Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

[GAZZA]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

I was referring to the tendency of D&D PCs to run around Polymorphed (or Shapechanged, at higher levels). Annis Hags and Trolls are the two generally selected forms.

 

It's similar to running around Aided all the time - that was what I was getting at.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Continuing Charges have to have a defined termination. If the GM wants to discourage certain Spells from being abused they just define a short, combat relevant duration as the defined termination. Easy.

[Markdoc]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

I was referring to the tendency of D&D PCs to run around Polymorphed (or Shapechanged, at higher levels). Annis Hags and Trolls are the two generally selected forms.

 

It's similar to running around Aided all the time - that was what I was getting at.

 

Or - at higher levels - Ogre Mage or Rakshasa: both terribly evil (in the non-alignment sense) augments - plus they're both shapechangers, so you don't have to deal with people going "Eek! A troll!" all the time.

 

As an aside, if you want to allow this particular exploit, you can simulate it quite well using Transform, or Multiform in Hero.

 

cheers, Mark

[GAZZA]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Or - at higher levels - Ogre Mage or Rakshasa: both terribly evil (in the non-alignment sense) augments - plus they're both shapechangers' date=' so you don't have to deal with people going "Eek! A troll!" all the time.[/quote']

Yeah, but you don't get their supernatural abilities (with Polymorph - you do with Shapechange, but by the time you have Shapechange you could care less about what people say ).

 

ugh, you got me, now I'm arguing D&D rules knowledge on a Hero board. Kill me now. Make it painful - use a spoon.

[pawsplay]

Re: Charges vs. Cost END

 

In my opinion' date=' Charges seem arbitrary and just don't 'feel right'. I much prefer some kind of END or mana design. However, this 'simple' design decision vastly changes magic application.[/quote']

 

It makes sense if you view each spell as having one charge, and you must prepare it.

 

It kind of stretches the concept if you prepare a spell more than once. That's not possible in The Dying Earth RPG, and I don't recall it happening in Vance's stories.

[CourtFool]

Thanks to Killer Shrike...again

 

Continuing Charges have to have a defined termination. If the GM wants to discourage certain Spells from being abused they just define a short' date=' combat relevant duration as the defined termination. Easy.[/quote']

 

 

This gives me an idea. Maybe I could hybrid Charges and Cost END with some kind of Long Term Endurance loss, much like you did with Adeptology.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Delayed Effect is a terrible mess and should be stricken from the rulebook in my opinion (search for other threads for breakdowns on why). Triggers can work very well; I use them in several other non-Vancian Magic Systems on my site in various ways.

 

Yeah, and while I agree that It needs to be repolished, I still like Delayed Effect.

Of course, I really like the way Zelazny did Merlin's magic in the second Amber series, which is really close to a straight-out-of-the-rules Delayed Effect/Extra Time model.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Yeah, and while I agree that It needs to be repolished, I still like Delayed Effect.

Of course, I really like the way Zelazny did Merlin's magic in the second Amber series, which is really close to a straight-out-of-the-rules Delayed Effect/Extra Time model.

 

Anything that can be done by Delayed Effect can be done better by Trigger.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Anything that can be done by Delayed Effect can be done better by Trigger.

 

I can see that.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

An important thing to remember is just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with defining some formula or such to inform how many charges you can have or how long they might last.

 

The formula I used was to have a max active points defined by skill & EGO, and then the charges being defined by active points in the spell divided by max active points. You could take a spell at fewer charges, but not more.

 

As for duration, you could define a relationship like that for continuing charges. Say, base duration can be 1 minute. Then, for every 3 skill levels over 11-, you can move it one step down the time chart (14- = 5 minutes, 17- = 20 minutes, 20- = 1 hour, 23- = 6 hours).

 

Players then build their spells according to those guidelines. In some cases, the difference in real points between 2 charges and 3 may be 0, but that doesn't matter. In order to have 3 charges, the character would have to meet the criteria, regardless of the cost difference.

[pawsplay]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

I'm a big fan of elegance. For instance, I would not be happy with a version of spellcasting that used Transform to transform yourself into someone with a variety of powers at 1 charge.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

I'm a big fan of elegance. For instance' date=' I would not be happy with a version of spellcasting that used Transform to transform yourself into someone with a variety of powers at 1 charge.[/quote']

 

Eh? What are you talking about, exactly?

