Just curious if anyone has tried to or has made a wizard variant. One who instead of XP uses CON in it's place. We ran into a problem when running an entire wizarding party, it just doesn't seem logical to use your life experience doing magic, seems more that your health would suffer since your conducting comsmic/arcane power through your body. We have thought that perhaps that it would lower your CON either temporarily as in a few hours to days to even months or years or if the magic is a powerful spell then perhaps it lowers it permantly making it known that the magic is not for the faint of heart.
When you say 'variant wizard' you mean 'variant magic' right? Or will spells still cost XP for non-wizard casters? What exactly was the problem that yuor wizard group ran into?
Just curious if anyone has tried to or has made a wizard variant. One who instead of XP uses CON in it's place. We ran into a problem when running an entire wizarding party, it just doesn't seem logical to use your life experience doing magic...
Consider that powerful sorcerors aren't powerful by virtue of physical health, but by virtue of having a bunch of xp.
I think 'xp as life experience' is an incomplete view. With those xp comes the ability to survive more attacks (hp), overcome attempts at dominating you (improving Will saves), and cast spells of amazing power.
I think xp partially represent some mystical/spiritual/psychological source of strength (perhaps your 'soul' or whatever) -- thus xp costs for investing part of that essence in a magic item.
Just my two cents :)
Jack
Yes variant magic is what was meant.
And in my opinion XP is exactly that, life experience. Seems rather odd that in casting a spell you would lose that. Life energy that is drawn, to me is more your Con or maybe your health.
For example casting Dragon Ally lesser it is a 100 XP cost but instead maybe a -1 to CON for 1d4 hours. This would show that it takes energy to cast the spell but it wouldn't hold the possibility of losing a level.
For example casting Dragon Ally lesser it is a 100 XP cost but instead maybe a -1 to CON for 1d4 hours. This would show that it takes energy to cast the spell but it wouldn't hold the possibility of losing a level.
I do agree with you that spells should 'realistically' use Con instead of XP, by the descriptions of each that the books provide. However, this is one of those cases where game balance gets in the way of realism. Consider your example of the Dragon Ally spell: if a caster could summon a PERMANENT ally for TEMPORARY con loss, he could quickly assemble an army of them. I.e. Summon, Restore Con, Summon, Restore Con...until he runs out of spell slots for that day. And then continue the next day. It might work to use permanent and incurable Con damage though...
My 2 XP
TS
Spells are given XP costs to balance out very powerful spells by giving the user a permanent penalty. Usually, the penalty either balances out a powerful permanent increase in power (such as permanency), prevents the spell from being used repeatedly (such as commune) or balances out a spell that's too powerful for its level (such as wish).
Constitution damage in place of XP penalties might make thematic sense, but it doesn't make rules sense.
I’m not saying that the Con penalty will be just an hour. It could be days, months, years, or permanent depending on the spell level cast corresponding to the Exp cost, making it just as costly as losing XP for spells. XP can be regained by killing monsters or whatever XP is granted for in your current session; However if you use Con penalties a permanent penalty to Con would be much harsher to the spell caster signifying the magnitude of the spell instead of points that can be remade by playing the game.
I think xp partially represent some mystical/spiritual/psychological source of strength (perhaps your 'soul' or whatever) -- thus xp costs for investing part of that essence in a magic item.
Just my two cents :)
Jack
Well, that is why soul-draining attacks of necromancers and the undead cost a whole level, or two, or more, of experience...
I’m not saying that the Con penalty will be just an hour. It could be days, months, years, or permanent depending on the spell level cast corresponding to the Exp cost, making it just as costly as losing XP for spells.
Two points permanent Con loss is about as bad as losing a level, and therefore worth as much as a level's worth of XP. Even then you can get that level of XP back by adventuring. Dropping from level 6 to level 5 is a 5,000XP deficit, but at level 16 that XP penalty puts you only 31.25% of a level behind level 17. However, that Con penalty will still hurt just as much.
If it's not permanent, then it's not enough of a deficit to discourage abuse of non-combat spells during downtime. Some spells do indeed have temporary Con penalties, but the ones which currently have an XP penalty, such as planar ally and permanency, require an XP penalty to stop people using them all the time.
I see what your saying and it does make sense. At lower levels the Con would work but the higher levels it wouldn't work as well.