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I never really liked the idea that spells replenish every 24 hours. I am tinkering with the idea of having magic ebb and flow according to the phases of the moons.
The way it works is as follows:
There are three moons that cycle through their orbits every: 11, 17 and 41 days respectively. On the day of a full moon a caster may memorise new spells. About twice a year two full moons appear in the sky together and a caster may memorise twice the normal number of spells per level. Roughly every 21 years all three full moons coincide and this will trigger a major magical event (the kind mentioned in prophecies). Other astronomical events like comets and eclipses may have small effects, I haven't decided yet. Spell like abilities, supernatural and extraordinary powers replenish every day as per the current rules.
Obviously this scheme significantly reduces the power and versatility of casters, which is probably a good thing. I am interested in discussing the implications: pros and cons of having magic operate this way.
That's a good point. We usually keep a campaign journal anyway, so that won't matter much for our group.
I'm not sure of the implications for gameplay from day to day, but I can't help but imagine, perhaps wildly, what might happen for adventures that take place over longer time-scales. I imagine first strikes with the right tools at the right moments would become even more devastating.
Imagine troubles with any monster that can do ability damage or inflict conditions like blindness: enough of them in one place, a clever and determined villain, and another week or so before a cleric can prepare the spells to counteract such attacks...
Perhaps too, there would be treaties between civilized nations to restrict warfare on days of double full moons, but barbarian raids get more brutal when their priests and witches can spend more magic on just that one day.
Or, assuming an Earth-like solar year, a few days after the first month after a double full-moon there would be full moons a day apart, allowing a rare chance for some flexibility that might let one get the drop on a rival. That sort of thing.
More practically, magic items would become more valuable (And imagine jumping a hated foe when they're catching up on crafting utility wands and scrolls, rather than carrying a payload of offensive spells!), and anything that could eke out a bit more flexibility. I imagine you might see more arcanists and witches (the base classes) in your games, as well as more spontaneous casters generally. Prepared spell slots would become more valuable, if one really has to think about if one can afford to assume that one won't need a spell to, say, heal ability damage or remove a particular condition. The shadow spells that can mimic the effects of many spells within a particular school might also become popular, perhaps you might expect some more dedicated illusionists?
Just some random ideas.
@ Qunnessaa
Lot's of good points there, thanks for the feedback.
Well, I can't imagine anyone enjoying a low-level full caster under these rules. You would only have a small number of spells before needing to wait up to 11 days to refresh them. That's not very fun for the caster if there's actually day-to-day goings on and adventuring.
But, low-level woes aside, I think that you may run into a potentially bigger problem: stinginess and choice paralysis. You may find your full casters not really contributing as much as they otherwise would be simply because of the restrictive resources. This could be an issue if you planned dungeons and encounters assuming the same level of contribution as normal from your casters. It also turns every spell into a big decision, for better or worse. You could find choice paralysis occurring in both casting and preparation.
It also seems like it could easily result in a full caster of any level feeling pretty useless. You prepare spells, but they turn out useless in your circumstances, and then you're stuck with them for up to 11 days. Or even when preparing general spells, you prepare those and then encounter a scenario needing something specific.
Really, I'm not sure I would even want a full caster in my party. He's not flexible, he doesn't have many of his spells, and when he runs out, he can't even hit things with his staff all that well.
EDIT: And magic items could help him, but crafting almost anything eats his spell slots for days. Not horrible if there's a long period of downtime, but not so great if you really need something soon or if downtime is suddenly interrupted. You'd probably just end up buying a lot of the items.
Well, I can't imagine anyone enjoying a low-level full caster under these rules. You would only have a small number of spells before needing to wait up to 11 days to refresh them. That's not very fun for the caster if there's actually day-to-day goings on and adventuring.
But, low-level woes aside, I think that you may run into a potentially bigger problem: stinginess and choice paralysis. You may find your full casters not really contributing as much as they otherwise would be simply because of the restrictive resources. This could be an issue if you planned dungeons and encounters assuming the same level of contribution as normal from your casters. It also turns every spell into a big decision, for better or worse. You could find choice paralysis occurring in both casting and preparation.
It also seems like it could easily result in a full caster of any level feeling pretty useless. You prepare spells, but they turn out useless in your circumstances, and then you're stuck with them for up to 11 days. Or even when preparing general spells, you prepare those and then encounter a scenario needing something specific.
Really, I'm not sure I would even want a full caster in my party. He's not flexible, he doesn't have many of his spells, and when he runs out, he can't even hit things with his staff all that well.
EDIT: And magic items could help him, but crafting almost anything eats his spell slots for days. Not horrible if there's a long period of downtime, but not so great if you really need something soon or if downtime is suddenly interrupted. You'd probably just end up buying a lot of the items.
Thanks for your feedback.
