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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2015 5:15:00 GMT -5
For those of you who use the normal spell limits in your games, do you interpret the maximum spells per day to be spells memorized or spells cast? Meaning, if someone memorizes a spell but hasn't cast it yet, can he scrap it and memorize another one, or is he stuck with it until he rests again?
The two methods I've heard quite a bit of are at the extremes: 1) strictly traditional, once a characters memorizes a spell it's stuck for the day; or 2) characters cast whatever they want, up to their daily spell level limits (coincidentally, that's the magic system that was used in Wizardry and the very first Final Fantasy video game).
What I haven't really ever heard about is requiring characters to memorize individual spells, but allowing them to re-memorize if they haven't actually cast it yet. It seems like a workable compromise to me. Any thoughts?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 18, 2015 6:46:58 GMT -5
A bit off topic perhaps, but FWIW, the notion of spells memorized "per day" is not explicit in the 3LBBs.
The numbers of spells which can be memorised are said to be per adventure:
The difference can be significant when it comes to the wilderness game where each player turn is a day in duration. It could be problematic if a M-U or cleric were allowed to unload his entire spell repertoire each turn in the wilderness!
U&WA also notes (p35-36) that, in terms of campaign time, a dungeon delve is assumed to take a week considering preparations, getting there, the delve itself (which is assumed to take one day), and getting back again.
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Post by finarvyn on Jun 18, 2015 7:17:12 GMT -5
Nice catch, Ways! I don't recall the "per adventure" phrase sticking in my brain but it does make more sense than "per day" in wilderness campaigning.
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Post by tetramorph on Jun 18, 2015 7:38:53 GMT -5
I do this differently depending upon the "feel" of the game I am running.
For one-offs, I keep it simple and let them pick on he fly up to their limit.
In Dun Kells, they must declare what they have prepared per day, but they may re-prep each night. They may cast anything from their book, but it takes 1 exploration turn per spell lvl and Magic draws monsters so I am checking for random encounters each turn. I like this because players then actually use the discovery and exploration support spells more often and they feel the risk in doing so.
I know, off the chain, right?
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Post by hedgehobbit on Jun 18, 2015 10:37:29 GMT -5
When I'm using traditional D&D magic, it stick to the regular system. You write down what spells you have memorized and then cross them off as you cast them. Easy peasy. If you start talking about using spells per day as a separate stat from the spells you've momorized, that's complicated enough that you might as well just switch to a spell point system (are you listening 5e!) since that works better anyway.
I seem to recall Holmes also implying that it takes an entire week to ready up your spells. So it becomes spells per session. This solves the wilderness problem as well as the 5 minute work day.
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Post by ffilz on Jun 18, 2015 16:03:30 GMT -5
Hmm, I think I would allow changing out spell slots that had not been cast. It should take a while though...
I see the "per adventure" but I feel like that would make wilderness travel even more dangerous, so I'm willing to have mages have a lot of firepower during wilderness. However, since I do at LEAST night and day encounter chances, there's always the chance of another encounter before you get to re-memorize for the next day (well, unless your night-time encounter is late enough).
If we go all hog-wild on rules changes, my favorite system is the one my college friend developed for his game. Spell casters have a number of memorization points depending on level (where a 1st level spell takes 1 point, a 2nd level spell takes 2 points, etc.) and a number of magic points for casting. Spells have specified magic point costs for casting, plus many spells have costs to maintain them. The magic points are regained basically like bank interest on your remaining points (with it taking an hour or something like that to go from 0 to 1). You can use the "interest" to maintain spells or regain magic points.
I simplified this idea for one of my own systems where maintainable spells had a number of points you had to reserve to maintain the spell. You could also reserve points to regain points, with different rates for active, rest, sleep. Provided the same general idea with less math.
Of course that whole system was unsuited to D&D style dungeon adventuring. The need for significant rest after an encounter was almost guaranteed.
Frank
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Post by tetramorph on Jun 18, 2015 17:47:46 GMT -5
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 18, 2015 20:25:39 GMT -5
I guess it then becomes a case of what it takes to memorise a spell.
