Pearl of Power Confusion?

[erok0809]

So I've read a few times that if a party fighter wants a certain buff cast on him every day, he should buy the party wizard a pearl of power and that'll let him buff him and get the spell slot back. But the description of the item says that you get a prepared spell back after you cast it, not just a slot you can fill with another spell. Am I missing something, or do you still get stuck with that buff spell as one of your prepared spells, even though you did get the spell back? What if the fighter wants a spell that you don't want to have prepared every day, because it only helps him? Does this only work the way I've seen it described if it's a spell that you are planning to cast more than just on the fighter, or is there some trick I'm not seeing?

[Troacctid]

You have it right. You get the same spell back.

[mabriss lethe]

Actually, it's a bit more open ended than that. While RAI is definitely on the side of "you get the spell back you just cast." By RAW, a prepared caster can retrieve ANY previously cast spell of the appropriate level. It could be a spell you cast just a few rounds prior, or one you cast a year ago.

[Fizban]

Indeed, they presume too much. Any build that relies on someone else casting a spell for you isn't your own build, it's using part of someone else's build. If the wizard doesn't want to prepare your buff then you're just gonna have to deal with it and buying a Pearl of Power won't change anything. The wizard can only be prepared for multiple situations by bringing a wide array of spells, and forcing them to prepare the buff you want infringes on running their character.

That said, early 3.5 was built assuming that the casters would use a significant portion of their spells protecting and healing the party through various effects (energy damage, curses, petrification, insta-death, etc). The problem is that while in an old-school game where trying to survive challenges based on your player skill and teamwork this is interesting, that was falling out of fashion. A CRPG where you control the whole party can have specialized characters that rely on each other to function, but now people wanted to have interesting individuals with unique abilities and not just be part of a unit. This leads to more independent classes that don't need as many buffs, cheaper magic items to fill in the buffs the casters don't want to cast any more, and much stronger casters who can devote 4 people's worth of spells into 1 person's worth of winning. That's how I see it anyway.

[Crake]

Just use the pearl to recharge a different spell of the same level that you would have prepared twice instead.

[Florian]

So I've read a few times that if a party fighter wants a certain buff cast on him every day, he should buy the party wizard a pearl of power and that'll let him buff him and get the spell slot back. But the description of the item says that you get a prepared spell back after you cast it, not just a slot you can fill with another spell. Am I missing something, or do you still get stuck with that buff spell as one of your prepared spells, even though you did get the spell back? What if the fighter wants a spell that you don't want to have prepared every day, because it only helps him? Does this only work the way I've seen it described if it's a spell that you are planning to cast more than just on the fighter, or is there some trick I'm not seeing?

You´re right in that a pearl of power basically recalls only an already cast spell.
Where you´re wrong is the wizard recalling the buff he used on the fighter. That spell slot is "wasted". What he recalls is one of his own spells that he uses during combat.


That said, early 3.5 was built assuming that the casters would use a significant portion of their spells protecting and healing the party through various effects (energy damage, curses, petrification, insta-death, etc). The problem is that while in an old-school game where trying to survive challenges based on your player skill and teamwork this is interesting, that was falling out of fashion. A CRPG where you control the whole party can have specialized characters that rely on each other to function, but now people wanted to have interesting individuals with unique abilities and not just be part of a unit. This leads to more independent classes that don't need as many buffs, cheaper magic items to fill in the buffs the casters don't want to cast any more, and much stronger casters who can devote 4 people's worth of spells into 1 person's worth of winning. That's how I see it anyway.

That´s actually changing a team-based game with niche protection into a bunch of people who play for themselves. Pretty sad.

[Fizban]

I prefer the newer style, it's just worth recognizing how the change upset the balance. The CRPG comment isn't meant to imply that videogame preconceptions ruined the game, rather instead it's to illustrate my point: think of playing Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem or Pokemon or any other turn based game where you control a team. The fun comes from organizing the team, not from any individual party member. If you had to play through all of Pokemon with only one 'mon, or Fire Emblem with only one unit, etc, it would be extremely boring. That's how old-school DnD sensibilities look to me: I'm not managing a team, I'm stuck playing a guy who can only do part of the job either praying the other players know what they're doing or ordering them around and ruining their own fun. But here comes later 3.5 where every character can do all the things if they want, combat can be fluid rather than strict, and it's conceivable that a party might survive on sheer badassery rather than perfect strategy.

[Psyren]

Just use the pearl to recharge a different spell of the same level that you would have prepared twice instead.

