My players hate prepared casters; Solution?

[The equalizer]

Prepared casters are a recurring thing in APs. It depends on what sort of party you are DMing. If its a stealth heavy party who gets to the main throne room first and fights the boss without killing any of the mooks, very different. Get surprise, do damage. Win initiative, do more damage or tie them up with grapples etc. Casters are not necessarily prepared. I like to check the duration of spells, since they tend to put on all their defenses. If the party doesn't clear the mooks fast enough, one or more spells may expire. Love the "hit, run and stall" strategy.

[donaldsangry]

If you use the Hero point system, you can spend hero points to cast any spell of you class I believe. Also if you have the bonded item you can cast one spell of you highest level or lower known 1/day. Also if its a house game theres a 3rd party feat in one of the Wayfinder issues that lets you cast an extra time with your bonded item.

Hero Point Extra casting option:

Special: You can petition the GM to allow a hero point to be used to attempt nearly anything that would normally be almost impossible. Such uses are not guaranteed and should be considered carefully by the GM. Possibilities include casting a single spell that is one level higher than you could normally cast (or a 1st-level spell if you are not a spellcaster), making an attack that blinds a foe or bypasses its damage reduction entirely, or attempting to use Diplomacy to convince a raging dragon to give up its attack. Regardless of the desired action, the attempt should be accompanied by a difficult check or penalty on the attack roll. No additional hero points may be spent on such an attempt, either by the character or her allies.

Okay looking at it again its to cast a higher level spell, but theres no reason that you couldn't just cast like the arcane bond.

Arcane Bond:

A bonded object can be used once per day to cast any one spell that the wizard has in his spellbook and is capable of casting, even if the spell is not prepared. This spell is treated like any other spell cast by the wizard, including casting time, duration, and other effects dependent on the wizard's level. This spell cannot be modified by metamagic feats or other abilities. The bonded object cannot be used to cast spells from the wizard's opposition schools (see arcane school).

Improved Arcane Bond:

9th The wizard may cast one additional spell per day that he has in his spellbook and is capable of casting, even if the spell is not prepared. If the Wizard specializes in an arcane school, this second spell must come from that school. This additional spell otherwise follows all the rules of the standard arcane bond ability.

[Orthos]

Mortuum wrote:

EDIT: Now I think about it, this setup needs to introduce some kind of inferior effect wizards can burn spell slots on, so they don't end up with slots they can't use. Something like a damage-per-spell-level attack with little in the way of redeeming features.

3.5 had this in Complete Mage's Reserve Feats. So long as you had one spell remaining with the appropriate descriptor (or in the case of spont-casters, one spell slot remaining in the appropriate level and one spell known at that level with the appropriate descriptor) ([Fire], [Healing], etc.) you could use a low- to moderate-powered SLA at will. Obviously it was 4E prep work hence the "at will", but you could always just rule it as a class ability for casters instead of having to burn feats on it and change it from "at will" to "in exchange for a spell slot".

[darkwarriorkarg]

Thinking out of the box:

Have them continuously ambushed while they, sleep, eat, train, or otherwise doing anything except adventuring...

Basically, when they are NOT prepared :-)

[Belle Mythix]

darkwarriorkarg wrote:

Thinking out of the box:

Have them continuously ambushed while they, sleep, eat, train, or otherwise doing anything except adventuring...

Basically, when they are NOT prepared :-)

This is probably one of the reasons why the TC/OP's players hate playing Wizards

[Paladin of Baha-who?]

Well thank you for all the advice. I'm going with the plan to shorten preparation time and allow re-preparing unused spell slits during the day. My current campaign doesn't have any spontaneous casters, except one who did a one-level Bard dip, and so far it's worked well to stop them from complaining about having to prepare spells. Next campaign may not have prepared casters, we'll see.

[Indivar]

Scribe a bunch of scrolls and make a few wands. Problem solved.