3.P - Is Words of Power Worth It In This Situation?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Feeling more than a bit ADD at the moment and having real trouble understanding the system.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...0#post15594580
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/varia...c-rules/words/

Say you're a highly optimized caster, capable of spontaneously casting most of the spells in existence at a high CL, using most metamagic feats.

Is being able to craft your own spells on the fly worthwhile?

[StSword]

I've never playtested it, but I've always thought the ability to effectively make up new spells as the situation warrants a very nice way to get around a spontaneous caster's usual lack of versatility.

The common wisdom is that words of power doesn't have the raw oomph of basic spells though, so it is a tradeoff.

[DarkOne-Rob]

The biggest issue with Words of Power is that it is a closed system - there have been zero updates or additions to the system. It is essentially at a set (lower) power level than standard PF spellcasting with the exception that there are specific tricks that are cool and (maybe) bring it to the level of being worth using.

I think it is cool and would like to have opportunities to use it more, but it is not at the same level as regular spellcasting in terms of power.

[noob]

You could make a spell to seed converter and make it interesting to use (with possibly some balancing factors like for the good spells raising the level of the corresponding seed of 1 or making it lose its aoe if it is an aoe spell turned into a seed).
But that would be homebrew.
Personally I think the fixed casting time makes wordspells exclude interesting rituals that are classical spells and that if the system were to be increased in polyvalence then it should be axed down.
Since there is only a bunch of good combinations you should probably just grab the one which serves you the most with two feats.

[NigelWalmsley]

My experience with "craft your own spell" systems is that they typically result in a lower power level than normal spellcasting if you try to play fair, but allow you to do absolutely absurd things if you hyper-specialize your spells along a single axis. I haven't really looked at Words of Power, but I would imagine it's similar.

[noob]

My experience with "craft your own spell" systems is that they typically result in a lower power level than normal spellcasting if you try to play fair, but allow you to do absolutely absurd things if you hyper-specialize your spells along a single axis. I haven't really looked at Words of Power, but I would imagine it's similar.

The best thing I have seen was just the equivalent of placing a buff stack in one turn.
It was not very impressive relatively to the spells that exists that are usually broken in dozens of ways.

[Firest Kathon]

I've played a caster with Words of Power, but only low-level (I think we ended around level 8 or so). In my experience the system is fun and captures the feel of a more raw approach of magic (fiddeling with the components instead of wielding finely crafted spells). Power-wise it is OK with blasting and you can adequatly replicate the standard low-mid-op spells. However it really fails for me when it comes to more specific spell effects, many of which came in the later books and cannot be replicated with the WoP. If you have a GM which allows you to add new effect words it might be much better, but nowhere near high-op prepared caster territory.

[noob]

There is one effect which is brilliantly absurd: life touch.

and its body does not need to be whole (just a piece of the creature is required). Any parts of the creature that were missing before its death are not restored by this effect word. The creature gains only one permanent negative level from being restored by this effect word, and this negative level fades after 24 hours (although it can be removed early as normal). The creature retains all of the prepared spells and slots it had when it died.

So you can cast this spell on someone who have been turned into dust with PAO then spread in the wind(thus killing it) since all of its body parts were missing before it died (it was just a pile of dust so no limbs) then you are left with someone alive with no body parts.
What did they think?

Also making ghosts is guaranteed with Life Leech so once you reach the campaign level cap you can turn yourself into a ghost or something.