This. It's not rocket science.


Indeed, they presume too much. Any build that relies on someone else casting a spell for you isn't your own build, it's using part of someone else's build.

Yeah, we'd all prefer builds that stand alone and don't rely on buff X from party member Y, but guess what? This is a social game, and what matters isn't theory, it's how well the party does in practice. And even in-universe, the band of mercenaries that strategizes together like this is probably going to be the one that lives long enough to keep gaining levels.

[Fouredged Sword]

It is something that can totally work, but it isn't free for he wizard. He still has to prep the spell and while he does get to refresh one of his spells per day, he still loses out on one of his slots. He loses some diversity.

That said, if the wizard is already casting mage armor each day, the party rogue can benefit from it as well and get +4 ac with no ACP at level 1 for 1000gp and a friendly wizard.

What more, the pearl will always be a useful item even when you decide to no rely on the wizard.

[Chronos]

While the wizard does lose out on some potential diversity this way, there's usually something that they'd be preparing twice anyway. Like, suppose that you want Greater Magic Weapon, and the wizard usually prepares two Fireballs and a Fly in her 3rd-level slots. Give her a pearl, and now she prepares one Fireball, one Fly, and one GMW, and after she casts Fireball the first time, she gets it back with the pearl. She's got all of the same spells she had before, plus your buff. In fact, her flexibility has increased slightly: If on a particular day it turns out she needs only one Fireball but two Fly, she can do that, too.

Of course, if you get too greedy in the buffs you ask for, eventually this breaks down. If the wizard has three slots of that level and you want three different buffs, buying her three pearls isn't going to cut it.

[Florian]

I prefer the newer style, it's just worth recognizing how the change upset the balance. The CRPG comment isn't meant to imply that videogame preconceptions ruined the game, rather instead it's to illustrate my point: think of playing Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem or Pokemon or any other turn based game where you control a team. The fun comes from organizing the team, not from any individual party member. If you had to play through all of Pokemon with only one 'mon, or Fire Emblem with only one unit, etc, it would be extremely boring. That's how old-school DnD sensibilities look to me: I'm not managing a team, I'm stuck playing a guy who can only do part of the job either praying the other players know what they're doing or ordering them around and ruining their own fun. But here comes later 3.5 where every character can do all the things if they want, combat can be fluid rather than strict, and it's conceivable that a party might survive on sheer badassery rather than perfect strategy.

"Old School" sensibilities work on combining a tight focus on a role with creating as much synergies as possible, all the while expending as little resources as possible, as you never know when you really have a chance to rest and refresh.

[Beheld]

It is something that can totally work, but it isn't free for he wizard. He still has to prep the spell and while he does get to refresh one of his spells per day, he still loses out on one of his slots. He loses some diversity.

That said, if the wizard is already casting mage armor each day, the party rogue can benefit from it as well and get +4 ac with no ACP at level 1 for 1000gp and a friendly wizard.

What more, the pearl will always be a useful item even when you decide to no rely on the wizard.

Since Mage Armor lasts for one hour at level 1, and a Pearl of power costs more than Mithril Chain Shirt, I recommend not doing that.

[iDesu]

Since Mage Armor lasts for one hour at level 1, and a Pearl of power costs more than Mithril Chain Shirt, I recommend not doing that.

A pearl of power costs 1,000 and a mithril chain shirt costs 1,100, I'm pretty sure.

[Florian]

I´m actually curious about this whole topic and want to clear some things up.
This is a social game, mostly based on team play, right? People complain about the mundane-ish classes being way more dependent on WBL and equipment to function as prime casting classes are.

Am I the only one who thinks that it is fundamentally wrong that one character has to shell out the dough for pearls of power, therefore crippling its own WBL, for a class that actually has the duty to buff teammates, thereby increasing the unbalance even more?
What´s next? The Fighter handing the Wizard an invoice of 1K gp for every hp he tanked?

[Beheld]

I´m actually curious about this whole topic and want to clear some things up.
This is a social game, mostly based on team play, right? People complain about the mundane-ish classes being way more dependent on WBL and equipment to function as prime casting classes are.

Am I the only one who thinks that it is fundamentally wrong that one character has to shell out the dough for pearls of power, therefore crippling its own WBL, for a class that actually has the duty to buff teammates, thereby increasing the unbalance even more?
What´s next? The Fighter handing the Wizard an invoice of 1K gp for every hp he tanked?

Since a Wizard can tank at least 6.5 HP per 25gp, you will quickly find that no one is in the market for your services, although I hear corpses have some value.

