The Gaming Den

I've been sitting on this one for a while (wiki link). (Don't worry, it's very short.) As far as I am aware, this is the closest it is possible for a spell-point system to be to not having the "I give up all my low-level spells for a big pile of high-level spells problem". It doesn't eliminate it completely, because no spell point system can eliminate the problem completely, but it does get as far away from that as is possible.

The table was made somewhat holistically though, and I worry a bit about the higher end of it. I keep having this nagging feeling that the price of 8th and 9th level spells should probably increase a bit, but at the same time I don't think it's problematic unless you're one of those fossils that still subscribe to the 4-encounter workday. What does everyone else think about the table?

I believe you when you say the UA Spell Point variant is broken. I simply take it for granted you know guys more then me about these things.

But seeing as I am an ignoramous, what was the problem with it?

God_of_Awesome wrote:I believe you when you say the UA Spell Point variant is broken. I simply take it for granted you know guys more then me about these things.

But seeing as I am an ignoramous, what was the problem with it?

The quadratic costs don't scale well. Shifting from 1st level spells to 2nd level spells is a cost multiplier of several times. So at low levels, when color spray is still deadly and people having nominally limited amounts of them is the only thing holding Wizards in check, Wizards can cash out their 2nds for very large numbers of color sprays and become over powered. The difference in cost between 7th and 8th level spells is not even a 3:2 exchange rate, so at high level when mass charm fucking pwnzors the universe, and Wizards having a limited number of them is the only thing that keeps them in check - they can trade their spell points up to have too many of those things and be overpowered.

So at low levels, Wizards are overpowered. And at high levels, Wizards are overpowered. So the spellpoint system is broken.

-Username17

GoA - There are several issues with the UA system. The first is that you get an increasingly large number of points from which you have to subtract increasingly large numbers of points any time you do anything with them. This complaint is also leveled against the psionics system in general.

The UA system is more like the 3.0 psionics system though, in that the scaling is all fucked up. You pay to scale / augment level based damage and spell effects, but not duration or range or whatever, and you don't get any of the bonus stuff that they added in to the 3.5 psionic augments. So some spells, like Hold / Charm / Dominate Monster, scale for free and work ok. Other spells, like any damage spell ever, scale for cost and wind up costing more than higher level spells just to bring the damage up to the level you would have in a regular system. Which makes them shitty choices all of the time, even shittier than in the regular game because now they cost more than their more effective counterparts.

Lastly, there's the whole "I give up all my low-level spells for a big pile of high-level spells problem", which is also leveled against every point system ever. This is largely a linear scaling of cost for exponentially scaling power issue, where you can trade out more of your lower level stuff for one of your higher level stuff and get way ahead on the deal. It generally happens because the resources used to power all of it are the same, so the effect you generate with the cost is totally interchangeable and people will take the largest bang for their buck instead of spreading it around like they have to do with non-interchangeable spell levels.

So yeah, a few issues. Nothing game breaking, just lots of crappy design.

Back to this. Surgo, you actually posted that back when I posted a "fixed everything" spell points variant, it just never got talked about cause I got distracted / let the thread die (note for posterity: I still maintain that mine solves the "I give up all my low-level spells for a big pile of high-level spells problem" better than this because it has stronger cost differences and makes the trading up more difficult / costly, but justifying those meant tossing out the scaling that people seem to like in their spells). Anyway, I think your table is fine. You can't really increase the costs without also increasing the available points, and that's not really worth doing.

So how do things like school specializations work and modifier bonuses work out?

And what is the base spell points that a spell caster gets that I assume never changes?

God of Awesome wrote:So how do things like school specializations work and modifier bonuses work out?

Specializations are gone.

Not sure what you mean by modifier bonuses.

And what is the base spell points that a spell caster gets that I assume never changes?

"Your strain tolerance is equal to your primary casting stat (the actual stat, not the stat modifier)."

Makes sense.

A suggestion for school specialization: They get a number or just one strain-free spell(s) of that school each day.

I don't really think it's necessary.

There's no point in giving mages more power. If you're a necromancer, that means you cast a lot of necromancer spells. That's it.

Fair enough.

Anyway, on the original subject: I have no idea why anyone thought the presented plan in the OP was a good one.

Let's just go to the basic concept:

So what is the solution, you ask? Quite simple, really. Instead of making casting cost go up with spell level, make it go down with caster level.

