spell point system and players handbook II classes


Dungeon Magazine General Discussion

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I'm starting a new campaign and thinking of moving to the spell point system. Two of my players however are playing players handbook 2 classes. Duskblade and Beguiler. I'm wondering where to put them on the spell point table. I myself am thinking on what a good progression would be for both, as I think that they should be somewhere between the ranger/paladin and wizard or sorcerer progression. I love Unearthed Arcana but it's becoming a bit of a pain if you allow some of the books after it.

If some more experiend dm's could offer advice or an opinion it would be appreciated


PandaGaki wrote:
I'm starting a new campaign and thinking of moving to the spell point system.

Note: I'm not an expert on the spell-point system, so take this with a pinch of salt.

PandaGaki wrote:
Two of my players however are playing players handbook 2 classes. Duskblade and Beguiler. I'm wondering where to put them on the spell point table.

I may be mistaken, but aren't the Beguiler's spells-per-day equivalent to the Sorcerer? If so, use the Sorcerer column for this class.

I think you probably need to do your own progression for the Duskblade, but I think there should be a faily simply formula that can be reverse-engineered from the existing table (ie a 1st level slot is worth 2 points, 2nd level is 4, and so on... those numbers almost certainly need adjusted as I don't have the books in front of me). Once you've got that, the actual progression should be relatively easy to get.

I'll have a quick look when I get home, and see if I can come up with a better answer.

PandaGaki wrote:
I love Unearthed Arcana but it's becoming a bit of a pain if you allow some of the books after it.

I have found Unearthed Arcana to be a really good 'starter' for options I would like to use. However, in actual use, I've found I've always had to either modify or at least expand the rules as given there.

For example, I really like the Weapon Group rules, but I hate the existing assignments of weapons to groups, and also use a widely expanded weapons list. Therefore, I have to redo the actual lists of weapons in each group (and add a few groups) to make it all make sense. And, of course, I have to do initial proficiency lists for any class that doesn't already have one.


Here' the spell point system I've used in the past for all three editions. It is universal, simple, and not class dependent.

Let's assume for a spellcaster who has 4 first level spells per day, 2 second level spells per day, and 1 third level spell per day. The points are determined by taking the number of spells available for the day and multiplying them by that "spell level". My example may be a better explanantion.

Example derived from above: 4 first level spells are worth 4 spell points; 2 second level spells are worth 4 spell points; and 1 third level spell is worth 3 spell points. The spellcaster has 11 spell points for the day that he or she can appoint as needed and when needed. He could cast 11 first level spells, or 3 third level and 1 second level spell, or any combination that the point-pool will allow. As for zero-levels spells, they are worth 1/4 a spell point each, but do not add to the point-pool total (there value is zero). Yes, the above spellcaster could cast 44 zero-level spells in a day. Bonuses for high stats are added in to the number of spells by level per day as usual before determining the number of spell-points derived.

Rary's Mneumonic Enhancer restores three spell points instead of just one spell.

I've never had complaints using this system and players can determine the points themselves without needing a book for each class'es unique skills.

It would be funny to see a fighter equally restricted: he could swing his dagger four times per day, uses his longbow two times per day, and uses his bastard sword once per day. :-)


Skech wrote:
It would be funny to see a fighter equally restricted: he could swing his dagger four times per day, uses his longbow two times per day, and uses his bastard sword once per day. :-)

Only if the fighter could spin his whip over his head 3 times per day in order to take off like a helicopter. :-)


Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
I personally would consider the spell/spells distinction very nit-picky. I think it would be better, if it comes to it, to just say to the player that the build is potentially unbalanced. If it is, of course.

Agreed. As I said, I would just ban those feats and have done with it. I only mentioned the plural thing because that was the dodge that I saw mentioned before, and it does work, despite being very nit-picky.


The above post was a reply I intended for another thread. I don't quite know how it ended up here. Sorry it doesn't make sense.

Having checked the Beguiler, I have found that the only difference between the Beguiler and Sorcerer spells per day progressions is that the Beguiler gets one fewer 9th level spell per day at 20th level. Therefore, you should probably just use the Sorcerer column in table 5-3 on p.153 of Unearthed Arcana. (If you want to be exact, use that column, but change the 20th level value to 232.)

To get the Duskblade values, it is necessary to work out the values of the spells of each level in terms of points. I went through a quick scratch-pad calculation using the Wizard and Sorcerer columns, plus their spells per day, only to find the values pre-calculated in table 5-5 on p.155 of UA (!). The only thing to note is that a 0-level spell has a value of 0.5, not 0 as indicated in that table.

Thus, the values per level are:

0-level: 0.5
1st level: 1
2nd level: 3
3rd level: 5
4th level: 7
5th level: 9
6th level: 11
7th level: 13
8th level: 15
9th level: 17

From that, and the Duskblade progression, I get the following:

1st: 3
2nd: 5
3rd: 6
4th: 8
5th: 14
6th: 18
7th: 24
8th: 28
9th: 38
10th: 47
11th: 57
12th: 65
13th: 80
14th: 92
15th: 106
16th: 121
17th: 140
18th: 156
19th: 182
20th: 203

(Fractions are rounded down, as always. Could someone check my work?)

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