Should the M-U require a full day of peaceful study in a library full of spell books and scrolls? Or should the M-U just need to make a decision about it while the party are taking a ten-minute rest between rooms during a dungeon delve?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2015 5:22:51 GMT -5
So far I've leaned toward an AD&D style of spell use, but I'm now thinking of changing that for OD&D. I like the idea of having spells take longer than a single day to memorize, say a week, and I'm also on the fence about having all available spell slots available after a full week of study, or continue with an AD&D style of 'x time per spell memorized' rule. Once has the advantage of ease, the other the advantage of nuance.
One of the things I like about the '15 minutes per spell level' rule in AD&D is that the more powerful magic-users eventually have to start prioritizing their own spells. By the time a level 9 sorcerer has filled up all of his spell slots, he's already burned up 8 hours of the day (and he can be interrupted with encounters, depending on where he is). The upside I've noticed is that magic-users become a bit like Star Trek engineers, always feeling the pressure of not having enough time to get the party what it needs; the downside is that the players very quickly decide which spells give them the most mileage and just stick to those.
By simply making a rule that it takes x time to prepare all of your spells, I'm thinking it might encourage more diversity in spell use. If there needs to be a rationale, it can be assumed that not only do higher level magic-users have the capacity to perform higher level spells, but they also get used to memorizing them more quickly, thus more spells in the same amount of time.
If I do take that road, I think I will also freely allow characters to swap out one spell for another. This would also be at a slower rate, say half a day per spell level, twice that if they only have access to their travel books.
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Post by ffilz on Jun 19, 2015 10:59:34 GMT -5
There are some differences. The memorization system only covers the total number of spell levels (and the maximum level). It doesn't place any requirements on the number of spells memorized. There's also a couple other nuances in the system. One is that spell levels are finer grained such that the maximum spell level equals caster level. Another is that many (most) spells have improved versions at higher level, memorizing the higher level spell automatically means all lower level versions are memorized. Then on top of all of that, the casting system is quite different. Casting time depends on caster level and spell level. Casters get a number of casting segments equal to their level during the course of two melee rounds (thus casting a max level spell takes two rounds), casters may cast continuously. There is also a spell casting success roll, plus a potential saving roll. The success roll is easier with lower level spells, while the saving roll is harder against lower level spells (and there's even more to all of that...). The result is an incentive to cast lots of lower level spells and only cast the highest level spells when their specific effect is needed. The spell system creates lots of spell casting tactics. Unfortunately overall, the system plays relatively slowly, and has a complexity that seems to escape folks who aren't engineering college students who can burn 8+ hours on a game session (we once had a single combat take more than 8 hours...). I tried running the system a few times recently and it just didn't fly with my players... Frank
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Post by ffilz on Jun 19, 2015 11:10:37 GMT -5
Hmm, I'd also like to share Arcana Unearthed/Evolved's system:
Each caster gets a spell memorization matrix and a separate casting matrix. Usually you can memorize more spells than you can cast. You can spend three casting slots of a level to cast one spell of the next higher level, or spend one higher level slot to cast two spells of the next lower level. When combining to cast a higher level spell, you can continue to combine up the spell tree (so you could burn 3 level 1 slots and 2 level 2 slots to cast a level 3 spell). The reverse is not true (you can't use a 3rd level slot to cast 4 1st level spells).
There are also ways to up-power a spell by using two casting slots.
This system was pretty interesting, though I did find some frustrations with the system. For example, many of the energy spells allowed choosing the form at casting time (and had all energy forms available). This rendered monster's resistances almost irrelevant, and made vulnerabilities even more so. AD&D is relatively sparse on energy spells, especially other than fire so it makes having the right spell to catch a monster's vulnerability more difficult, taking either luck, or planning.
Frank
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Post by The Red Baron on Jun 19, 2015 11:46:41 GMT -5
allowing them to re-memorize if they haven't actually cast it yet One a spell is in your brain, there's only one way of getting it back out.
