Talk:Prepared Spontaneous Casting (3.5e Variant Rule)

Comments

Fishing for thoughts. Does this break the game? Is it a decent change? Does it screw sorcerers over? Is it playable? And for the love of all the gods, can anyone think of a better name? --Ghostwheel (talk) 17:22, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

No. Mana-Based Spellcasting contains this one, and is cooler. Completely. Yes. Prepared Spontaneous Casting? --Foxwarrior (talk) 18:10, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Rereading it, it's definitely not what I'm looking for. I don't see a whole party getting Haste all day long for free, even at level 20. How does this screw over sorcerers, and how badly? --Ghostwheel (talk) 18:41, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, sorcerers were already inferior to wizards in essentially every way other than spontaneous casting. Okay, looking back at the actual tables, your variant gives the sorcerer slightly more spells known total than the wizard, so I might have been exaggerating a little, but the wizard's spells known at their highest spell levels (the important levels) compete just fine with the sorcerer's, and the wizard is still better about spell levels and feats. --Foxwarrior (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

So is it basically, "It stays about the same", not because of the variant, but because of how sorcs and wizards are built from the ground up? And would making the minimum 0 (actually putting highest spells known precisely on par with the sorcerer) make it work better? --Ghostwheel (talk) 19:43, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Making the minimum 0 would probably make sorcerers and wizards balanced against each other, actually...

And there is surely a chance that simply changing all the numbers for Mana-Based Spellcasting would make it satisfy you, isn't there? --Foxwarrior (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Theoretically, though it would have to on one hand not allow a caster to cast their highest-level spells a dozen times per day, while allowing them to use the right number of spells per day to go through four encounters at most levels, not apply super-buffs to their entire party for little cost, and not screw them over by giving them too few spells. It would be pretty damn hard to get it right, though.

So with that change, you feel that sorcerers and wizards are balanced compared to one-another? --Ghostwheel (talk) 19:56, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorcerers and Wizards, I think so. How do Clerics and their domains work in this system?

I'll try my hand at this:

Table: Non-Exploding Mage Strain Costs

Level	Strain Cost
	0	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	3	6	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
2nd	3	6	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
3rd	2	4	7	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
4th	2	4	7	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
5th	1	2	4	8	—	—	—	—	—	—
6th	1	2	4	8	—	—	—	—	—	—
7th	1	2	3	5	9	—	—	—	—	—
8th	1	2	3	5	9	—	—	—	—	—
9th	1	1	2	3	5	10	—	—	—	—
10th	1	1	2	3	5	10	—	—	—	—
11th	1	1	1	2	3	6	11	—	—	—
12th	1	1	1	2	3	6	11	—	—	—
13th	0	1	1	1	2	3	6	12	—	—
14th	0	1	1	1	2	3	6	12	—	—
15th	0	0	1	1	1	2	4	7	13	—
16th	0	0	1	1	1	2	4	7	13	—
17th	0	0	0	1	1	1	2	4	7	14
18th	0	0	0	1	1	1	2	4	7	14
19th	0	0	0	1	1	1	2	4	7	14
20th	0	0	0	1	1	1	2	4	7	14

So a caster can typically afford to cast 3 of their highest level, or 6 of their second-highest, or 12 of their third-highest, and so on. At some point you can afford to get an item of unlimited uses of a level 3 super-buff, anyways. --Foxwarrior (talk) 21:35, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Updated how specialist wizards and clerics work. Druids remain unchanged, I believe.

And while I'd need to do the math and figure out stress tolerance and the like, just from your description that would probably be more palatable overall. --Ghostwheel (talk) 20:28, 9 October 2013 (UTC)