divine casters don't even need rest, they simply pray at the correct time of day.
interruptions only delay arcane casters, they only require 8 hours of rest. Not sleep, but "rest". and it can be interrupted, it just takes longer that way.
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If it would seem "life is unfair" to an adventurer, then it must STILL seem fair to the player, otherwise, you're being mean, and it shows.
DM: "A thunderstorm blows through in the night, remember the rain clouds I mentioned? It's a terrible night for you all."
Player 1: "I'm an excellent camper and a sound sleeper."
DM: "Fine, make a Survival check to see if your tent stays up."
Player 1: "Success!"
Player 2: "Failed."
DM: "Player 2, make a Fortitude save or wake up fatigued. You cannot regain spells until you've had eight hours of solid rest. Oh, and your clothes are all wet."
Yeah, like Imbicatus said, do not abuse this type of encounter.
Having this happen occasionally is fine. Having it happen every night will drive your players away pretty fast.
Be careful, however, about singling players out. Keep in mind how such an encounter might affect (or not affect) all the PCs. If your player group is three martials and one caster, that caster is not going to enjoy being singled out while the others don't suffer nearly the same ill effects.
don't forget! divine casters don't need rest >.>
Set an adventure in a timeless demiplane. Divine spellcasters will never regain spells there, and uses per day powers and items will never recharge. If you like, have events that prevent arcane casters from getting effective rest.
^ While I'm all for the merciless gimping of casting classes, I think never recovering uses of spells goes a bit far.
"an adventure" as in, 1 adventure that is that way. I think that could be interesting. I'd probably have events or NPCs foreshadow or hint heavily about the lack of ability to regain spells during that adventure.
Divine casters don't need rest. However, I don't believe they can recover spells that have been used within the last 8 hours. So, if they pray for spells in the morning, but have used some during the night from a surprise skirmish, they can't memorize those night slots.
I think there is an implied social contract not to use this very often.
essentially, if you casually deny the party rest, don't complain when they start embracing the 15 minute workday. It will be reactionary behavior.
"never know if we will be able to get spells back tonight, better stop now and rest until tomorrow just in case, make sure you keep half of your daily spells for camping situations"
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All you do is encourage use of Extended Rope Trick, it might be ok once though.
I agree with the others. Theoretically, its fine to do this. It even makes a bit of sense -- i.e. if somebody is a professional adventurer, they'll probably want a means of enjoying the night in relative comfort (tent, bedroll, magic hut, etc.) However, I would even say that most thunderstorms would enable the wizard to get sufficient rest (he is, after all, an adventurer, and thus, use to camping in weather). However, it does make sense that they at least make a token effort to acquire proper camping gear.
By the same token, the surprise raid at night is a bit of a staple -- especially since it can mess with the fighter/paladin who likely did not sleep in his armor. Again, this would interrupt the rest of the caster, but it does not require him to start a new 8 hour period, rather it just adds another hour. And as others have said, if there are raids every night, then something is also wrong.
All in all, I rather like the idea if your campaign features a lot of wilderness adventures. Weather effects are probably the most overlooked feature of the game in my experience. So anything that adds to it is a plus in my book. I could particularly see these sorts of things coming up in the early stages of the Kingmaker AP for instance.
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It depends on how you started. If the sources of nuisance and lack of rest are a common and recurring theme, and the players do nothing, I would have no issue at all with limiting the ability to memorize new spells.
You should, however, give the players a method to relieve the problem.
Example 1:
Congratulations! you have graduated the Pathfinder Academy of Magical Arts in Absolom, and are now safely back ashore in Southern Taldor, your homeland. The journey ahead is short and reasonably safe. . . Later that day Black and ominous thunderheads appear over the sea, and seem to be blowing in your direction. . . Later that evening The wind and rain tears at you, soaking your modest clothing through and through. It is obviously past time to set up camp.
Player: I look for a dry place to set up my camp.
DM: Do you have a tent?
Player: No.
DM: Please roll survival to find someplace dry and hopefully somewhat comfortable.
Player: Err, I am a wizard, i dumped Wisdom for the sake of Intelligence. . . here goes.
DM: You are not able to find anywhere comfortable, you but are able to stay alive in the storm. The night is long, cold, and very, very wet.
