Replacing Wizard casting with a slightly modified version of Vatican casting?

[The Vagabond]

Just a random thought I came up with- What would happen if you altered the way a Wizard gained spell slots?

Let's say, instead of having spell slots of certain levels, you have a number of spell slots equal to half your intelligence plus twice your level (With DCs for spells being 10 + 1/2 level + Int Mod)? How would that alter the gameplay of Prepared Casters?

Edit: I'm dumb. ​To prepare a spell, you must use a number of slots equaling the spell level.

[nolongerchaos]

Wizards don't have Vatican casting, you're thinking of Clerics.
*it's Vancian casting, as in Vance.

Are you looking to improve wizards or knock them down a peg? At a guess, it wouldn't do much for high op play (Incanatrix and the like) as they're going to have astronomical Int scores anyway and since I'm not seeing any limits on higher level spell prep it may even help them out. It'd probably limit an Easy Bake Wizard's options quite a bit, but giving relatively more high level slots to a low op wizard is likely to raise the floor of his build.

[Zanos]

This would give a +2 int race wizard 12 spells at 1st level.

A high level wizard would have 40+18(36 int) = 58 spell slots, all of which could be spent on 9ths or metamagic. A 36 int wizard 20 as printed has 60 spell slots, but they're spread among 1-9th level spells.

Even, say a 5th level wizard would be sitting on 20 spell slots, vs maybe the 10 a normal 5th level wizard would have. And all of his spells are heightened for free.

So yeah, I'd say this buffs wizards considerably.

[Mystral]

Just a random thought I came up with- What would happen if you altered the way a Wizard gained spell slots?

Let's say, instead of having spell slots of certain levels, you have a number of spell slots equal to half your intelligence plus twice your level (With DCs for spells being 10 + 1/2 level + Int Mod)? How would that alter the gameplay of Prepared Casters?

Vatican casting sounds about right, a level 20 wizard in that system might as well call himself God.

[The Vagabond]

Well dangit- I forgot to mention the big thing- Each spell requires a number of slots equaling to it's level. Otherwise, yeah, it'd be fairly powerful.

Either way, the goal is to slightly raise the floor of the Wizard, while also dropping the ceiling, and improve the Wizards early-game, while making spell management more important over the long term. Does this alter the game significantly?

[OldTrees1]

Well dangit- I forgot to mention the big thing- Each spell requires a number of slots equaling to it's level. Otherwise, yeah, it'd be fairly powerful.

Either way, the goal is to slightly raise the floor of the Wizard, while also dropping the ceiling, and improve the Wizards early-game, while making spell management more important over the long term. Does this alter the game significantly?

If 1 9th level spell costs 9 1st level spells, then you would need spells to be linear in strength (rather than exponential in power).

[ryu]

If 1 9th level spell costs 9 1st level spells, then you would need spells to be linear in strength (rather than exponential in power).

Not really. This system naturally incentivises grouping as many spells as possible into higher level castings. Considering this makes you care about learning new ones instead of stuffing them in a bin that's a positive. Also pearls of power. Lots and lots of pearls of power.

[OldTrees1]

Not really. This system naturally incentivises grouping as many spells as possible into higher level castings. Considering this makes you care about learning new ones instead of stuffing them in a bin that's a positive. Also pearls of power. Lots and lots of pearls of power.

Um. Did you misread what I said? This system naturally incentives concentrating your spell slots into higher level spells since a 9th level spell costs merely 9 1st level slots but is currently about as powerful as 2^9 1st level slots. Hence this system necessitates changing spells to grow linearly(with respect to spell level) rather than exponentially in order to balance this cheaper cost. Right?

[ben-zayb]

Um. Did you misread what I said? This system naturally incentives concentrating your spell slots into higher level spells since a 9th level spell costs merely 9 1st level slots but is currently about as powerful as 2^9 1st level slots. Hence this system necessitates changing spells to grow linearly(with respect to spell level) rather than exponentially in order to balance this cheaper cost. Right?

Is Psionics completely linear? Its resource consumption scales more or less the same way.

[ryu]

Um. Did you misread what I said? This system naturally incentives concentrating your spell slots into higher level spells since a 9th level spell costs merely 9 1st level slots but is currently about as powerful as 2^9 1st level slots. Hence this system necessitates changing spells to grow linearly(with respect to spell level) rather than exponentially in order to balance this cheaper cost. Right?

No I understood exactly what you said. You think a level nine spell should be equivalent to nine firsts in power by nature of cost despite the fact that unlocking new spell levels is literally the main perk of spellcaster levels. No.

[ericgrau]

It seems similar to a spell point system which runs into either the "problem" of always going nova with your highest level spells (more common) or making it more worthwhile to spend most of your points on stacking 10 gazillion low level buffs (less common). The first version, which you have, is a much smaller headache so I recommend sticking to it. Just realize that the result will be that players will mainly spam their highest level spells. They should get a number of points or "spell levels" with this in mind. So they should have at most 1-2 more 9ths per day than a Vancian caster or they might be too powerful. Sure they won't have the potential for nearly as many 1st through 8th level spells, but in the time pressure of combat that rarely matters as much as your biggest booms.

It also makes planning with a 100 lower level divinations, buffs and utility spells more difficult. Which might not be a bad thing for players less capable of that much planning, while limiting those that over-plan and over-optimize. Just realize that you are also losing the positive benefits of the interesting variety that mixed spell level casting provides. And yes, I know they can still cast lower level spells under your system, but I mean it's usually a worse idea than casting higher level spells so casting higher level spells is what they will usually do.

At 1st level yes you do have a problem since that is way too many spells per day. Perhaps you could rip off a number of points from an existing point system such as psionics. Or a little less points since you let the player change his spells every day.