Splatbooks exist in the first place.

I just wanted to point out that the Core Rule Book has almost 100 164 pages explaining the magic system and individual spells.

Spheres of Power has almost 100 84 pages explaining the magic system (including advanced magic such as rituals, incantations and spell-crafting).

Just saying that you could easily just tear out the magic system from the core rulebook and put spheres of power in its place and it would be the same size there would still be enough room for not only casting traditions (10 pages) but much more content.

EDIT: I am sorry, I am wrong, actually spheres of power only has 84 pages for the magic system, whereas Core Rulebook has 164 pages... I stand corrected.

[Afgncaap5]

Ok this is a topic I've heard quite a bit about during my time in the Playground, and it seems everyone and their Dire Wolf has an opinion about it...

*Snip-snip*

My questions are as follows:

1. In your opinion, what about this system of magic makes it good/bad/ridiculous?

I think it's good as a type of magic, but I think it's best in a world where high magic is rarer and harder to get. Wizards *can* stockpile spells, and should be encouraged to do so, but if every wizard can reach 20 and every wizard can just buy the entire catalogue of 9th level spells, the way it works in D&D becomes a little weird. It's also a little odd to me that a master of fire magic can't cast burning hands more than 5 or 6 times in a day, and then only by sacrificing other possible spells to do so. I like that it's a version of magic that exists, but I tend to prefer it for individual characters, not as an assumed rule.

Oh, and as a final note on ridiculousness: Vancian magic in D&D doesn't really mesh well with other kinds of Vancian magic. It's... similar, in some ways, to Zork's style of magic from the Enchanter's Guild, but I couldn't really make a Zork-style Enchanter without either severely crippling it in some ways or overpowering it in others. Fortunately, 3.5 is kind to homebrewing, so homebrew I do. I use Vancian most often, but a lot of the other magicians in my setting simply, uh... don't.


2. If you could make improvements or straight up replace it with another system, how would you change the system?

I wouldn't replace it, but I'd have another system exist alongside it, possibly as a more common alternative in the game world. I'm a *huge* fan of how magic is handled in Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, for instance. And the game Cosmic Patrol has a decent mechanic for low-grade magical effects. If a character has "Fire Magic" as a special stat die in Cosmic Patrol, they could say "I try to light the damp firewood with a spell to burn this particular kind of wood" or "I fill the next chamber with a roaring conflagration of plasma-fire" or "I want to make the barrels of oil burst in a fiery explosion." In all three instances in cosmic patrol, they'd use the exact same ability, the exact same dice, and be opposed in exactly the same way. They'd be *ruined* in the case of someone who needs, say, a divination, though, so a player who wants to do both might be better in a d20 vancian system.

Other people in this thread have stated a love for Spheres of Power, and I have to repeat them. It's a fun system. Very thematic, very easy to create the kinds of magic systems you might want, and you can flavorfully engineer a world to look about however you'd like. One of the examples the book lists of a GM using the system to do this is basically a lawyer-friendly demonstration of how the system can recreate Avatar: The Last Airbender's world and magic rules. One of these days I plan on doing the same thing; I'd like to create a world where the magic works like it does in Girl Genius. So... I may do that some day.



And finally, kind of an offshoot of #2...
3. Does this system work best for DnD/games in general, for other fantasy media like books or television, both, or neither?

It works to a degree, sure. And in the right kind of story it can be fun, but I'd be cautious against using it blindly. Take Discworld, for instance: the wizards of Discworld are often depicted in a sort of D&D-style Vancian caster, but they usually know different spells from each other, and the spells are a lot more specific. I think it's the book Reaper Man where some of the mages from Unseen University are in a situation where one asks another if they have any more fireballs prepared for the day, so 'standards' like fireball and levitation seem to be in play. On the other hand, though, the witches of Lancre tend to use something a bit more fluid, a sort of magic that they can access by tapping into other forces and conveying them.

