Some alternatives to spell preparation are psionics, or spontaneous casters.
Honestly, I think if you're gonna take away a wizard's need to prepare spells, you've effectively made a sorcerer with an unlimited spell pool.
Super OP.
There is a 3rd party psionics book available.
Spell preperation based classes are normally seen as better than spontaneous casters.
Are you trying to do A or B
A. Allow the prepared casters able to cast any spell on their list without prepping.
B. Make the prepared classes work like the spontaneous class? As an example wizards would cast like sorcs.
If the answer is B then I would just get rid of the prepared classes.
If you are going for A, then I would not recommend it. There is not much you can do, and there is always the risk of over correcting to the point where the class is not adequate or attractive.
Suggestions that might come up:
Making them have a chance to lose the spell is not good because it works against action economy, and as a player I would just play a sorcerer instead.
Coming up with a magic fatigue system that works across all levels is also hard to do. It will most likely be amusable at the low or high end. I think Monte Cook has an alternate magic system. I would look into that. I think it is Arcana Evolved.
Making then use two stats for casting won't really help either. It will be a minor speed bump for many decent to good players.
Hello everyone, I am a newbie to the Pathfinder system, but I have been GMing for a number of years using another system (GURPS).
In GURPS, magic is balanced through a system of time to cast as well as mana spent. In coming to Pathfinder, I see that one of the ways that PF balances magic is through spell preparation - some classes can only prepare a limited number of their spells known.
Don't know much about GURPS but in Pathfinder RPG (and pre-4e D&D), magic is balanced trough a system of spells.
- Spells are packaged. A versatile caster has many spells - spells in themselves have relatively narrow uses (a fireball fries your opponent, it can't cook your supper)
- Spells are limited. You can only cast so many spells per day - you can run out of spells.
- Spells are quantified. Weak spells are easy to master and therefore can be learn early in a wizard's career. Stronger spells can only be cast by more experienced casters, and a wizard can cast less "strong" spells than "weak" spells.
Spell preparation is only a reality for about half the spellcaster classes. Typically in Pathfinder, spell preparation balances out versatility (number of spells in the caster's arsenal). Very versatile casters typically have to prepare their spells, spontaneous casters (who don't need to prepare spells) typically have a much narrower repertoire of spells.
'findel
One thing you may have missed and is important to realize, is that wizards do not have to prepare all of their spells ahead of time. With 15 minutes of study they can “prepare” an unused spell slot with any spell in their spell book of that level or lower. Because of this they often leave a few slots open just for this purpose. Naturally how many spell slots are left open will be dependent how many total spell slots they has at their current level. While this isn’t helpful in the middle of combat it does allow them to adapt to a wide range of situations.
In fact this is one of the wizards main strength's, always being able to have the right spell for the job. As far as their standard spell selection goes its not to hard to put together a decent list of daily spells that they always like to have memorized for combat or frequently occurring situations. If you or one of you player's needs help figuring out what's good, several people on this forum have made guides for most of the different classes in pathfinder, links these guide have been mostly compiled into a thread named Guide to the Guides here is a link
Having many house rules myself I see nothing wrong with making house rules as you want to whatever you want. That said, if you've never played pathfinder before you might want to play a couple of times to get a feel for it before you change things. That way you'll have a better idea of how they work, if you actually want to change them, and how to change them if you do.
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Oh and as to your original question, I myself have an optional spell point system that my players may use if they wish. I've always liked being able to cast spells more freely then the current system allows for. There are several alternate ways you can handle spells if you want more casting freedom but you'll need to carefully consider how it'll affect all of the different spell casting classes.
So then i have this question - have any of you had issues where a player prepared spells unsuited to the session, and how to navigate or avoid that possible conflict?
The best way to avoid that is to become more familiar with what spells are most useful to have prepared and which would be better to scribe scrolls of, or use wands and other magic items. Most of the circumstantial spells (comprehend language, see invisibility, ect.) will be better used from wands and scrolls, so as to free up spell slots for the spells you will cast frequently.
Spells that allow saving throws are going to be better to prepare; the DC are based off of your spellcasting ability score (Int for wizards). This includes practically all "attack" spells. Other spells improve based on caster level, generally they deal more damage, increase range/targets, or they last longer. These are also better to prepare because the CL of items is stuck at whatever it was crafted as, which will almost always be lower than your own.
If your wizards take an item for their arcane bond, they can cast any one spell from their spell book that they would otherwise be able to cast, without preparing it ahead of time. If you have a decent sized spell book, that is incredibly versatile.
If there is a spell that you are using all the time and that will remain useful for the entirety of the campaign, you could take the Preferred Spell feat from the APG so that you could always give up a prepared spell and instead cast that one, as though you had prepared it.
