Alternate Casting system opinions

[Aleolus]

All right, so this is my attempt to port/adapt a spellcastinng system that I really like from a different system into D&D. I would really like some opinions and constructive criticisms of it, so please, let me know how you think it would work.

First off, preparatory casters like Wizards and Clerics function the way they so in the Spell Points system, picking the spells they want available and having them all day. Whenever a caster goes to cast a spell, they roll a Fort save (using their casting stat instead of their Con) against a DC of 10+spell level+number of spells they are maintaining+number of spells they have cast in the last 5 rounds. If they succeed, the spell takes effect no problem, but if they fail, they become fatigued. If already fatigued they become exhausted, and when exhausted they cannot cast spells. Here is an example scenario.

Mialee, Regdar, Tordek and Jozan are exploring a dungeon and come to a darkened room. Mialee casts Light on a stone so she, Regdar and Jozan can see. She rolls her Fortitude with her Int bonus (+3) against a DC of 10, and rolls a 12, for a total of 15, easily making it. However, the light draws the attention of a large number of monstrous spiders on the ceiling, which begin to descend and attack the group a round later. Mialee attempts to cast a Magic Missile on one of them, and rolls her save against a DC of 13 (1 for Spell Level, 1 for an active spell, and 1 for a previously cast spell. She rolls a 10, barely making it, and her spell hits its mark. On her next turn, she sees a spider descending onto Jozans head, and attempts another Magic Missile to stop it. The DC this time is 14 (1 for spell level, 1 for active spell, two for previous spells cast). She rolls a 9, for a total of 12, failing. Her spell fizzles out and she becomes fatigued.

As I said, questions, comments and constructive criticisms are all welcome!!

EDIT: Due. to numerous suggestions and ideas so far, now I will be doing this as an unmodified caster level check (just class level as well as caster levels gained through PrCs) against a DC of 10+Spell Level+number of recently cast spells (5 rounds for spontanious casters like Bards and Sorcs, 10 rounds for prep casters like Wizards and Clerics)+2 for every spell you are maintaining. Failure progresses you one step along the Spell Fatigue list presented by Grod_the_Giant below. Reserve feats and Su abilities do not require these checks, however Spell-Like abilities do (though using your full HD, rather than caster level)

[tsj]

I really like it.
It makes it a little harder for casters to spam spells...
It DOES reward casters if using high level spells first though, since the more spells they cast the harder it becomes to cast high level spells compared to low level

[Troacctid]

Well it certainly favors Clerics and Druids over Wizards and Sorcerers. Casters with a good Fortitude progression have a massive advantage over casters that don't. Saves are also fairly easy to boost by multiclassing, which, thanks to prestige classes that advance casting, costs very little. I'm not sure using a saving throw is the best way to go about it. It seems like you'd get better balance making it a flat ability check.

You also need to bear in mind that immunity to fatigue isn't terribly difficult to come by. There are feats and items that will do it for any character without a lot of investment, there are spells that cure it, and a Warforged is automatically immune. It won't be difficult to ignore the consequences of failure, and I'd expect most casters to seek out ways to do so.

Your variant is higher-powered as well. Casters have effectively unlimited uses of all their spells. And, like with spell points, you're rendering spontaneous casters totally obsolete.

[noob]

By beating reliably a 35 you can spam ninth spells nearly as much as you want for all your life.
keeping your six buffs onto you:6 + level of spell:9 + base difficulty:10 + the fact you casted a quicken + a normal spell every round for 5 rounds: 10.
35 is trivial to beat most of the time if you are a cleric an multi-class a little and have a cape of resistance +5 as well as a belt +6 con.
so for clerics life is too much easy(even if they are DMM clerics and persist 6 buffs)

[Aleolus]

Ok, so how would you guys improve on it then? The system this came from had it where your saves had to be boosted seperately from your level going up, though each save was based off the better of two stats so averaged about the same or better at low levels. In addition, each spell in that system had an assigned DC (or TN as that system called them), which made a direct port more difficult

[Grod_The_Giant]

You want the check to be as obscure as possible, so players can't go wildly off the expected RNG. An Ability check would be better than a save (though I'd be wary about using Con-- you don't want to wind up with a game where mages are beefier than warriors). A CL check would also work, barring certain cheese. A new check like d20+Class level (with PrCs that progress casting stacking for class level) might be best of all, since it would be pretty much impossible to change.

