Experience costs in an XP-less game

[Ebiris]

Okay, so as I mentioned in chat today, a system based on craft points (as seen with the Artificer in Eberron) could work as a substitute for XP costs. This ensures that such spells (and item crafting for that matter) drain a finite resource, without just having them cost more gold, which cuts into an entirely seperate finite resource and screws wealth balance. Real XP costs aren't a huge burden anyway, since if you lose enough to fall behind your party then you're assured of getting a 10% kicker on XP gains until you catch up, so it doesn't make sense for us to use something overly punitive.

What I suggest is that you get an amount of spell/craft points every level equal to the amount of XP that would ordinarily be required to attain that level divided by twenty, as follows:

01: 0 (yes, this breaks down a tad, but who cares about level 1?)
02: 50
03: 150
04: 300
05: 500
06: 750
07: 1,050
08: 1,400
09: 1,800
10: 2,250
11: 2,750
12: 3,300
13: 3,900
14: 4,550
15: 5,250
16: 6,000
17: 6,800
18: 7,650
19: 8,550
20: 9,500

These points are granted for free when you level up, and any left over at your next level up are lost, so there's no use hoarding them.


So, lets run some numbers on this, shall we?

A level 2 wizard could churn out 50 level 1 scrolls. There's not much else he can do with the points at this stage, really.

At level 3, that same wizard could put out 25 level 2 scrolls, or 150 level 1 scrolls. He'd be an industrious little scribe, but there's still nothing really fun to spend the points on.

Skipping ahead a bit, the first spells that require XP to cast appear at 4th level.

A 7th level cleric could therefore cast Lesser Planar Ally 10 times before running dry over the course of that level. Quite an attrition rate.

Moving up, a 9th level druid could cast Awaken 7 times because no humans will talk to him, or he could cast Atonement (as could his cleric pal) 3 times. That same cleric at this level could also cast Commune up to 18 times if he needed lots of advice on what to do with his life.

Up to 14th level when 7th level spells become available. Over the course of this level, a wizard could cast Limited Wish 15 times (unless he copies another spell with an XP cost, which must also be paid), or perhaps blow it all on creating a pair of 22 hit dice Simulacrums. A cleric could cast Greater Restoration 9 times.

Concluding with the big hitters at level 17, a Wizard could choose to spam Gate for solar summoning fun 6 times over the course of this level, or alternatively blow his wad on casting Wish once. The cleric is in the same position of only having 1 miracle available to him.


These numbers look pretty good to me, honestly, and for those who need to blast through the XP costing spells at a more intense rate we could easily just allow for a ritual requiring costly components where you gain back 1 craft point for every 10gp spent.

Also, I haven't looked at epic. Its possible that there may be some silly bloat there that suddenly throws this whole system out of whack.

So, thoughts?

[Corwin]

I'm not really convinced there's a need for a new mechanic that adds to things to keep track of. Given we level at the speed of plot and the GM's whim, we can't really plan the expenditure of these points. As you say there's no use in hoarding them, but if you use them a bit too freely and just run out, don't all the spells requiring xp suddenly become useless for you, no matter what you do, until Dune decides to level you? So there'd be micromanagement for this stuff, on top of other stuff.

If you bypass that with a ritual that converts 'xp' to gp, then I have to wonder about the need for the entire thing. It pretty much eliminates the need for the entire system by putting monetary value on each xp point, so why bother with anything more complex?

Specifically for Limited Wish and that discussion involving the AC feat, if you want LW and Dune is worried about it being spammed, why not make a feat that gives LW as a SLA 1/day? There'd be no need to waste a spell known on a spell Dune'd only want to see used 1/day at most, and there could be some gp costs attached going by the level of the spell used via the LW, if you guys really feel it necessary for balance or whatever.

[Ebiris]

The reason for it in a nutshell is basically to provide a kicker so that the spells can be used sparingly without disadvantaging yourself, as a way to emulate how XP in a normal game is self correcting via the mechanic of giving more to any PC that falls behind the rest. The reason for a ritual to internalise the gp costs is pretty much because I loathe material components and would rather not have to consider whether I brought my sack of diamond-elemental-shit on today's adventure.

As for the last part, the notion of having to spend a feat for something I should be able to get as a spell by default kinda stinks, and as I said in chat I was willing to just forget about Limited Wish entirely but then I thought about Miracle/Wish which are needed by plot but would surely require banning under the same rationale, so I decided to try and come up with a solution.

If the system isn't wanted then fair enough, but we're going to have to come up for something that'll work for Wish/Miracle within the next few levels.

[Corwin]

Eh, this is going into personal preferences now, I think. Spells get banned, even SRD spells, I don't really expect to get them by default so I'd have no problem paying with a feat for something really useful and otherwise ruled unavailable. Likewise, I tend to treat material components without bothering with the fluff. Rather than imagine lugging around sacks of diamonds, I'm fine with not doing more than deducting the cash in the loot thread and on my sheet. As always, YMMV.

