Alternate Casting System


Homebrew and House Rules


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This is an alpha build for an alternate casting system I am working on. I have a few goals in mind with it, I want to give casters more versatility, I want to bring spell-casters to be more inline with other characters at higher levels, I want to increase the fun of playing spell-casters at low levels, I do not want to utilize the existing pathfinder spell-casting material as much as possible, and I want to prevent nova builds. So here it is below.

Mana based Spellcasting
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Mana- A spell caster gains a pool of mana points equal to half their levels in a spellcasting class rounded down minimum one plus their casting ability score. At each new level after 1st level a spellcaster gains a number of mana points equal to their Mana pool die.

Bard: 1d3
Cleric: 1d4
Druid: 1d4
Sorcerer: 1d6
Wizard:1d4

Spent mana points are recovered at a rate of 1 per level per at least 8 hours of rest. A full day of of rest up to 16 hours with no major interruptions recovers twice this amount. you can never heal more than your total.

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Cantrips and orisons-
Cantrips and orisons act differently than other spells, these are magical abilities that expend very little mana to cast, but require a pool of mana to always be available. Prepared caster classes can choose to prepare cantrips or orisons whenever they are preparing spells, for each cantrip you prepare you effectively lose access to one mana point that day. Whenever the character would recover mana points from rest they may choose to regain any number of mana points spent on cantrips effectively losing access to the cantrips the prepared, but opening up the points to be used for other spells.
Spontaneous casters lose a number of mana points equal to the number of cantrips they know but always have access to those spells.

Spells-
Spells cost a number of mana points to cast equal its spell level to cast.
Prepared spellcasters must spend time investing the mana and preparing its use,
during this preparation the wizard is focusing his magical energies to produce the
desired magical effects. Cleric preparation involves prayers which align the divine energies inside of them to channel the spells. Druid preparation involves meditating to
align the natural energies within their body.

Wizard schools- A wizard can expend double mana points to spontaneously cast any spell from their chosen school, spells from their opposite schools always cost double mana points to prepare.

Cleric domains- A cleric may prepare one domain spell of each level each day for one less mana point than it would normally take.
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Any input will be greatly appreciated.


Mana point casting is divisive. On one hand it's a lot more intuitive than Vancian/spontaneous slots but on the other hand it has been a fairly definitive part of Pathfinder/D&D so there would be a lot of opposition towards it.

As far as I can see there's nothing truly wrong about this system with the following exception,

Mana points do give casters the ability to gain their highest spells more often. The game isn't built on that premise so you may wind up with a bigger 15 minute work day problem.

A number of archetypes revolve around spell slots and this may nerf the advantage of those options by not accounting for them. Cleric particularly because it has to keep it's domain slots but other slots can lean towards other spell levels with a mana system. Spontaneous casters are much more compatible with mana pools so they'll see less problems.


Wizards school: what's exactly the difference between spending 2x mana for an opposite school or for the specialization school? I mean, ok, you become something like a cleric that spontaneously cast cures, but I see no advantage on this. I would prefer a discount of some mana points. I don't know, something like -1 or -2 to cast, or something like that. ..


Hmmm interesting. But something is off. Looks a bit nerffy for casters. Say a 20 Int wizard at level 20 will average at 10+20+(2.5x20)=80 manna. The core rule wizard would have 180 manna worth of spells to cast, not counting bonus spells.


Blackstorm wrote:
Wizards school: what's exactly the difference between spending 2x mana for an opposite school or for the specialization school? I mean, ok, you become something like a cleric that spontaneously cast cures, but I see no advantage on this. I would prefer a discount of some mana points. I don't know, something like -1 or -2 to cast, or something like that. ..

I definitely see where this is coming from, In my final build of the system It is probably gonna be more in line with the cleric domain casting I have.

Keydan wrote:
Hmmm interesting. But something is off. Looks a bit nerffy for casters. Say a 20 Int wizard at level 20 will average at 10+20+(2.5x20)=80 manna. The core rule wizard would have 180 manna worth of spells to cast, not counting bonus spells.

The point is to pseudo nerf casters at higher levels and make them a bit stronger at lower levels. I'm going to add in methods as I continue to work on the system to recharge mana points, so that should make up for the lower total spell power at higher levels. I feel the lower total spell casting potential kind of emphasizes lower level spells and makes the higher level ones that much more special.

@Malwing: I do realize the system can allow for someone to put all their mana points into high level spells, but that is pretty much why I built the system to heal like HP instead of completely refilling each day. A player could really be a D-bag and cast as per the calculation from Keydan above 7 9th level spells in one day, but it would leave their character completely drained for quite some time.
Also at your concern for archetypes and specific spell slots, with the initial build together I'm going to expand the scope of the build to look at the other Base spell-casting classes and their archetypes.

I appreciate all the feedback you guys have given me, When I get my final alpha build together Ill be putting it up for more criticism.


Dot for interest.

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