When are EXP and expensive material component costs appropriate?

[Endarire]

When are EXP and expensive material component costs appropriate? I know plenty of spells and powers and abilities have these, and plenty of people have found ways to mitigate or avoid these costs. (Genies exist for such reasons!) You might think or say, "Removing these things is unbalanced!" To which I say, "Baldur's Gate was a series of now-classic D&D RPGs that never had material/EXP costs to its spells, and people still loved the game and didn't have any loud outcries about things being unbalanced for this reason!"

For purposes of this thread, assume all 3.5's spells and psionic powers by default have no EXP/expensive material costs, but you're seriously considering adding them on rare occasion to abilities. Thus, for example, genesis (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm) seems like it should have a significant extra cost since as a GM I don't want players spamming it, but I'm OK with them spamming limited wish or identify or true seeing or raise dead if they have the spell slots. (For sanity's sake, miracle, reality revision, and wish either use the Pathfinder version or require the caster/manifester to pay the monetary/EXP cost to make/upgrade items.)

This thread is focused on player characters and the stuff with which they interact. It isn't focused on the hows and whys of having a reviving Commoners by level 9+ Clerics who have a raise dead handy, for example. (In short, let the background stuff stay in the background.)

[DeTess]

I'd say such things are appropriate when you're creating something permanent. You shouldn't spend XP or lots of gold for a temporary advantage in combat, but it's fine if you're getting something permanent (such as a permanent spell effect or a magic item or something like that) instead.

Outside of those, if a spell is unbalanced without such a cost, I'd argue it's still unbalanced with the cost unless the cost is absolutely prohibitive.

[Kyutaru]

To which I say, "Baldur's Gate was a series of now-classic D&D RPGs that never had material/EXP costs to its spells, and people still loved the game and didn't have any loud outcries about things being unbalanced for this reason!"
That game in particular serves as a bad example. Not only is Baldur's Gate the textbook definition of unbalanced, even disregarding CR guidelines wholly in favor of RNG-based save/load schemes and prebuffing, but it showered the PCs in magic items that were grossly beyond their level expectations and denied enemy AI the proper way of dealing with summons. Their character wealth was leagues ahead of what it was supposed to be which is why the developers could get away with throwing CR 21 enemies against a lvl 7 party and the real time combat made running away strategies (especially with bows) a workable method of dealing with overpowering hordes. Enter the later games and it becomes a series of "did you cast the right dispel to get rid of this overpowered buff?" checks that mandate having a caster whose almost sole job it is to purge these buffs -- which enemies get to instantly cast at the start of battle instead of spending round buffing.

High CRs, cheating enemies, awesome loot, save and reload scumming, the game didn't promote playing in the way the tabletop game is balanced. Heck, casually setting off a single trap usually murdered multiple party members which would be a TPK in a real campaign. Here it was a quick load.


As for EXP and expensive components, literally any time you want to discourage a spell from being spammed. Any spell that breaks your game or is too strong for its own good needs a setback. They all have them. Tired of players spamming twice as many attacks as ever for the entire fight? Make Haste age you (or exhaust you). Tired of players running bodily into traps or playing recklessly in combat with no regard for the consequences and no fear of the reaper? Make Raise Dead cost constitution and an expensive material. Whatever you want to allow but for extreme emergencies only give a cost that aptly describes how often it should be used.

Also, anything that produces wealth or training should have an offsetting cost. Even identify costs 100g to cast normally.

[Mike Miller]

Potentially spells that replace/negate other party members' function should be costly. The wizard turns itself into a better martial than either of the group's two martials with polymorph? Expensive component needed

That is just one example, but I think it makes sense.

[smetzger]

Identify is the only one that I can see reducing or getting rid of the cost.

I get around this with some house rules that allow one to identify magic items easier...
1) you can identify a wand by expending a charge

2) detect magic can be used to compare like items. Identical 'signatures' indicate they are the same. Same 'signature' different power level indicates the items are functionally the same but one is more powerful.

3) Using a 'simple' item in real combat will reveal its function. E.g. +1 sword, +1 bracers etc, just a simple numerical bonus

Otherwise I don't see any reason to get rid of XP or gold costs. Wizards don't need any help.
I can see adding additional costs for spells you want to limit the use of.

[Zanos]

MIC contains rules for identifying items with detect magic and has a 1,500gp item that can do it for free, so identify is pretty pointless.

I like the above idea that spells that produce permanent effects should have an XP/GP cost. I'd also add that spells that have a harmful effect with no attack roll or save, such as forcecage, should also have a GP component.

[NigelWalmsley]

XP costs, like XP itself, are dumb and should not be used. Allowing people to buy things with XP is a power now for power later deal, and those are inherently unhealthy. Not to mention things like the Difference Engine or XP Is A River. Aging is like that, but even worse because it either costs absolutely nothing, or makes you stop playing your character.

GP costs are also broken, because the wealth system is broken. But unlike XP costs, they aren't fundamentally stupid. It is entirely reasonable for some abilities to require you to expend scarce resources to ration their use. Of course, it is worthwhile to remember that in most cases the spell you're casting costs a spell slot, which is already a restriction on its use. If Fabricate costs a bunch of money each use, it becomes very easy for it to simply be worse than buying mundane goods directly, which is undesirable.

If I was overhauling the magic system entirely, I'd probably want to take inspiration from the Dominions (https://www.illwinter.com/dom5/) games. In those, powerful magic costs gems (effectively crystalized magic of various types, like "Fire" or "Death"). Gems come from magical sites at a fixed rate, which limits how often your empire can rain fire from the sky, call up armies of the damned, or craft magical equipment. That system has a number of benefits for D&D. It puts natural checks on spells like Planar Binding, it provides an easy explanation for why dungeons exist, and (with some tweaks) it explains why there's suddenly a powerful fire mage sending forth armies of flame demons from the Screaming Peaks.

[Edea]

I'd probably put in a separate resource system that's explictly for restriction of problematic spells (and nothing else). Casting the problematic spell normally, casting it from a charged, trigger or completion item of any kind (even trying to drink a potion of it), making any of said items, the SLA version of the spell, and even the supernatural version of the spell would all require this resource, and the only way to refill said resource (not stack, reset/overlap) would be level advancement (all rapid HD acquisition cheese would also need to be sealed off, naturally).

All hit dice would give some of this resource, but how much would be based on the hit die; a sorcerer class hit die would probably be near the top of the list, and prepared caster hit dice would get very, very little to work with (less than even martial hit dice).

The genie/efreeti version of wish would also explicitly call out that the one making the wish has to pay the resource, and the genie/efreeti's just a metaphorical 'broker'.

I dislike level drain (and ability drain/damage, for that matter)/fluctuating XP, and wealth's far too easy to stockpile, so this would be the next step for me.