If Miracle/Wish is such a big, irreconcilable problem, then one possible solution is to ban them as spells altogether. They can just remain plot devices in the hands of ancient dragons and angels and high-level fiends well enough. Unless we battle tarrasques daily, it'd never become a real issue.

[Anastasia]

Also, I haven't looked at epic. Its possible that there may be some silly bloat there that suddenly throws this whole system out of whack.

Could you work out the math behind this real quick for epic? You guys are going there so it's requisite that you have it worked out ahead of time. Until that's done, I can't make an informed decision on the system. Up to level 30's fine as long as the formula used is provided. If things break down past 30 we'll worry about that when we get there.

If Miracle/Wish is such a big, irreconcilable problem, then one possible solution is to ban them as spells altogether. They can just remain plot devices in the hands of ancient dragons and angels and high-level fiends well enough. Unless we battle tarrasques daily, it'd never become a real issue.

On a mechanical level, it wouldn't be a problem at all. It would be a lot cleaner not to worry about wishes except as a plot device.  The downside is that one of the awesome things about DnD is reaching this level of power. PCs can become the wish-givers and reality-shapers if they reach a high enough level. You guys have put in the work, the time and the effort to reach that point. Tossing that aside entirely loses a bit of the charm of high level DnD, yeah? It's not just a question of mechanics.

---

I'm torn here. Cor, I agree with you. I'm not enthralled with adding a new mechanic  on top of everything else. Further, subbing a pool of 'Not XP! Really!' points doesn't do anything for me. The thing with XP burning spells is that not only is there a palpable loss of progress and points, but that there's a psychological impact. Who wants to be behind a level even for an adventure? +10% XP is nice, but it won't make up for greater risk because you're at a lower level than everyone else.  These points carry no downside to being used, a finite resource with no penalty for running out of them.

As you recall, my main objection to Limited Wish/Wish is the raw versatility it grants the caster*. They can cast spells from sorc/wiz easily and even get lower level spells outside of their list. That's simply not balanced without an effective mechanism in place to prevent abuse. Alicia and Seira being able to suddenly Limited Wish in choice spells without penalty? It's mildly fun, but it also fucks up balance fiercely. Certainly, there's a possible counter-balance in that you'd want to use the points for crafting and item creation too. However, this has been handwaved this game. Elle fulfills that roll and we mostly ignore the item creation system.

I also really, really, really don't want to have to try and keep track of Elle's crafting points.

On the other hand, Eb is entirely right. We need a system in place for Wish/Miracle.  I've been ignoring the problem since we've only just now come in reach of it. This isn't an option much longer, so we're on the right track. We need something in place to adjudicate these spells. While I don't agree with the method presented, Eb's heart is in the right place and he's doing the right thing by trying to solve this.

(As an aside, this somewhat ignores the point that this system resolves the difficulties with other XP burning spells. I admit I'm neglecting that side of the issue, as I feel it's secondary to the main point we're tackling here - Wish/Miracle.)

----

So then what?  Can this system serve our purposes stated here? Is it possible with how Wish/Miracle are written now? Do we need another system altogether? I'm not sure.

Editing wish and miracle to remove the Anyspell factor would significantly reduce the broken-ness that they provide. On the other hand, one reason that's there is because this provides hundreds of templates to resolve a wish without having to make things up. Wish for the party to fight better? Everyone gets x buff cast on them. Wish to travel? Greater Teleport. Would this be productive when you can just wish for something like it?

Would handing out a low number of wishes/miracles per level work better and use them however you wish? You slowly get more per level as you advance higher along, which is more reasonable as you reach deeper into epic.  Besides the retardation of djinns/efreeti, the few high level monsters that get wish/miracle get it very sparingly. A pit fiend gets Wish once per year.

I could attach a drawback to these spells. Debilitation after casting the wish is what balanced them in 2nd edition. For example, casting a Wish aged you 5 years(Or the equivalent in your race's lifespan so elves can't be wish machines.) and incapacitated you for a few days. True cosmic power has a price.

---

Thoughts? I missed a few points here and there, but that was a deliberate choice to refine my focus.

*You could bring up the wizard > sorcerer argument here, which you mentioned in passing when we chatted about this in IRC a few days ago. Please don't. That would be a matter of rebalancing sorcerer and wizard, not of two spells that both of them possess.

[Ebiris]

I won't talk about my proposal in the OP any more since its clearly not working for anyone. So, directly confronting the Wish/Miracle thing?

I fully agree with Dune that gaining this sort of power for ourselves is a big part of the prize for reaching high level in D&D. If we can challenge the epic monsters/NPCs on every other front, why not this one? Secondly, (and this is very important), Miracle allows you to copy other spells without paying the XP cost. Clearly this means the designers thought the anyspell aspect was less worthy of concern than the more open possibilities of the spells. This is a big part of why I had no idea that there'd be any problem with taking Limited Wish in this game up until two days ago.

