first, i apologize if this topic has been hammered into the ground. im new here so haven't seen anything already discussed.
im in the brainstorming phase of a pathfinder game, and im seriously considering using a spell point system instead of ye 'ol fire-and-forget. i've never liked that system and my group would probably take better to spellpoints anyway.
my concern is one of balance. il probably use the spellpoint rules as presented in unearthed arcana as a starting point. but as printed those rules are kinda broken. without the restriction of having to prepare single-use spells beforehand, many of the caster classes become overpowered. also, spontaneous casters like the bard and sorcerer lose a lot of the mojo that makes them appealing under this system. but with pathfinder that's no longer realty an issue. most spont casters now have other gimmicks to give them spice.
my initial thoughts on injecting some balance into the spellpoint system is to reduce the total caster levels spellchuckers have. greater versatility and the ability to cast the same spell multiple times is exchanged for an overall de-powering. caster level is already built into many spells as a variable, so it seems an easy way to tweak they're potency without rewriting them whole cloth. but by how much? and should former spont casters like the sorcerer have less of this depowering? they dont gain much of a bost under this system, so commensurately should have less of a penalty to balance.
additionally, should save DC's also be lowered across the board? if so, by how much?
i appreciate any advice anyone has on this topic.
toodles!
At higher levels, the reduction in caster level would be a killer. Monsters would have abilities that you can't counteract, because your dispel magic spells will fail, your cleric will fail to remove poison or disease, and getting through SR will be a bit tougher. Savvy players can work around these things, but it'll still make them wonder why their character sheet says their 12th level but they feel like they're only 10th or somesuch.
If you lower save DCs, same kinds of ideas. Monsters will make saves more often. This will shift spellcasters into the roles of summoner, healbot, and buffer/debuffer. Save or die, save or suck, and blasting tend to get hammered if their DCs are too low.
What I think you need is a way to deal with the nigh-inevitable novas that crop up in spell point systems. Perhaps a limit that the caster can only spend so many points every minute or suffer penalties (fatigue, exhaustion, staggering, even dazing come to mind), on the order of caster level plus relevant ability modifier?
ack! damn comcast. lets try this again...
so if i understand you correctly, the boost provided by the spellpoint system isn't actually all that great. and not enough to impact the game if you include something like vitalizing along with it.
in my initial proposal, i had thought that the reduced effectiveness of the spells mentioned above was countered by being able to cast them multiple times without any great effort. your clerics remove poison might not work the first time, but he can cast it 2 or 3 more times until it sticks much easier then he could before. your fireball is more likely to fizzle against a monster with spell resistance, but you can try again next round easily enough. and so forth...was i wrong in this assumption?
as a slight tweak to the vitalizing option, i thought about having a caster make a fatigue save each time they threw a spell. but would this be to harsh? how high should the DC be? ideally, this system would let a spellcaster chuck around one or two spells without much impact, but really laying on the magic would ware them out.
and finally, as a simpler way of figuring the cost of casting a spell, im thinking about simply having 1 spellpoint = one caster level, period. no minimum caster levels regardless of the spell. if you want to cast a 9th level spell with only a single caster level, you can do that. the thought here is making casting costs easier to remember. but does it break the system?
thanks for your opinions!
The reduced spell effectiveness will have several effects. When it comes time to remove conditions, every failure (mind you, not every spell has a caster level check involved) requires the cleric to try again. That burns spell points, reducing resources. This leads back to the 15-minute workday, as now the cleric is running out of juice. On the upside, it can certainly add some dramatic tension to diseases and poisons. For spells like fireball, if the spell fails, it's wasted. Every spell really needs to count when you're in battle. If it fails due to a reduced caster level, that can get frustrating as you face creatures with higher and higher SR. So you end up with casters who aren't contributing and are again wondering why does the fighter get to be 12th level but the caster is only 9th. Even if the fight is won, that's that many more resources the caster has used up just to be effective, resulting in the 15-minute workday again either due to the cleric needing to patch people up or the wizard blowing tons of spells just to get through a fight.
Regarding caster level=1 spell point, best thing to do is look to see how many spells really don't care about caster level. If you're using wish to boost ability scores, the duration IIRC is instantaneous, meaning there's no dispelling the effect. I'd certainly use a caster level of 1 in that case and quickly get my stats up all in one day and still have plenty of juice to go.
For vitalizing, maybe have casters make a Fortitude save, DC 15 base, plus one per level of the spell, plus one for every spell cast consecutively. Start saves after a number of rounds equal to their Con bonus.
herm. the more i think about it, the more complicated monkeying around with this system seems to be.
my main concern was that by providing casters with additional versatility, they would dramatically overpower the non caster classes. but from what i've read here. that doesn't seem to be the case. they do get a slight jump in power, but this isnt enough to grossly unbalance the game. if it really winds up being a problem i might toss a few more HP or an extra feat to any non magic users. sound reasonable?
if this is right, il probably just stick with the variant as seen on the hypertextD20 sdr. including vitalization. as for simplifying the casting costs. il just tell them that the base cost is equal to the level where to first gain access to the spell. little bit of note taking wont kill them.
one more thing, whats the formula for figuring out how many spell points a class should get? i got one or two players interested in playing a summoner and a magus, so il need to figure that out.
Go to HypertextD20 and check out the Variant Magic rules (center column, down at the bottom). They solved problems I never imagined.