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Post by The Red Baron on Jun 19, 2015 11:49:27 GMT -5
spells take longer than a single day to memorize, say a week Turjan and Mazirian impress four and six spells respectively over the course of a single night.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2015 5:03:21 GMT -5
spells take longer than a single day to memorize, say a week Turjan and Mazirian impress four and six spells respectively over the course of a single night. That was exactly my first thought, too! In 'Mazirian the Magician' it's specifically stated that he could retain four strong spells in his mind at once, or six weak ones, while an untrained person would likely go mad if they attempted to remember two spells. And, from midnight to morning, he was able to put five spells into his brain and still get some relaxation in before heading out to hunt the girl. From this I gathered two things: 1) in AD&D, memorization times are fairly comparable to the Dying Earth stories, and 2) in OD&D terms, Mazirian was something around the Magician/level 6 area of experience, give or take a level (i.e., magic-users in OD&D are capable of becoming way more powerful than the characters in the Dying Earth stories, in part because spells are much easier to learn/use). I like the idea of sticking close to Vance in terms of the relative power levels of magic, but to help rein things in that direction I'd either have to reduce magic-users' spell slots, or make spell retention take longer. I'm leaning toward the second option, since I also enjoy the passage where Cugel the Clever—who's had experience with small spells before but probably not quite enough to make him a first-level magic-user—takes a month or two to try and memorize Iucounu's summoning spell (and botches it up anyway).
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Post by finarvyn on Jun 20, 2015 6:53:13 GMT -5
I see the "per adventure" but I feel like that would make wilderness travel even more dangerous, so I'm willing to have mages have a lot of firepower during wilderness. However, since I do at LEAST night and day encounter chances, there's always the chance of another encounter before you get to re-memorize for the next day (well, unless your night-time encounter is late enough). I think it may also come down to the way the adventure is set up. I was running a 5E adventure where the characters had to travel for days and even with an extra random encounter or so each day it seemed like they were always at full strength.(Of course, 5E also allows for short rests where some classes can regain everything, except that the wizard gets shafted.)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2015 10:22:26 GMT -5
I see the "per adventure" but I feel like that would make wilderness travel even more dangerous, so I'm willing to have mages have a lot of firepower during wilderness. However, since I do at LEAST night and day encounter chances, there's always the chance of another encounter before you get to re-memorize for the next day (well, unless your night-time encounter is late enough). I think it may also come down to the way the adventure is set up. I was running a 5E adventure where the characters had to travel for days and even with an extra random encounter or so each day it seemed like they were always at full strength.(Of course, 5E also allows for short rests where some classes can regain everything, except that the wizard gets shafted.) This is true. In an OD&D game that focuses almost exclusively on a single castle dungeon (which is how mine is currently, at least to start), it doesn't really matter whether it takes a day or a week to prepare spells, since the party will typically be resting for several days between every venture, mostly for catching up on lost hit points. In my AD&D games, which almost invariably have focused on wilderness travel, the party can run into quite a few encounters, any number of which can be quite big. Even with the magic-users burning through their magic every day, they never become overpowered, in part I think because the guaranteed rest time for the whole party isn't there.