A big problem with mechanical drawbacks I touched on in chat when the topic first came up - you can just use the spell to fix the problem. Say you cast Wish twice in one day, taking 2x whatever the usual penalty is. You can cast it a third time to fix whatever stat damage has occured, and then finish out the day on 1x the penalty.

Having it cost raw gp isn't likely to work very well, either. Lets say you go whole hog with the 1xp = 10gp thing and have Wish/Miracle cost a whopping 50,000gp to cast. For that much you could by 13 9th level scrolls and have some change left over. Assuming you went with the bare minimum of 25,000gp to cover the fact that Wish can create an item worth that much gold, that's still enough for six 9th level scrolls, or god knows how many lower level scrolls. It would be vastly cheaper to just tote around a library of magic scrolls rather than cast those spells even once.

Considering the options, a mechanical drawback is probably our best bet, assuming we want to cast these ourselves and not just planar bind efreet to do it. But what, then? As I said above, simple stat damage/drain isn't going to do it, given how easily it can be fixed. A 2nd ed style aging penalty is dumb for the reason that everyone played elves in 2nd ed so they didn't get screwed by casting haste or wish because of that rule. Besides which, Alicia and Seira are unlikely to be bothered by aging given their creature types (indeed, Seira might just get more powerful from aging).

How about a cooldown period, then? It's on the same theme as the limited number of castings idea you mentioned, but less set in stone and dependent on level. Say whenever you cast it you then gain a 50% spell failure chance for an arbitrary period? A minute would work well enough to make you seriously consider whether its worth using in combat, an hour would make it less likely to be used for problem solving in a dungeon crawl, but it still makes them available for offscreen stuff like making constructs and magic fortifcations and all that jazz. Perhaps have the spell failure chance increase by 10% for every subsequent casting if you try to spam it during your cooldown period and get lucky on the failure roll?

This does shoot the 'cast the spell in repeated succession for larger inherent bonuses' method in the face, but I recall you saying you weren't going to allow that anyway, so it works.

[Anastasia]

I won't talk about my proposal in the OP any more since its clearly not working for anyone. So, directly confronting the Wish/Miracle thing?

I fully agree with Dune that gaining this sort of power for ourselves is a big part of the prize for reaching high level in D&D. If we can challenge the epic monsters/NPCs on every other front, why not this one? Secondly, (and this is very important), Miracle allows you to copy other spells without paying the XP cost. Clearly this means the designers thought the anyspell aspect was less worthy of concern than the more open possibilities of the spells. This is a big part of why I had no idea that there'd be any problem with taking Limited Wish in this game up until two days ago.

The developers aren't perfect. Let's look at all the various quirks and issues 3.5 has here.  I don't want to turn this into a recitation of 3.5's mistakes, but really now.

A big problem with mechanical drawbacks I touched on in chat when the topic first came up - you can just use the spell to fix the problem. Say you cast Wish twice in one day, taking 2x whatever the usual penalty is. You can cast it a third time to fix whatever stat damage has occured, and then finish out the day on 1x the penalty.

The simple solution is to rule that Wishes can't undo the penalties inflicted by casting Wish. You get sick or drained from manipulating pure cosmic power...and doing the same again isn't going to fix it.

Having it cost raw gp isn't likely to work very well, either. Lets say you go whole hog with the 1xp = 10gp thing and have Wish/Miracle cost a whopping 50,000gp to cast. For that much you could by 13 9th level scrolls and have some change left over. Assuming you went with the bare minimum of 25,000gp to cover the fact that Wish can create an item worth that much gold, that's still enough for six 9th level scrolls, or god knows how many lower level scrolls. It would be vastly cheaper to just tote around a library of magic scrolls rather than cast those spells even once.

Agreed. GP doesn't work.

Considering the options, a mechanical drawback is probably our best bet, assuming we want to cast these ourselves and not just planar bind efreet to do it. But what, then? As I said above, simple stat damage/drain isn't going to do it, given how easily it can be fixed. A 2nd ed style aging penalty is dumb for the reason that everyone played elves in 2nd ed so they didn't get screwed by casting haste or wish because of that rule. Besides which, Alicia and Seira are unlikely to be bothered by aging given their creature types (indeed, Seira might just get more powerful from aging).

How about a cooldown period, then? It's on the same theme as the limited number of castings idea you mentioned, but less set in stone and dependent on level. Say whenever you cast it you then gain a 50% spell failure chance for an arbitrary period? A minute would work well enough to make you seriously consider whether its worth using in combat, an hour would make it less likely to be used for problem solving in a dungeon crawl, but it still makes them available for offscreen stuff like making constructs and magic fortifications and all that jazz. Perhaps have the spell failure chance increase by 10% for every subsequent casting if you try to spam it during your cooldown period and get lucky on the failure roll?