The only thing that is a "fix" to is the difficulty of adding and subtracting large numbers. Subtracting smaller and smaller amounts from a fixed total is no different from subtracting static amounts from a larger and larger total. The important question of how many times the subtracted amount divides into the reserve pool is always just some number that increases as you level. Furthermore, there's still a exchange rate of some kind between higher and lower level spells.

About the only thing that is really different in this is that instead of having some sort of system by which spells change cost (and thus presumably maintaining some agreed upon exchange rate between 2nd and 3rd level spells - it, um, doesn't. The price changes at each level are completely fucking arbitrary. So while at 10th level giving up seven 5th level spells will buy you an extra 4th level spell (note: you can't actually do this, because you only have the Strain to cast four 5th level spells), at 20th level trading down just one 5th level spell will get you an extra 4th level spell. Very roughly, the system apparently wants you to bust out with 3-4 spells of your highest level and a metric ass tonne of spells 5 levels down. Spells in between don't really give a meaningful discount when compared to your highest level spell.

I give the project an F. I'd give it a D, except that the boasting introduction also irritates me, considering that the "great insights" involved are actually a failure to understand exponent/log transforms.

-Username17

The quadratic costs don't scale well.

A nitpick, but the costs are actually linear (2x-1, x=spell level). They just look quadratic based on 1st/2nd level spells.

FrankTrollman wrote:About the only thing that is really different in this is that instead of having some sort of system by which spells change cost (and thus presumably maintaining some agreed upon exchange rate between 2nd and 3rd level spells - it, um, doesn't.

I'm confused now. What exactly is the goal here?

If the goal is to have a system that behaves exactly like spell slots, we already have one. It's called "spell slots."

If the goal is to allow people to swap spells between different levels at a statis exchange rate, then the traditional spell point system ought to do that just fine.

If the goal is to have a system where you can cast a predictable and limited number of big spells while still throwing around a basically arbitrary number of tiny spells, and you can do a little bit of conversion but it's highly inefficient, then this variable exchange rate seems like it would be an advantage, not a drawback. It is presumably done intentionally in an attempt to tailor the exchange rate to take into account the action cost of actually casting a spell and the fact that a high-level character's actions are more valuable than a low-level character's actions--so if you're trading spells near your level, the value of the spell dominates, and if you're trading spells well below your level, the value of the action dominates.

I won't claim that's the "right" goal, but it does seem to do what it claims to do, at least in a broad sense.

So what exactly were you expecting this system to do that you are so disappointed by it?

I would assume a set exchange rate for spell Strain that made it so you gave a damn about having mojo left to cast spells that aren't of your highest level, your breadwinners or your free ones.

I've been thinking if giving spells a cool-down, maybe equal to their level, would it make a spell pont system better?

Maxus wrote:I'm confused now. What exactly is the goal here?

That's an excellent question. The original system does not clearly articulate goals, so I can't possibly evaluate it on its own subjective ideals.

I can say that if you've made a spell point system and people who can cast 8th level spells never cast 7th level spells that you've made a system that is basically pointless.

Presumably the purpose of putting up different costs on the different spell levels is to incentivize people to use all their different spells. But the very tiny differences of costs between the top four levels means that people pretty much don't even bother with anything but their top level spells.

I don't even know why someone bothered. Seriously, the entire resource management system could be replaced with "You get four spell slots, they regenerate one/hour, and as you go up in level you can cast higher level spells with your slots." It would be almost exactly the same, and have a lot less fiddly math.

And it wouldn't have the unlimited castings based on Quickening remove fatigue bug that I assume is unintentional.

-Username17

I can say that if you've made a spell point system and people who can cast 8th level spells never cast 7th level spells that you've made a system that is basically pointless.

Psionics gets around this in two ways:
1) You have limited powers known, so a 7th level power may be more suited to the situation than any of the 8th level powers you know.
2) Since most things scale when augmented, you can basically get an 8th level effect out of many lower level powers (Astral Construct, for instance). So maybe you seldom use a "13 PP" power when you're at 15th level, but you use plenty of 7th level or lower stuff.

The first is easily applied to a spell-point system just by going with limited spells known, as a Sorcerer. The second requires going through the spells and figuring out what should scale, which is an effort, but pretty much required to have a spell-point system work at all well.

Some basics that should cover most spells:
* DC should always scale (+1 per 2 SP).
* Damage should generally scale.
* For die-no-save effects, figure out something to scale (Entangling Ectoplasm scales creatures size, for instance), or just leave it alone - there are a few non-scaling powers, after all.
* Collapse spell "lines" like Cure Wounds and Summon Monster into a single scaling spell.

