Vancian vs Spell Points... plus!

[LazarX]

Greg Wasson wrote:

The Dying Earth series of novels. It is never called "vancian" but if you read his books it is VERY AD&Desque and is obviously a source of Gygax's system. Curiously enough Ioun stones, prismatic sphere, and imprisonment also are found in his stories. ( Imprisonment was called " The Spell of Forlorn Encysment " )

I'm particurlarly fond of "The Most Excellent Prismatic Spray" myself. Just to give folks an idea of how much care spell preparation takes in a proper Vancian world, I'll give this little snippet below And thier tomes were simply too large to contemplate carrying with them. And remember Turjan is an example of a very accomplished wizard.

The tomes which held Turjan’s sorcery lay on a long table of black steel or were thrust helter-skelter into shelves. These were volumes compiled by many wizards of the past, untidy folios collected by the Sage, leather-bound librams setting forth the syllables of a hundred powerful spells, so cogent that Turjan’s brain could know but four at a time.

Turjan found a musty portfolio, turned the pages to the spell the Sage had shown him, the Call to the Violent Cloud. He stared down at the characters and they burned with an urgent power, pressing off the page as if frantic to leave the dark solitude of the book.

Turjan closed the book, forcing the spell back into oblivion. He robed himself with a short blue cape, tucked a blade into his belt, fitted the amulet holding Laccodel’s Rune to his wrist. Then he sat down and from a journal he chose the spells he would take with him. What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: The Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandaal’s Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour.

- The Dying Earth, Jack Vance (c) 1950

The Dying Earth was also made into a D20 setting which is worth checking out. Call of the Violent Cloud was pretty much a Teleport Without Error save that in order to effect it you had to deal with a rather ill-tempered entitity who'd get even with you by giving you a rather bumpy exit. :)

[dulsin]

I have to disagree with the argument that the Vacan spells are more powerful than Psionics. The arguments that spells autoscale with level but that is only partaly true.

A level 1 magic missile will never do more than 5d4+5 and it will always be a level 1 spell for dispelling and defense. A level 1 psion power boosted to the moon is nearly as effective as a level 9 psion power.

[Hydro]

Yes, but 5th level spells (and above) scale all the way to caster level 20. For a 20th level wizard, that's over half the spells you have prepared.

I don't think psionics are weaker either though. The two are different in a lot of ways.

[neceros]

LazarX wrote:

The tomes which held Turjan’s sorcery lay on a long table of black steel or were thrust helter-skelter into shelves. These were volumes compiled by many wizards of the past, untidy folios collected by the Sage, leather-bound librams setting forth the syllables of a hundred powerful spells, so cogent that Turjan’s brain could know but four at a time.

Turjan found a musty portfolio, turned the pages to the spell the Sage had shown him, the Call to the Violent Cloud. He stared down at the characters and they burned with an urgent power, pressing off the page as if frantic to leave the dark solitude of the book.

Turjan closed the book, forcing the spell back into oblivion. He robed himself with a short blue cape, tucked a blade into his belt, fitted the amulet holding Laccodel’s Rune to his wrist. Then he sat down and from a journal he chose the spells he would take with him. What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: The Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandaal’s Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour.

- The Dying Earth, Jack Vance (c) 1950

The problem with turning books and fiction into role-playing games is multiple. However, in general the biggest issue stems from the fact that spells are more powerful in a story simply because the author wishes it to be. In a game, it's literally "Well, let's see if it works this time."

• This means that players should...
  
• get way more spells per day
  
• only need to use one or two spells per day and still gain exp equally
  
• have very powerful spells, if only a few per day

It just doesn't work, because plot doesn't happen unless that Save DC isn't met.