In my endless quest to nerf B/X magic-users, this might be my most radical idea:
Magic-users (MU) and clerics get to memorize ONE spell per day.
A 10-th level MU 10 still has 14 spells or so, but it takes a couple of weeks to memorize all.
This makes spell slots a more "time sensitive" resource like HP, rations, and everything else.
When the party is planning an expedition, spell choice becomes part of the planning - do we have enough torches? Should I memorize "light" instead? What about cure potions and "cure light wounds"? We are not taking the thief this time... should we get "Knock"? Etc.
BTW, CHANGING your selection of spell has the same cost. You cannot rewrite your selection of spells overnight.
If that's too harsh, let the MU recover a number of spell levels equal to their level (e.g., a 10th level MU can recover 3 fireballs and 1 magic missile) or any other solution you find adequate.
I'm tempted to say "one day per spell level" so you'd need three days to recover fireball.
Again, it sounds too harsh - but the fireball causes at least 5d6 damage. A fighter would need one to two weeks to recover from one.
MUs would need to be more careful about their spells, which I like. OTOH, they need to be able to do something else while hoarding spells, so I'd probably let them have swords, cantrips, or something similar.
In practice, this is just a random idea - I don't really use spell slots in my games.
But I've seem this happen again and again in my BXish games: the fighter needs at least a week to recover, while the cleric and MU just recover all the spells overnight. Fortunately, the cleric can just cure everyone in a day, which makes him an obligatory character in any party.
I think I'm always nerfing the spellcasters because most of my campaigns happen in the wilderness - on average, there is less than one combat encounter per day and the MU fireballs everything.
Dungeons help, but PCs fall into the "5 minutes workday" pattern, which is a whole issue...
Interesting. It's extreme, but I do find this appealing! Sometimes I consider, "how exactly SHOULD the Intelligence modifier effect spells/MU?" Spell recovery might certainly be one way to do it. This seems like a rule well suited for settings aiming to achieve some sense Low Magic Fantasy settings. I'd probably let such a character use d6 swords or whatever (because ultimately they're still going to have low HP, terrible AC, and miss often).
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly!
DeleteI'm a big fan of low fantasy / S&S settings, and sorcerers use all manner of weapons.
Off the top of my head, you could recover Intelligence+Level/5 slots/levels, or some similar formula.
There's something appealing here, but one could also achieve it by making spells into components. Although that does require magic-users to put components in their slot, the idea that you can prepare X per *Adventure* during downtime - not X per *Day* - can be duplicated by making them physical resources.
ReplyDeleteThat is definitely a good alternative if you like components!
DeleteSo you can buy them with your rations, torches, etc.
I think you have achieved perfection, man. I love this idea. You have made me consider returning to vancian magic just to try this (spoiler: i cannot in my current campaign, my players would assasinate me)
ReplyDeleteNot only that: I think you can safely pair wizards and fighters XP progression after that.
1 spell per day regardless of level and int sounds good. It puts more emphasis on taking long breaks which the fighter must do anyways
Thanks man, glad you like it!
DeleteThat'd definitely be a good way to pair XP!
I'm in the same boat in my current campaign: the MU player would hate it if I nerfed him now... but maybe for the last campaign I'll offer something more low-magic.
Ok, hear me out... Keep the class features the same (hit die, equipment, armor/weapon restrictions, etc.), and let's go with the one spell a day thing. Now, clerics can cast that one spell an infinite number of times per day because gods and stuff (plus the spells tend to be more supportive than damaging). Clerics have access to their spells with normal progression, prayers, etc.. Magic-users however can learn spells of any level and cast the spell a number of times per day up to their intelligence in spell levels. Example, a sufficiently high level MU with INT 18 could cast sleep 18 times per day, or Time Stop twice. Casting more times results in permanent CON damage. Also MU's are allowed to safely cast spells equal to 1/2 their level, so a 4th level MU can safely cast 1st & 2nd level spells, but not 3rd or beyond. "Unsafe" spells result in 1d4 damage per spell level, example: a first level mage somehow got access to a 9th level spell and decides to cast it: since all spells at 1st level are "dangerous", they'd take 9d4 damage. Sure, they'd get the spell off, but they'd also explode. A second level mage with sleep and an INT 18 is a thing to behold (casting sleep up to 18 times/day), but god forbid your BBG at the end of the dungeon has more than 4 HD. To keep things spicy, it takes 1/hour per spell level to encode the spell into the mage's memory. Switching lower level spells on an adventure is somewhat manageable, but those higher level spells? Ooooooof.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a reasonable alternative... I guess the difficult part is creating something that is both simple and sensible.
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