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Quoted from d20SRD.org

Spell Point Variant: Vitalizing
In the vitalizing system, spellcasters can potentially cast a great number of spells in a day, but every spell cast is a potential burden on the caster’s health and vitality. Reaching for and directing magical energy is a dangerous and taxing exercise, at least as difficult as heavy labor or prolonged exertion.

This variant of the spell point system does not change the way a character prepares spells, casts spells, regains spell points, or any of the other rules from that system. However, the spellcaster’s pool of spell points represents a physical, not just mental, limit on his spellcasting power.

When a spellcaster’s spell point pool falls to half of his maximum or less, he becomes fatigued.

When his spell points drop to one-quarter of his maximum or less, he becomes exhausted.

For example, at 1st level Haigh the cleric has 3 spell points (2 from his level, +1 bonus point for high Wisdom). He enters a fight by casting bless on his allies, spending 1 of his 3 spell points. Doing this has no ill effect on Haigh, since he still has more than half of his maximum spell points remaining. If, during the fight, he then casts divine favor, spending another spell point, he now becomes fatigued, since he has only one-third of his spell points remaining. After the fight, he spontaneously casts cure light wounds on Kroh, spending his last spell point. Not only has he exhausted his spells for the day, but he has exhausted his body as well.

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Originally posted by Hawkins

New article by Monte.

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Originally posted by sleyvas


Interesting. That gives me some hope. I favor Vancian magic, but I wasn't opposed to the general idea behind the spell reserve feats, which is in essence what it sounds like they're thinking of offering. What I hated was how in 4th edition a wizard basically only knows a handful of offensive and defensive effects. That's fine if you want to play a sorceror type character, and the 4th edition version of wizard to me makes for a better "sorceror" than the 3rd edition version.... but its not a wizard as I would term it (and its not a wizard as presented in realms novels either).

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Originally posted by sleyvas


I'll say I'm not favored of a spell point system, because what I've found in general is it tends to promote cheating just because people will "forget" to subtract the points. However, I can see where it can work if you can trust that that won't occur (but for that there's always psionics).

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Originally posted by Diffan
I guess when I read the article, I didn't think it was all that impressive. To me, Monte reaffirmed some notion that Vancian spellcasting (fire-and-forget with heavy planning) was somehow inherently rewarding or awesome and I've never felt that way. Seriously, never.

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Originally posted by Diffan

What I find really funny is that while Reserve Feats are "meh" for wizards, they really step on the Warlocks toes......hard. The Warlock, by class definition, relies on his At-Will eldritch blast power. It might do pitiful damage and the range is crappy but the effects aren't bad and it's usable ALL the time. Then the wizard picks up one or two feats and *Bam!* he's a warlock too.

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Originally posted by crazedventurers

Horses for courses I guess, for me the true reflection on a magic user is when they are down to a few spells that on the surface 'don't work' against the enemy the magic user is facing, unless they are cast ingeniously. If the player pulls it off it is awesome and that is what magic is about, magic is special, its clever and it can do things that I as a real life person can never do (I as a real life person can learn to use a sword and can break into people houses if I wanted to and can build shelters and track if I had the knowledge, but I can't cast fireball or rope trick). If magic becomes ordinary and mundane and predictable and certainly not special, then what the point in playing the game?

Clever play and planning should be rewarded, that is the challenge of the game for me, because if you can choose want you want to cast as you go along the game becomes simple and boring and there is no forethought to the adventure, no thinking about the game. It then mirrors a console game with all the spells at will and not a pen & paper role-playing game that I recognise.

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Originally posted by crazedventurers

Its Vancian all the way for me, every day of the week for as long as I play D&D. It is a core principle of D&D from the first games that were run 40 odd years ago and has been until they changed the premise for 4E.

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Originally posted by crazedventurers


Horses for courses I guess, for me the true reflection on a magic user is when they are down to a few spells that on the surface 'don't work' against the enemy the magic user is facing, unless they are cast ingeniously. If the player pulls it off it is awesome and that is what magic is about, magic is special, its clever and it can do things that I as a real life person can never do (I as a real life person can learn to use a sword and can break into people houses if I wanted to and can build shelters and track if I had the knowledge, but I can't cast fireball or rope trick). If magic becomes ordinary and mundane and predictable and certainly not special, then what the point in playing the game?

Clever play and planning should be rewarded, that is the challenge of the game for me, because if you can choose want you want to cast as you go along the game becomes simple and boring and there is no forethought to the adventure, no thinking about the game. It then mirrors a console game with all the spells at will and not a pen & paper role-playing game that I recognise.

