Set & Setting - IX - Spellcasting Revised

Set and Setting is a series of posts intended as aid in fleshing out a world by way of setting-specific rule design and reinterpretation.

Introduction

Ah, the growing pains of heartbleeding.

With the sliding noose of the four core classes tightening about the wrists I’m finally forced to spend some time considering the caster classes once again.

The bemused sigh comes easy as one recalls the way concepts are toyed with as a cat’s plaything, pawed about the mind until, their interest quite spent, they’re posted to little fanfare and some relief only to find the passing of time casting an increasingly harsh light on ideas once thought to be set in stone.

Platitudes about how things don’t change if they aren’t posted and are not posted if changes aren’t made aside, banging the head appendages against the Cleric’s reconceptualization and attempts to harmonize it with previous ideas led me to reread what someone that I’d swear wasn’t me did post regarding the salient issues, namely the need to build ties to a Magic System as of now still regarded as pretty much a proverbial house of cards.

Garbage In…

Treading back over worn pathways, a few months of perspective bring me to a dismaying conclusion: It needs to go.

Well, not all of it, warm feelings are still nurtured about the caster type distinctions, rather, it is the casting mechanics proper – something common to all casters – where the rules seem to fall decidedly short.

Some preliminary conclusions that a savvy reader probably reached immediately upon parsing the original post, now from a timeworn and more dispassioned perspective:

1. Establishing difficulty ratings on the fly from the back of top-heavy complex rule structures is a sure way to clog up a game’s flow, each pause for discretionary refereeing an ebbing tide for gameplay.

2. Combat demands quick, simple and unfailingly consistent resolution mechanisms to keep the plates spinning. Exceptions are acceptable only at such a time as critical success or failure occurs, these allowing limited forays into unpacking complexity.

3. Even transcending combat, where the stakes are highest, a system nevertheless has to gain from player-facing transparency, facilitating antecipated calculations to settle the decision on which is to be the desirable course of action.

All these points were infringed on some level by both the magic system and the divine beseeching proposals. Each relatively stable in a vacuum but proven wholly unmanageable past some preliminary attempts at replicating dynamic combat or multiple intervenients making reiterated use of the mechanic.

Finangling difficulty ratings to the decimal point amid the running does not conduce to seamless play. Things need to be simpler and straighter to remain manageable, all while preserving the design thrusts behind the original attempt, these being “a caster having well-rounded attributes matters” and “casting has a perilous random component, being more difficult than just a snapping of the fingers (or a standard action & expended slot)”.

So, once again, from the top…

The Crunch

Spellcasting (Revised)

- Spellcasting is a standard action that requires at least one free hand.

- Casting a spell will draw attacks of opportunity from any foes in melee range.

- A caster struck amid the process of spellweaving immediately loses the spell.

The Spellcasting Roll

- Casting a spell requires succeeding on a Spellcasting attribute check, DC equal to spell level (or slot level, if applicable).

- Instances where a spell requires an attack roll use the difficulty to hit the target instead, if it is higher.

- Failure on the casting roll will void the slot’s content from the spellcaster's memory.

- A natural ‘20’ will unleash the spell without striking it from memory, trumping any constraints (see below).

- A natural ‘1’ will mean a mischanneling has occured.

Constraints on the Spellcasting action

Spellcasting is a very special type of action, one marrying the greatest need for precision and utmost concentration, and as such easily disrupted by constraints, each translated into game terms by the need for the spellcasting roll to not just beat the base difficulty but also be made under a relevant attribute of the caster, to wit:

- Constraints of Burden, imposed if the character is encumbered or otherwise attempting to cast while physically hampered, such as when bound with shackles or submerged in water: the unadjusted casting roll must be lower than or equal to the caster’s Strength attribute.

- Constraints of Dispersion, imposed on the casting of a spell on a turn in which the character has taken any other action, including movement: the unadjusted casting roll must be lower than or equal to the caster’s Wisdom attribute.