I replied to a thread on GitP about a 'mana point' system, and apart from whatever mathematical difficulties there might be, I did come up with some ideas on how that could make for some interesting applications. Here is my response:

"So, while I haven't gotten too deep in the numbers, and probably won't, I did have a thought. (I'm allowed one every now and then. ) What if we try adding a mechanic on top of this to account for environmental mana? Not just to rip off MtG, necessarily, though that is what I thought of. Perhaps ambient mana at different locations can have a tag? Like areas near planar gates might give off the appropriate mana type? That would make more sense for a necromancer type, throwing buffs on his undead that are sustained without cost to him personally(because of the ambient [Death] mana at the ruined necropolis. He'd still be formidable out of his element, but it also makes for a more realistic usage. It might also pave the way for allowing better item creation, etc. If a wizard university or personal tower has a readily available flow of generic mana, that could make for some cool happenings.

Another couple ideas I had along these lines that might make for some game balance would be [tag] requirements for spells. If powerful almost-breaking spells were available, they could have requirements. Perhaps a cast-from-life type mechanism could go with this... Wish, for example. If you're out of mana, you can cast from your inner reserves, at a cost to ability scores, etc., until you replenish them, and in the case of some spells, the point loss might be permanent. Yet another idea would be to have certain class abilities benefit from these points. If you're in area with [Shadow] mana above a certain threshold, your Hide/Move Silently gets a bonus. Or perhaps your paladin's temple is under attack by undead, your holy sword goes from +3 to +5 while in the concentration of [good] or [light].

Just some thoughts. "

Do the problems with mana based systems still occur with a flat growth? 3 Color Sprays instead of a Slow, for example? Or does that make it worse instead of better?

Roy wrote:Do the problems with mana based systems still occur with a flat growth? 3 Color Sprays instead of a Slow, for example? Or does that make it worse instead of better?

What you want is some kind of exponential growth, where the difference in cost between a 4th level spell and a 5th level spell is analogous to the difference between a 1st and 2nd or 7th and 8th. Going linear looks very different from that.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

Roy wrote:Do the problems with mana based systems still occur with a flat growth? 3 Color Sprays instead of a Slow, for example? Or does that make it worse instead of better?

What you want is some kind of exponential growth, where the difference in cost between a 4th level spell and a 5th level spell is analogous to the difference between a 1st and 2nd or 7th and 8th. Going linear looks very different from that.

-Username17

Yeah, a mana point system with a progression like 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 for the costs of 1st through 9th level spells would actually work. You'd have a mana pool progression something like 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 14, 15, 30, 31, 62, 63, 126, 127, 254, 255, 511 (and whatever bullshit for higher levels). And it would usually work out exactly the same as having one spell slot per spell level, but be much more complicated to work with.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:

Roy wrote:Do the problems with mana based systems still occur with a flat growth? 3 Color Sprays instead of a Slow, for example? Or does that make it worse instead of better?

What you want is some kind of exponential growth, where the difference in cost between a 4th level spell and a 5th level spell is analogous to the difference between a 1st and 2nd or 7th and 8th. Going linear looks very different from that.

-Username17

Yeah, a mana point system with a progression like 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 for the costs of 1st through 9th level spells would actually work. You'd have a mana pool progression something like 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 14, 15, 30, 31, 62, 63, 126, 127, 254, 255, 511 (and whatever bullshit for higher levels). And it would usually work out exactly the same as having one spell slot per spell level, but be much more complicated to work with.

Thats incredibly nifty. But, the numbers are facking huge.

It'd be a little more elegant in a system that capped at 4th or 5th level spells. Alternately, it'd work well in a computer game that did the math for you, but it would be funny to watch your mana bar barely budge, or suddenly drop by over 25% depending on the level of the spell you cast.

You can also do something similar to what I suggested in my spell point thread. Cap available points at the start, set a cost for your highest available level (say 8), then the next highest (say 4), and so on (then 2, then 1, then free or x free/whatever) and drag those costs with you as you level so that you're always paying the same relative cost for your highest level stuff. There are still some crappy cost problems where there's no reason to pay more (because some spells aren't leveled well and scale oddly) and you run into Frank's complaint of using piles of lower level stuff (which actually does have some utility concerns). You're going to hit that when you have 50 points to play with and 1st level spells cost 1 point anyway though, and it's more a failure of spell point systems in general than any particular instantiation of them.