Its Vancian all the way for me, every day of the week for as long as I play D&D. It is a core principle of D&D from the first games that were run 40 odd years ago and has been until they changed the premise for 4E.

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Originally posted by crazedventurers


I suspect that the designers will go with more 'whiz-bang and shiny' at will abilites/rituals/spell slots to give magic-users 'more scope' but in essence everything else will also have more scope so they end up adding things to make the class 'more fun' and it isn't any more special than any other class or monster who also has lots more scope. It becomes a 'balanced' arms race where everything is more powerful but essentially the same as if you had left them alone in the first place.

As you can guess I voted for the bring back Vancian casting and get rid of all the at wills etc

Just my thoughts

Cheers

Damian

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Originally posted by Lord Karsus

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Originally posted by Diffan

What I find really funny is that while Reserve Feats are "meh" for wizards, they really step on the Warlocks toes......hard. The Warlock, by class definition, relies on his At-Will eldritch blast power. It might do pitiful damage and the range is crappy but the effects aren't bad and it's usable ALL the time. Then the wizard picks up one or two feats and *Bam!* he's a warlock too.

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-One of the first Eldrich Blast augmentations that a character can pick is the one that increases the blast range to 120', isn't it?

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Originally posted by Diffan

Yea, but I don't think anyone ever really picked it. Mostly because you had to use your scant invocations for both at-will effects OR eldritch blast augmentation and the limited quantity required some specific choices early on. Mostly because there were better options than Eldritch Lance.

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Originally posted by Lord Karsus

-In my own games, I already use multiple forms of magic as a means to differentiate Wizards and Sorcerers (as well as Sorcerers making use of 'Bloodlines'). Wizards use 'Vancian' Magic, and Sorcerers make use of the Spell Point system discussed in Unearthed Arcana, that Psions also use (with all those other Arcane spellcaster classes using either one or the other, depending on which one the class seems more parallel to, Wizard or Sorcerer. I don't have many people who actually play in my games, but I haven't encountered any problems with having two different forms of spellcasting rules for different classes. A 'Feat Tree' of powers, as is discussed, works well enough- computer RPG video games use them and I don't hear too many complaints (not that I go out of my way to listen, being as that I don't play most computer RPG video games). As a third form of magic (Vancian and Spell Points), I could see it working. It would trade off volume for specificity. The guy can't cast X or Y, but he can cast Z, and can do it as often as he wants. Z can later be upgraded to Z^1, Z^2, Z^3, and so on, so he wouldn't lag behind, either. How might that idea mix with Vancian magic? Should a Vancian magician be allowed to take a magical feat that granted him Z as often as he wanted, and should he be allowed to upgrade Z? Also, if a class existed that was primarily based around magical feats, it should gain one every level (or however many levels) as things independent to normal feats. One of my biggest gripes about the Star Wars d20 game was that a Force using class used their skill points among regular skills and Force skills. So, they'd either have to ignore mundane skills to maximize their Force skills, ignore their Force skills to maximize their mundane skills, or split the points among both lists and be underpowered in both categories as compared to people who maximized one or the other.

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Originally posted by Hawkins

I actually prefer a spell points system (whether it be the one from Unearthed Arcana or Psionics), with the addition of the vitalizing spell points variant. That way it depicts how exhausting spellcasting can be (and how it is often described in many fantasy novels).

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Originally posted by Lord Karsus

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Originally posted by Diffan

Yea, but I don't think anyone ever really picked it. Mostly because you had to use your scant invocations for both at-will effects OR eldritch blast augmentation and the limited quantity required some specific choices early on. Mostly because there were better options than Eldritch Lance.

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-Really? I've played a Warlock twice, and picked that one first both times upon creation. The only other interestingly useful one was the other blow level blast shape invocation that allowed the Warlock to add his Eldritch Blast to melee attacks, effectively giving the character a +1d6 magical weapon at 1st level without costing any money. None of the other low-level invocations or Eldritch Blast modifications really seemed all that worthwhile to me, even at higher lower levels. Sickening or shakening opponents, or a few extra skill points/saving throw pluses. The ones that gave you Darkvision, or Water Breathing are good, but their usefulness depends on the campaign, and the campaigns I've been in never really utilized either ability much, with the exception of being able to see in the dark when relevant.

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Originally posted by Diffan

This is one of those "YMMV" type of things. I like playing spellcasters, I like using spells and being magical and I like that to mean something. But I don't think it has to be so limited that, when fighting mooks or enemies really not worth my effort that I should just sit out those battles to save my magic for important things.

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Originally posted by Marc

imho all basic magic should be at-will, forgetting spells the Vancian way could be a feat or an arcane tradition

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