What would you do with endless free spells/day?

[Jowgen]

Through some feat of munchkin optimisation, you have on your hands a character who can cast any spell, how ever many times per day they want, without ever running out of casting resources.

Maybe you are playing this character, maybe you are DMing them.

I am merely curious as to how you would either play or run a game for a character for whom the whole game element of acquiring resources and personal power has essentially become moot.

[Firebug]

"The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world!"

[Anthrowhale]

Maybe stopping a wightpocalypse?

[Jack_Simth]

Make a character that adventures to fill a void that can't really be filled by magic. Seeking True Love / A Heart / A Cause / something else of that nature.

[aglondier]

Reshape the world into a high adventure setting, where heroes and villains contest the rule, while the peasants and common folk just get on with things, largely unaffected...but also where everyone has a little bit of magic, at least a cantrip, to call their own...

[Quertus]

Balance to the table. I could play like Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, who never gets anywhere near being low on spells anymore. But he's still underperforming compared to the super cool, well designed muggles in his party.

Or I could play someone who contributed better in such a party.

Or the group could up their game more, and I could contribute more.

Or the group could care about balance less, and I could be the star of the show.

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As for things I might enjoy *doing* with that power?

At will Divinations, at will Animate Objects, at will Permanency (especially on those Animated Objects), at will quickened Prismatic Spray, at will Reverse Gravity, at will Chain Heal / Harm? At will persistent summon monster, for a whole army of Ravid using Animate Objects? At will quickened Teleport Through Time / Teleport Without Error / Plane Shift, to never spend 2 consecutive rounds in the same place / plane / time? At will Miracle, and constantly play "mother may I"? At will maximized Time Stop, because why should anyone else ever get a turn? At will maximized Time Stop & Mindrape, to completely rewrite history (alla Dark City, I suppose).


"The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world!"

Lol, agreed! But do or do not - there is no try.

----- EDIT -----


I am merely curious as to how you would either play or run a game for a character for whom the whole game element of acquiring resources and personal power has essentially become moot.

Eh, has it? HP, saving throws, allies - so many things are still finite, acquiring resources still matters. The character just isn't The Load after spending all their juice.

So, you'd finally remove the perverse impetus for a 15-minute adventuring day, and get to realistically enjoy a large dungeon delve. Win win?

[Vizzerdrix]

Minor servator EVERYTHING. Polymorph everyone into various cartoon characters. It just became THAT kind of game. :smallyuk:

[malloc]

Through some feat of munchkin optimisation, you have on your hands a character who can cast any spell, how ever many times per day they want, without ever running out of casting resources.

Maybe you are playing this character, maybe you are DMing them.

I am merely curious as to how you would either play or run a game for a character for whom the whole game element of acquiring resources and personal power has essentially become moot.

I'd probably go "Oh, cool," then go play an actual character.

The problem with a character who has infinite 9th level spells is that there really aren't any limitations. So there aren't any challenges that are interesting for more than say, a day, when you can pick more spells. Or just throw Wishes at the problem until it goes away.

That doesn't sound like a compelling character/game.

[Khedrac]

Through some feat of munchkin optimisation, you have on your hands a character who can cast any spell, how ever many times per day they want, without ever running out of casting resources.

Maybe you are playing this character, maybe you are DMing them.

I am merely curious as to how you would either play or run a game for a character for whom the whole game element of acquiring resources and personal power has essentially become moot.

I'd dig out the old Wrath of the Immortals rules for Cyclopedia D&D (50 power points gives the ability to cast any spell at will for a day) and try to write adventures where it's not about brute force (and very unlikely to be set on the material plane, or at least, not a normal part of it), and go for adventures where the goals are more subtle or the PCs have to follow self-applied constraints (e.g. influencing a race without any obvious displays of power).

[GreatWyrmGold]

It depends on what spells those are. Just being able to use magic 15,000 rounds out of the day isn't broken—that's a warlock's whole schtick, after all.