[CourtFool]

Delayed Effect

 

Doesn't Delayed Effect essentially eliminate any limitations incurred by loading Concentration, Extra Time, Gestures, Incantations, Increased END, ect.?

[pawsplay]

Re: Delayed Effect

 

Doesn't Delayed Effect essentially eliminate any limitations incurred by loading Concentration' date=' Extra Time, Gestures, Incantations, Increased END, ect.?[/quote']

 

Yes, making it perfect for simulating the casting of the Excellent Prismatic Spray from the Dying Earth books, and rotten for simulating anything D&D related.

[GAZZA]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Though as previously noted, it's also perfect for Amber style spellcasting.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Delayed Effect

 

Doesn't Delayed Effect essentially eliminate any limitations incurred by loading Concentration' date=' Extra Time, Gestures, Incantations, Increased END, ect.?[/quote']

 

It mitigates them. It also makes the spell cost more (as it should), makes it harder to cast if you're using RSR, and only a certain number of spells can be held that way. If you've only got the one spell with all those limitations, then putting Delayed Effect on it is a good deal (maybe even STOP sign good). If your magic style requires all those limitations on all spells, then it may be good to have, but it's not the path to munchkiny godhood.

[GAZZA]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

What is this path of which thou speakest? Doth it be paved?

 

The clear route to munchkinny godhood in 5th edition seems to be Succor, Continuous, 0 END...

[CourtFool]

Let the munchkiny begin!

 

I always thought limiting the number of spells that could be Delayed was necessary to keep this from being the path to munchkiny godhood. I think saying it 'mitigates' them is a bit of an understatement. Magic system and situation certainly impact this directly but what is +¼ when I can put Concentration (0 DCV, -½), Increased END (END x3, -1), Extra Time (1 Minute, -1½), Gestures (-¼) and Incantations (-¼) for a total of -2½ and cast it in the relative safety of non-combat? Not to mention you could argue to toss in Activation (just keep rolling until it is successful) and Focus (do you still need the focus once the spell has actually been cast?) in for even more munchkiny.

 

Granted, I may just be jaded because of the players I have gamed with. I know most of my groups had at least one player who would try this. Interestingly enough, the power gamer in every group is always a magic user.

 

You could argue that you could put all of those limitations on non-combat spells too and that isn't munchkiny. However, with Delayed Effect you get to choose to fire them all up when they are not inconvenient.

 

INT/5 seems a reasonable limit to me. +¼ for each doubling seems an easy way to munchkiny +1 would probably allow you about 32 spells to be delayed and still let you get plenty of cost break from -2½ in Limitations.

 

Harder to cast with RSR? Yes, but you could just keep trying until you made your roll. Extra END and Extra Time hurt on the re-casting…but not so much out of combat.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Here is an old rant on Delayed Effect:

 

 

Everything you can do w/ Delayed Effect you can do better with a properly defined Trigger, the mechanics of Trigger a) only effect the design of the particular Power Construct they are part of, and further separate Powers can have different variations of Trigger allowing more diverse modeling of effects.

 

The exact functionality of Delayed Effect is managed by an "At Will" (+1/2) Trigger, and more narrow Triggers are also possible where they make more sense.

 

Additionally, not germane in a 1 Charge per Spell System, but very noteworthy in other Magic Systems, Triggers can be self resetting which allows for some very cool Power builds.

 

Another issue I have w/ Delayed Effect is that it is, in many ways, more of a Limitation than an Advantage, yet it is priced as an Advantage. Consider the subtext -- you can only use Delayed Effect if the GM has put an (arbitrary) limit on how many Spells a character can have per day. Looked at the other way, to use Delayed Effect as an integral part of a Magic System they must first define an arbitrary limit on how many Spells per day a person can cast -- for no point rebate. Then, to tap into it, those spell casters must further apply a SCALING advantage to their Spells. So basically they are paying for DRAWBACK. Thats ANTIHERO in my book.

 

 

Further, to illustrate the mathematical stupidity of Delayed Effect, unless the GM sets some completely flat number that applies globally (which has its own logical shortcomings), you create a state where from spellcaster to spellcaster the cost of the same Spell and potentially other abilities can have widely different costs.

