How To Prevent Spellcaster Boredom

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 9:50 pm

I'm talking about low-level combat (1 to 6) not near epic spell slinging.

Simply put, running out of spells sucks. It's fatal. It's a very real threat with little cash and even less spell slots. You can't always depend on wands either.

Even if you gave a Wizard the Warlock's Eldritch Blast it would instead lead to boredom as they

4e had some good ideas with placing certain spells on a different schedule, but players are rewarded for blowing their dailies and encounter powers early, leaving the caster with at-wills for the rest of the battle.

I have some solutions for d20/3e:
1. Cycling. A caster is encouraged to rotate a series of at-will spells based on what they hit the target with in the previous round, a combo if you will. Spell A leads to Spell B leads to Spell C and back again. Something like a save penalty or accuracy boost if the target was affected previously within 1 round.
2. Variable Recharge. Like dragon's breath recovering on a 1d4 round delay, mid-power spells that aren't at-wills would do the same. It makes for extra bookkeeping but if a caster has say only one or two spells that do this it should work fine.
3. Empty Spells. Spells that come online only after all other slots are empty. Be it a mana system or spell slots, doesn't matter, the spell can't be cast until all others are gone.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:35 pm

Lets skip to the million dollar question:

How to do what you're suggesting without falling on 4e "spells suck ass" paradigm?

D&D can have stuff like Color Spray, Slow or Hold Person because it's kind of expected that the spellcasters will ration that shit and use them sparingly. Doing this carries the unavoidable consequence that a lot of your rounds will be boring, (at very least more boring than the two or three rounds where you dominated entire encounters by yourself).

So, if you want to have casters doing something magical each round, how to avoid having these magical things becoming less awesome than the spells we currently have?

The answer is interesting, because if you can find a way to let casters contribute each round, all day long, you have fixed the 5-minute adventuring day.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:40 pm

I had thought 4e already fixed the 1/day encounter situation by introducing at-will powers, but at a cost of staleness.

But 4e sucks.
I'm not saying it's the ideal system, but they got something right in using at-wills.

.... but that's the problem I'm laying out. Use of at-wills is boring. There must be another way.

I'm in favor of "Cycling" actually because with a Final Fantasy spread of elemental effects one can play a form of elemental rock-paper-scissors during combat.

If each spell led to multiple followup options for the next round, even better.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:47 pm

I'll start with a mockup of FF magic, namely the big three: Fire, Lightning (Thunder), and Ice.

I'll bullshit some kind of cycle:
• Ice leads to Thunder. Targets hit by Ice get -4 saves against Thunder due to being wet and easier to hit.
• Thunder leads to Fire. Targets hit by Thunder get -4 saves against Fire due fanning the flames.
• Fire leads to Ice. Targets hit by Fire get -4 saves against Ice due to steam causing extra damage or some bullshit.

And that doesn't make any sense, but there are other spells to work with such as paralysis to make easier targets, better elemental interactions than what I just banged out, or positioning.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 11:06 pm

sigma999 wrote:I'll start with a mockup of FF magic, namely the big three: Fire, Lightning (Thunder), and Ice.

I'll bullshit some kind of cycle:
• Ice leads to Thunder. Targets hit by Ice get -4 saves against Thunder due to being wet and easier to hit.
• Thunder leads to Fire. Targets hit by Thunder get -4 saves against Fire due fanning the flames.
• Fire leads to Ice. Targets hit by Fire get -4 saves against Ice due to steam causing extra damage or some bullshit.

And that doesn't make any sense, but there are other spells to work with such as paralysis to make easier targets, better elemental interactions than what I just banged out, or positioning.

So instead of rationing and planning, you just want to reward them with more power for following a script? This seems like a net benefit to spellcaster power (again), unless the spells are really shitty, despite the big save modifiers (or whatever benefits you ultimately assign).

And it still won't prevent easily bored people from digging in their heels and decrying it as boring.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 11:21 pm

Yeah I suppose a save penalty is too powerful...

I recall playing Dragon's Nest (Korean MMO) a year ago, and probably similar to Warcraft in that powers have cooldown times.
So you'd use powers in a sequence as you saw fit, waiting for previous ones to recover each in turn, some longer than others.

Seems like extra math in D&D. All that is taken care of in a video game.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 11:54 pm

Apparently charge times have already been done.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic ... eMagic.htm

It seems bothersome to have so many recharge counters going off at the same time.

OK OK. That's a mess. There's no way listing every individual spell's personal recharge time is feasible.

I'll take a cue from 4e and narrow that:
• At will, along with the staleness problem
• Per Hour (rather than per encounter)
• Per Day

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:03 am

A level zero wand is 50 gold.

If you can't spare 50 gold for at least chilling ray after the first adventure, your party sucks. 250 for a wand of magic missiles.

I don't know how you can't always depend on wands at low levels. The entire point is to give big boosts to magic users of utilitarian spells.

I guess your DM could be a dick and say "no wands LULZ" but the whole "balance" of D&D is to keep your mages alive through the levels long enough so that they get bullshit strong. Unless you're willing to gimp casters as they go up in levels you're basically eliminating the only long-term "balance" you have in the game for wizards.

I'd be okay with turning level zero spells into at wills for arcane casters, but that's about it.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sat Nov 09, 2013 8:25 am

At 1st level the crossbow isn't that bad. Hell, it's mechanically superior to what 4e gives you for at-will spells. By 2nd level you have ~900gp, that's a whole fuck-tonne of scrolls without even spending a feat. There's no need to ever run out of spells again.

Clerics and Druids can melee or shoot alright at low levels, who else are you worried about? Src has plenty of spells anyway, pick some that hang around a bit and use up some actions.

Simply put, running out of spells sucks.

So stop doing that.