If characters can cast 9th-level spells at will, then I'd run a more story-driven adventure where exact stats don't matter so much as the interactions between characters and setting elements. You can do almost anything you want, sure, but will that have the effects you want?
If they're limited to lower-level spells, you can probably dungeon-crawl just fine; you'd need to bump enemy power up some, but it's possible.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Through some feat of munchkin optimisation, you have on your hands a character who can cast any spell, how ever many times per day they want, without ever running out of casting resources.

Maybe you are playing this character, maybe you are DMing them.

I am merely curious as to how you would either play or run a game for a character for whom the whole game element of acquiring resources and personal power has essentially become moot.

As a player, I wouldn't do so at all. If the GM inflicted it on me, I'd immediately retire the character unless it was only for a short duration in a final fight against the BBEG kind of scenario and even then I'd look at it pretty side-eyed.

As a GM, I simply don't allow it, rules be damned.

From the player side, I -chose- to play a class with limited resources to manage because I -like- the resource management minigame. If I wanted to play something with always available magic, there are invocation users, binders, and meldshapers all available. Heck, my current character in my group's weekly game is a meldshaper/ invocation user. If the GM snatches away something I enjoy and at the same time inflicts on me so much power that he will doubtless have immense difficulty in continuing to meaningfullly challenge my character, he's royally screwed up in my opinion.

From the GM side, anything that's as limitless as a dedicated caster with unlimited spells per day is going to be near impossible to balance encounters for without just pulling nonsense out of my butt. I'd either have to give similar abilities to the rest of the party (in which case reality is their foam-covered, rubber playground) or make it so short-lived as to be a special, unique circumstance, in which case I feel like I've failed as GM to have made such a deus ex machina necessary. I straight-up disallow any rules trickery that would lead to anything NI, arbitrarily high, or even just recursive without a meaningful limit for that reason.

If I was somehow convinced to play such a thing, I'd almost invariably break the game. I know too much about the system. Every encounter and problem gets a silver-bullet unless I just withhold my power until the rest of the party has exhausted all of their ideas and resources first. I can't help thinking I'd feel like I was being a total marty stu prick, even if that's not what I'm trying to do. How satisfied could they possibly be with their victory when "mage-god over there will pick up the slack no matter what we do."

I'm not so big-headed I can't admit that I -can't- GM for that. It's beyond me unless the player is a total newb that's just gonna bathe the world in fire.

[unseenmage]

Love.
Theres not really a spell to find one's lost love amidst the potential infinite alternate realities and branching timelines.

Especially after one has muddied the waters by sending too many Simulacrums and Time Duplicates to do the job for you.

Now your once true love is living it up with an ice assassin of a time duplicate several iterations removed from your direct control because you were short sighted enough to send too many of your nigh limitless resources after the problem and complications arise regardless.

You've likely scried on them several times but your preconceived notion that your love would be alone and pining for you has kept you from realizing that the happy smiling faces of she and just-another-alternate-you are exactly who you've been angering gods, tearing through time, and splitting realities for.

AND NOW one of your alternates or minions or something has tried utilizing the Far Realm to find her, because of course they did, and now you've got fiat monsters rampaging across several realities and it is definitely your fault and your hands are full trying to put THAT squamous genie back in its bottle.

TLDR: Amnesiac alternate reality versions of yourself make a pretty good foil to unlimited power.
Monsters made up of GM fiat and deus ex machina are a close second.

[Goaty14]

As a player? Become the DM. The world's my oyster and I'm practically unstoppable as a PC - so I get up from my seat, switch places with the DM, have him roll up a level-appropriate PC, and get situated with my new position behind the screen... :smallamused:

As the DM? I crack my knuckles, and describe to the PCs how their former friend and ally (who now puts the N in NPC) has begun to reshape the world in their image... and continue the campaign as normal, only that the PCs are now aware of an uber-powerful demigod (honestly just an analogy for the DM) watching their movements and actions with interest... and popcorn, or something :smallbiggrin: