The Vancian magic system in D&D never made sense to me, either. It was never very flexible and the fixed number of spells you prepared for a given day may never need to be used, whereas you might need to use one you don’t have prepared. Ambushed by a creature vulnerable to electricity but not fire and cold, yet you didn’t have any electricity-based spells in a slot? Need to communicate with someone who speaks a language nobody in the party understands but don’t have a Tongues spell in a slot? You’re just SOL in either case. You might never know what the DM has in store, so it’s a guessing game as to which spells you might need in a given day. Maybe some players like it that way because it’s tradition or because they like the added layer of having to improvise if the DM throws your party a curve ball, but I personally don’t like how overly restrictive it is. D&D’s spell slot system was clearly designed to limit the power of magic users, presumably with the expectation that a wizard or cleric or whatever would likely use maybe one or two of a given spell per day of in-game time.
Mana or magic points like the ones used in video games just seem like a more flexible and intuitive system. In old-school Final Fantasy, you could use any spell at any time, but the more powerful the spell the more MP it would consume (and at higher levels you typically used appropriately high-level spells like Firaga, Curaja, Flare, etc.).
However, a mana system has issues of its own. At high levels this means players could potentially spam a ton of low-level spells, which is especially problematic for spells that get a damage boost from casting at higher levels as it presents a problem of proportionality. While it may seem intuitive for a 9th-level spell to cost nine times as many MP to cast than a 1st-level spell and three times as many MP to cast than a 3rd-level spell, spell power doesn’t scale proportionally with spell level. For example, casting Fireball (one of the first huge damage-dealers a wizard can learn, along with Lightning Bolt) at its base 3rd-level power deals 8d6 damage, while casting it at 9th level bumps it up to 14d6, a 75% increase. To maintain proportionality, the 9th-level Fireball should expend no more than 75% more MP to cast than a 3rd-level one, otherwise it’d be more efficient to just spam 3rd-level Fireballs. If a 9th-level Fireball costs, say, 9 MP to cast to deal 14d6 damage, then you’d be better off expending that 9 MP on three 3rd-level Fireballs for 24d6 damage total, especially if you’re limited to only one 9th-level spell per day. Granted, power scaling is already a problem in D&D as is, but if we’re going to use a different magic system those balancing issues still need to be addressed.
One way to balance things is to greatly reduce the amount of MP at the player’s disposal relative to the MP cost of spells. Let’s say we give a wizard 20 MP at Level 1 and 10 MP for each additional level, maxing at 210 MP at Level 20. A spell’s MP cost is it’s spell level times ten. With these numbers, then those lower-level spells become more valuable. The player still has the flexibility of a pool of magic points, but not the capability to spam spells willy-nilly. Sure, a 20th-level wizard could use their daily MP allotment of seven 3rd-level Fireballs, but it wouldn’t leave them with anything else.
This doesn’t get rid of the issue of power scaling for spells with upgradable damage output, though, so instead of (or in addition to) the above perhaps one of the following solutions could be implemented:
1) Casting a low-level spell at a higher level doesn’t amplify its MP cost to that of an actual higher-level spell. Since a 9th-level Fireball does 75% more damage than 3rd-level one, then it would not cost three times as much MP to cast. Instead, each additional hit die would cost only 5 additional MP if we go by the “MP total = (Level × 10) + 10, Spell MP cost = Spell level × 10” formula above. This means a player would only expend 60 MP casting a 9th-level Fireball with 14d6 damage, vs. spending 70 MP on a Delayed Blast Fireball that only does 12d6 damage. It could very well be argued that this is unbalanced (though then again DBF does allow for more tactical depth than the regular Fireball). Plus it’s still more efficient to just use the spell at a lower level, as they could expend 60 MP firing off two 3rd-level Fireballs for a total of 16d6 damage.
For other spells, the additional MP expenditure would have to be appropriate for the spell. For example, casting Magic Missile at 1st-level fires off three missiles for a cost of 10 MP, so perhaps each additional shot would require an additional expenditure of 3 MP. Meanwhile, a Cone of Cold’s base MP expenditure would be 50 MP for 8d8 damage, plus 6 MP per each additional d8. The math doesn’t always work out perfectly, but it’s close enough to provide some degree of proportionality.