And in both styles of magic, they tend to have a sort of "balance the forces" approach. You once see a wizard who manages to quickly levitate to the top of a building by blasting a statue off the top of it and treating it as if there was an invisible pulley connecting them to each other. Elsewhere, you see a witch who stops a painful attack as if she was immune to the damage... but instead she just waits until the situation is calmer and decides to take the damage *then* instead. So even while Vancian magic is in play, the casters seems to have some sort of innate 'balance' ability that lets them organize the effects of their magic.

So... I think that Vancian magic is great, and it's a fun tradition to incorporate into things, but I personally find it a bit limiting and would prefer other methods of engaging in similar practices in games.

[Der_DWSage]

Which is exactly my argument. The player's handbook simply did not have the space to cover everything, it had to cover the basics how to make a character, equipment, a dozen other classes, how combat works. While Spheres of Power only as to cover a magic system, and therefore has much more space to include options.
For that reason, I think it's a bit unfair if one says that spells from splatbooks shouldn't be considered here. Some concepts had to be moved away from core, that is why Splatbooks exist in the first place.

...Actually, the entirety of SoP could very nearly fit in the space about magic alone. (Core has 145k words to say about casting magic, SoP's entire book, including new classes, making magic items, and the variants of spellcasting, is only 160k words. You could move 'making magic items' into the DMG and have it fit pretty snugly.)

Also, the point wasn't that 'Hey, you can't include splatbooks here, that's cheating!' It was more 'Great! You scoured 18 splatbooks for a handful of spells that KINDA fit your concept. Spheres lets you fully fit your concept from the get-go, rather than having to hunt for the one spell that fits the exact thing you want to do, and that will probably fall into obscurity sooner or later.' Splatbooks are great. I'm pretty sure that everyone agrees that the game would be far more balanced without the core rulebook there to muck things up. That doesn't change the fact that you had to pull from two books out of...what, thirty? To get even a handful of low-level spells that probably aren't quite what you want. (I want to be Nightcrawler, why do I have to switch spots with the Fighter instead of being able to Bamf? Is it really that unbalanced to spend a standard action jumping short distances?)

[Eldan]

I honestly still dont really understand why every concept needs to be accessible at level 1. Level 1 is the grim & gritty level, not the superhero level.

[Afgncaap5]

I honestly still dont really understand why every concept needs to be accessible at level 1. Level 1 is the grim & gritty level, not the superhero level.

Oh, I don't think the push is for every concept to be available. I think it's more about the broad concepts. If I want to make "Caliente 'Cal' Coalbarrel, Halfling Pyromancer" at level 1, I can take a few fire spells at that level, sure. I can also shoot myself in the foot by memorizing nothing but fire spells (or as a sorcerer, having nothing but fire spells on my list.) I can't really... be a "pyromancer" with that, though. In that case, it's more that I'm a wizard who is, for some weird reason, willfully ignoring the presence of non-fire spells. Nothing's stopping me from homebrewing a class that's built a bit better for a Pyromancer, of course (and I've done just that, as it happens) but that's effort that not everyone who wants to make a pyromancer would like to do.

Ultimately, there's a choice. Some people want to be able to take a class that gets everything and then just choose to ignore options until they're left with something that looks like what they want (which is why Factotum is a go-to answer for a lot of these things when people don't default to saying that Wizard is a good representation.) Other people, though, would like to build from the ground up and always be something related to their concept from the start. I'm more in the latter camp, personally, but I can understand the appeal of the former.

[Vhaidara]

I honestly still dont really understand why every concept needs to be accessible at level 1. Level 1 is the grim & gritty level, not the superhero level.

I'm not seeing your point. Grim and Gritty means that you can control people's thoughts and put them to sleep (Charm Person and Sleep), but not teleport 30ft as a standard action? Or use a fire spell other than Burning Hands?

[Eldan]

Which is a good point. I've argued before that perhaps magic should just be unavailable before level 5 to give mundanes some space.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I'm not seeing your point. Grim and Gritty means that you can control people's thoughts and put them to sleep (Charm Person and Sleep), but not teleport 30ft as a standard action? Or use a fire spell other than Burning Hands?

Yeah I don't know if I'd call it 'grim and gritty' but one thing you're missing is that Sleep and Charm are gonna have a DC of about 14/15 on average. Assuming a +0 will save on the target's part, your spell still fails about 25% of the time which is.... not great.

