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View Full Version : What's Your Take On Regenerative Spell-Casting?



Akennedy
2008-04-27, 12:26 PM
Well, quire simply exactly what the title says, what do you think of spell casters that can cast spells all day long and never feel exhausted a bit? In practice can it work? In theory can it work? can it only work for arcane but not divine spells? Any and all feedback is welcome!

Tempest Fennac
2008-04-27, 12:34 PM
Asimilar idea has already been invented: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm . I've heard that it's fine early on in the game, but it's ridiculously overpowered later on.

Fenix_of_Doom
2008-04-27, 12:35 PM
Well, quire simply exactly what the title says, what do you think of spell casters that can cast spells all day long and never feel exhausted a bit? In practice can it work? In theory can it work? can it only work for arcane but not divine spells? Any and all feedback is welcome!

You mean like reserve feats? It works, but it would be more like the warlock and less like the wizard in effect and a wizard would probably be more powerful. I don't see that as a problem however as wizards are considered to be among the top most powerful classes in the game.
I don't see why it couldn't work for divine, as long as you're careful with heal spells.

Chronos
2008-04-27, 12:39 PM
It depends on what you give up for it. Warlocks, for instance, can use their "spells" (invocations) as much as they like, but they have a short list to choose from, and an even shorter list known (thirteen over their entire career, including Eldritch Blast). They end up being reasonably balanced, and weak compared to the standard casters. But if you just take wizards and clerics and the like as they are, and take away their daily limit without any other adjustments, all you're doing is making the most overpowered classes even more so.

Douglas
2008-04-27, 01:57 PM
It depends on what you give up for it.
Is the ability to go nova a sufficient sacrifice? For example, with the Recharge Magic variant Tempest linked to, if you cast one of your highest level spells you then cannot cast any spell of that level again for several rounds. Most spells for which a cooldown of a few rounds would be problematic (long duration buffs, in particular) get their own, much longer, cooldown separate from the spell level one. Healing spells are notable exceptions to this, primarily because it wouldn't be fair to let the casters start every fight at full strength without also letting the fighters do so.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-04-27, 02:29 PM
Belial the Leveller's magister (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59532) was a bit like that. Regenerative spellcasting is monstrous in terms of utility, but, especially for the above example, is actually somewhat weak; not even invocations and blasting as a warlock put it on a level with, say, the bard.

Chronos
2008-04-27, 02:58 PM
Is the ability to go nova a sufficient sacrifice? For example, with the Recharge Magic variant Tempest linked to, if you cast one of your highest level spells you then cannot cast any spell of that level again for several rounds.It doesn't really stop novas, though... You can still lead off with a 9th-level spell, then an 8th, then a 7th, and then maybe another 9th once they recharge. You can also nova using spells with non-general recharge times in that variant: Time Stop, for instance, has a specific cooldown time (as, of course, it has to), so you can cast a Time Stop in the first round, followed immediately by another 9th-level spell, and maybe even get your general 9th level spells back again before the Time Stop wears off.

Furthermore, you never need to worry about conserving your resources: If you run into a pack of monsters below your CR, and you have a 9th-level spell that can finish them in a single round, you can go ahead and use it, without worrying about needing it later. Power Word Kill constitutes a nova, all by itself, when you're using it on things 2 or 3 CRs below you.

mostlyharmful
2008-04-27, 03:15 PM
The open-ended nature of DnD casting makes regerative casting a big headache, it gets a whole lot easier in things like Shadowrun or Gurps where you "buy" each spell and casting it's based on personal energy that recoups, reworking a vancian system into a regenirative system while keeping mages and clerics diversity and utility is HARD.

Aquillion
2008-04-27, 03:15 PM
It doesn't really stop novas, though... You can still lead off with a 9th-level spell, then an 8th, then a 7th, and then maybe another 9th once they recharge. You can also nova using spells with non-general recharge times in that variant: Time Stop, for instance, has a specific cooldown time (as, of course, it has to), so you can cast a Time Stop in the first round, followed immediately by another 9th-level spell, and maybe even get your general 9th level spells back again before the Time Stop wears off.

Furthermore, you never need to worry about conserving your resources: If you run into a pack of monsters below your CR, and you have a 9th-level spell that can finish them in a single round, you can go ahead and use it, without worrying about needing it later. Power Word Kill constitutes a nova, all by itself, when you're using it on things 2 or 3 CRs below you.Also, don't forget, you can use magic to buy time to recharge very easily. They were smart enough to make Teleport have a 4-hour recharge time, but things like Prismatic Sphere and Dimension Door are still general; with those (plus lots of other terrain-alteration spells that the typical enemy is unlikely to get around in 7 rounds), you can recover all your general spells very quickly.

JaxGaret
2008-04-27, 03:40 PM
IMO UA has another much better regenerative magic system that is more balanced than Recharge Magic. It's a Spell Point variant called Vitalizing Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm#spellPointVariantVitalizing).

EDIT: I see that the OP stated that they didn't want the character to tire out. Ah well. It's the only way to balance it currently.

Akennedy
2008-04-30, 10:18 AM
What if there was a regenerating system that after a spell was cast, it's regeneration could be felt through all levels of spells? In other words, it would make it nigh impossible to "nova"?