The pseudo-Recharge Magic aspect is... well, it's a power boost for casters, and the main effect beyond low levels will be spamming utility spells, so be aware of that. Spells in the last hour might be a better option, though it's still a change.

[Zaq]

Have you looked at Fax Celestis's Tzocatl system? That's basically his attempt at bringing Truenaming to Pathfinder, but it shouldn't be too hard to convert it to 3.5. The reason I ask is because whenever I see a casting system that revolves around "the caster makes some kind of d20 check to see if their spell succeeds or fails," I can't help but think of Truenaming, and Fax's Tzocatl is a much better way of doing d20-based casting than ToM's Truenaming is.

If that's too far away from what you had in mind, I agree with most of the other criticisms that have been brought up so far. Basically, if something is going to be a core limit or drawback on a mechanic and you're not okay with clever players finding a way to circumvent that limit, you want to isolate that limiting factor from the rest of the rules as best as you can. In this case, as has been mentioned, casters will find ways to jack up their Fort saves and find ways to become immune to fatigue/exhaustion. By tying the limiting factor to things that exist in other contexts (Fort saves, fatigue, etc.), you open yourself up to having things from other contexts interfering with your limiting factor. (That's another reason I brought up Tzocatl: the Tzocatl check isn't a traditional skill check, a save, or a caster level check, so there are very few things that aren't native to the Tzocatl system that can actually boost it. This is by design, and it's a great example of what I'm talking about when I refer to isolating your limiting mechanic.)

Another thing I don't like about your proposed ruleset is the fact that it involves a lot of on-the-fly calculation. Speaking again from my Truenaming experience, it's a pain in the butt to have to dynamically figure out your check DCs every round. In the Truenamer's case, they have to plug the monster's CR into the Truespeak DC formula (15 + 2 × CR) and apply the modifier for the Law of Resistance (+2 to the DC for every time you've successfully used that utterance today), not to mention all the other little nickel-and-dime mods inherent to Truenaming (+5 if you choose to make it ignore SR, +5 if you want to utter defensively, +whatever if you're using a meta-utterance, remembering which of your temporary bonuses are currently active, bonuses and penalties for using personal truenames, etc.). Your system isn't quite as bad as all that, but you still have to do dynamic on-the-fly calculations to figure out what your target DC is for each spell each round. Some players are going to be faster about that than others, but it has the potential to slow the game down a lot. (Plus, the more moving parts you have, the more likely it is that something is going to go wrong and a number is going to be miscalculated, whether honestly or dishonestly.)

I'm not going to say that the system is unworkable, but I do think that it needs a lot of polish before it's going to be elegant. (And, as has been mentioned, it could very easily turn into a power boost for the classes who need it least.)

[Troacctid]

Definitely use a caster level check (or something similar) instead of a save, for starters.

Instead of scaling off of spells cast in the past N rounds, I would make it scale off of the number of times you've successfully cast that spell today, like the Truenamer.

Also, consider having the DC scale at a different rate based on your class, like recharge magic, where Sorcerers recharge faster than Wizards. That could be a good way to keep prepared casters from dominating spontaneous casters.

And I would avoid cutting off the caster's magic completely after two strikes. I can't imagine that leading to fun gameplay—a couple unlucky rolls and you're just straight-up out of the game for the rest of the day? Harsh. You can't even resort to fighting with physical weapons, because exhaustion imposes a massive penalty to those too.

[dascarletm]

I would make the fatigue effect be something similar to fatigue without actually being fatigue. I'd consider adding more levels of tiredness, and possibly different effects at each level.

