It's unlikely that I will be able to playtest the Words of Power system because one must choose to be a wordcaster or a regular caster. I had hoped that they would share the common currency of spells-known and spells-per-day, so that even existing characters could pick up new words and use them with existing spell slots.
That said, I'm going to play around with a "what if" playtest where casters can access both magic types, and report the results of that. I think it would be a vastly superior system for a number of reasons if this were possible.
It's unlikely that I will be able to playtest the Words of Power system because one must choose to be a wordcaster or a regular caster. I had hoped that they would share the common currency of spells-known and spells-per-day, so that even existing characters could pick up new words and use them with existing spell slots.
That said, I'm going to play around with a "what if" playtest where casters can access both magic types, and report the results of that. I think it would be a vastly superior system for a number of reasons if this were possible.
That sort of thing, for a sorcerer, would be gold. In fact, it'd be Ars Magica, which is what this is really leaning towards.
-Ben.
I like to imagine there could be a way to make it work.
I guess I got my hopes up when I saw that this was supposed to "work with existing magic system" then that meant I could let my existing caster players mess about with it. Without that, it has considerably less appeal.
They DO share the common currency of spells per day.
Words of Power all have to fit their Words within the cost allowance of the same spell slots. Versatile Wordcaster explicitly exists to allow Wordcasters to prepare ´normal´ spells in the same slots they use for Wordcast spells.
I will quote my comment in another thread:
Versatile Wordcaster Feat allowing Prepping of Non-WordofPower spells makes one wonder,
shouldn`t regular Casters have the reverse Feat? (Probably so, it`s just not within scope of the test)
Within the play test, it`s completely possible for Wordcasters to use regular spells (this in fact is a great way to use spell effects which aren`t modelled within the scope of the playtest, e.g. non-evocation spells).
In fact, given the very small scope of modelled spell effects, that`s just about the only way to give a remotely representative (adventuring context) balanced playtest feedback, because otherwise all the feedback will be skewed by ´the character failed hard in this situation because there wasn`t an effect which could do XYZ which the situation called for´.
I think if you ¨Houseruled¨ the reverse Feat (as I suggested the possibility of) and noted that fact in your playtest, that your feedback would still be very useful...
...It may even be interesting to ´merge´ standard spells with Wordcast spells (for balance, assuming standard spells consume the full cost allotment for their spell level, i.e. you wouldn´t do this with spells whose effects are normally available via Word Casting at a cheaper rate), so in other words merging them with other effects would only be possible by Word Burning...???
Excellent observation, Q, and I'm likely to do just that.
Stuff
I was thinking the same thing, and am currently pondering some feats that would give you some points you could spend on word spells; combined with feats or something to learn the words. opens it to non-casters.
I also forgot that WordSorcerors seem to still know their Bloodine Spells...
I don`t know if it would be reasonable/intended to ´break down´ some Known BL Spells into Known Words if that is easy (e.g. Burning Hands or Mage Armor), but the rest are certainly going to be mixing regular old spell-casting into the Words of Power system, even without the Verstatile Wordcaster Feat.
...This made me think that allowing `hybrid` spells (requiring Word Burning if one assumes that normal spells use the entire spell allotment) may even be something that should be considered for a final product, since modelling every single spell just isn´t going to happen. If it forces one to assume that every spell´s cost is maxed out (when that often wouldn`t be the case, realistically), I think it`s quite viable to allow.
I don't even think modeling every spell should be attempted.
I really like the flexibility that seems to exist in this system, although I am VERY leery of that table with its somewhat arbitrary cost scheme.
Still, I'll try to work it in with my existing casters, let the play around with it, and report back. It is but Day 1 of the playtest...