[3.5] Regaining spells

[Thurbane]

Looking for a little clarification for the rules on regaining spells.

As far as I can tell, there are 4 basic kinds of spellcaster:

1. Vancian Arcane (Wizard etc.)
2. Vancian Divine (Cleric, Druid etc.)
3. Spontaneous Arcane (Sorcerer etc.)
4. Spontaneous Divine (Favored Soul etc.)

How exactly do the rest, meditation and such rules effect these four? If I'm reading it right:

1. 8 hours rest, does not need to be specific time of day, 1 hour meditation (for full spells)
2. No rest requirement, specific time of day, 1 hour meditation
3. 8 hours rest, does not need to be specific time of day, 15 minutes meditation
4. No rest requirement, specific time of day, 1 hour meditation

A player in my group is of the belief that an elf sorcerer does not need the 8 hours rest, only the shorter "sleep" time of an elf. Could someone direct me to the relevant page of the PHB of the relevant rule?

[Thurbane]

Actually, I found the relevant section in the PHB (p.178). I think the dispute arises from the section on elves (PHB p.15):

Elves do not sleep, as members of the other common races do. Instead, an elf meditates in a deep trance for 4 hours a day. An elf resting in this fashion gains the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.

Is it fair to say this could be read that the "same benefit" would extend to spell recovery for an elf sorcerer?

[Kylarra]

Sleep is irrelevant to the actual spell prep. You need 8hrs of essentially not moving. If you read the phb (same page as you're already looking at), the fluff example is of an elf wizard trancing for 4 and then resting for another 4, so he's got absolutely no ground to stand on.

Rest

To prepare her daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but she must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If her rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time she has to rest in order to clear her mind, and she must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing her spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, she still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.

Daily Readying of Spells

Each day, sorcerers and bards must focus their minds on the task of casting their spells. A sorcerer or bard needs 8 hours of rest (just like a wizard), after which he spends 15 minutes concentrating. (A bard must sing, recite, or play an instrument of some kind while concentrating.) During this period, the sorcerer or bard readies his mind to cast his daily allotment of spells. Without such a period to refresh himself, the character does not regain the spell slots he used up the day before.

[Fizban]

I'd say it's fair, but the rest required to regain arcane spells is specifically called out as not being sleep. It's more a requirement of the magic that you clear your mind for eight solid hours, weather you sleep, trance, or just stare at the wall. I don't have page numbers or quotes, but it's mentioned in several places in different books for elves specifically.

But, if you want to give it to him, the only way it would be a bad thing is if he starts trying to abuse it. Once or twice to save the world, sure, but repreparing spells two or three times every single day means it's getting revoked.

Waaaagh! Ninja! Eh, at least it was only one.

[Sinfire Titan]

Sleep is irrelevant to the actual spell prep. You need 8hrs of essentially not moving.

Yeah. There's no actual sleep needed for any of the variant casting systems. Even Truenaming just has a 24 hour restriction, and Binders have to take 2 minutes/Vestige to get everything in order.

[Thurbane]

OK, thanks all, that pretty much lines up with how I thought it worked.

[balistafreak]

What about regaining uses of spell-like abilities, like the Drow's Faerie Fire and Darkness?

[Starbuck_II]

What about regaining uses of spell-like abilities, like the Drow's Faerie Fire and Darkness?

Daily abilities require you wait 24 hours basically till beggining of next day.

[balistafreak]

Waiting, as opposed to actively resting?

So a Drow Cleric can meditate an hour and regain his spells, but when he uses a SLA he has to wait an entire 24 hours?

Say he empties his spells and SLAS out in rapid succession. He can meditate for an hour and get his spells back, but he'll have to wait until the next day at precisely the same time to get his Faerie Fire back.

Also, even though it says "per day" for a Cleric, it seems like you could meditate to regain spells several times per day, given the short "rest" (time spent doing nothing else) period. True or false?

Because it would be awesome to have the cleric meditate on a Floating Disk (cast by the party wizard or from a wand or something, it's a 1st level spell, who cares) between encounters while the party travels to their next destination.