EDIT 1:
There should be ways to remove the effect too. Most of which would be available out of combat.

EDIT 2:
Also! I can see there being spells developed to interact with this system. That sort of thing always makes it feel more natural and less like you've stamped it on

[tsj]

I was under the assumption that this system would still restrict casters to their spell slots.

I did not know how easy it is to avoid fatigue though. ...
Maybe still use concentration check but
add level of each spell cast that day to concentration check,
if check fails twice, no more spellcasting that day?

Please note that someone with better system mastery
thab me, could perhaps find a better solution :)

[dascarletm]

An Example spell dealing with the mechanic

Spellfury
Sorcerer X
Range: Personal
Duration: 1 round/level

For the duration of the spell you do not need to make checks when casting spells. However, when this spell ends you must make a Check DC=Highest spell level cast during Spellfury+1/each additional spell cast during the duration. If you fail you gain an amount of fatigue equal to Y.
The duration of this spell may not modified by any means.

[Aleolus]

All very good points, and I thank you all for making them. So I change the Fort save to an unmodified Caster Level check for one, but what should. I replace the fatigue mechanic with? I put that in so that it wasn't just wasting a round if they failed the check, but there are actual consequences for it. The purpose being to encourage more strategic usage of spells, rather than throwing them around indescriminately

EDIT. Massively ninja'd! Thanks all!

[Grod_The_Giant]

All very good points, and I thank you all for making them. So I change the Fort save to an unmodified Caster Level check for one, but what should. I replace the fatigue mechanic with? I put that in so that it wasn't just wasting a round if they failed the check, but there are actual consequences for it. The purpose being to encourage more strategic usage of spells, rather than throwing them around indescriminately
How about three stages?


Spell Fatigue: You take a -2 penalty to all mental ability scores, and cannot cast spells of the highest level you have access to. This can't reduce you past level 1 spells. An hour of rest is sufficient to remove Spell Fatigue, during which time you cannot cast spells higher than 0-level.
Spell Exhaustion: You take a -4 penalty to all mental ability scores, and cannot cast spells of the two highest levels you have access to. This can't reduce you past level 1 spells. It takes two hours of rest to reduce Spell Exhaustion to Spell Fatigue, during which time you cannot cast any apells.
Spellburn: You take a -6 penalty to all mental ability scores, and cannot cast spells. All spells you are maintaining end as though they had been dispelled, and you take 1d4 nonlethal damage per spell level dispelled in this fashion. It takes a full eight hours of rest to remove Spellburn, after which time you regain slots and can prepare new spells as normal.

[Aleolus]

That's perfect! Thank you!

[dascarletm]

You could call it spell sickness, and depending on the fluff of how magic works in your game, each level could come with a visual effect. (If all magic was derived from hell for example, each stage would give you a more devil-like appearance, maybe personality).

The amount of levels they can get should be that has a possibility of attaining, but isn't a constant threat. Something in the 5-10 range. Depending on how easy it is to remove out of combat.

Additionally I'd give all spellcasters a set of abilities they unlock as they gain spellsickness. Think of them like reserve feats powered by your level of sickness. Gaining stonger ones as you gain more sickness.

In that case perhaps you have 3+lvl/2 levels of spellsickness. At levels 3-8 you gain an at-will ability that doesn't risk gaining more spellsickness. This way players won't have to sit back and watch when they start losing the ability to cast.

The abilities should be unique for each class and be thematic.

[Anlashok]

Same fundamental problem as a lot of alternate casting systems. This hurts builds built around spamming spells because they're more likely to get exhausted point while being less likely to negatively impact spellcasters who already use their magic judiciously.

That is to say, you're nerfing blasters and buffing God wizards and CoD.


