Spell Recovery Tricks

[tedcahill2]

What is every trick you can think of for spell recovery.

I'm not well versed in a lot of these tricks, so please don't just say, "Rope Trick". Please explain how the spell/item/etc aids in spell recovery.

As a DM I want to arm myself with this knowledge, so I can use it to prevent the 15 minute adventure days. I want to run a game where wizards are like Gandalf, he's powerful, everyone knows it, and he uses a few big spells when they're really called for. He's not running into a group of kobolds and going "FIREBALL! All dead? Nap time."

[Vizzerdrix]

The one I use all the time is resting for 8 hours. :smallbiggrin:

But a real answer now. Siphon spell allows you to drain staffs and wands to refill your casting. I think it is in Complete Scoundrel, PHB2, or Races of the Dragon.

[Gildedragon]

There's the fortifying bedroll which let's you regain spells with a single hr of rest per day.

With Vitalizing Spell-Points variant you can 1/day use icewild lichen to regain spells

[Zaq]

You're the GM? Just say that you won't accept a 15 minute adventuring day. The world won't stop for the Wizard who's holed up in their Rope Trick or their Magnificent Mansion. Flat out tell the players that you won't condone any sort of strategy that uses "nova and then hide for a day" as a go-to option, and tell them that you won't find that sort of playstyle acceptable at your table. (Sure, there's always exceptions, but that's part of the cool part of being a GM for a group of people that you know—you can work with them instead of hard-coding universal rules that have to accommodate every possibility that you've never thought of.)

If the goal is to stop a certain style of play, then address that directly. Playing whack-a-mole with the tricks used to enable that style of play is far less efficient than just saying "hey guys, don't do this sort of thing in my game, 'kay? 'Kay." Doesn't matter whether the problem is a 15 minute adventuring day, or abuse of infinite/near-infinite loops, or spotlight-hogging minionmancy, or characters who go so far against the norms of the game that they ruin the fun of anyone who can't accommodate them, or whatever. Don't ban the manifestations. Tell the human beings across the table (who are, I hope, people you're on friendly terms with) that you don't want certain effects, regardless of the methods used to create those effects.

Maybe this answer is boring, but if you're really just trying to prevent the players in the game that you're GMing from doing something, it's pretty much always better to tell the players that you don't want them to do something than it is to hope that you can find and ban all the symptoms of the problem before the players get them.

[Bakkan]

If you've got money to spend, then Pearls of Power (DMG) are a straightforward way to recover spells.

For 3rd-level and lower spells, a wand of Rary's mnemonic enhancer costs less than than 3 3rd-level Pearls of Power and works 50 times with more flexibility. If you want to get cheesy with it, using the "retain" feature you can recover a heavily-metamagic'ed 3rd-level spell even if you cast it out of a higher-level slot.

EDIT: Without houseruling, you're not going to get your wizards to hold back from casting their highest-level spells for a long period of time (more than one day). In Lord of the Rings, Gandalf showed his true power every month or so; in D&D, every uncast spell you end the day with is a waste since you get them all back the next day anyway. Even if you don't have a 15-minute adventuring day, if the group knows this is likely the last fight before they make camp, then you're going to see the big guns come out. The exception to this is, of course, when they have a suspicion they will face a dangerous enemy during the night.

[Venger]

What is every trick you can think of for spell recovery.

I'm not well versed in a lot of these tricks, so please don't just say, "Rope Trick". Please explain how the spell/item/etc aids in spell recovery.

As a DM I want to arm myself with this knowledge, so I can use it to prevent the 15 minute adventure days. I want to run a game where wizards are like Gandalf, he's powerful, everyone knows it, and he uses a few big spells when they're really called for. He's not running into a group of kobolds and going "FIREBALL! All dead? Nap time."
gandalf is not a wizard.


You're the GM? Just say that you won't accept a 15 minute adventuring day. The world won't stop for the Wizard who's holed up in their Rope Trick or their Magnificent Mansion. Flat out tell the players that you won't condone any sort of strategy that uses "nova and then hide for a day" as a go-to option, and tell them that you won't find that sort of playstyle acceptable at your table. (Sure, there's always exceptions, but that's part of the cool part of being a GM for a group of people that you know—you can work with them instead of hard-coding universal rules that have to accommodate every possibility that you've never thought of.)

If the goal is to stop a certain style of play, then address that directly. Playing whack-a-mole with the tricks used to enable that style of play is far less efficient than just saying "hey guys, don't do this sort of thing in my game, 'kay? 'Kay." Doesn't matter whether the problem is a 15 minute adventuring day, or abuse of infinite/near-infinite loops, or spotlight-hogging minionmancy, or characters who go so far against the norms of the game that they ruin the fun of anyone who can't accommodate them, or whatever. Don't ban the manifestations. Tell the human beings across the table (who are, I hope, people you're on friendly terms with) that you don't want certain effects, regardless of the methods used to create those effects.