I found Treantmonk's Guide to Pathfinder Wizards entertaining and helpful when I was first looking into wizards. It's listed under the Guide to Guides that Revel linked in the previous post.
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What I think needs to happen in future editions:
1. Cull the spell list of every class pretty thoroughly. If a spell stomps all over the niche of another class, get rid of it. If for some reason it's absolutely necessary, then have the spell be LESS effective than the other class, not MORE. 1st level wizards shouldn't be auto-opening locks that 5th level rogues can't get past.
2. Wizards and Sorcerers merge into a single class: the Mage. He is a spontaneous caster, has bloodlines, and has a limit on spells known. Witches, Magi, Clerics, and Paladins become spontaneous casters, with a limit on spells known. All Rangers are of the spell-less variety. Bards and Oracles stay the same.
I hope they never get rid of a class that can eventually have all of the spells (even if that is basically what his adventuring career is spent acquiring). Rebalancing the spells would be good though, since they haven't been touched much since 3.0 or earlier.
Anyway, I have to agree with everyone else that said if you don't want prepared casters, just don't use them. Trying to change them will only unbalance things (there are always unintended consequences) and will step on the toes of existing prepared casters.
Edit: Also, Kthulhu, your Mage isn't a sorcerer/wizard. It's just a sorcerer.
Basically, our intention was to make all casters spontaneous casters, while limiting their spell lists. But i see your point on just taking the sorcerer class. The others would just be a matter of style - what additional abilities, if any, would the player want.
So then i have this question - have any of you had issues where a player prepared spells unsuited to the session, and how to navigate or avoid that possible conflict?
That is part of the risk reward with playing a wizard. It helps to balance the class that you might need 3 fireballs, but you only prepared 3.
The sorcerer is even more limited though. He can only cast the spells he knows. At least the wizard, if he has a bonded item, can cast any spell that is in his book.
I have never seen a player prepare no spells that are useful, if that is what you are asking, even brand new players. If that were to happen more than once the GM and player need to talk about the type of game that is being run vs the spells the player is choosing.
Partly, this post is just dotting. Partly, if I may add a question, hopefully without derailing too much?
I've just spontaneously decided to houserule that my Witch may spontaneously convert to any of her Patron spells. On the same note, I'm inclined to allow my Oracle to spontaneously convert a spell to one additional use of a revelation. I've already long-since ruled that clerics do not spontaneously convert to healing, but rather their domain spells.
All of this is meant to encourage more specialized casters. Is it to bite me in the arse, do you think?
<sappy message>
Hey all, I'm MadGrady's other GM friend. :)
Coming over from a very different system, this has been a huge learning experience. I've been playing GURPS for a long time (almost 20 yrs) and PF has been an adjustment to be sure. PF offers a great deal of focus, which is something we were looking for, but there are a lot of options within each class focus. Some of our questions come from being used to one thing and adjusting to something new.
I'd like to say a big "thank you" to everyone contributing to this and other threads. Knowing there is a friendly community that we can come to with our questions is a boon for newbies to the system.
Thanks!
-mb
</sappy message>
Partly, this post is just dotting. Partly, if I may add a question, hopefully without derailing too much?
I've just spontaneously decided to houserule that my Witch may spontaneously convert to any of her Patron spells. On the same note, I'm inclined to allow my Oracle to spontaneously convert a spell to one additional use of a revelation. I've already long-since ruled that clerics do not spontaneously convert to healing, but rather their domain spells.
All of this is meant to encourage more specialized casters. Is it to bite me in the arse, do you think?
The revelations are going to normally be more useful than your highest level spells at times. I would not allow it, especially not across the board.
They are a limited resource so that players only use them when needed. I can't say for a fact that it will come back to bite you later, but some of those revelations are pretty good.
My group currently alternates between a GURPS game and a Pathfinder game. The two systems are certainly very different. One thing to consider when making new characters is that Pathfinder doesn't frontload character creation nearly as much as GURPS. You can make a level 1 PF character and ignore all the stuff you'll be getting in the next few levels until you actually get there and it'll work fine 99% of the time (despite the number of threads that are about designing a character from 1-20).
I have also played a bunch of GURPS games... if you try to treat the magic in Pathfinder like the magic in GURPS, it will give you migraines and not work.
:)
If you want to make all spellcasting spontaneous, I would recommend dumping the prepared casters entirely, and tweaking the spontaneous classes to make up for the missing pieces (channeling, wild shape, etc.) that go with them.
You might also consider giving a free Expanded Arcana feat at a couple of levels.
Good luck.