Interesting rule...

[Treebore]

I just noticed this in Pathfinder, I don't remember seeing it in the 3E books, kind of like seeing a specific blade of straw in a huge pile of straw, but anyways...

I took note of it because I would like to give wizard/illusionists a bit of spontaneous casting ability, and this rule in Pathfinder may be the perfect way to do it, kind of.

The rule allows the caster to expend spells from memory to "charge" a use from a staff.

So I am thinking if a wizard has a couple of wands, and/or a staff, and I allow them to do this, they would eventually get a fair amount of spontaneous spell versatility, and it would be through a device, which I think fits the wizard stereotype pretty much perfectly.

Another interesting rule that I saw, but am not too sure if I want to steal, is also about staves, their charges, and recharging them, and presumably applies to rods and wands in similar fashion as well.

First off, staves are limited to 10 charges. Which is pretty harsh, but its also much easier to recharge them. You just have to cast one spell into them per day, to give back one charge. The spell has to be equal in power to the highest level spell in the staff.

There are things I like about this idea, but there are also a couple of things I do not like. The big one being is what happens if they get a staff that has spells above their level? See, I roll treasure randomly, and I often ignore the XP limit, so if your a 3rd level wizard in my games, and I randomly roll (and it will be random, I will not fudge) a Staff of the Arch Magi, you will get it.

So in this case, if I adapt this rule, they will be a while before they could recharge the staff, outside of its spell catching ability (or is that the Staff of Power?). Which can be good, because they will likely only use the Staff when they absolutely have to between now and when the staff will actually be "level appropriate".

So I have a bit of thinking to do.
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[HatterMadness]

Treebore wrote:
The rule allows the caster to expend spells from memory to "charge" a use from a staff.

Oh i like that very much. They use personal energy funneled through an already existing magic device. So a wand of fireball could suck an equal or higher level spell slot's energy directly from the caster instead of using up it's limited independent energy supply.

And it's helps make such items Special for a caster, compared to when used by a Rogue or Bard.

You could also limit that power to staffs only, or specific types of wands/staffs... like the spells that are raw power rather then finesse. Like fireball.

Overall it could encourages a caster to keep a broader range of spells instead of focusing on destructive energies. Since they could get their direct to damage spells by burning away a spell for it's energy.

[Jynx]

Maybe I don't understand... but wouldn't this make the caster UBER POWERFULL - being able to cast as many spells as his wand can hold?

Is there some kind of catch? A cost in XP or Price perhaps?

[Treebore]

HatterMadness wrote:
Overall it could encourages a caster to keep a broader range of spells instead of focusing on destructive energies. Since they could get their direct to damage spells by burning away a spell for it's energy.

Exactly. Kind of the reason why I allow Clerics to spontaneously cast healing spells, so they can pray for and have a chance to use their other spells. Something I did for many years before 3E, btw.

I used to give versatility to wizards simply by giving them a selection of wands and a staff or two. This way I won't feel so inclined to give out such a variety.

I am thinking I could also integrate SIEGE checks. Like if they want to cast a fireball from the item, and they have third level spells, or higher in memory, to charge the use, no checks. However, if the battle is going tough and they need to use first and second level spells to charge it have them make SIEGE checks to funnel those multiple spells into the charge.

Maybe also allow such checks from PC's too low a level to recharge it too. Make a SIEGE check to funnel enough of their spell energy to give that one charge per day. Fail, no recharge, and all spells used lost until the morning. or whenever they get rememorized.
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[paladin2019]

I wouldn't allow the spontaneous casting in this manner. I would/do allow re-charging, but it must be the same (or one of the spells for staves) spell the item casts.

[Treebore]

Jynx wrote:
Maybe I don't understand... but wouldn't this make the caster UBER POWERFULL - being able to cast as many spells as his wand can hold?

Is there some kind of catch? A cost in XP or Price perhaps?

??

Well, as it si they can have up to 50 charges.

So now they will have 10 at most, so the most extra spells they will cast in a given day is 9, 10 if its important enough to destroy the staff/wand/rod.

Then, since they can only recharge one spell per day, it would take them 9 days of not using it, and recharging it, to get it back up to full.

So I think it actually goes a long way to limiting things a lot more. At least me. When I have a wand I will use it in preference to my memorized spells until completely used up, unless I am of a level to recharge it. Then I recharge them whenever I can, so I have an effectively endless supply of fireballs, as many as 50 in a given day. This way I will use at most 9 extra in a given day, and will need at least 9 days for recharging before I can do that again.