Player: Today I am going to memorize endure elements or something. I don't think I can take more than one night of this.
DM: I am sorry, but you need to have rest, and some modest level of comfort to prepare spells. Luckilly, it is only another half day to the nearest hamlet.
Good!
Above, but at 10th level, and you have never enforced such conditions before, and the players have no access to gear/spells/conditions to alleviate the penalties. . .
BAD!
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My motivation is only to imply that the characters aren't heros, and the world does not bow to their desires.
Occasionally, a martial might break his blade. A wizard might lose his spells.
Not often, maybe just once the whole campaign.. but it will, hopefully, be memorable.
As long as your players are aware of this issue, there is less problems. Anything that singles out a player in particular can cause friction. Just make sure they know you intend to run a "versimilitude-high" game so that they can walk out if they dont want that.
My motivation is only to imply that the characters aren't heros, and the world does not bow to their desires.
Occasionally, a martial might break his blade. A wizard might lose his spells.
Not often, maybe just once the whole campaign.. but it will, hopefully, be memorable.
Just a quick note: The character ARE heroes, or villains if its an evil campaign, but you are right in that the world does not bow to their desires.
I think it is good to use the occasional setback, just remember to play fair. A martial might break his weapon for instance, but remember that there are specific rules for sundering. If you follow the rules and the weapon is broken, so be it, that's life. If you just say "Uhh, yeah, your sword-thingy is broken now," that's bad.
Good news is it sounds as though you have a good grasp on what you are looking to do, and the extent to which you wish to do it. From what you are saying, there's nothing inherently wrong in my opinion with your setup -- provided that its done in a fair manner.
To keep it fair, how do you impose the same thing on divine casters?
The way the current rules are, you cant. They just need to pray/commune 1/day. However, it's an acceptable houserule. I myself houserule that arcane casters can only "regain" spell slots 1/day (so no 15 minute workdays). You could easily say that divine casters have to get 8 hours of rest as well (or 2 with the ring of sustenance).
To keep it fair, how do you impose the same thing on divine casters?
Divine casters don't need rest. However, I don't believe they can recover spells that have been used within the last 8 hours. So, if they pray for spells in the morning, but have used some during the night from a surprise skirmish, they can't memorize those night slots.
The best way is to know when they pray for spells. At some point within 8 hours of that time, attempt to 'force' them to use their spells (encounter, trap, something that requires significant healing). They will not have access to those spells the next time they prepare spells, and unless there is a specific reason, they can't voluntarily delay their preparation time until they could fully recover spells.
Fair? There is no "fair". The world is unfair.
Sages may argue that this is the price a wizard pays for meddling with magical forces from beyond the mortal world. His hubris and lack of strength will cost him as the world takes its toll. This is the stuff that great villains and great heroes are born from.
However...if the gods smile on him, there may be a prize for his endurance.
Fair? It already is fair.
Arcane casters require rest, but they can do it whenever is handy. Divine casters don't need rest, but have to do it at the specified time.
That is how it is fair; they both have their own specific requirements.
If you wanna screw with a divine caster, simply make them choose to do something else when they are supposed to be praying. Make it something voluntary, and they simply lose out on new spells for the day.
Like, a promising lead in the adventure plot wants to meet at some random spot at sunrise to chat...but the cleric needs to pray!! Oh noes!!
To keep it fair, how do you impose the same thing on divine casters?
By plot, I'd think - their god is mysteriously absent (or not so mysteriously, maybe) and isn't granting spells.
With regard to your initial question, I think it all depends on player buy in. If they think it sucks, then no amount of in game justification is going to make them have a good time. If they like the occasional "you're screwed, try and survive" scenario then justification isn't terribly important, they'll probably accept whatever the rule is.
This isn't something I'd spring on my players without talking to them first. I'd accept the loss of the surprise value to mitigate the risk of someone having no fun for a couple of sessions.
A divine spellcaster chooses and prepares spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, does not require a period of rest to prepare spells. Instead, the character chooses a particular time of day to pray and receive spells. The time is usually associated with some daily event. If some event prevents a character from praying at the proper time, she must do so as soon as possible. If the character does not stop to pray for spells at the first opportunity, she must wait until the next day to prepare spells.