Spoiler Alert, other characters do not have an obligation to buff you. You certainly don't buff them, so to turn around and demand they buff you is a little silly.

[Psyren]

I´m actually curious about this whole topic and want to clear some things up.
This is a social game, mostly based on team play, right? People complain about the mundane-ish classes being way more dependent on WBL and equipment to function as prime casting classes are.

Am I the only one who thinks that it is fundamentally wrong that one character has to shell out the dough for pearls of power, therefore crippling its own WBL, for a class that actually has the duty to buff teammates, thereby increasing the unbalance even more?
What´s next? The Fighter handing the Wizard an invoice of 1K gp for every hp he tanked?

I actually agree with you that it should come out of the Wizard's budget, especially since they generally have more cash available for consumables and miscellaneous items than the martial classes that need the entire Big Six complement. If I were playing that Wizard, I would definitely by the pearl(s) myself.

However, the martial being the one to supply it is a slightly more surefire way of getting that buff prepared, as then the caster has no real grounds for refusal other than being unnecessarily hostile.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Since a Wizard can tank at least 6.5 HP per 25gp, you will quickly find that no one is in the market for your services, although I hear corpses have some value.

Spoiler Alert, other characters do not have an obligation to buff you. You certainly don't buff them, so to turn around and demand they buff you is a little silly.

You are also under no obligation to protect the wizard in that case. He is leaving you to fend for yourself, so why should you help him?

[Florian]

Since a Wizard can tank at least 6.5 HP per 25gp, you will quickly find that no one is in the market for your services, although I hear corpses have some value.

Spoiler Alert, other characters do not have an obligation to buff you. You certainly don't buff them, so to turn around and demand they buff you is a little silly.

There´s no talk about obligation. What I mentioned is a team-based game. If you don´t want to do that, fine, go ahead. This way we end up with 4 CoDzillas fighting individually again the world. Wholly different game, so what you wrote doesn´t give any answer to the question I asked.

[Beheld]

You are also under no obligation to protect the wizard in that case. He is leaving you to fend for yourself, so why should you help him?

No, you aren't under any obligation to protect the Wizard, obviously, first off he can probably do it a lot better than you, and secondly, he would probably prefer if you were killing things instead of standing in front of him getting fireballed with him as a show of solidarity.

You, as a member of the party, act in whatever way you think provides the best chance of meeting your goals, you may have a party wide goal of not getting killed, most parties do, but you should act in the way that best accomplishes this goal, not under some kind of obligation to play the game in a specific way where you aren't permitted to do what your character thinks is the best chance to succeed.


There´s no talk about obligation.

So what did you mean when you said he had a duty to buff you? Usually a duty is an obligation.


What I mentioned is a team-based game. If you don´t want to do that, fine, go ahead. This way we end up with 4 CoDzillas fighting individually again the world. Wholly different game, so what you wrote doesn´t give any answer to the question I asked.

No, what I said is that no class has a duty to buff the party. If they choose to, that's fine, but they get to make their own decisions about how they can best contribute to the party, and you don't get to tell them it is their duty to buff other people, especially not as someone who picked a class that can't buff other people, since you already made the decision always and forever to never buff your party.

[Flickerdart]

There are two different things at play here. "The wizard should buff the fighter" is really not just one statement, because it can be taken in two different ways:

1: The wizard should buff the fighter so that the party is more effective.
Some spells just work better when used on someone else - turning the party fighter into an ogre is generally a better use of your time than turning yourself into an ogre. A wizard has a duty to his party to use his slots in the most efficient way possible, and "cast one spell so that one party member can kick ass all day" is a very efficient way. If the fighter spends his time drawing heat so that the wizard doesn't have to, making him tougher is an efficient use of slots and will see the party through difficult challenges.

2: The wizard should buff the fighter so that the fighter can survive.
A lot of the time, if the casters don't buff the mundanes, the mundanes die. Frequently, wasting your slots on the party's low-op buffoon will just result in that many fewer spells for the fights, and there's no guarantee the buffoon will be able to accomplish anything in those fights even with the resources you've invested.

In neither case is the fighter entitled to buffs from the wizard. In the first case, it's in the wizard's best interests to buff the fighter. In the second case, it's in the fighter's best interests to be buffed, but not in the wizard's best interests to buff him. Therefore, that fighter should work to reduce the burden placed on the wizard when administering these buffs, through pearls of power.

tl;dr pearls are a tax for when you suck but still want buffs.