Regarding the immunity to fatigue deal though, it's pretty trivial to just say that immunity to fatigue prevents you from using the spellcasting system or the fatigue from casting bypasses immunity because it's special.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Same fundamental problem as a lot of alternate casting systems. This hurts builds built around spamming spells because they're more likely to get exhausted point while being less likely to negatively impact spellcasters who already use their magic judiciously.

That is to say, you're nerfing blasters and buffing God wizards and CoD.
The OP did make a good effort in that direction by factoring in ongoing spells. Maybe double the cost of those?

[Troacctid]

I think the Law of Resistance analogue (+2 to the DC for each time you've successfully cast that spell since your last rest) functions just fine as an exhaustion mechanic. Each time you cast a spell, it becomes progressively more difficult to cast it again, so you can't spam spells all day long--you'll eventually become unable to cast them. And since you won't be guaranteed to hit the DC every time, the chance of failure in combat will be meaningful enough by itself to constitute a significant penalty.

[Extra Anchovies]

One of the least-fun things that can happen in a game is losing your turn due to random chance. As an alternative to the all-or-nothing approach, consider tying the power of the spell to the check result. Here's an example of how that could work:

Instead of scaling with caster level, spells scale with potency (all rates and caps remain in place; Fireball deals 1d6 damage/potency with a maximum of 10d6). The base potency of a spell is equal to one-half the caster's spellcasting level (rounded up). Each time a spell is cast, the caster rolls a magic check (1d20+spellcasting level), which determines the potency modifier of that particular instance of the spell. To determine a spell's potency modifier, simply consult PHB table 1-1 (p. 8); the formula for calculating potency modifiers from magic checks is the same as calculating ability modifiers from ability scores. All spells have a minimum potency of 1.

The main issue with this is that it doesn't affect spells that aren't very dependent on caster level - charm person, bestow curse, etc - a lot of which are already quite strong. Maybe the spellsickness system could be applied to those spells, or all spells could run the risk of causing it (maybe on natural 1s and/or magic check results less than 10?) with non-CL-heavy spells being more likely to inflict it?

[dascarletm]

The main issue with this is that it doesn't affect spells that aren't very dependent on caster level - charm person, bestow curse, etc - a lot of which are already quite strong. Maybe the spellsickness system could be applied to those spells, or all spells could run the risk of causing it (maybe on natural 1s and/or magic check results less than 10?) with non-CL-heavy spells being more likely to inflict it?

The spell could not even fail, but cause the sickness as the drawback. You'd have to make the effects debilitating enough to be a deterrent.

[Grod_The_Giant]

One of the least-fun things that can happen in a game is losing your turn due to random chance. As an alternative to the all-or-nothing approach, consider tying the power of the spell to the check result. Here's an example of how that could work:
Be sure that DC and duration scale as well, so that blasting isn't the only type of spell penalized.

[Troacctid]

One of the least-fun things that can happen in a game is losing your turn due to random chance.

I mean, you basically just described attack rolls and saving throws. This is the d20 system. Hitting or missing based on the result of a die roll is, like, the game's #1 most fundamental mechanic.

[dascarletm]

I mean, you basically just described attack rolls and saving throws. This is the d20 system. Hitting or missing based on the result of a die roll is, like, the game's #1 most fundamental mechanic.

That got me thinking... There is something fundamentally different when losing a spell due to ASF or missing due to concealment than when you miss because they made the save or you didn't meet the AC.

I think it is the feeling that "this creature overcame my attack" versus "I failed because I succumbed to this effect." It's in actuality the same thing, but the representation is very different.

[Blackhawk748]

You could call it spell sickness, and depending on the fluff of how magic works in your game, each level could come with a visual effect. (If all magic was derived from hell for example, each stage would give you a more devil-like appearance, maybe personality).

The amount of levels they can get should be that has a possibility of attaining, but isn't a constant threat. Something in the 5-10 range. Depending on how easy it is to remove out of combat.

Additionally I'd give all spellcasters a set of abilities they unlock as they gain spellsickness. Think of them like reserve feats powered by your level of sickness. Gaining stonger ones as you gain more sickness.

