Resource management systems: how many of them?

[ahyangyi]

It is incorrect to label the current D&D system as Vancian. I keep having to make this point. Vancian casting involved taking each spell and charging up that spell, and that spell only, for release at a later time. There was no swapping spells between slots.

The current D&D system is a spell slot system, not a Vancian system. The prepared classes (paladin, cleric, druid, wizard) still swap spells in and out, while the known spell casters (rangers, sorcerers, warlocks, arcane tricksters) cannot. Please don't call the current system Vancian - it isn't - it is at best vestitial vancian but really deserves its own name. To understand Vancian, please review this. See also this.

Spell slot system versus spell point system is a far better pair of categorizations, as would be a mana pool system ...

As an aside, the HP systems in various games also represent resource management systems. (Crap, I have forgotten how the health/wounds system in original Traveller worked, now I need to dig the boxes out again).

The original sense is actually what I had in my mind when I used the term "Vancian".

Ironically, it is also how we handle spell-like abilities in 3e/pf/pf2 and racial spells (such as Drow High Magic) in 5e. Think about it, you take the feat, you learn Levitate and Dispel Magic, but you can use them only once, then you have recharge them when you do a long rest. Very Vancian.

It's a bit weird that "spell-like" things are actually closer to what spells were than spells are...

And yes, I agree you that the current prepared spellcasting is already one step away from Vancian.