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Post by merctime on Jun 20, 2015 11:27:00 GMT -5
Excellent discussion! I exalt thee, sir Starbeard! Never really thought out of the box on this one myself. I always interpreted this as spells per day, but that's probably due to my AD&D goggles. I do admit to how thought-provoking this all is. I think my sweet spot would be a simple method, close to by the book, that made sense at the dungeon and wilderness scales. So I'm not sure, really. I'd probably stick with the per-day scheme; But maybe call a 'day' a 12 hour period to allow for two turns in the day (one night, one day). Like RedBaron suggests above, I roll with memorize every spell up front and that's what you've got at your disposal throughout that day period. If you need something else, hope you made a scroll. The only time I'd allow memory dump and re-memorization would be at the beginning of the following period. Boringly common, I know
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Post by bestialwarlust on Jun 20, 2015 12:04:31 GMT -5
I use memorization and the way I usually handle it, of course my way is the only right way everyone here is wrong blah blah blah <insert appropriate flame war here> A wizard doesn't lose any spells memorized after a nights rest if they haven't been cast the following day they can carefully dissipate the spell stored and release the energy back to the dimension it comes from. This is done through a serious of mental exercises that the magic user would've learned as part of his training. Once this is done the magic user can then impress a new spell into his/her mind. As for memorization times I'm not too strict on time keep or resource management usually ( blasphemy I know!) and spells that are straightforward category (levels 1-2) take 20 minutes while spells that are Complex (levels 3-6) take one hour. Keep in mind that magic users in my game can memorize spells of any level but they can only memorize one spell per level. So yes that first level magic user can memorize a fireball if he has it, but it will only do 1d6 damage. So a 5th level magic user that memorizes only spells of level 3-6 would have five spells memorized and would have taken 5 hours total. while the same magic user that memorized 2 first level 2 second level and maybe a level 4 or 5 spell would have spent 3 hours and 20 minutes.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2015 8:38:32 GMT -5
Excellent discussion! I exalt thee, sir Starbeard! Never really thought out of the box on this one myself. I always interpreted this as spells per day, but that's probably due to my AD&D goggles. I do admit to how thought-provoking this all is. I think my sweet spot would be a simple method, close to by the book, that made sense at the dungeon and wilderness scales. So I'm not sure, really. I'd probably stick with the per-day scheme; But maybe call a 'day' a 12 hour period to allow for two turns in the day (one night, one day). Like RedBaron suggests above, I roll with memorize every spell up front and that's what you've got at your disposal throughout that day period. If you need something else, hope you made a scroll. The only time I'd allow memory dump and re-memorization would be at the beginning of the following period. Boringly common, I know Nothing boring about that, that's how I've played since I started! I'll even stick with it for AD&D (if I ever get around to running that again). For what it's worth, this discussion has led me to consider testing the following as a house rule for memorizing, holding, and re-memorizing spells in OD&D. I've no idea how it will play out as magic-users gain levels, but there you go: 1. Memorizing spells- Procedure: A magic-user can memorize up to his maximum number of spells within any given spell level in one full workday (e.g., a thaumaturgist can memorize four 1st-level, two 2nd-level or one 3rd-level spell in one full day of study). If the magic-user does not have full access to a magician's study/workshop, then it takes much longer: one 8-hour workday per spell level being memorized (per spell—e.g., two 2nd-level spells would take four days).
- Rationale: The actual act of imprinting the specific spell to memory doesn't take very long, but requires an intensive amount of generalized preparatory work: consulting astrological tables, cross-indexing rituals and alchemical procedures scattered across many books, spend long periods in meditation to empty the mind, etc.
2. Casting and holding spells
- Procedure: All spells can be held indefinitely, but to do so requires an hour's worth of study each day. If the magic-user skips a day, he must make a saving throw vs spells for each spell, with failure indicating that the spell is lost (the referee may allow a chance that the spell is cast accidentally as it leaves the memory). Once a spell has been cast (or otherwise lost in some way), the procedure to memorizing a new spell must be performed anew.
3. Re-memorizing spells
- Procedure: If an uncast spell is still in the magic-user's memory, it can be replaced by another spell. The magic-user first spends a number of hours in study equal to the new spell's level, then a saving throw vs spells is made with the following modifiers: -1 per spell level if the magic-user does not have full access to a study, and -1 per spell level if the new spell's level is equal to or higher than the one being replaced (e.g., if a level 1 spell were being replaced with a level 3 spell while out adventuring, the saving throw would be at -6). A successful throw means that the spells have been swapped; failure means both are lost (again, the referee may allow a chance that one or both also misfire).
- Rationale: Because the general preparatory work has already been performed, the new spell takes much less time to memorize.