In that case perhaps you have 3+lvl/2 levels of spellsickness. At levels 3-8 you gain an at-will ability that doesn't risk gaining more spellsickness. This way players won't have to sit back and watch when they start losing the ability to cast.

The abilities should be unique for each class and be thematic.

So Taint? Thats actually a solid idea, use Taint as the inspiration for the Spellsickness system. I like this and may use this someday.

[dascarletm]

So Taint? Thats actually a solid idea, use Taint as the inspiration for the Spellsickness system. I like this and may use this someday.

Yeah in a way. If you end up using it let me know how it goes.:smallbiggrin:

[illyahr]

If you want to penalize a melee-type, you penalize their ability to stay in combat (with fatigue, attack/damage penalties, etc.). If you want to penalize skill monkies, you penalize their skills. If you want to penalize spellcasters, affect how often/how well they cast spells.

You don't want to stop your casters from casting, that's as bad as throwing a flying enemy at a monk. No need to make them feel useless. I would recommend a penalty to Caster Level when they fail checks. They can fail the check multiple times and still be able to cast, just with diminishing returns, kind of like a mental fatigue, until they recover.

[Necroticplague]

Not sure it's a good idea to expand the gulf between the floor and the ceiling of casters any more than it already is. It seems rather trivial to simply become immune to fatigue and shrug off the downsides. So the more skilled players will simply do that (Tireless feat, Necropolitan template, Ghost template class, warforged race, 2 level Evil soulborn dip, sandals of the vagabond). Meanwhile, the less skilled players could end up as a drag on the party (if they end up as dead weight because, other than Druid, a caster without spells is useless).

[Blackhawk748]

If you want to penalize a melee-type, you penalize their ability to stay in combat (with fatigue, attack/damage penalties, etc.). If you want to penalize skill monkies, you penalize their skills. If you want to penalize spellcasters, affect how often/how well they cast spells.

You don't want to stop your casters from casting, that's as bad as throwing a flying enemy at a monk. No need to make them feel useless. I would recommend a penalty to Caster Level when they fail checks. They can fail the check multiple times and still be able to cast, just with diminishing returns, kind of like a mental fatigue, until they recover.

Grods should work, just shift them to CL penalties:


How about three stages?


Spell Fatigue: You take a -2 penalty to all mental ability scores, and cannot cast spells of the highest level you have access to. This can't reduce you past level 1 spells. An hour of rest is sufficient to remove Spell Fatigue, during which time you cannot cast spells higher than 0-level.
Spell Exhaustion: You take a -4 penalty to all mental ability scores, and cannot cast spells of the two highest levels you have access to. This can't reduce you past level 1 spells. It takes two hours of rest to reduce Spell Exhaustion to Spell Fatigue, during which time you cannot cast any apells.
Spellburn: You take a -6 penalty to all mental ability scores, and cannot cast spells. All spells you are maintaining end as though they had been dispelled, and you take 1d4 nonlethal damage per spell level dispelled in this fashion. It takes a full eight hours of rest to remove Spellburn, after which time you regain slots and can prepare new spells as normal.


Honestly i would use these to represent the three taint levels, and as you rest you lose x points of Spellfatigue (this needs a better name :smalltongue:)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Grods should work, just shift them to CL penalties:
They were actually carefully NOT CL penalties- both because the check is based on CL, and because CL penalties are significantly worse for blasters than for anyone else. Hence my penalizing max level (which hurts everyone) and save DCs.

[Blackhawk748]

They were actually carefully NOT CL penalties- both because the check is based on CL, and because CL penalties are significantly worse for blasters than for anyone else. Hence my penalizing max level (which hurts everyone) and save DCs.

Ah, well then leave those alone lol

[Aleolus]

I want to thank all of you for your input, I have a much better idea on how I can get this to work now. I'll edit the opening post to show my new way, if anyone wants to try this in one of their own games feel free, but please let me know how it worked!