Again depending on the campaign, and how much down time is possible for recharging, etc...
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[Treebore]

paladin2019 wrote:
I wouldn't allow the spontaneous casting in this manner. I would/do allow re-charging, but it must be the same (or one of the spells for staves) spell the item casts.

Well do you have a method for wizards to spontaneously cast? Or are you happy not allowing them to spontaneously cast? If your happy not allowing any kind of spontaneously casting, at least for wizards, then I agree, I wouldn't use this system either. Its just that I am open to this, since its still limited by what items they have, and its only to sacrifice memorized spells to feed the energy used from the item.
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[paladin2019]

Treebore wrote:
Well do you have a method for wizards to spontaneously cast? Or are you happy not allowing them to spontaneously cast? If your happy not allowing any kind of spontaneously casting, at least for wizards, then I agree, I wouldn't use this system either. Its just that I am open to this, since its still limited by what items they have, and its only to sacrifice memorized spells to feed the energy used from the item.

I didn't want to post it unsolicitied as I have done so on Dragonsfoot a few times; I don't want to sound like a broken record
That said, my experimental spontaneous casting rule is this: Spell casters may spontaneously cast spells after a fashion. The spells per day table obviously sets the number of spells that may be cast. It also sets the size of the list of spells that may be spontaneously cast. For example, a cleric memorizes hold person, spiritual hammer and slow poison. He can cast three holds, two hammers and a slow poison or any other combination of three spells from the list memorized.

[Treebore]

paladin2019 wrote:
I didn't want to post it unsolicitied as I have done so on Dragonsfoot a few times; I don't want to sound like a broken record
That said, my experimental spontaneous casting rule is this: Spell casters may spontaneously cast spells after a fashion. The spells per day table obviously sets the number of spells that may be cast. It also sets the size of the list of spells that may be spontaneously cast. For example, a cleric memorizes hold person, spiritual hammer and slow poison. He can cast three holds, two hammers and a slow poison or any other combination of three spells from the list memorized.

Oh, I think that sounds like a rule I have seen for years/decades. If it is what I think it is it works well enough, I even used it for a few years myself.

My main reason for considering this for wizards is because fo the 3E sorceror. This gives them a bit of that versatility without needing the sorceror class to do it.
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[serleran]

There is a reason wands and staves have rules regarding their recharges... it is not so "any spell" can be cast into it and repowered. If a wizard does not know fireball, for example, he will never recharge a wand of fireball -- its called resource management, not "infinite use.'
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[Treebore]

serleran wrote:
There is a reason wands and staves have rules regarding their recharges... it is not so "any spell" can be cast into it and repowered. If a wizard does not know fireball, for example, he will never recharge a wand of fireball -- its called resource management, not "infinite use.'

well, since i have never seen a wizard without fireball for very long, I think it still works out.
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[serleran]

My wizard does not have any attack spells, unless you consider charm person an offensive spell.

The point still remains valid, however -- there are reasons why things have to be recharged with the spell that created it:

1) time -- to recharge a wand of 50 XXXX requires you to spend the time to cast the XXXX 50 times

2) cost -- if XXXX is an expensive spell, assuming you use spell component rules, then there is 50 * those components blown to recharge

3) preparedness -- you might not be able to prepare 50 XXXXs fast enough to keep the wand reliably charged, especially if you can only have 1 / day, but end up using the wand 2-4 times / day due to encounters

4) capability -- you might not even have XXXX as a spell, or hve to go and hire someone to do it; there might also not even be a spell for some effect in the book, making it impossible to cast without researching it first

Allowing "any spell" to do it removes much, if not all, of these "restrictions."

It might be fun, and I would probably use it (and abuse it) if the DM allowed... but, I would think, seriously, about allowing it... unless I wanted the party to have "less than limited" uses of certain magic items.

Of course, I could always rule that it works, but certain things are simply non-rechargeable.
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[HatterMadness]

I'm not particularly interested in "Easy Recharge". I'm really just interested in the idea that as long as a Wand or Staff (still thinking over it is should be both) still has some charges (aka, energy) in it. You can channel your own energy directly into (An equal or greater spell level) it to cast without using up a charge itself.

Example: Wand of Fireball that still have 10 charges left. And when in a desperate situation you give up one of the 3rd level spells you memorized to fuel the Wand for a cast of Fireball (without using up one of your remaining 10 charges). Though the spell would be cast at the Wand's caster level, not your own.

And i would only accept this for specific spells (aka, not all Wands or Staffs). Such as classic Evocations. Nothing intricate or that needs specialized Materials.