2) Tweak base damages and ensure rough proportionality between a spell’s base damage and its damage at higher levels. If a 9th-level Fireball costs three times as much MP to cast (and esp. if it’s limited to one per day), then it should do at minimum three times as much damage. Of course, as I mentioned earlier 3rd level offensive spells are already more powerful at their base damage than they used to be. Fireball and Lightning Bolt used to start off 5d6 if and when learned at Level 5 and they scaled up to 10d6 (1d6 per caster level maxing out at Level 10 and becoming available at Level 5), but now they start off at 8d6 and scale up to 14d6. Maybe a nerf to the base damage of some spells is in order. For example, if we retain the “MP cost = Spell level × 10” formula, then Fireball and Lightning Bolt would have a base damage of 6d6, gaining an additional 2d6 per spell level, and would be capped at 12d6. So, the damage scale would look like this:
3rd level: 6d6 (21 avg.)
4th level: 8d6 (28 avg.)
5th level: 10d6 (35 avg.)
6th level: 12d6 (42 avg.)
If we instead combined this nerf with the proposal in #1, then Fireball & Lightning Bolt would essentially cost 5 MP per hit die, starting off with a base damage of 6d6 for a cost of 30 MP and working up to a max of 12d6 for a cost of 60 MP.
If we placed additional limits on the number of higher-level spells a player can use, then the curve needs to be enhanced to favor higher-level versions of the spell. For example, if we’re limited to casting only two 6th-level spells per day regardless of remaining MP, then casting Fireball at level 6 needs to be worth it if it can only be cast twice per day, perhaps by bumping it from a d6 to a d10. Or the daily cap on high-level spells could be either be tweaked (ex.: three 6th-level spells, two 7th-level spells, and only one each for 8th- or 9th-level spells), or just have it to where low-level spells cast at 6th level or higher don’t count against your daily allotment of actual 6th+ level spells, though it would come at an equivalent MP cost.
3) Give the player the option to permanently upgrade a lower-level spell. For example, if the have their wizard learn Fireball when they reach Level 5, once they get to Level 9 they could have the option to upgrade the spell from a 3rd-level spell to a 5th-level spell. But such a process would be irreversible. They’d have to choose between being able to fire off multiple weaker shots or a couple of powerful shots.
4) Do away with the ability to enhance certain spells by casting them at a higher level. Fireball and Lightning Bolt are already much more powerful in 5e than in previous editions anyway. A wizard will still get the chance to learn Chain Lightning (10d8 dmg.) and Delayed Blast Fireball (12d6 dmg.) when they reach Levels 11 & 13, respectively.
5) Go back to the system from previous editions where a spell with variable power is dependent on the caster’s level rather than the casting level. Fireball and Lightning Bolt inflicted 1d6 per caster level, maxing out at 10d6. Of course, the main drawback of this one is that lower-level spells would often be more cost-effective than higher-level ones unless they scale properly with player level, and that would be very difficult to do properly.
6) Place a cap on the number of times a specific spell can be used. For example, 1st through 3rd level spells can be used up to 3 times per day at most, 4th to 6th level spells two times per day, and 7th to 9th level spells only once per day. So, while a 20th-level wizard would have enough MP to cast up to seven 3rd-level spells in a day, he could only cast Fireball three times. Casting a lower-level spell at higher levels eats into that spell’s number of uses. For example, using Fireball or Lightning Bolt as 4th, 5th, or 6th level means you’d burn through the equivalent of two uses of the spell, leaving you with the ability to cast only one more at 3rd level, while if you cast it at 7th-level or higher that essentially makes it the only time you can use it.
7) Instead of either a single large pool mana points or traditional spell slots, we have a compromise system where those numbers in the spell slot charts in the Player’s Handbook simply represent the number of times a spell of a given level can be cast in a day. A wizard or cleric could cast any spell they know at any time without having to prepare them for the day like in the core rules, but only as many times as they have spell slots. For example, any Wizard above level 5 normally has three spell slots for 3rd-level spells. Instead of having to prep three 3rd-level spells at the start of the day not knowing what lies ahead, they could instead cast up to three 3rd-level spells that they know at any time during the day.
So, what do you think of my proposals? Sorry it went on a little long, but an intricate system like magic needed a bit more detail than a few sentences.
LikeLike