The long times being taken won't change play much at first, since the campaign is structured around the dungeons below a single castle area: once they burn up spells, the characters leave and come back next week anyway. If/when wilderness adventuring starts, however, all magic-users will become noticeably more fragile, since they may not have access to their home studies for days or weeks at a time.
The other thing I'm hoping this will encourage is allowing players the freedom of trying out uses for spells they wouldn't normally keep in stock, since if they really wanted to know if that thing over in the corner was magical, they could sit around for an hour or two while the magic-user swaps in the appropriate spell.
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Post by bestialwarlust on Jun 21, 2015 10:37:14 GMT -5
So here's a question. How does everyone handle memorized spells when a magic user is knocked unconscious? Do you have the memorized spells lost? and if so do you also do the same after the magic user has slept for the night?
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Post by tetramorph on Jun 21, 2015 15:00:28 GMT -5
bestialwarlust, I ask the MUs everyday to tell me what spell/s they prepared the previous night of rest and that is what they are stuck with that day. So, I suppose that means I do it per day, not per "adventure." Sounds like that is a 1e-ism on my part. I just learned how to play 0e from my Planet Eris guys, so I follow their precedent. I am learning it is a pretty heavily 1e influenced interp of 0e. If they were knocked unconscious, hmm. I don't know. I haven't had to deal with this. I probably wouldn't have thought about it and, once they regained consciousness, I would probably just roll with whatever they had listed as their spells for the day. Sorry to say!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2015 5:26:48 GMT -5
bestialwarlust, I've only dealt with it in AD&D, where I follow the DMG's suggested minimum periods of rest to recover lost spells (p. 40, basically 4-12 hours of rest depending on spell level). The way I've always played is that the rest period will also wipe yesterday's spells from the character's memory, so being unconscious for an appropriate amount of time will do the same. I don't think it ever really says anywhere in the PHB or DMG that an unused spell is lost if you go to sleep, but that's how I learned it, and it seems to be inferred by a number of AD&Ders—which is where the odd paradox of high-level spell casters being physically incapable of memorizing their full allotment of spells comes in. I'm sure there are plenty more who take the DMG's silence to mean that a spell, once memorized, will stay forever until cast, allowing a full load of spells after a few days of steady memorization. Since for OD&D I'm already trying to move away from the AD&D daily acquisition format, I think I'll keep it so that sleep and being knocked unconscious do not delete your spells in any way, and see if that needs tweaking after a few rounds of play.
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Post by finarvyn on Jun 22, 2015 10:20:47 GMT -5
What's funny to me is that OD&D never tried to cover most of these situations. It was wide open and loose. It's only when you try to look at OD&D through the lens of AD&D (which wanted to codify everything) or newer RPGs (which actually do codify everything) that this becomes an issue.
In the 1970's, our group didn't bother worrying much about getting all of the specific details "right" but focused on play. We assumed that you got spells back each adventure, or each day, or whatever seemed to fit the situation. If you were in a dungeon it was simply assumed that you got a set number of spells until you reached a safe place to recover, whether it be holing up in a safe room in the dungeon or getting out and resting in a hotel in town. We weren't so picky about how many days passed and not so picky about when you got spells back. The DM pretty much just decided when it seemed appropriate.
By contrast, I know I have a magic item in my 5E game (wand of magic missiles) that regains some of its expended charges at sunrise each day so now suddenly time becomes important in ways that it never had been before. It's not a question of "can we rest?" but "can we attack just before dawn so that I can reload after the battle."
As to the knocked unconscious issue, we never nit-picked that kind of thing. You could cast spells and so you knew them even if you were out of action for a while. Magic-users are somewhat limited in what cool stuff they can do, particularly at low levels, and we hated to take those talents away. After all, if a Fighting Man was knocked out, he would be able to wake up, pick up his sword, and fight again right away.
Anyhow, just how we did it….