[Caphi]

Except you still have to rest for eight hours and meditate for an hour before you can get your spells back. At best, you're on a nine-hour cycle. Now see how long your allies put up with you taking an eight-hour nap every ten hours before they leave you behind.

[NEO|Phyte]

So a Drow Cleric can meditate an hour and regain his spells, but when he uses a SLA he has to wait an entire 24 hours?

No, because he can only meditate to regain spells at a specific time of day (or as soon as possible if the normal time is missed for some reason.) Also, spell slots used within 8 hours of preparing a new batch remain expended.

[balistafreak]

... I thought the OP just confirmed that divine casters don't need rest to regain spells?

The reason for my confusion was that the entry still says "per day". An arcane caster takes an eight-hour rest, but it seems like if he really wants/needs to, he can take two of these rests in the same day. (Three is impossible by mathematics. )

But a divine caster only needs an hour to prepare, and there are many more one-hour periods in a day than eight-hour periods.

EDIT: Never mind. "Recent casting limit" prevents divine casters from rapid-firing their spells. However, you don't need to be resting for those eight hours - you could still be doing something constructive with the party, like chatting up the local government, going shopping, or, you know, traveling from point A to point B.

[theMycon]

Waiting, as opposed to actively resting?

So a Drow Cleric can meditate an hour and regain his spells, but when he uses a SLA he has to wait an entire 24 hours?

Say he empties his spells and SLAS out in rapid succession. He can meditate for an hour and get his spells back, but he'll have to wait until the next day at precisely the same time to get his Faerie Fire back.

Also, even though it says "per day" for a Cleric, it seems like you could meditate to regain spells several times per day, given the short "rest" (time spent doing nothing else) period. True or false?

Because it would be awesome to have the cleric meditate on a Floating Disk (cast by the party wizard or from a wand or something, it's a 1st level spell, who cares) between encounters while the party travels to their next destination.

That would be awesome, and I know a few DMs who allow it, but, the Cleric has a "certain time of day" when they pray.

I also commonly hear (commonly enough that I'm not sure if it's a written rule or homebrew), that if a prepared caster doesn't prep all his spell-slots in the morning, they can take 15 minutes rest to fill up the rest later on. Not getting more spells in a day, just deciding in two shifts.

[balistafreak]

Here you go.

It seems both kinds of casters can leave slots open... but a divine caster needs a "particular time of day" to prepare.

Which while perhaps thematically sensible is a lot less practical in most games I've seen.

It seems like it would be easier to just have an 8-hour rest period just like a caster, with the advantage that the 8 hours don't have to be spent resting, just not casting spells. The whole "time of day" thing is so easily broken by the demands of most adventuring it's a wonder that Codzilla manages to get anything done.

[sofawall]

Time of day being broken two ways.

Teleport to another time zone? What, it's dawn, isn't it?

What about Plane Shift to the Astral Plane? When is dawn here?

[Saph]

D&D worlds seem to use a universal clock, as far as I know. I've been in parties in dungeon crawls where we used the divine casters as a timepiece.

*Ding* "Spells are ready!"
"Guess it must be morning."

[Kylarra]

D&D worlds seem to use a universal clock, as far as I know. I've been in parties in dungeon crawls where we used the divine casters as a timepiece.

*Ding* "Spells are ready!"
"Guess it must be morning."

That amuses me more than it really ought to.

[Sinfire Titan]

D&D worlds seem to use a universal clock, as far as I know. I've been in parties in dungeon crawls where we used the divine casters as a timepiece.

*Ding* "Spells are ready!"
"Guess it must be morning."

More of a recharge that has it's own internal timer.

[Devils_Advocate]

Well, each interruption only adds an hour to the amount of rest required. Or, to look at it another way, the caster needs 7 total hours of rest to refresh a spell slot, except that each period of rest counts for 1 hour less than it is (presumably to a minimum of zero).

So an elven sorcerer who doesn't need to cast a lot of spells could just trance for four and a half hours each day. He wouldn't get back the spell slots that he used the previous day, but he would get back the ones that he used the day before that, now having completed the required rest to refresh those. Even if he used all of his slots up, he wouldn't need to rest unusually long so long as he had a day of downtime available.

This works even better for a psion, since power points are even more generic than spontaneous caster spell slots (as power points don't have levels).