 

Lets pretend that the limit is the defaulted INT/5 assumption. Based on that, a character with 10 INT can slot up two Spells at a time, which I call "floating" -- ie, they can have two Spells for which they have already conducted the various preparations for (Incant, Gesture, Concentrate, etc). However, if they want to cast a spell on the fly, they have to open up one of those slots.

 

 

Example 1:

 

Im going to do this with simple math and not get into minutiae of Power builds....lets pretend our spellcaster is named Wizzo and he has 10 Spells, and just to make the math easy we'll pretend like they all have the same Active Points and a Real Cost over -1 (ie a cost equal to half the Active Points).

 

 

 

All the Spells have 50 AP and 25 RC. Assuming that these Spells had no other Limitations on them aside from 1 level of Delayed Effect for +1/4, they all have 40 point available for base effects.

 

At any given time Wizzo can float two of them, and to cast one of the others he must first deactivate one of those Spells. This "privilege" has cost him some value judgment of between 50 character points (5 extra RC per Spell) on one end and a 100 Active Points of effect on the other. This is in addition to the simple cost of the Spells in the first place which they can only use two at a time, mind you.

 

Without the arbitrary limit of INT/5 Spells (for which the character gets no discounting or break), the same number of character points would be far (far far) more effective. But we'll ignore that for now.

 

Now Wizzo wants to be able to float four Spells at once -- he must either refactor all of the Spells or else raise his INT.

 

To refactor all 10 Spells to a +1/2 Delayed Effect costs Wizzo an extra 50 character points for very little net benefit. To raise his INT costs a mere 10 points. Granted, it may not make sense that Wizzo just went from being kind of a dull fellow to being more attentive and alert than a wolverine, but whatever -- logic is not this advantages strong point.

 

Raising his INT 10 points over max cost 20 points, so basically it goes like this:

 

Doubling via Delayed Effect: each doubling costs +5 points per Spell, or 50 character points per doubling. At 10 INT it costs 50 to get to 4, but at 20 INT it costs 50 to get to 8. So we'll assume this is done -- we are at +60 points for 8 Spells. 16 Spells costs another +50, so a total of +110 gets you to 16 Spells.

 

Doubling via INT: once the character has hit NCM, it costs 20 points per 10 INT. Spending 110 points on INT instead of Delayed Effect gets you to 70 INT, which is 14 Spells and a really nice PER check.

 

So right off the bat, we're seeing a lot of points being thrown around which don't do anything of themselves (the Spells, you'll note, still have their paltry 40 points of effect and are the same 10 Spells we started with). Further the sheer scale of what it takes to improve the casters abilities, either by paying more and more for the same crappy boring abilities or jacking INT up well past absurd levels. So lots of overhead, limited character growth, and a meta concept pushing a characters build into an extremely skewed direction.

 

I could go on and on at different point scales and mixing up the number and variegation of the Spell set, but I think Ive demonstrated the central flaw here sufficiently.

 

 

Example 2:

 

We know how Wizzo is designed; 10 Spells of 50 AP and 25 RC with Delayed Effect for 2 Spells and 20 INT.

 

Now we meet Starro, another spellcaster of the same sort. Starro has 5 smaller Spells with 45 AP and 30 RC, 10 INT, and Delayed Effect x 2 for 4 Spells (ignore the character designer going with concept over the easy +10 INT which this modifier makes him an idiot for not using).

 

Wizzo wants to learn one of Starro's spells. However, he only needs Delayed Effect x 1 so a) the Power needs to be refactored and it costs Wizzo 8 points less for the EXACT SAME EFFECT.

 

Starro wants to learn one of Wizzo's spells. However he needs Delayed Effect x 2 so a) the Power needs to be refactored and it costs Starro 5 points more for the EXACT SAME EFFECT (the same 5 points that would give him an INT of 15 and increase his spellcasting capacity, but whatever).

 

 

To take it a little further, both Wizzo and Starro have relatively simple Spells with no other Advantage than Delayed Effect on them. Now lets get specific. Wizzo has an 8d6 Energy Blast Spell, Starro has a 2d6 RKA Spell. They meet Stupundo who has 5 INT and a 6d6 EB Spell with Delayed Effect x8, and -1 in Limitations -- so 30 base, 60 AP, 30 RC.

