How would this change to prepared casters change the game?

[frogglesmash]

Instead of preparing spells every day prepared casters have a list of spells known like a sorcerer, but with far fewer spells. In addition to spells known they have their spellbook/prayerbook from which they can cast spells any spell found within any time they like, and as many times they like, however all these spells take minutes to an hour to cast. How would this change things? Would any good come of it or would it be mostly bad?

Note: I'm not looking too fix anything in particular, I'm just curious to see what kind of effect you guys think this change will have.

[exelsisxax]

Instead of preparing spells every day prepared casters have a list of spells known like a sorcerer, but with far fewer spells. In addition to spells known they have their spellbook/prayerbook from which they can cast spells any spell found within any time they like, and as many times they like, however all these spells take minutes to an hour to cast. How would this change things? Would any good come of it or would it be mostly bad?

Note: I'm not looking too fix anything in particular, I'm just curious to see what kind of effect you guys think this change will have.

Well it's a good thing you aren't looking to fix anything, because this doesn't. It'll screw up a lot of things though. Low-level casters are garbage at everything except being buff-based fighters. Basically CoDzilla all over again. Wizards are total crap with this until summoning and scry tactics come in, then they're god again. Sorcerers would actually be damn good for most levels in comparison.

Mainly, you just made prepared casters unplayable by everyone that isn't optimizing the game to hell.

[flappeercraft]

Instead of preparing spells every day prepared casters have a list of spells known like a sorcerer, but with far fewer spells. In addition to spells known they have their spellbook/prayerbook from which they can cast spells any spell found within any time they like, and as many times they like, however all these spells take minutes to an hour to cast. How would this change things? Would any good come of it or would it be mostly bad?

Note: I'm not looking too fix anything in particular, I'm just curious to see what kind of effect you guys think this change will have.

Well, this would make prepared casters in combat situations nearly useless except for really long lasting morning buffs on mundane characters, spells would need to be balanced so that they are different for the casting time would make offence nearly impossible making casters need another way to be useful and spells like teleportation, invisibility, expeditious retreat, etc would be useless for escaping. So it would hit prepared casters pretty damn badly along with the whole game as prepared casters usually are the ones who carry the whole team. Utility spells like comprehend languages or tongues could in some situations not be as useful as instead of just casting it quickly and you are done if you go on lets say a meeting with anyone that doesn't speak a language you don't know then you are pretty much screwed if its something that is high priority unless you casted it previously.

Edit: This would also make spontaneous casters way more powerful which would make prepared casters nearly useless in comparison unless you need a spell you don't know for which knowstones and scrolls exist along with Wish that sorcerers could use to replicate a spell he doesnt know and favored souls could do the same with miracle.

[Grod_The_Giant]

So, to be clear that I'm not just jumping to conclusions like the previous posters:

You have a small set of combat spells that you cast spontaneously, like a Sorcerer with fewer spells known
You have a much, much larger set of ritual spells that can be used at-will but take time


It's not a terrible change. I certainly enjoy ritual (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?325646-The-Ritualist-A-tier-3-crafter-spellbook-user-maybe-%283-5-PEACH%29) casters (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=12623421&postcount=2). I think it would work. The standard argument is "fewer spells just mean more incentive to take broken ones," but... I dunno how much I see that; probably depends a lot on your group.

[frogglesmash]

Now that I think about it, I foresee an increase in demand for rune staves
.
What if in addition to the above I greatly extended the duration of ritual spells while having a limit on how many ritual spells can be active at one time (probably a limit that scales with level).

[Telok]

Well, if the caster gets to choose spells 'ready/known' the spell list will be full of short or instant combat spells and any hour per level spells will be rituals and become nearly permanent. Cure Minor and Heal will be the only 'combat healing' and the party will enter every fight at full hit points. Lesser Restoration, Neutralize Poison, Break Enchantment, and such will put all stat damage and conditions in the same realm as hit points. If Neutralize Poison is less than a 15 minute ritual it will become a standard per-fight buff for poison immunity.

Near unlimited teleportation.
Calling lots of friendly aligned outsiders.
Spamming Arcane Eye and other scrying.
Clairvoyance past all the doors.
Anything with a permanent duration and low cost material components.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Minutes to an hour might be too short, admittedly. I used 10 min/spell level for my ritual casters.

[Elkad]

I LIKE Vancian magic. It's part of the core of D&D to me. Spontaneous casting (especially full-casters) should never have been added.
Trying to use phenomenal cosmic power with a sub-optimal spell selection is part of the fun. (Oh look, Stirges. And I took Grease, Grease, and Mage Armor. All useless!)

Ritual casting takes part of that away. "I need a knock spell. Eh, I'll just read it out of my book, only takes 10 minutes." vs "OK Fighters, guard me for 10 hours so I can change my spell selection." is not an improvement.