[serleran]

That has its own abuses... wands and staves are typically 11th + caster level, so, say you're at 5th level and have your single 3rd level spell slot... let's see... do you "waste" it by casting fireball (as an example) at 5th level, or do you "recharge" a wand that will blow it out at 11th? Unless there is some extenuating circumstances, my guess is you'll nearly always use it to power the wand. That does, of course, assume you were going to cast the fireball anyway.

Either way has some limitations -- use it for the wand and you won't have a spell like fly (if you did) but, you're talking 1 slot max anyway, so there was not much flexibility in that to begin with.

This proposed rule makes mid-level casters far too powerful.

Oh well -- if it is fun in your game, have at it. All that matters, anyway.
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[HatterMadness]

serleran wrote:
That has its own abuses... wands and staves are typically 11th + caster level, so, say you're at 5th level and have your single 3rd level spell slot... let's see... do you "waste" it by casting fireball (as an example) at 5th level, or do you "recharge" a wand that will blow it out at 11th? Unless there is some extenuating circumstances, my guess is you'll nearly always use it to power the wand. That does, of course, assume you were going to cast the fireball anyway.

Either way has some limitations -- use it for the wand and you won't have a spell like fly (if you did) but, you're talking 1 slot max anyway, so there was not much flexibility in that to begin with.

This proposed rule makes mid-level casters far too powerful.

Oh well -- if it is fun in your game, have at it. All that matters, anyway.

I was thinking that a Device's caster level would more likely be a lower level then the character owning it... but i may be assuming too much there. Perhaps i should say that you could only cast a spell through a device at your own caster level, but the max that can be cast through the device is at It's caster level.

So if you are lower level then the device you would only be able to caster your level's worth of fireball, but if you are higher level the item itself would be limiting your fireball's power. As is the price for quick casting through an item.

Better?

[Frost]

Sort of off topic, but the 3.5 Magic Item Compendium has these neat things called runestaves. Basically, a runestaff contains a certain amount of certain spells and an arcanist can drop a spell of comparable or higher level to cast one of those spells. It sort of addresses the same issue.

So say Ser's wizard has a runestaff with fireball. His wizard can drop a prepared 3rd level spell to use the staff to cast fireball.

Here is an article on it:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ps/20070216a

Edit: to clarify, the wizard has to have the runestaff spell in his spellbook, so actually Ser's wizard couldn't cast it.
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[Treebore]

serleran wrote:
That has its own abuses... wands and staves are typically 11th + caster level, so, say you're at 5th level and have your single 3rd level spell slot... let's see... do you "waste" it by casting fireball (as an example) at 5th level, or do you "recharge" a wand that will blow it out at 11th? Unless there is some extenuating circumstances, my guess is you'll nearly always use it to power the wand. That does, of course, assume you were going to cast the fireball anyway.

Either way has some limitations -- use it for the wand and you won't have a spell like fly (if you did) but, you're talking 1 slot max anyway, so there was not much flexibility in that to begin with.

This proposed rule makes mid-level casters far too powerful.

Oh well -- if it is fun in your game, have at it. All that matters, anyway.

Good points. I think Maybe we would have to say when the PC provides the spell energy it only casts at their level when spontaneous casting is done. To recharge, hmmm...

How about this, say it is a wand of fireballs. That requires 9th level to make. So lets do it by total levels of the spell caster. So 3x9=27 total levels. So if you are below 9th level to recharge you would have to cast a total of 27 spell levels of energy into it. So it could take them days, maybe a week, to recharge even one spell, depending on how many spells they are using on a given day, adventuring or not.

This doesn't address having the right spell to recharge, but that would obviously have to be altered. Like the spell is only needed for creation and initial charging.l After the "imprinting" is done only energy is needed for recharging.

Another thing that could be done is to require a SIEGE check to change the energy of the spell into "fire" when recharging, that way it could take them even longer to recharge the item.
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[Lord Dynel]

This is pretty interesting. The only downside is I actually like the little side quests that players go on to "recharge" these items. For ease of play and to put a little more "oompf" in your casters, then it's an awesome idea, though.
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[DangerDwarf]

Lord Dynel wrote:
The only downside is I actually like the little side quests that players go on to "recharge" these items.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of allowing ease of recharge (if allowed at all). To me, it turns wands and such into fantasy firearms and takes away from the magical nature of the items.

"Oh shit sarge! My wand is almost on "E"!"

"Reload! Reload!"

[Lord Dynel]

DangerDwarf wrote:
Yeah, I'm not a fan of allowing ease of recharge (if allowed at all). To me, it turns wands and such into fantasy firearms and takes away from the magical nature of the items.

"Oh shit sarge! My wand is almost on "E"!"

"Reload! Reload!"