This does shoot the 'cast the spell in repeated succession for larger inherent bonuses' method in the face, but I recall you saying you weren't going to allow that anyway, so it works.

I like this idea here. I'm not sure on specifics, but this imposes a decent practical limit. Before I go on, this begs a question that I think needs to be addressed. What do you guys want to use spells like Wish/Limited Wish for?

[Ebiris]

I can't speak for how other people would use them, but in my case?

Generally I'd primarily use them for casting noncombat spells that I wouldn't ever cast nearly enough to justify putting them on my spell list under normal circumstances. Stuff like contingency, permanency, planar binding/ally (and the requisite magic circles), hallow, stone shape... the list goes on, but I think you get the idea. Also for specific plot stuff like tarrasque killing and undoing specific nasty spells that can only be countered with such magic. And raising the dead, sure.

Additionally, I was thinking of taking the Obtain Familiar feat so that Marie would gain Familiar Spell for free in epic, and I'd give her these kinds of spells as her SLAs so she could pretty much cast whatever she needed on demand.

[Corwin]

I don't really need Wish-type spells, but if we had them as-is? Much like Eb's reasons, I'd try to use the Wishes for spells that I can't normally get. Since my selection is greater with preparation, it would usually be for when I can't prepare in advance. The clear difference from what I can currently do are the cleric spells and possibly other spell lists I could draw from.

[Anastasia]

I'm gonna take a day or two to think about this.

Tai, any opinion of your own? You haven't chimed in yet, though I'm aware this matter is less relevant to you.

[Taishyr]

Not particularly? Firstly it'll be well into Epic that I even get this sort of thing, and secondly it's just... yeah. I don't really have much to say about it overall.

Only thought balance-wise is that the cooldown seems most sensible to me.

[Anastasia]

Post of 'I'm working on it but I'm not quite there yet'-ness. Give me a few more days.

[Anastasia]

How does this look? Too much/not enough?

Limited Wish
Universal
Level:    Sor/Wiz 7
Components:  V, S
Casting Time:  1 round
Range:    See text
Target, Effect, or Area:    See text
Duration: See text
Saving Throw:    None; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes

A limited wish lets you create nearly any type of effect. For example, a limited wish can do any of the following things.

    * Duplicate any sorcerer/wizard spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
    * Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
    * Duplicate any sorcerer/wizard spell of 5th level or lower, even if it's of a prohibited school.
    * Duplicate any other spell of 4th level or lower, even if it's of a prohibited school.
    * Undo the harmful effects of many spells, such as geas/quest or insanity.
    * Produce any other effect whose power level is in line with the above effects, such as a single creature automatically hitting on its next attack or taking a -7 penalty on its next saving throw.

A duplicated spell allows saving throws and spell resistance as normal (but the save DC is for a 7th-level spell).

Casting Limited Wish is a great strain on both the Weave and your own body. For one hour after casting Limited Wish, you suffer a 50% chance of spell failure. This failure cannot be mitigated by any normal circumstances, including another person casting Wish. Should you manage to cast Limited Wish again within the hour, the time resets to one hour, you become fatigued and the chance of spell failure rises to 60%.  A third casting makes you exhausted and raises the failure to 80%. If a fourth Limited Wish is managed, you must make a fortitude save (DC equal to the DC of a seventh level spell you cast.) or collapse into a coma for 1d8 days. Regardless of success or failure on this fortitude save, doing so temporarily burns out your connection to the Weave. You are treated as being within a self contained antimagic aura for 24 hours.

The fatigue, exhaustion and coma take effect even through immunity to such abilities, as they are caused by enforcing your will directly into the Weave. These effects cannot be undone by mortal magic, including casting other Wishes or Miracles. The strain must be allowed to heal in it's own time.

[Corwin]

I thought you were going for 1/day usage? This is basically a free (Limited) Wish per encounter. Unlike how the preceeding may sound, I'm not trying to rain on your parade. I'm basically announcing this is how I'll use it next level when I get it. I already commit myself to things like Nightstalker's Transformation that removes my casting ability, so having a one in a two chance of casting for the next hour is an acceptable tradeoff for me, tactically. Would that be okay with you?

[Anastasia]

I thought you were going for 1/day usage? This is basically a free (Limited) Wish per encounter. Unlike how the preceeding may sound, I'm not trying to rain on your parade. I'm basically announcing this is how I'll use it next level when I get it. I already commit myself to things like Nightstalker's Transformation that removes my casting ability, so having a one in a two chance of casting for the next hour is an acceptable tradeoff for me, tactically. Would that be okay with you?

What sorta thing would you use it on? Details.

(Also note the 1 round casting time.)