Robotron666's page

Heya,

Just read a few threads about 15 minute adventuring days and power points for the barbarian, and it occurred to me that we're still looking at the old "resources tapped, must take rest now that may take several hours."

After looking at the Barbarian's "rage pool" I was struck by the idea of a mechanic that uses a token economy for powers and that makes big expenditures a serious investment of power but still allows for a constant stream of adventuring.

The basic idea is that you can make massive expenditures of power by spending points from a pool and then recharge over time. Recovery would occur at a rate depending on the characters current level of activity. Exert yourself, and you recover slowly, rest and you recover very quickly. This isn't like at will / per encounter / per day because you can recover your power pool quickly through rest, or slowly as you adventure onward.

Now bear with me for a second, because I can already hear the cries of "But Robotron666, this might work with barbarian rage powers, but what about spellcasters?"

The problem being that normally Vancian memorizing mechanics dictate the number of spells and castings that Wizards get per day - Potentially, if you use spell points wizards will just cast the highest level spells they have as often as possible.

I figure the way that memorization tables work is that they dictate the spells you have prepared, you have a number of points for each level of spell available to you (6 0-level, 4 1st-level, 2 2nd-level, etc as an example) those are just points you allocate to each spell level tier. Each spell level slot recharges at a pay out rate from your power pool.

It might take 5 minutes of rest to recover a 1st level spell point, but it might take 20 minutes of rest to recover a 4th level spell point.

You retain the spirit of Vancian memorization, but you get a more flexible system. You also lose the Sorcerer, but hey, sacrifices must be made.

Does any of this make sense? It's late. Ah maybe I should just shut my moth, but I'd really like to see the death of the 15 minute adventuring day.

A Fighter that specializes in ranged weapons doesn't get penalized when he swings a dagger. Why should a wizard that focuses on a specific school of magic be penalized when he decides to cast from other, arbitrarily chosen, opposing schools?

He's simply better at casting one type of school? Why the hell should he be worse at another? Lost study time? Opposing magical energies?

Magic is magic.

If anything, school focus should encourage the use of the chosen school rather than discourage the use of other spells.

Give Players an enhanced effect so that they are more likely to spend spell slots on their specialty school. That is the economy that rules where a Wizard is most likely to make decisions surrounding their prepared spells.

Make it more attractive to use a school, rather than other schools look less attractive. Don't slap players for making choices. If they need that spell from necromancy, but they know they'll also have to rely on their transmutation focus, why should they pay for making a choice at 1st level?

Hey,

I've run a few games of 4e using the rules out there, and I have to say, one thing that really streamlines combat is the across the board use of defense scores. This mechanic is open content in the OGL, and there are distinct benefits to using it - one is faster resolution time for magical attacks since the number of rolls to resolve effects are usually cut in half.

I really think it would be in the best interest of the Pathfinder design to embrace using defense scores as laid out in the Unearthed Arcana open content. It speeds resolution along significantly. This might lead to some pervasive changes in spell design, but overall I think the use of defense scores making play faster is a good thing.