Hehe...amusing way of putting it, but you're correct. I could see it being that way..
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Troll Lord wrote:
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[DangerDwarf]

If playing in a more magic rich setting, I could see it working for folks. Just not to my taste for the style of games I run.

[Lord Dynel]

Agreed. My personal playstyle wouldn't be a good fit with it, either, as I (and my group) like the little nuances, like recharging magic items. I ran a very interesting (or at least I think it was) three-session arc concerning the wizard getting his magical staff recharged in my last big 3.5 game. It went pretty well, I thought. I guess I just think about the neat little scenarios I would be phasing out if I changed things.
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Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[Wulfgarn]

Mage Staff:

The Mages Staff is considered a +1 Weapon and gains an additional +1 enhancement per5 Levels. (+1 at 1st, +2 at 5th, +3 at 10th, +4 at 15th, +5 at 20th). The Staff can also store Spells and effects. For complete information on the Mages Staff see page XXXX.

A Mage spends a great deal of effort crafting this item during their apprenticeship. The item may be enchanted in addition to the base abilities already noted.

Heka Reservoir: The Mages Staff can be crafted to retain Heka. The Capacity of the staff is dependant upon how much the Mage cares to invest in it. The Maximum amount of Heka that can be stored in a Mages Staff is equal to the Mages Heka Bonus due to high Intelligence Bonus plus an amount of Heka equal to the cost of the highest level spell the Mage can cast. (Example Crystalmyst A human 9th Level Mage with an Intelligence of 18 can craft her staff to hold up to 27 Heka Points; 16 + 11. ) A Mage must spend double the Heka plus 10xp for Heka spent recharging his or her staff. For complete Details on Crafting a Mages Staff see below.

Note: Heka Use is a term equivalent to Spell Points The base cost to cast a spell is equal to the level that that spell level is attained, 1st: 1 pt 2nd 3pts 3rd 5th and so on. There is an additional cost involved with spells that ramp up in power as a character levels. For instance a 9th level Mage casting a 9HD fireball costs 9pts (5 for the base spell, plus 1 for each additional HD. Another example using the 9th level Mage casting Magic Missile would cost 4heka points.

I tend to run pretty violent and brutal games, I include such things as Dragons powder weapons and other such.

I think I may switch to a Spell slot system that allows less freedom than the above.

[Hrothgar Rannulfr]

Interesting thoughts, all.

I logged in to say that a friend and I put Diablo for PS1 into the Playstation, last week. I chose the sorcerer. The one thing that struck me as interesting was that the sorcerer had a Staff Recharge Skill.

Not sure how it worked because I got killed very quickly. But, the idea of casters being able to recharge their staves has been out there for a while.

I was thinking of potentially allowing a caster to attempt a SIEGE Check to recharge a staff. Though, I hadn't put much thought into the cost of doing so (or in the loss of potential side quests, mentioned above).

If a SIEGE Check were allowed, what would be a good idea for the cost? Should, possibly, be costly enough that casters would only do it as a last resort, I'd think.

Thoughts?
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[Treebore]

Hrothgar Rannulfr wrote:
Interesting thoughts, all.

I logged in to say that a friend and I put Diablo for PS1 into the Playstation, last week. I chose the sorcerer. The one thing that struck me as interesting was that the sorcerer had a Staff Recharge Skill.

Not sure how it worked because I got killed very quickly. But, the idea of casters being able to recharge their staves has been out there for a while.

I was thinking of potentially allowing a caster to attempt a SIEGE Check to recharge a staff. Though, I hadn't put much thought into the cost of doing so (or in the loss of potential side quests, mentioned above).

If a SIEGE Check were allowed, what would be a good idea for the cost? Should, possibly, be costly enough that casters would only do it as a last resort, I'd think.

Thoughts?

Well, we have lots of room to decide on just how to do this. I would say a good base cost would be 100 gp for a recharge.

As for "side quests", I doubt you would have them do these every single time they need to do so, but even if you do, requiring rare and hard to obtain components allows you to keep side quests and also allows for more control of how often recharging occurs.

Recharging staves have been around since at least first edition D&D, the only difference with what has been proposed in this thread is how much faster it may be done, and the ability to use your own spells to pay the fee for the charges is kind of new.

To adapt these rules to C&C I think it would definitely require incorporating a SIEGE check into it some how. I would probably go with a base CL of 3 + the level of the spell, so a Fireball would be a CL 6, so TN 18 for each recharge attempted.

You may also want to make a minimum level required. You have to be level 9 wizard to start making permanent items and rods/wands/staves, etc..., so maybe level 6 is needed to start being able to recharge. Kind of assuming recharging teaches them the basics leading up to the making of such items.
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