So it still applies in the sense that level 1 is the level where pretty much anything can go wrong.

[Afgncaap5]

Which is a good point. I've argued before that perhaps magic should just be unavailable before level 5 to give mundanes some space.

And suddenly, Khorvaire's economy vanished...

Mordain, Vol, and Oalian looked into the sky and heard the distant screams as the achievements of the Dragonmarked Houses began to fade. The day writ in the stars came to pass as the paranoia and lack of infrastructure ignited the spark that would lead to the next stage of the Last War, one that might truly be over and done with.

"The time to end our differences is now," said Oalian, speaking into the lake that reflected the starry sky, branches shaking with every rumble of its voice.

"Agreed," said Vol, speaking into a mirror as shriveled heads owned by the other two recounted her words. "The dragons will ignore us, and I'm sure we can expect Aerenal to do the same."

"I maintain that the undying court may yet bring us some aid," said Mordain, speaking back at the head, though he had modified it. The disembodied orb now had a third eye, three ears, and three mouths... three felt like a good number for this creature before he restored its life. "We have not all abandoned our longstanding ties to Aerenal, Lich Queen.

"They have abandoned their ties to you, whether you know it or not, mad one," said Vol. "I was forsaken for living. Do you think they consider you to be one of their kind after choosing life among the short-lived humans? Being known as The Fleashweaver will neither impress nor intimidate them."

"Now is not the time for squabbles," said Oalian. "Already our unseen enemy moves."

"And besides, being abandoned is not the end," said another voice from Oalian's side. "I maintain... have always maintained... that it is the beginning. And when the lesser magics of the humans has faded, only the greatest magics remain... and some will last forever."

"Oalian, who have you invited to our private conversations?" asked Vol. "Had I known that lackeys were permitted, I would have introduced you to my recently... reinstated lieutenant, Caerzaal."

"And I to my associates in the Aurum," said Mordain.

"I am no lackey," growled the voice.

"He sought me out after discovering our initial communications," said Oalian. "He offered his services, and I accepted. I felt his unique perspective might aid us. We are all weakened by this strike against the baser magics... but where we use magic, The Lord of Blades is magic."

"A pleasure to meet you," said the rumbling voice. "Now...what meat sack do we kill to get this show on the road?"

*****

I kinda like this premise, actually. Don't think I'd like to play there very often, though. Once, maybe twice. Ooh, and it'd do crazy things in Greyhawk, too, now that I think about it...

[Snowbluff]

Eberron isn't any fun to play in anyway. :smalltongue:

[Afgncaap5]

Eberron isn't any fun to play in anyway. :smalltongue:

Heh. I'll have to disagree with ya there, but I'll concede that exploding airships and fist fights on top of elemental-powered trains aren't for everybody.

[Kantolin]

I /love/ Vancian casting. It's a very neat system, and it fills my tactical senses. One of my favorite characters took the Bardic Sage variant, made it a spellbook caster, and ran with that. I also love sitting around with wizards and analyzing things, with the added fun of sharing spells being a thing. I had a great time in one game where an evil and rival group really wanted access to one or two of my spells, and he was fairly sure he couldn't just murder me and take it, resulting in us both jumping through some hoops to get at the other's spells.

I would like to note that it's not (necessarily) vancian casting that causes overpowered - Healers are certainly not overpowered, nor was my bardic sage. But yeah, it's a fun system.

Actually, one of the things I like most about 3.5 is that there are numerous systems you can use. If you don't like vancian, you can play a sorceror, or a beguiler/warmage, or a spirit shaman, or a warlock, or a psion, or an incarnate, or a warblade, or a barbarian. All of these have some aspect of different. If anything, I wish there were more lower-tier vancians to play with, as healer isn't the most fun. I have tried adapting shadowcaster to vancian, which is neat (Keep the 'one spell per day' but let you cycle which mysteries you have).

But meh, lots of games have mana systems or similar.