 

Stupundo teaches both Starro and Wizzo his spell. It costs Starro 25 points and Wizzo 19 points.

 

Again, I could go on showing more extreme swings, but I think the point is clear -- because this model is Advantage based and scaling, variations between the relative AP totals of spells as well as the effect of larger and smaller Delayed Effect doublings between characters have a huge swing on the cost to effect ratio between any two spellcasters. I.e. -- the COST EFFECTIVENESS of the exact same abilities possessed by characters using the Delayed Effect model vary widely.

 

 

 

Of course in reality all characters in such a system would be practically forced by darwinism to have the highest possible value in whatever characteristic(s) the number of spells per day was based on, for both yet more costs and also the complete loss of either individual identity and of course suspension of disbelief. And further, even when this does happen (which is bad), the bizarre math inequities are still there (which is worse).

 

 

Personally, I find this to be absolutely borked, but whatever; other peoples mileage may vary.

[pawsplay]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

I sort of get the impression that the invetor of Delayed Effect actually despised the Vancian magic system it was supposed to facillitate.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Another issue I have w/ Delayed Effect is that it is, in many ways, more of a Limitation than an Advantage, yet it is priced as an Advantage. Consider the subtext -- you can only use Delayed Effect if the GM has put an (arbitrary) limit on how many Spells a character can have per day. Looked at the other way, to use Delayed Effect as an integral part of a Magic System they must first define an arbitrary limit on how many Spells per day a person can cast -- for no point rebate. Then, to tap into it, those spell casters must further apply a SCALING advantage to their Spells. So basically they are paying for DRAWBACK. Thats ANTIHERO in my book.

 

Unless something has changed, the only limit with Delayed Effect is the number of spells that can be held with Delayed Effect at any one time (INT/5); I think Trigger spells count toward this (if they don't, it's a recommended option) and Constant spells currently active can; an additional possibility is to require at least one open slot in order to cast Instant spells. But the Delayed Effect (unless I'm misreading something or something has changed) doesn't say anything about spells per day.

 

Edit: There are additional options provided, such as tying total number of Active Points of held spells to INT in some way (say, INT times 5). But the default option is INT/5 spells at any one time.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

But the Delayed Effect (unless I'm misreading something or something has changed) doesn't say anything about spells per day.

Spells per day at a given time, to be more clear. The point being made is about the nonorthogonal mathematical flaws of the model.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

Spells per day at a given time' date=' to be more clear. The point being made is about the nonorthogonal mathematical flaws of the model.[/quote']

 

I will agree with you that the scaling part of the Advantage is flawed (specifically, it shouldn't be an increase on the Advantages of the spells in question to increase the number you can have prepared; it should be a Perk, or possibly extra INT bought with the appropriate Limitation), but I don't see that anything about the rest of it is. In a game where there's a limit on the number of spells you can have going at one time, that limit applies across the board whether you're using Delayed Effect or not.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

I will agree with you that the scaling part of the Advantage is flawed (specifically' date=' it shouldn't be an increase on the Advantages of the spells in question to increase the number you can have prepared; it should be a Perk, or possibly extra INT bought with the appropriate Limitation),[/quote']

 

Or, the entire mess can just be dispensed with entirely, and the effect of "hanging" spells can easily be accomplished with properly configured Triggers on individual Spells.

 

 

but I don't see that anything about the rest of it is. In a game where there's a limit on the number of spells you can have going at one time, that limit applies across the board whether you're using Delayed Effect or not.

 

I have never heard of or played in any such game with a blanket restriction on number of effects going that spanned multiple different Magic Systems. In my experience, individual Magic Systems have their own structure and restrictions relevant to themselves.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Musing on D&D spellcasting conversion

 

I have never heard of or played in any such game with a blanket restriction on number of effects going that spanned multiple different Magic Systems.

 

That was the default condition in first edition Fantasy Hero, and IIRC used in second edition FH as well (under 4th edition Hero). In first edition, it applied to all spells, whether you had Delayed Effect or not. Then again, first edition provided its own default magic system, with little to no guidance on customizing it (not that that stopped some of us).

 

In my experience, individual Magic Systems have their own structure and restrictions relevant to themselves.

 

Sure, there's nothing that says you have to use it, even if you use Delayed Effect.