Note:
It does not specify that it must be at the same time every day. It did in 3.x. This could allow for a "rescheduling", as long as it's relevant.Following what is written:
What's important to note is the bolded part. If you miss your time, you need to pause and pray at the soonest opportunity. As long as you've pause to pray, if something interrupts you, you can potentially restart later.
So the OP wo=ul need to have a continuous grind going on.
It does actually say that they must pray at a particular time every day. I bolded it for you... from your own quote...
Running off to meet a guy for a chat instead of praying isn't "as soon as possible".
The event has to "prevent" the divine caster from praying. Choosing not to pray because you have other priorities doesn't cut it.
If they don't pray in this window, they "must wait until the next day to prepare spells".
So.. what's important to note is that they must be 'prevented' from praying for any allowance of missing their prayer time. And if they don't immediately pray as soon as possible... they get nothing.
So, you wouldn't need any sort of continuous grind, you just have to get your divine caster to skip praying for other obligations. Follow a lead. Meet a contact. Investigate something. Talk to an NPC. Conduct a trade. Whatever.
The overlying rule here is just don't be a d*** about it. Subtlety is the name of the game here. Don't outright single out players, don't repeat ad-nauseam, etc.
Hell, here's a creative way to do it that can also be used as a quest hook: have a thief or bum or something break into their camp and steal something. Could be a bag. Could be a coin purse. Hell, you could kill two birds with one stone and steal the wizard's spellbook. Now, of course, roll all the necessary perception and stealth checks so it's legal. When they wake up in the morning, inform the players that something is stolen. I guarantee that 9 times out of 10, the party will leave as soon as they can to chase after that thief. In the hustle and bustle of packing up or simply just running off after the thief, the cleric/wizard forgot to pray/prepare spells. You could then tie this into a quest line about a shady thieves guild or something. Or just use it a a way to shake up the party. Either way, in the process you've done two things: 1) denied your casters spells for the day, and 2) created a very memorable moment in your campaign.
Yes I stole this idea from someone else now shhhhhhhhhhh.
It does actually say that they must pray at a particular time every day....
Running off to meet a guy for a chat instead of praying isn't "as soon as possible".
The event has to "prevent" the divine caster from praying. Choosing not to pray because you have other priorities doesn't cut it.
If they don't pray in this window, they "must wait until the next day to prepare spells".
So.. what's important to note is that they must be 'prevented' from praying for any allowance of missing their prayer time. And if they don't immediately pray as soon as possible... they get nothing.
So, you wouldn't need any sort of continuous grind, you just have to get your divine caster to skip praying for other obligations. Follow a lead. Meet a contact. Investigate something. Talk to an NPC. Conduct a trade. Whatever.
Surely is your choice to pray or go heal someone or go meeting with some random guys. But depending on your gods precept, it can be exusable. For example, sarenrae would never deprive you of your spell for missing out your allotted time if you where healing someone or chasing some "bad guy". Conversely, Abadar would sure be proud of you if you pray 2 hour later because you had an important affair meeting.
Surely is your choice to pray or go heal someone or go meeting with some random guys. But depending on your gods precept, it can be exusable. For example, sarenrae would never deprive you of your spell for missing out your allotted time if you where healing someone or chasing some "bad guy". Conversely, Abadar would sure be proud of you if you pray 2 hour later because you had an important affair meeting.
I can agree with the healing, that takes, what? six second? Close enough to 'immediate' for government work :P
However... chasing after a bad guy? I'm not as certain. She'd want you to catch them for sure, but there should be priorities...
Here's a question. Is there a dire need to screw the cleric over for the WHOLE DAY?
Even if the god is ok with the 'delay' for whatever reason... they STILL don't get the spells till they are prayed for. So Chasing that Bad guy and getting into that conflict pretty much means no spells yet.
DM goal achieved!!
ONce that battles over, how long do you want to drag out the 'no spells' tedium?
Off topic a bit, do the divine casters still have the spells they didn't cast the day before? I know Arcane keeps them in their brain... but that's still a 'memorization' concept. Divine is still praying and given divine ability. If you miss your time of day... Kind of like Green Lanterns ring. Charge it every 24 hours or watch it go dead O.o
Note just for the sake of clarity. When i said healing i meant something aking to standard healing skill like long term cure or other stuff taht might require time. 6 second to cast a spell wasn't even in question to me.