Ikeren · Post by **Ikeren** » Sat Nov 09, 2013 9:04 pm

Level 1-3: Use a crossbow
Level 4+: You don't, unless you're realy blowing your wad or your running some serious dungeon crawly campaign where you do 10+ encounters a day.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 4:56 am

sigma999 wrote:I'll start with a mockup of FF magic, namely the big three: Fire, Lightning (Thunder), and Ice.

I'll bullshit some kind of cycle:
• Ice leads to Thunder. Targets hit by Ice get -4 saves against Thunder due to being wet and easier to hit.
• Thunder leads to Fire. Targets hit by Thunder get -4 saves against Fire due fanning the flames.
• Fire leads to Ice. Targets hit by Fire get -4 saves against Ice due to steam causing extra damage or some bullshit.

FFXIV has Fire and Ice fit into a cycle

Astral Fire gets stronger and stronger the more times you hit a target with it, but drains your MP. Umbral Ice recovers more and more MP the more you use it on one target.

But I like the imagery of guys with crossbows. Melee guys should also carry a crossbow for a 1st turn shot off.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 4:59 am

Crossbows are for peasants.

But really, that's the situation of staleness I was describing.

You fire your 4 spells for the day or whatever and then blast the same wand or bow for the rest of combat.

I guess I'll just have to make do with at-wills.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 8:11 am

Once you hit level 2 a combat wand is probably your best bet (magic missile, enlarge person, sleep).

Now, "Crossbows are for peasants." is gibberish. At low level it is what it is.

A crossbow is a reasonable combat option as a comparable alternative to magic missile. If you are okay with MM then a crossbow bolt is okay too (lower chance to hit, higher average damage). The caster deficit in BAB is minimal at low levels, so if your allies are pulling out ranged weapons then there is no damned reason for a wizard not to also.

When ranged weapons weren't called for and I wanted to conserve spells/scrolls as a low level caster I typically would wave a dagger around fighting defensively to provide flanking.

My last low level wizard had an owl familiar whom I would slap Mage Armor (AC 22 at level 1) on and have him go in to draw AoOs and fairly reliably give 1 damage every round (+5 attack). That is enough to harass kobolds and goblins well enough since they need a 20 to hit it. It worked astonishingly well in Sunless Citadel that after I did it first for lulz, the rest of the time I did it in earnest.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 5:13 pm

Ya know, this mostly reads as a complaint against a resource mechanic. It's not that you want spellcasters to have a thematic option to fall back on, because you explicitly reject the warlock / at-will cantrip option (or maybe you came back to it, not sure). To cure your assumed "boredom", you want them to have more actual spells to cast in a day. Which on the face of it is a straight power up, but might be an acceptable one in an E6 style game if a) everyone else got better stuff (because at level 1 a greatsword and high strength is a lot like a death spell), b) spells got powered down (directly or indirectly through system stuff), or c) both.

As for mechanics, you just don't use the daily resource mechanic because daily limited spells are limited by definition and that seems the source of your complaint. You instead do an all at-will like the Firemage, a WoF chaos mage thing, or an encounter caster like some weird Bo9S or 4e variant. Hell, if your levels get high enough you can even let people trade their encounter powers down into at-wills.

But that's not curing spellcaster boredom, that's making a class for people who are bored by spellcasters. That category presumably includes you, but does not include me or a bunch of others here.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:43 pm

Regardless of if I'm alone in hating at-will spam or not, I'll continue

Chaos Magic
Each time [associated power] is used, roll 1d4 and check the effect table:
1. Target is Entangled for 1 round.
2. Target is Shaken for 1 round.
3. Target is Knocked Prone.
4. Target takes an extra 1d6 damage.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 10:28 pm

Lots of people hate at will spam, because they hate spam. That doesn't mean at will spam with a completely random effect that you have no control over and doesn't change your tactics at all is somehow better.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 3:59 am

At Will Magic [take your choice of full round actions]
1. A conjured blade lances from your hand towards your enemy. Treat this as a ranged attack with a range increment of 80 feet. A direct hit deals 1d8 damage (19/20 X2 Crit).
2. You evoke a spray of caustic fluid. Treat this attack as a ranged touch attack with a range increment of 10 feet. A direct hit deals 1d6 points of acid damage. Every creature within 5 feet of the point where the acid hits takes 1 point of acid damage from the splash. [material component 10gp]
3. You are filled with bravery as a protective shield forms around you, take a move action to become adjacent to an enemy. You gain a +2 Dodge Bonus to AC and take a -4 penalty to attack with a melee weapon. Any ally who attacks from the opposite side of your enemy may treat this opponent as being flanked.

You get 300xp for each CR 1 bad guy you beat. You're gonna hit level 2 after like 6 fights. You may run out of spells some time during those fights, or you may not depending upon how spaced out they are. Maybe you wind up firing a few crossbow bolts during your level 1 career, maybe not. Something that you may rarely ever have to do (and may wind up doing less frequently than your standard spells) doesn't qualify as spam by any reasonable definition. It's not that you hate spam more than others sigma. You just have no idea what spam is.

This is a crappy solution without a problem.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 6:15 am

sigma999 wrote:Crossbows are for peasants.

But really, that's the situation of staleness I was describing.

You fire your 4 spells for the day or whatever and then blast the same wand or bow for the rest of combat.

I guess I'll just have to make do with at-wills.

how 'bout reserve spells, where your at-wills are tied to unexpended spells.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 5:48 pm

OgreBattle wrote: how 'bout reserve spells, where your at-wills are tied to unexpended spells.

I hate the concept because it rewards players for NOT casting magic if you mean it's similar to Reserve Feats.

erik wrote:This is a crappy solution without a problem.

Play a Warlock and then tell me that.