[Sian]

If you don't like vancian, you can play a sorceror, or a beguiler/warmage, or a spirit shaman

All of which uses Vancian Casting as well. Vancian casting is defined as being able to cast x spells of y level, a spells of b level, z spells of w level ... it has, strictly speaking, nothing to do with the details of how you gain/learn your spells within that scope.

[nyjastul69]

All of which uses Vancian Casting as well. Vancian casting is defined as being able to cast x spells of y level, a spells of b level, z spells of w level ... it has, strictly speaking, nothing to do with the details of how you gain/learn your spells within that scope.

Can you cite the source for this definition?

[Afgncaap5]

Can you cite the source for this definition?

I'm not sure I'd define it in those exact words, though I think that TV Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.VancianMagic) does a good job of explaining what's meant by "Vancian" magic, as it does for many things (seriously, TV Tropes is usually my go-to for info before things like Wikipedia. I've learned more about Hats, Etiquette, and legal disputes that way. But I digress...). Generally, Vancian can refer to any sort of system derived from, or similar to, the magic that Jack Vance presented in some of his books. Basically, "spells" in Vancian magic are magical effects that do very specific things, and generally the caster has no control over shaping them. I shouldn't use the magic from Fireball to warm up a mug of cider because Fireball specifically creates an explosive burst of dangerous fire; I can't "tone down" the Fireball spell, even if I could theoretically cast it with a Caster Level of 1. Even at CL 1, Fireball would theoretically still create a 1d6 explosion of fire in a certain radius. In true Vancian casting, that mug of cider is destroyed no matter what my intentions are with the Fireball.

Colloquially, this type of spell is what people mean when they talk about Vancian magic, and nearly every magic in D&D does this from the Wizard to the Psion to the Swordsage. You might argue that some magical effects don't fall into this (Incarnum arguably takes a step or two away from it while still gazing longingly back and reaching an arm back towards where it was), but for the most part, D&D magic tends to be Vancian in this fashion.

Now, it's worth noting that "preparing" or "memorizing" spells is a big part of the tradition, as that's how they were usually prepared in Jack Vance's books. One might argue that Sorcerers, therefore, don't use Vancian magic, but for them the preparation is merely an automatic process. Whether or not a Sorcerer is Vancian depends on your interpretation: Do they not truly prepare their spells, or are their spells prepared in a streamlined fashion that just involves little work on their part? Wherever you fall on this spectrum, the "prepared caster" aspect isn't as commonly used colloquially and, in fact, isn't what D&D's design team usually means when they talk about Vancian magic; much of their talk about Vancian magic during the design of 5e, for instance, was more about the nature of the spells than the nature of how they were prepared. So, when it comes to D&D, I personally don't talk about the method of preparation when I use the term Vancian, but other people do.

As a side note, the 5e Warlock I'm playing right now is the closest I think I've ever come in a D&D game to not feeling like my magic was Vancian. Sure I have a spell or two, but for the most part the people in town (and even the players who don't know what my class is) just think of me as "That weird hermit who just started showing up at town meetings... and can... talk to animals? And see in the dark? And can read pretty much any old text in our library? He... must have pretty good eyes, and a way with beasts. ...and be well read or well traveled or something." Those aren't really "spells", so much as they're specific and supernatural ways that I'm "different." In the back of my head I know it's still rooted in Vancian magic, but in the roleplay I feel like I'm finally taking a few steps away from that. It's kind of a relief, honestly. (Admittedly, much of what I'm doing is still doable with 3.5 Warlock invocations, but I've never played a Warlock in 3.5. I still count the Eldritch Blast as Vancian, though.)

[Necroticplague]

Colloquially, this type of spell is what people mean when they talk about Vancian magic, and nearly every magic in D&D does this from the Wizard to the Psion to the Swordsage. You might argue that some magical effects don't fall into this (Incarnum arguably takes a step or two away from it while still gazing longingly back and reaching an arm back towards where it was), but for the most part, D&D magic tends to be Vancian in this fashion.

Psionics also takes about half a step away with the Augment system, by which a spell actually can be upgraded to have a more variable nature (even if it at its core does the same thing).