Let's remember that there are no digital internet-synchronized portable watch in D&D, 10 minutes discrepancy are to be expected. Even something like "sunrise" in an indicative time, being that the sun takes like 15 minutes to completely rise.
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I'd say that a cleric would be "legitimately" delayed if there way combat, or if he had to rescue teammates or something. A meeting - not necessarily. If it's an informant and the rogue can take care of it, the cleric will just have to choose. Sure, being there to back up the rogue is safer in case the informant is dirty, but then he's missing out on spells. That's a meaningful choice for the players, makes things interesting.
As for wizards - often they can just sleep in. If they're interrupted at night, they can sleep a few hours more before preparing new spells. Annoying, and it slows down your overland travel. But not the end of the world.
I think the "survival to set up a good camp" check can be interesting, but it doesn't have to be the unskilled wizard making the check. If there's a ranger in the party, why isn't that professional dude ensuring everyone has a good time? I'm sure the wizard's player will appreciate his efforts.
In a wilderniss exploration game, getting enough rest, having good places to camp and such are legitimate challenges. But it's not a "gotcha!" thing, not after the first time. It's something the players need to, and CAN prepare for.
If you start doing it at level 10, it looks like a "gotcha!" thing. If it's always been a thing, from level 1 onwards, at some point the players will figure out solutions. They'll acquire items, skills or spells to permanently deal with the problem. That's okay; the game would be boring if you had to deal with the same problems for 20 levels. By the time they figure out a perfect solution for this, there'll be other problems.
Surely is your choice to pray or go heal someone or go meeting with some random guys. But depending on your gods precept, it can be exusable. For example, sarenrae would never deprive you of your spell for missing out your allotted time if you where healing someone or chasing some "bad guy". Conversely, Abadar would sure be proud of you if you pray 2 hour later because you had an important affair meeting.
I'm not so sure there is a clause for 'because you feel like it' in the spell prep recharge rules for divine caster who wanna miss their recharge appointment.
Because that is essentially what it is. An appointment with your god. If you think whatever you need to be doing is more important than keeping your god waiting... well… your god is going to have other things more important than you to attend to.
A divine caster is a mortal servant… to have the audacity to think they can just keep their god waiting… and expect them to wait… and expect them to still grant them spells… that is the kind of audacity that gets people smote.
Just tried the - "you-and-you-alone-don't-get-any-rest" in a paizo campaign.
My magus started the day by wanting more rest.
He didn't get arcane points, he didn't get to memorise spell. He was fatigued. He died later that day...
This was a "thing" for the better part of a senario. Each night someone choosen randomly had bad dreams - and sucked the next day unless the made a fort save DC alot.
1 day was okay - haha - I still have a few spells - and 5 pearls of power I, just a bad day. Next day day only 1 level spells. - and then i died...
Point being - it's okay to nerf a player - but don't over do it.
Just tried the - "you-and-you-alone-don't-get-any-rest" in a paizo campaign.
My magus started the day by wanting more rest.
He didn't get arcane points, he didn't get to memorise spell. He was fatigued. He died later that day...This was a "thing" for the better part of a senario. Each night someone choosen randomly had bad dreams - and sucked the next day unless the made a fort save DC alot.
1 day was okay - haha - I still have a few spells - and 5 pearls of power I, just a bad day. Next day day only 1 level spells. - and then i died...Point being - it's okay to nerf a player - but don't over do it.
So would you say this was a mistake on the part of the GM?
As someone not involved in your campaign I would say allowing the player character to have died from this is pretty bad mistake.
So would you say this was a mistake on the part of the GM?
As someone not involved in your campaign I would say allowing the player character to have died from this is pretty bad mistake.
I am also not a member of the campaign, so take my two coppers for what they are worth. To me, whether or not this was a mistake depends on the setup. Why is it that the PCs were not getting a full rest? How was the individual PC each day chosen? Why was the Fort DC so high/was it so high as to be essentially unmakeable?
If there are good answers to those questions, I don't think its necessarily a mistake -- even if a PC died in part because of it. Of course, you also have to ask, were the encounters designed taking into consideration the fact that the party would not be able to get a full rest? Certainly even just one character not getting a full rest would increase the CR of any encounters the following day.