- Constraints of Concentration, imposed when the caster is being actively distracted or is already concentrating on another spell: the unadjusted casting roll must be lower than or equal to the caster’s Intelligence attribute.

- Constraints of Resilience, imposed if the character sustained damage since his previous turn: the unadjusted casting roll must be lower than or equal to the caster’s Constitution attribute (or under half the score, if the damage sustained exceeded the character’s class HD).

- Constraints of Stability, imposed when casting is attempted on unstable footing or in physically disturbing – though not necessarily damaging – circumstances (amid a jostling crowd, on a galeswept ship deck, etc.): the unadjusted casting roll must be lower than or equal to the caster’s Dexterity attribute.

When a casting action is about to be declared but before the final decision is taken the referee will run the player through any constraints derived from the situation at hand that the character is currently experiencing, though in most cases these ought to be self-evident.

- Failure to conform to any single constraint on a casting action will result in a casting failure.

- Failure to conform to multiple constraints will result in a mischanneling, as if a natural ‘1’ had been rolled. 

Other Errata:

- Resting now restitutes a caster’s full complement of slots.

- The Wisdom saving throw (DC 10 + spell level) to avoid overchanneling is now granted by the use of a spell focus during casting, which must be held in one hand while the casting proper is effected with the other.

Revised Overchanneling Table

Enlargement Spell

Mostly unchanged, some entries clarified, some made harsher, others less so.

The Pudding Proof (further design notes)

With the original take the difficulties were hard to establish and escalated much too quickly, leading to frequent casting failures and in turn to efforts to compensate this by establishing that failed spells could remain memorized, making the previous iteration slide down the slope of chain-overcompensation, the intent being to restrain casters, not render them useless.

Drawing from past digressions, I now think that it is much more important to maintain the flow of play without compromising the game feel than it is to bog down the proceeds as the referee makes painstakingly sure that a difficulty rating is fine-tuned to the tee that matches one among a dizzying array of possible circumstances. Going forward, the DC is set deliberately low and isn't meant to be much of an obstacle in becalmed circumstances; It just mattering to have an ever-present chance of mischanneling, with additional difficulties arising from the situation impacting the casting difficulty through broad strokes, in a more organic way and without overconvoluting the numbers proper.

Instead of voluble DCs, circumstances will lead to the roll being reframed but all hinging on the single d20 rolled in cross-reference with the charsheet right in front of the player, an idea somewhat in the vein of Disadvantage’s simplicity, only stat-based, so as to lend importance to a well-rounded character rather than one focused on a single stat, retaining a measure of complexity while being much less wobbly in its math (hence both more transparent and predictable, in a good way).

As one can well imagine, rules were made to be broken: of the six caster classes in the pipe it is expected that some of them might be granted class-derived dispensation from certain constraints due to their arcane training. Or not, I haven’t quite decided if that is a good idea.

'Last comes the proof in the pudding: will the average player (or poster-slash-referee rereading this in three months’ time, enroute to go tilting at the next windmill in line) be able to run with these mechanics from the back of his pocket with but a minimal reacquainting effort? I've learned that my best answer can't hope to beat the simple act of waiting out for three months.

Rules Musings - Training and Skill Tiers

Introduction

I’ve been wanting to give the fighter a weapon drilling class feature, something focused on downtime so as to break with the class’s combat-centric focus. A few blocks promptly presented themselves, ripe for the stumbling.

Trusty as ever, the official book’s version of training associates the learning of languages or “tools” to a fixed number of days and a trivial amount of gold, coming across like your typical online ad-scam, with the rest of the downtime activities equally reeking of perfunctionism (apparently not even a word, but if anything all the more fitting on account of it).