Low levels will be fine for my campaigns because they tend to be one day long missions with plenty of time to rest between. At mid to high levels I am okay with full casters being significantly weaker than they are now. In my opinion full casters are overpowered so this solves a few game design issues, namely:
1. The caster/martial disparity.
2. The CR system being a poor guide as to what can challenge a party.
3. Adventure paths being too easy.
4. Encounters (both published and homebrew) being routinely short circuited by magic.
5. Roleplaying taking a back seat while everything is solved with magic.
However to your point I don't want casters nerfed to the point of uselessness, so perhaps I need to think of other options for spell replenishment such as special magical locations.
stuffThanks for your feedback.
Low levels will be fine for my campaigns because they tend to be one day long missions with plenty of time to rest between. At mid to high levels I am okay with full casters being significantly weaker than they are now. In my opinion full casters are overpowered so this solves a few game design issues, namely:
1. The caster/martial...
I would imagine that most of the potential issues would be alleviated through play style and adventure design. Because if it's a slower game then the restrictions matter less than something fast-paced. And actually, in the case of this sort of idea, when you do want to have some of the more fast-paced things happen, you could attempt to do it when full moons are only a couple days apart.
There's only two other concerns I would have with this. If you're also tying things like channel, domain powers, arcane school powers and etc. to the cycle as well, that's going somewhat overboard on the restrictions in my opinion.
And the second, I would be careful with any full caster enemies. Definitely take the restrictions into consideration with them. It would be a bit silly if every caster the players fought had a fully recharged repertoire of spells every time.
I was only planning on having spells affected not domain powers etc.
Good point about the NPC casters. They would probably be more careful with their spell usage than normal but even so they are likely to only have half their spells when encountered.
What happens when the caster goes to another plane, or planet without moons?
Good question: I am not sure yet, but open to suggestions.
On the moons themselves, one of which is habitable without magical assistance, you can memorise spells whenever sufficiently rested. So if you have a ring of sustenance you can memorise spells multiple times per day. This is probably where the campaign ending BBEG lives.
I was thinking of having a very slow universal rate of one new spell memorised per day regardless of where you are and what the moons are doing. So if for instance you were on a planet with no moons or one of the elemental planes you could memorise one spell per day. I am happy for the PCs to visit other planes but I want the campaign to be centred around my game world so I like that the magic scheme does not support extended visits to other places (not if they want to memorise spells that is).
I have a couple of odd ideas.
1. Perhaps each moon is tied to its own levels of spells? For instance, the moon with the 11 day cycle is tied to 1st to 3rd level spells, and refreshes them. The 17 day cycle moon is tied to 4th to 6th level spells, and the 41 day cycle is tied to 7th-9th level spells. This allows low-level spells to refresh way more often than spells and keep low level casters strong compared to higher level ones.
Alternatively, maybe an asteroid ring around the world allows level 1 or 2 spells to be replenished every night.
2. Perhaps each moon is tied to its own branch of magic, like the three moons of the Dragonlance setting are tied to white, red and black magic. In this case, the three branches could be Divine, Arcane and Psychic, or whatever.
That's all I got for now.
I have a couple of odd ideas.
1. Perhaps each moon is tied to its own levels of spells? For instance, the moon with the 11 day cycle is tied to 1st to 3rd level spells, and refreshes them. The 17 day cycle moon is tied to 4th to 6th level spells, and the 41 day cycle is tied to 7th-9th level spells. This allows low-level spells to refresh way more often than spells and keep low level casters strong compared to higher level ones.
Alternatively, maybe an asteroid ring around the world allows level 1 or 2 spells to be replenished every night.
2. Perhaps each moon is tied to its own branch of magic, like the three moons of the Dragonlance setting are tied to white, red and black magic. In this case, the three branches could be Divine, Arcane and Psychic, or whatever.
That's all I got for now.
Two more interesting ideas, keep them coming.
Speaking of dragonlance's moons affecting magic, the dragonlance's campaign setting book for 3.5e has a chart for calculating the positions and phases of different moons iirc, and allows you to figureout their positions based on a random d20 roll for when you don't have consecutive days of play.
If you can prepare spells on the moon every day, that just means that spellcasters will get a HUGE power spike at level 13 when they can teleport to the moon every evening.
In general, I don't think solving martial-caster disparity is a matter of taking caster spells away. This just forces spell-casters to take more abusive spells.
For example: if you are limited to recharging spells every 11 days vs every day what will you memorize, planar binding or fireball? Now, as a DM, which caster is more annoying: the blaster or the chain genie binder?
If you can prepare spells on the moon every day, that just means that spellcasters will get a HUGE power spike at level 13 when they can teleport to the moon every evening.
In general, I don't think solving martial-caster disparity is a matter of taking caster spells away. This just forces spell-casters to take more abusive spells.
For example: if you are limited to recharging spells every 11 days vs every day what will you memorize, planar binding or fireball? Now, as a DM, which caster is more annoying: the blaster or the chain genie binder?
I was planning on having the moons be very dangerous places (and possibly the home of the BBEG). We might see an interesting role reversal where the non-casters protect the casters while they sleep then memorise spells, which is when they are most vulnerable. At any rate great power comes at great risk and the PCs will have to weigh up whether the risk versus reward works out for them.