Although, under the "very specific effect", that would make some spell non-vancian, due to their variable nature. Polymorph always transforms, but what it transforms you into isn't specified (beyond the restrictions of the spell).

[Afgncaap5]

Psionics also takes about half a step away with the Augment system, by which a spell actually can be upgraded to have a more variable nature (even if it at its core does the same thing).

Although, under the "very specific effect", that would make some spell non-vancian, due to their variable nature. Polymorph always transforms, but what it transforms you into isn't specified (beyond the restrictions of the spell).

Ah, true! I'd forgotten about that similarity between Psionics and Incarnum. I don't play with psionics often enough.

And while I feel like Polymorph should still be called a Vancian spell, I can't honestly think of many reasons for why apart from the restrictions about the way that the polymorphing happens. Like a well constructed mace your post contains valid points all around!

[VoxRationis]

...

I'd argue that the whole "can't cast spells forever" and "needs to prepare each effect in advance" are crucial parts of the Vancian system. "Can't adjust spells" is just one aspect of Vancian magic*, not enough to consider a system Vancian just based on that alone. A system can be influenced by Vancian magic or stem from Vancian magic without being Vancian in and of itself.


*And not even one applied universally in the source material. In Mazirian the Magician, the titular wizard uses a "Gyrator" spell which whirls the target around in the air, and he is mentioned as being capable of adjusting the speed and height of the gyration at will.

[nyjastul69]

I'm not sure I'd define it in those exact words, though I think that TV Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.VancianMagic) does a good job of explaining what's meant by "Vancian" magic, as it does for many things (seriously, TV Tropes is usually my go-to for info before things like Wikipedia. I've learned more about Hats, Etiquette, and legal disputes that way. But I digress...). Generally, Vancian can refer to any sort of system derived from, or similar to, the magic that Jack Vance presented in some of his books. Basically, "spells" in Vancian magic are magical effects that do very specific things, and generally the caster has no control over shaping them. I shouldn't use the magic from Fireball to warm up a mug of cider because Fireball specifically creates an explosive burst of dangerous fire; I can't "tone down" the Fireball spell, even if I could theoretically cast it with a Caster Level of 1. Even at CL 1, Fireball would theoretically still create a 1d6 explosion of fire in a certain radius. In true Vancian casting, that mug of cider is destroyed no matter what my intentions are with the Fireball.

Colloquially, this type of spell is what people mean when they talk about Vancian magic, and nearly every magic in D&D does this from the Wizard to the Psion to the Swordsage. You might argue that some magical effects don't fall into this (Incarnum arguably takes a step or two away from it while still gazing longingly back and reaching an arm back towards where it was), but for the most part, D&D magic tends to be Vancian in this fashion.

Now, it's worth noting that "preparing" or "memorizing" spells is a big part of the tradition, as that's how they were usually prepared in Jack Vance's books. One might argue that Sorcerers, therefore, don't use Vancian magic, but for them the preparation is merely an automatic process. Whether or not a Sorcerer is Vancian depends on your interpretation: Do they not truly prepare their spells, or are their spells prepared in a streamlined fashion that just involves little work on their part? Wherever you fall on this spectrum, the "prepared caster" aspect isn't as commonly used colloquially and, in fact, isn't what D&D's design team usually means when they talk about Vancian magic; much of their talk about Vancian magic during the design of 5e, for instance, was more about the nature of the spells than the nature of how they were prepared. So, when it comes to D&D, I personally don't talk about the method of preparation when I use the term Vancian, but other people do.

As a side note, the 5e Warlock I'm playing right now is the closest I think I've ever come in a D&D game to not feeling like my magic was Vancian. Sure I have a spell or two, but for the most part the people in town (and even the players who don't know what my class is) just think of me as "That weird hermit who just started showing up at town meetings... and can... talk to animals? And see in the dark? And can read pretty much any old text in our library? He... must have pretty good eyes, and a way with beasts. ...and be well read or well traveled or something." Those aren't really "spells", so much as they're specific and supernatural ways that I'm "different." In the back of my head I know it's still rooted in Vancian magic, but in the roleplay I feel like I'm finally taking a few steps away from that. It's kind of a relief, honestly. (Admittedly, much of what I'm doing is still doable with 3.5 Warlock invocations, but I've never played a Warlock in 3.5. I still count the Eldritch Blast as Vancian, though.)