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 28, 2015 1:36:46 GMT -5
I like the idea of sticking close to Vance in terms of the relative power levels of magic, but to help rein things in that direction I'd either have to reduce magic-users' spell slots, or make spell retention take longer. Or... you might possibly consider only a handful of the 1st-2nd level spells as "counting" toward the Vancian spell count. The others being mostly minor cantrips. Another option, if you like the idea of botches, might be to consider CM's optional spell failure table?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2015 2:30:34 GMT -5
I like the idea of sticking close to Vance in terms of the relative power levels of magic, but to help rein things in that direction I'd either have to reduce magic-users' spell slots, or make spell retention take longer. Or... you might possibly consider only a handful of the 1st-2nd level spells as "counting" toward the Vancian spell count. The others being mostly minor cantrips. Another option, if you like the idea of botches, might be to consider CM's optional spell failure table? That's not a bad idea, actually. The CM table is also a great idea, I might use it. I've also recently picked up the first edition of Warhammer (back when it was both a miniatures wargame and an RPG), which has a good, but quite chaotic fumble table if the spell isn't successfully cast:
- 1-2: The spell affects the wrong person (1-3: the wizard himself; 4-5: an ally or friend; 6: some other foe)
- 3: The spell has the opposite effect to that intended (creativity obviously required here)
- 4: The wizard has cast some random different spell (1-2: lower level; 3-4: same; 5-6: higher)
- 5-6: The spell has no effect at all
The roll to successfully cast is modified (negatively) by taking damage, wearing armour, or attempting to cast a spell of higher mastery level. I'm thinking something similar would be nice here, thinking of how Cugel was able to at least attempt casting a spell whose level of mastery was far too high for him. Still, having one out of every six miscast spells hitting the magic-user himself seems a bit much for me. I'm considering using the CM tables to cast (with a penalty for casting unlearned spell levels), and treat the WH fumble table as a result for critical failures.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 29, 2015 7:09:04 GMT -5
My favorite "unloved" rule regarding spell memorisation is that carrying a memorised spell about can be a liability until it's out. E.g., CM says that a M-U who carries a fireball spell about is more vulnerable to fire: (CM p36) (FWIW--"add two to their dice score" refers, presumably, to a 2d6 roll on the Fantasy Combat Table to kill. CM-kills map to D&D-hits (U&WA p25), so +2 on 2d6 maps approximately to +4 on 1d20, and +4 "to hit" on 1d20 maps approximately to +2 to damage on 1-6 (in terms of average damage caused per round). If you believe any of that, then the CM-fire-elemental's advantage vs balrogs, dragons, and wizards who cast fireballs would map to approximately a +2 damage for D&D-fire-elementals vs balrogs, dragons, and wizards who cast fireballs). The same principle could easily be extended to other spells, or perhaps just to the M-U's highest level spells. Thus, a Medium or Seer who memorised a sleep spell, for example, might be constantly on the verge of nodding off himself... fun
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Post by Von on Jul 6, 2015 3:53:26 GMT -5
A bit off topic perhaps, but FWIW, the notion of spells memorized "per day" is not explicit in the 3LBBs. The numbers of spells which can be memorised are said to be per adventure: The difference can be significant when it comes to the wilderness game where each player turn is a day in duration. It could be problematic if a M-U or cleric were allowed to unload his entire spell repertoire each turn in the wilderness! U&WA also notes (p35-36) that, in terms of campaign time, a dungeon delve is assumed to take a week considering preparations, getting there, the delve itself (which is assumed to take one day), and getting back again. I can't remember if I posted it here or not, but the 'per adventure' thing has always been a more comfortable fit for me, once you adjust your expectations of what an 'adventure' is. First level characters, to my mind, have 'encounters', which resolve in a few hours of imaginary time: if they are involved in a dungeon expedition it is as someone else's hirelings, with a defined job to do: "go through the cracked wall on the first level, explore the caves immediately beyond, protect our pit prop team while they make the entrance safe, then fall back." They are far more likely to have urban adventures; break into a house, explore a graveyard, impersonate the Countess and foil the assassin, etc. Stuff that's over in one night. Longer haul affairs are the province of more seasoned veterans. Players seem to have taken to napping on adventures in response to the "re-used in the same day" rule, although in context it seems pretty clear that if you have memorised three Fireballs you had better hope your 'adventure', whatever that is, lasts three days at least...
