Wizard Tweak

[colonialbob]

This idea occurred to me the other day and I wanted to see what you guys thought of it.

Since wizards have a spellbook, why are they limited to the spells they prepare at the beginning of a day? I'd think it would be possible to study your spellbook to cast a spell from it. Now obviously this would have to be in place of a previously prepared spell-no extra spells per day. And it would take some time... maybe a minute per spell level? 5 rounds plus x/level? That part I am not sure about. And due to the nature of the preparation, I'd say metamagic is out too. The use I was thinking of for this was obviously not in-combat... but one of those situations where you come up against something that needs a utility spell the wizard just didn't prepare today. Thoughts?

[lithuse]

that is already possible. just leave a few slots empty, then when something comes up that your group can not easily overcome, you study for one hour and memorise the spells you need.

There may be a rule about not being able to do this if you have already been in battle.

[Niko_Kaze]

3.5 had it down to 15 minutes to memorize I think but that's still a long time in battle. Personally I'll let people sit down and rememorize during a run but not in combat (takes too much concentration) and even out of battle it takes time (when battles may start; random encounters, etc.).

[colonialbob]

lithuse: that still presents the problem of figuring out which slots to leave open, and possibly missing out on those slots...

niko: that's kind of the idea I'm going for. I didn't know an option like it already existed, so that's neat

[Niko_Kaze]

Realise I'm pointing out the memorization time in connection to lithuses comments, you technically still have to leave the slot open (in my games like I said I do allow some changes). In a technical game I try to have a plan of what I may need and leave at most a quarter of my slots open for those spells.

Now there are a couple of feats (and class options) that open up some choices for you. Altricultos Cognition (I misspelled it away from books) lets you change one I think, while Wizard of sun and moon (dungeonscape book) lets you cast 1 of 2 spells depending on where you are.

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

that is already possible. just leave a few slots empty, then when something comes up that your group can not easily overcome, you study for one hour and memorise the spells you need.

There may be a rule about not being able to do this if you have already been in battle.

ding ding ding, we have a winner.

Wizards only prepared about half the spells they -could- if they were sane, and never ever prepared spells like Knock. If they encountered a locked door, they would sit down for 15 minutes and prepare Knock. If there was a chasm, they sat down and prepared Fly, etcetera.

The combat spells, they prepared, and this took up about half of their spells per day. Thats all they prepared, because in any given fight... it goes like this.

Rogue wins initiative, sneak attacks.
Fighter cries and moves in to attack.
Monster says "AH! A WIZARD! KILL HIM!"
Cleric says "BAHAHAHA" and suplexes the monster.
Mage casts an instant death spell or Disintegrate, monster dies.
Sometimes there's a second round, it goes identically to the first, but the monster won his saving throw and took half damage the first time. He fails the second (or doesn't, but by then the wizard won).

A really nasty one to do this with is the spell in frostburn that has a fort save for half, but deals 3d6 dex damage. Maybe its no save, but allows SR? Regardless, count out the monsters that have 11 or so dex. They all die instantly when this spell hits, or fall down and wait to be coup de graced. All dragons have 10 or 11 dex, so a maximized one instantly kills dragons.

Wizards won in 3.0 and 3.5, precisely because they prepared spells. Granted, it was somewhat inconvenient, but they didn't need all those spells, and at the end of the day if you had unused spells, it was normal (as opposed to a waste of resources).

[Niko_Kaze]

Most things are not killed by a stat of 0, but are rendered helpless (CON is the exception to this and a CON of 0 does equal death). Of course we all know that helpless usually equals death, however this is a huge difference for a paladin (it's not good to kill a helpless creature that you can instead bound and take prisioner).

However a wizard with unused spells before bed has made one mistake: He didn't use those slots to write some scrolls. A couple of scrolls can save you in a tight pinch (if you don't have the 15 minutes to memorize a spell becuase you are being chased) and offer the option of selling them later if need be (don't settle for half price on scrolls, they are one use objects, if the NPC would charge full price you should too, afterall you can be a merchant. If the NPC says half price only tell him he must do the same for you on his merchandise or sell elsewhere).

Beyond that there have been several times in games I've been in where the fighter or rogue type handled the issue without the wizard (if we had one) or cleric (again if we had one) got involved. It just takes intelligent fighting and decent character design.

[Niko_Kaze]

C-Bob I have a magic item for you to look at that I had forgotten I had invented:
http://barroks-tower.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3632 (http://barroks-tower.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3632)
11th item down, Spellbook of Second Guessing

[colonialbob]

Ooh, I really like that item. Maybe not that powerful, but useful.