Even disregarding the above, the main curtain wall of the edition’s all too inclusive list of weapon proficiencies granted each class stymies if not defeats the whole purpose right from the start and then, finally, the strong dish is presented as one realizes that, with proficiency being a binary element matched directly to level, learning a skill or weapon proficiency later in a character’s career will result in a sudden performance jump from no bonus (or a penalty) to a healthy +3, +4 or +5. Talk about late blooming.

The proverbial drop thus spilling the cup, here follows a short revision that’s been long overdue.

All Trades Jacked

The game currently tracks between three levels of training: “Inexperienced, Proficient, Master” corresponding to “No modifier, proficiency modifier, double proficiency modifier”, the ubiquity of this same modifier returning characters that are too uniformized, too well-rounded and too simplistic.

I need a stopgap where I can find balance between taoist realism and coastal wizard enablism. Something that'll conform to a workable gradient of complexity while ensuring the “chump-to-champ” syndrome of late skill acquisition is avoided.

Last I was here, I bemoaned the thought of turning to skill ranks. Since no other solution presents itself and this can be implemented without compromising the game’s bounded accuracy, let these moans be; trying it can’t hurt more than countenancing the official book-bound scam of a system.

This’ll represent, by necessity, a huge curbing in terms of power for each character, albeit a uniform one. No snowflakes were harmed.

The Level Structure

Levels, much like Hp, are a conventioned abstraction that is largely left to what the beholder makes of it and that stand up poorly to close scrutiny. Yet, no matter how eloquent the argument that their strictures are inane, unrealistic, artificial and unnecessary, they are ingrained as one of the main tenets of the game. The designer is free to either question the substructural premises altogether or work within them. I choose the latter.

Character advancement conforming to a level structure is a design choice, one to which all kinds of consolidated internal character growth should adhere to. This means things such as skill learning aren’t something that happens in parallel or wholly outside this structure, as the book’s take on this would have us believe. Money and time by themselves are not sufficient to unlock a character’s potential: he must make level.

The Crunch

Skill Tiers

- The general proficiency modifier represents the upper limit of a character’s capabilities, rather than the rating applied to each of them.

- Skills and weapon proficiencies receive a notation after their name so as to indicate their level of training: 1, d4, d6, d8, d10 or d12, corresponding to the proficiency modifiers 0, +2, +3, etc.

- A rank of “1” won’t give any bonus by itself, but it does mean the character possesses the basic notions and can make use of the skill, tool or weapon without penalties.

- New proficiencies of any sort are first gained at rank “1”, unless determined otherwise.

- A starting character’s list of skills, saves and weapon proficiencies come with an implied a rank of “1” in each, customizable through five tier increases at chargen.

- A character’s skill proficiencies are presumed to be continually trained during downtime: with every level gained, a character increases tier on the player’s choice of three skills, saves or weapons.

- Additional skill tier increases past the levelling minimum can be gained through the sucessful accomplishment of certain specialized downtime actions.

Instruction

The capacity to instruct others in a skill or weapon proficiency is accessed through class feature. It  also requires that the teacher be proficient with the skill being taught, that the student have some degree of innate potential for the subject matter (skills already latent can be improved but new skills cannot be granted wholecloth) and a period of time must be spent on intensive training.

- The instruction effort must be made through a series of nigh-consecutive days totalling up to a number of months equal to the new proficiency die’s size (minimum of three).

- Each individual skill or proficiency can only be the object of successful training a single time per level.

- The students in a group can number up to the teacher’s proficiency die, modified by his Wisdom.

- As the training’s duration is fulfilled, each student rolls an Intelligence check [Intelligence, (DC 10 plus the new proficiency die total, further modified by the instructor’s Wisdom)]; Failure means further training is required and that the character will need to reenact the training period.

- Once success is attained, the character is assumed to continue training on his own, slowly consolidating what he learned during the high-intensity period of instruction into true internalized knowledge that he may call upon. Upon making level, the character increases the trained proficiency by one step.

- Hirelings, Retainers and other NPCs not generally possessed of levels instead receive basic training in a six month time frame and can progress no further.