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Post by aldarron on Dec 12, 2015 8:28:01 GMT -5
The difference can be significant when it comes to the wilderness game where each player turn is a day in duration. It could be problematic if a M-U or cleric were allowed to unload his entire spell repertoire each turn in the wilderness! U&WA also notes (p35-36) that, in terms of campaign time, a dungeon delve is assumed to take a week considering preparations, getting there, the delve itself (which is assumed to take one day), and getting back again. I think that is the reason that Holmes added the rule that you couldn't take spell books with you on an adventure (because they were too big). In a dragon mag he said he preferred to let the mu's have their spellbooks with them, so I think he made up the "books to big" rule as a way of explaining the spell used per adventure rule. As to memorization time, In practice, I think most people just handwave it anyway. "It's morning, you get your spells back". There's nothing in the 3lbb's that suggests it should take up hours either and I don't think it's fun doing all that extra math, so I personally don't require anything more than the minute or so it takes to carefully read the spell. As I see it, spells are things, almost sentient in some way, and carefully reading from a spell book (a magical device in and of itself) causes the spell to inhabit the mind of the MU. It's not "memorization" IMC at all.
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 4, 2016 12:51:46 GMT -5
Turjan and Mazirian impress four and six spells respectively over the course of a single night. That was exactly my first thought, too! In 'Mazirian the Magician' it's specifically stated that he could retain four strong spells in his mind at once, or six weak ones, while an untrained person would likely go mad if they attempted to remember two spells. And, from midnight to morning, he was able to put five spells into his brain and still get some relaxation in before heading out to hunt the girl. From this I gathered two things: 1) in AD&D, memorization times are fairly comparable to the Dying Earth stories, and 2) in OD&D terms, Mazirian was something around the Magician/level 6 area of experience, give or take a level (i.e., magic-users in OD&D are capable of becoming way more powerful than the characters in the Dying Earth stories, in part because spells are much easier to learn/use). I like the idea of sticking close to Vance in terms of the relative power levels of magic, but to help rein things in that direction I'd either have to reduce magic-users' spell slots, or make spell retention take longer. I'm leaning toward the second option, since I also enjoy the passage where Cugel the Clever—who's had experience with small spells before but probably not quite enough to make him a first-level magic-user—takes a month or two to try and memorize Iucounu's summoning spell (and botches it up anyway). At very least, players should have to be in town, or in a player-owned castle to memorize spells. From experience, memorization in the wilderness or dungeon makes things far too easy for high level magic-users since they have no incentive not to unload their whole arsenal at every opportunity. A longer memorization time is also appealing, because it forces the players to use up valuable time and money in town if they want more spells. One week for all spells feels about right, but I've never tested that out in play.
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Post by Vile Traveller on Jan 5, 2016 0:04:19 GMT -5
I use my optional BLUEHOLME™ rules: most spell casters have some means of refresshing spells that have already been cast in the field, but they cannot memorise new ones. For example, magic-users can use scrolls as a sort of "travelling magic book" to memorise spells without using them up. However, this only works on spells already memorised properly back home using the caster's giant, untransportable magic books (or whatever means the particular caster has - druids, for instance, although they have no magic books, need to meditate at specified holy sites in the Wilderness.
For example: Cedric Catweazle has gone on an adventure with two 1st level spells in his head, sleep and charm person, and a scroll of sleep and read magic. On the first day, he casts sleep. Next morning, after resting, he can re-memorise the spell from his scroll.
The second day in the dungeon is a bit tougher, so he casts both sleep and charm person. On the following morning, he can prepare two uses of sleep, but not charm person (because he doesn't have that scroll), nor read magic (because he didn't memorise that spell back in his study.
Combined with Holmes's generous scroll creation rules this makes longer Underworld expeditions practical for magic-users.
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