Anything other than Vancian spellcasting. I'm talking 3.5 as well as pathfinder. Now's your chance to plug your favorite little-known splat book or third party magic system. This is definitely not a Vancian hate session; let's not even mention it, huh?
I enjoy power points because it feels different enough to stand out but it's similar enough to still fit very easily within the system and it's not difficult to learn. It also doesn't hurt that dreamscarred is doing awesome stuff with it. I also feels that it forms a good trinity with arcane and divine. One comes from the gods, one from the universe, and one from the mind.
I'm also a huuuuge fan of incarnum from 3.5, and fully intend to implement a pathfinderized version in an upcoming campaign. It's really unique and creative, and the whole essentia thing is just damn nifty.
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Psionics. No question. My big homebrew campaign world has magic only available to some monsters (mainly fey and dragons) with the 'normal' races using psionics to combat the ever advancing encroachment and 'theft' of the world by the fey.
The mystical and, to the characters, bizarre and inexplicable things that happen by the will of priests happen because of my second favourite system - Binding. I use Secrets of Pact Magic/Villains of Pact Magic rather than the Tome of Magic version. I don't think I'm going to swap over to Pact Magic Unbound - not nearly as flexible as the previous books.
I've got Pact Magic Unbound, and I rather like it. How is it less flexible? I was never very familiar with the previous iterations.
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Recharge magic, hands down. The link is to the d20SRD, but a Pathfinder conversion is almost effortless.
Psionics, not too different from a mana pool.
but i am also a fan of UA's spell points, which are a derivative system
i'm also a fan of spell recharge/recharge magic, which if used, should apply to all daily abilities (such as smite, ki, and judgement) with a ban on consumables. it should also be assumed that rounds per day abilities such as bardic performance and rage should be infinitely sustainable so that the partial casters aren't behind their full counterparts.
Recharge magic looks really cool, but I would have serious concerns about further marginalizing non-casters. The system is awesome, however.
Recharge magic looks really cool, but I would have serious concerns about further marginalizing non-casters. The system is awesome, however.
Like Nekogami said, extend the recharge effects to per-diem abilities; either give them a static recharge time or put them on level with spells other characters are casting (and modify as the party levels up).
I only use per-diem casting if I've got a new player that's already familiar with standard D&D or PFRPG rules.
I really enjoy Words of Power from UM. Was a little difficult for me to wrap my head around at first but it has really grown on me. I also like the PP system made in Unearthed Arcana.
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It was a home brew rule set that is loosely based on the Psionic Power Points with several caveats: If you knew the spell you could try to cast it. Costs for spells were like 0-2 1st-4 2nd-7 3rd-11 or something like that. The amount of points were again like PP but gave out more. The thing is that a Mage/Cleric could only get how many points or Int Bonus + Level per day, which ever was higher. So a caster could go Nova quite easily but getting their points back afterwards was difficult and could leave them behind the 8 ball for a while
I also enjoy the words of power system. I would certainly allow its use in my games, but I would only use it for some ancient spellcaster returned from the past, or maybe some exceptionally old dragon.
I'm a fan of power points. There is a lot of freedom and flexibility in the way you can spend those points. Also like the way magic was handled in Conan D20.
Arcanis guys arcanis..... Really awesome skill based system that covers everything. Other than that words of power
Recharge magic looks really cool, but I would have serious concerns about further marginalizing non-casters. The system is awesome, however.
I think it's meant more for use with the Gestalt PCs system. If everyone has the option to be a "full caster" while also a full warrior, then that "disparity" goes away, even with a system like Recharge Magic.
In fact, all of 4th edition basically is the Recharge system with Gestalt PCs.
The worry over class balance is actually much less valid in Pathfinder since the warrior-types have so many more tactical options and better class abilities on top of the tyranny of the action economy. When it comes to a realistic adventure, the non-casters have the advantage by virtue of a lack of an ammo system. Since the Recharge system doesn't allow casters to cast any more frequently per-round, all the system actually accomplishes is the abolition of the 15-minute-workday.