As a counter example, in the campaign that I am currently playing in, we started out as slaves who had just escaped from our captors (that was in the campaign background). The first session picks up pretty much with us having just exited the slave camp, with no gear. The slavers understood the powers of many of the slaves and made sure to prevent casters from getting their spells, etc. So naturally this started out with a fair amount of tension. At the same time though, it was not too difficult for us to get to the first night's rest and then to start finding gear, so in the end, it definitely seemed fair. Of course it helped that nobody died, but I think even if somebody had, we would have felt the encounters were fair -- especially since we quickly acquired the gear that we would have purchased at char gen.
They'd still have whatever spells were left over from the previous day, so really, having an encounter "before they get their spells" is actually just one of the previous day's encounters.
That's how I play it at my table.
I don't enforce the rule that spells cast within 8 hours of spell recharge count against that day's spell count. Frankly, I think it's kind of petty.
At my table, as long as you get 8 hours of rest (and 1 hour uninterrupted before spell preparation), a caster can replenish you daily allotment, even if the party got attacked in the middle of the night.
In a similiar vein, i was going to roll into a campaign run by a buddy with an Alchemist. He was cool with the idea and very encouraging. Then he dropped that we would be starting out in a "MOTFA" type area with no access to anything civilised and no gear beyond a few simple weapons salvaged together. I explained how Alchemist's work and he was going to have me run for a bit without access to any class abilities until i could restock. For me it was a deal breaker, he wanted to lock me into the class since i had wanted to play it before he told me about being stranded. I was also the only one looking at a component dependent class. In fairness, yeah, he could have been planning some awesome way for me to contribute to the group but just the idea of being singled out and losing all class functionality threw up too many warnings in my mind.
I am glad he was honest with me up front, if he had sprung this on me after i was at the table i would not have taken it nearly so well.
Yeah, to be fair you and I are talking about a bit of a different scenario, being the start of the campaign. In my case, we knew ahead of time we were starting out as slaves with no gear. It was a bit funny because before I knew the background, I had wanted to play a monk. After getting the background, I asked the GM if that was ok since a monk has some obvious advantages in that situation. She of course had no problem with it (and lets face it, its not as though the monk would have a huge advantage for long ;P). By the same token, the player that wanted to play an arcanist went with a Sorcerer with Eschew Materials for obvious reasons.
In the case of events that can cause disruption, it again all depends on how it plays out. If you wait until level 10 to ask the players if they have purchased a tent because it might rain, that will seem a bit arbitrary. If you ask it in an early session though, I don't think it will seem all that arbitrary, and wouldn't need to have any forewarning (imho). Plus, I'm always in favor of anything that encourages the players to think outside the box and look at something other than how to maximize their dpr.
Just follow the rules, and make sure every player gets a chance for her character to shine regularly.
Just tried the - "you-and-you-alone-don't-get-any-rest" in a paizo campaign.
My magus started the day by wanting more rest.
He didn't get arcane points, he didn't get to memorise spell. He was fatigued. He died later that day...This was a "thing" for the better part of a senario. Each night someone choosen randomly had bad dreams - and sucked the next day unless the made a fort save DC alot.
1 day was okay - haha - I still have a few spells - and 5 pearls of power I, just a bad day. Next day day only 1 level spells. - and then i died...Point being - it's okay to nerf a player - but don't over do it.
This event happens somewhere in the Skulls & Schackles Adventure Path.
I was Bigtunas GM, and randomized who had the dreams.
I, as a GNM, like it when spellcasters are penalized. This game, especially at higher levels, is far to much about spellcasters. The poor melee-types rarely get to shine, while their spellcasting friends vaporize the opposition every chance they get. This is especially true if the setting encourages 1-encounter-a-day situations, such as Skulls & Schakles do (in which the players are pirates; they rarely encounter more than 1 hostile ship a day).
It made for a nice change of pace to have the spellcasters suddenly have to prioritize their ressources during encounters, as they never knew if they could get a decent nights rest.
In this case it was obviously randomized who was hit, they had a Fort save to negate the consequences, and they had a way to end the dreams.