I was hoping that the horrid TVTropes site wasn't the source citation. I've read it. The entire site IMO is terrible. It's in no way a primary source. 3e wizards use vancian casting. 3e sorcerers and psions do not use Vancian casting. I was just questioning where this 'definition' comes from. I have never seen it formally defined.

[Afgncaap5]

I was hoping that the horrid TVTropes site wasn't the source citation. I've read it. The entire site IMO is terrible. It's in no way a primary source. 3e wizards use vancian casting. 3e sorcerers and psions do not use Vancian casting. I was just questioning where this 'definition' comes from. I have never seen it formally defined.

You'd have to ask Sian about citations, I can't speak for that definition myself. TV Tropes was just a handy application that seems to fit what the WotC design team discusses. To be fair, though, if we're talking primary sources, not even D&D qualifies as such when we talk about Vancian Magic.

So... should we not discuss the merits of "Spell Bomb" magic and leave this thread for spell bomb magic as it pertains to individuals who prepare spells? We can do that, though that seems a bit limiting.

[Morty]

I think the magic system devised by Jack Vance is a fine one. It just really doesn't suit the kind of game D&D ended up becoming by the time its third edition rolled in.

[Ssalarn]

Maybe people should be discussing Vancian casting as defined in the OP, assuming anyone is interested in actually having a conversation.



To clarify, Vancian Casting refers to the method of preparing and casting magic spells in DnD, i.e., you have a certain amount of "slots" and can place a spell of a certain level in each slot each day to have it "prepared" for one use that day (this is the classic Wizard example, spontaneous casters have it slightly differently).

So the relevant definition for the conversation the OP started is "magic that involves having a specific number of slots of a given level in which you can prepare spells", with the Wizard being a prime example (and the Cleric), with classes like the Sorcerer being relevant to the conversation but acknowledged as being somewhat different.

There's all these posts arguing what "Vancian" is, that are basically wasted space. The OP already defined and gave an example of what he meant by Vancian casting.

[Afgncaap5]

There's all these posts arguing what "Vancian" is, that are basically wasted space. The OP already defined and gave an example of what he meant by Vancian casting.

Good call. I'd forgotten that through the topic drift.

Reverting to my first post a bit, I do think it's a fine system, I just like there to be more to the world than that. I think if the progression of the Shadowcaster had been back-ported to wizards, I might like Wizards better (ie., gradually gaining some favorite low-level spells as spell-like or supernatural abilities that they have at their disposal while still needing to take the time and effort to study higher level things.)

It occurs to me that the Wizard itself isn't a purely Vancian class when I focus on it. The Summon Familiar ability of Sorcerers and Wizards is an arcane ritual of sorts, but it is neither prepared as a vancian spell nor is it cast as one. Similarly, copying spells into a spellbook is definitely an arcane "art", though calling it a spell or ritual might be a stretch. Alchemy also qualifies, but skill-use abilities are sort of outside the purview of "class features", at least in terms of the sorts of things we're talking about, I think.

[Kantolin]

Heh, I did mean 'prepared casting'.

Either way, sorceror casting feels different from wizard casting (which itself feels different from spirit shaman or beguiler or warmage or psion casting, even though there are similarities). This does allow for a number of options, especially as most game systems I'm used to have only 'the one casting option'. (Let alone warlocks or shadowcasters or binders or stuff)

There are then power differences, which I find unfortunate more than anything else, but those aren't intrinsic to any particular system or healers would be amazing, heh.

I do like Wu Jens for the slight dink to power, although gentleman's helps.

[Sian]

Can you cite the source for this definition?

From my understanding Vancian casting is the fact that you have a limited number of spell slots destributed between distinct levels. Sure none of them does it the exact same way as Cleric/Druid/Wizard, as they aren't prepared casters but they still qualify IMO.

What source can you cite that say they aren't Vancian casting? (now that you started playing the citation game)