Alternate Rules/Ideas for Spellcasters out of Spells?
I’ve been kicking around ideas for some alternate rules or something for spellcasters who run out of spells early in an adventuring day. I’ve thought about this issue before and even put together a tongue-in-cheek top 10 list on the subject.
Let me frame the issue a little more: What should a spellcaster (or the party) do when the spellcasters are spent, even if that happened early in the day? There is one camp who would say, “Tough, the spellcasters shouldn’t have used so many spells so quickly. They should just hunker down and hope for the best until they finish their rest.” But what if it was the game master who underestimated the difficulty? What if the cause was just unlucky dice?
I’m not suggesting giving the spellcasters some great new powers. Maybe something small so they have something more useful to do than throw a dagger from the back row. Or maybe some ability or option that lets them save ration their spells a little better.
I see Pathfinder gives Wizards unlimited use of the 0-level spells they memorize. What other rules or options for this problem have you considered or used?
Bow + arrows.
I’ve run into this before, and I’ve had a variety of balance tipping ideas and some that are probably reasonable. It is worth noting that I think the way this is currently handled in the game is that casters make and carry scrolls with them to do this.
For one game I had the idea of giving wizards certain schools of spells at one spell level sooner, and sorcers a different list. Magic missile would be 0 level, and therefore unlimited cast. Very off balance in general, but it provided certain mechanics I wanted. In the end, I never ran with that version though.
Another option is to give casters a feat that allows them to cast a specific spell that is of a level less than or equal to their associated ability modifier. A wizard, then, with a +4 to int would be able to take this feat for any spell level 1 through 4 and be able to cast it indefinitely. I think this idea is terrible though and after I had thought of it I quickly discarded it.
An option I do like is something like blood magic. If you want to cast an extra first level spell then lower your highest attribute by one (recoverable as normal through rest). A second level is 2 points, etc. The caster can save the day, and then be carried away for a month of bed rest to get all the stats back.
Here are a couple things that I have seen.
Complete Mage (3.5 book by WotC) introduced ‘Reserve Feats’ Reserve Feats allowed a mage to cast a lower level spell if they knew a higher level spell. If the mage hadn’t cast the higher level spell then they could use the lower level spell.
Adventure: Crown of the Kobold King: is for 1st level characters and gives the Mage a Wand of Sleep with 50 charages and gives the Cleric a Wand of Cure Light Wounds with 50 charges. The only way to ‘win’ the adventure within the ‘in game time limit’ of 8 hours is to provide those two wands to the adventures and have characters capable of using them.
I am experimenting with a couple of House Rules to reduce the need for reliance on a Cleric to provide healing for all healing in the group (ways of ‘bandaging’ after an encounter to recover some hit points by changing them to non-lethal). You could also make sure everyone has several potions of healing which will again reduce the need for a cleric to deplete their supply of spells on healing resulting in a Cleric that has nothing left to do and a party that is in peak health.
Encourage players to take the skills of Craft: Alchemy and make sure to expand the list of items that can be produced through alchemy. This will allow a mage or cleric to carry a supply of items to toss into battle. Good choices are things that offer short modifiers to a small area (like the 1st level spells).
Remind players that the Aid skill gives a +2 to another player to hit. This combined with Flanking gives another player a +4 to Hit which is an amazing bonus and way better than Bless which is +1. You don’t always need to swing and hit things to make a major contribution to a battle.
Long Spear is a Simple Weapon and has Reach. This is a great weapon for most players to carry while standing behind the front rank and using opportunity attacks to sweep away enemey trying to flank other players.
When I feel my spellcaster is underpowered or prone to running out of spells, I take full advantage of equipment. You would be surprised just how useful mundane items can be in low to mid level games.
Also, try to find the best bag for your buck with spells. Just because a spell says it’s useful for a certain purpose doesn’t mean that it can’t be used creatively. Wizards and sorcerers are supposed to have high INT and CHA anyway, why wouldn’t they find creative or cunning uses of their abilities?
For example, when the party stupidly drew fire from overpowered antagonists we weren’t meant to face anyway, everyone panicked. I had my wizard use Mage Hand to shove a curtain around the main NPC’s head and sent a signal to the rest of the party to GTFO.
Poisons, acids, sunrods, and other similar items are so useful (and typically lightweight, which is great for mages), I don’t know why a mage worth her salt wouldn’t tote them around.
There are tons of supplemental books on equipment (both mundane and magical). If you have a traveling campaign, take full advantage of market economy by persuading your party to become merchant traders on the side, which is a great way to get deals at the marketplace anywho. In a political campaign, utilizing the merchant idea has other applications, also: it can provide necessary “cover” and less travel restrictions in totalitarian regions. Just keep in mind, this doesn’t work well for wilderness games, and merchants are big neon targets for bandit raids.
Plus, having those extra horses and carts around would do wonders if the party comes across heavy loot, hostages, dead wounded or poisoned party members (esp when the cleric is out of spells or doesn’t have the right ones to cure stat effects), etc.
Speaking of ‘creative’ uses of spells, consider ‘Tensors Floating Disk’ (a spell that lasts for hours per level) set up with a tower shield on each disk (a small kick stand or back spacer needs to be designend) or in a pinch go with a couple of large cabinets. Now you have a movable wall / barrier (or several if you use multiple castings of Tensor’s Floating Disk at the same time). Use the barriers to help move through open terrain or channel opponents to your front line fighters while giving cover to others on your team.
I’ve run into this before, and I’ve had a variety of balance tipping ideas and some that are probably reasonable. It is worth noting that I think the way this is currently handled in the game is that casters make and carry scrolls with them to do this.
For one game I had the idea of giving wizards certain schools of spells at one spell level sooner, and sorcers a different list. Magic missile would be 0 level, and therefore unlimited cast. Very off balance in general, but it provided certain mechanics I wanted. In the end, I never ran with that version though.
Another option is to give casters a feat that allows them to cast a specific spell that is of a level less than or equal to their associated ability modifier. A wizard, then, with a +4 to int would be able to take this feat for any spell level 1 through 4 and be able to cast it indefinitely. I think this idea is terrible though and after I had thought of it I quickly discarded it.
An option I do like is something like blood magic. If you want to cast an extra first level spell then lower your highest attribute by one (recoverable as normal through rest). A second level is 2 points, etc. The caster can save the day, and then be carried away for a month of bed rest to get all the stats back.