Maybe this answer is boring, but if you're really just trying to prevent the players in the game that you're GMing from doing something, it's pretty much always better to tell the players that you don't want them to do something than it is to hope that you can find and ban all the symptoms of the problem before the players get them.
Yeah, this.

Never approach an ooc problem (or perceived problem) with an ic solution. if you throw up a roadblock in-character, your players will assume it's a puzzle to be worked around and solve it. if you just ask nicely "I can't structure around the 15 minute adventuring day, so please don't do it" I'm sure they'll be willing to cut you some slack and play the game the way you want them to.

there is no way to account for all the options to restore spells. there are too many and most do not have legitimate counters without you just outright cheating.

[Gildedragon]

So: to make wizards less... 15 min adventuring
Couple things:
A) use multiple encounters; space them out a couple hours apart. Just gloss over things a bit.
"Several hours later" etc
And in exceedingly encounter-y days wasting time can be detrimental(reinforcements are called, the folk pursuing them find their rope trick and make a ton of noise (waking them up, breaking the wizard's rest) etc... Note this last ought be used sparingly, because a Spell-less wizard is a liability and is having no fun.
In this case: finding a secure place to cast rope trick, or dodge the pursuers ought be an encounter in and of itself (remember to count down the time taken to climb into the trick)

B) give wizards free reserve feats. Either fully free, or knock out their cantrips replacing them with a number (4?) of reserve feats, or give them unlimited cantrips. Ie: give wizards things to do that don't use up their flashier spell slots. If you feel this is giving wizards too much power: have the reserve feats be the "standard action" to use, and up most spells' casting time (the standard action ones) to 1 round or full round action.

[icefractal]

Another option is to give more XP the more encounters are dealt with in a day; maybe something like:
1: 25%
2: 50%
3-4: 100%
5-6: 150%
7+: 200%

Obviously you'd still give 100% on days when there were less than three encounters available, as in, the players were willing to keep going but there wasn't anything left to fight.

It's an OOC incentive, but this is also an OOC situation - you want this because it'll be more fun and balanced, not because it makes more sense IC.


Note however, that this still won't get you Gandalf. Gandalf casts way less than one spell per encounter; you'd need a different system for the behavior to not be hugely disadvantageous.

And even if you did - many players don't want to play Gandalf. A character in a book has no desires of their own, they do what the author wants. If the author says "This character will be really impressive in one scene and then stay in the back for the next dozen.", then that's totally fine. But most players want to act. They don't want to be the theoretically powerful Wizard who stands back not casting spells, they want to throw some magic around!

So if you want someone to really act Gandalf-style, then you need:
1) A system where that makes sense, like FATE perhaps.
2) A player who wants to play that style of character.

[Venger]

Note however, that this still won't get you Gandalf. Gandalf casts way less than one spell per encounter; you'd need a different system for the behavior to not be hugely disadvantageous.

And even if you did - many players don't want to play Gandalf. A character in a book has no desires of their own, they do what the author wants. If the author says "This character will be really impressive in one scene and then stay in the back for the next dozen.", then that's totally fine. But most players want to act. They don't want to be the theoretically powerful Wizard who stands back not casting spells, they want to throw some magic around!

So if you want someone to really act Gandalf-style, then you need:
1) A system where that makes sense, like FATE perhaps.
2) A player who wants to play that style of character.

Nothing will get you gandalf because he was not a dnd character. He wasn't written to be one. The story he's in isn't combat-heavy from the view of the main characters.

Even if you wanted to pigeonhole your caster into playing gandalf, trying to be lotr is a terrible way to run a dnd campaign (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612)

[Rerednaw]

As a DM you are god. It doesn't matter because every trick has a counter, up to and including "rocks fall and you die.".

That said it's much better to just tell the players what kind of campaign you are running.

DnD is a group experience, our group finds it much more enjoyable when we discuss and get buy-in at the start.

For example: "The 15 min day won't work here. There is a hard time limit before the bad guys army gets here" (Red Hand of Doom did this). Inform them "You won't have much downtime, etc.."

If the players don't want that kind of game, don't run it. Everyone should have fun including you.

My DM uses a plot railroad method. He clusters encounters and use wave after wave. Our first first level adventure was 11 encounters over 4 days no sleep. Trying to sleep for a night resulted in losing the capital city to hordes of undead. He also does not allow crafting and we have almost zero wealth (my 6th wizard had total net worth, by not spending ANYTHING, of 300 gp.) In 14 sessions we have had close to 25-30 PC deaths. He pre-writes encounters at EL+5 for a party of 6 but we play with 3-4 and since PCs get same xp regardless of level we are not all the same level. The XP rewards are less (50-75%) than we are supposed to by the rules. This is what I consider to be an exteme method. And not necessarily the most fun. The only reason I am still in it is because the group is cool and the story interesting. I just don't get attached to PCs and pretend it is a video game. "Oops died again, here's another quarter."

Also consider a spell recharge alternate system. Spells recover on cooldown. Most spells recover in a few rounds. Others take minutes or hours. Found in DND SRD alternate magic rules.