And how can anyone complain about that???
Recharge magic looks really cool, but I would have serious concerns about further marginalizing non-casters. The system is awesome, however.And how can anyone complain about that???
Someone will find a way... they always do...
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I've got Pact Magic Unbound, and I rather like it. How is it less flexible? I was never very familiar with the previous iterations.
I only have the beta document so not 100% on the flexibility thing. Secrets/Villans though had lots of classes associated with binding spirits not just the Occultist. Which for my purposes is perfect as binding is such a large part of my setting.
I've got Pact Magic Unbound, and I rather like it. How is it less flexible? I was never very familiar with the previous iterations.I only have the beta document so not 100% on the flexibility thing. Secrets/Villans though had lots of classes associated with binding spirits not just the Occultist. Which for my purposes is perfect as binding is such a large part of my setting.
There is just the one class, the occultist, and it's two archetypes,but there's an archetype for every core class. There's also going to be more books released with more archetypes and (presumably) base classes.
The Spell Points system is very solid and easy to configure into Pathfinder.
In our session, it is what we are doing right now for our spells, and there are many things you can correlate with the separate Pathfinder classes; for Oracles, they have the same type of spell column as a Sorcerer, and the Witch (plus the Magus) has the same type of spell as those of the Wizard, Cleric, and Druid.
It's very basic and very easy to correlate and combine with current Pathfinder rules.
Homebrew system i liked.
(note: Call Cleric/cleric spell list Psionic)
Arcane/Psionic spell list: Gains 1 spell per spell level, can learn any spell equal to or less than there level. Can swap out any one spell at 2nd level and every level beyond that; that they can cast. Can not take the same spell twice.
Spell Point: 1 spell point per level = Max total.
Casting cost: 1st level spell cost 1 spell point, 2nd level spell cost 2 spell points, a 6th level spell cost 6 spell points, a 9th level spell cost 9 spell points. etc.
Spell point recovery: 1 point per hour of meditation. 2 points per hour of sleep.
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What i like about this system:
1) I know how many spells the character has by level.
2) I know how many spell point the character has by level.
3) It lets low level player recover spell faster.
4) It cuts down on the higher level spell usage.
5) The Caster level by spell level restriction is not used in this system. (Example: Cure light wound cast by a 20th level caster would heal 1d8+20 hp damage. While a Fireball cast by a 20th level caster would do 20d6 damage). This is to encourage the use of lower level spells over higher level spells. (ok what can i say, am an old timer).
The Chaos Magic system by Mongoose Publishing for 3.5 (I have the 3.0 book too) is my favourite system ever! I love the flexibility and inherent risk as well as the eventual downfall of the character with the Paths system. You can really customize your character to be awesome, yet not horribly over shadow the non-magic folks.
I like Vancian. But some variants, like the 3.5 Warlock are fun, and I also like the Ritual magic from 4th ed for non-combat stuff. (Hey look, something good from 4th ED!)
Most spell point system I have seen does three things I don’t like:
Perpetuates and increases the Quadratic Wizard Linear fighter issue.
Makes it easier to Go Nova and turns the 15 minute “Adventuring day “ into the even more ridiculous “3 hours of boosting then 3 rounds of combat” day.
Adds “Fantasy Accounting”.
So, what I like is some add ons to the Vancian system that can add flavor and fun without replacing the traditional system.
Psionics!
Or rather, spell points with augmentation.
It's the same d20 framework, but without silly slots. Converting spells to spell point augmentation is easy.
I haven't had a chance to play with them, but I do like psionics and words of power. Psionics probably needs some tweaks on the numbers to make nova'ing far less attractive. And words of power needs some expansion on what words are available to what classes. Although, if you could combine multiple lower level spells in the same way you can combine multiple effect words, that would be interesting as well. I'd make it take a full-round action like a full attack.
The one true way to deal with nova casters, is to have the enemies not wait for them when they are taking their 8 hour break every 15 minutes.