More uses for Spell Slots in a Vancian World

I don't know about all gamers or other people's games, but from playing D&D for over 30 years I know this has happened to me more than a few times...my favorite class are Magic-users (Wizards, Arcanists, Arcane Spellcasters, however you want to call them). Being that 1st level noob to the career is always fun when you find ways to make your cantrips last, load up on normal gear and find interesting ways to use a wet bedroll, 10 ft of rope and a 10 ft pole to confound your enemies and amaze your friends. To say the least, having a vancian spell casting system makes you think hard not only in spell selection, but how to survive without spells too.

There comes a time though, if your lucky and smart, where you reach the level when your character is ready for the heady power of a 2nd level spell...and you don't have any. Back in the day the Referees I've played under have run the gamut from 'tough luck' to allowing the use of the spell slot for lower level spells and adding some wild effects. In more recent years I've toyed with the extra effects for using a higher powered slot for lower level spells. When 3e came out it provided more of a template for what those slots can do (via Metamagic feats). Now don't turn your nose up Gentle Reader! While 3e may have been a departure from D&D (only in my own humble opinion) it took alot of things from what WAS in many homegrown D&D campaigns. So presented here is one such retro system that grants more felxability to those spell casters that may be suffering from a small spell selection, hopefully allowing them to remain useful for their party.

As a side note, we've allowed this for all spellcasting classes (including Clerics). While it might not seem like much use, it is impressive when a Cleric uses a 4th level slot to make a Cure Light Wounds spell into a range 30ft magic that increases the healing done by +50% and can be cast even while silenced, allowing him to keep an ally on his feet that's in melee while he guards the Magic-user.

Mixing Spell Slots

If a player wishes to do so, he may use higher level spell slots to memorize lower level spells by exchanging the slots (not the spell’s level vs the spell slot level used to memorize it) on a 1-for-1 basis. For example, an Arcanist (3rd level Magic-user) could use his 2nd level spell slot to memorize a 1st or 2nd level spell if he desired to.

If a spell is memorized in a slot 1 level higher than normal the caster can apply one of the following effects:

·          Increase the base duration of a spell by 50%.

·          Inflict a -2 penalty on saving throws against the spell’s effect.

·          Increase the range of a spell by 50% or give a touch spell a range of 30 ft.

·          Remove the need to use somatic (gestures) or the need to recite the spell’s chant to cast.

If a spell is memorized in a slot 2 levels higher than normal, the caster can apply one of the following effects:

·          Apply any 2 separate effects from above.

·          Change the area of area effect spells to a cone, cube or diameter of the same size.

·          Increase all dice effects of a spell by 50%.

·          If the spell deals elemental (Cold, Fire or Lightning) damage, change it to another element.

·          Inflict a -3 penalty on saving throws against the spell’s effect.

If a spell is memorized in a slot 3 levels higher than normal, the caster can apply one of the following effects:

·          Apply any 2 separate effects from above.

·          Double the area of effect.

·          Increase all dice effects of a spell by 100%.

·          Increase the range of a spell by 100% or give a touch spell a range of 60 ft.

·          Inflict a -4 penalty on saving throws against the spell’s effect.

A couple more Combat Options

In addition to the Fighting-man Combat Options presented here: Fighting-man Combat Options, presented are 2 more for your campaigns (should you use them)

• Defensive Strike - If you are using the total defensive action and an enemy misses you in melee combat, you may make an immediate free attack on him. You can do this a number of times each round equal to your number of melee attacks.

• Expert Tactician - When in melee with an enemy and you have an ally also in melee with the same opponent, you gain the same benefit as if you are flanking (even if you are not).

More simple Critical Hits

We've been playing with critical hits for a long time now, my group used the 'score a natural 20 and roll your damage twice, totalling them together' kind of rule for critical hits. I see critical hits as a way to do extra damage in whats an already abstract combat system, not a chance to do extra damage. The chance comes from the attack roll to me. The problem arises when the player, through the good fortune to roll that 20, rolls minimum or near minumum on his damage roll (same goes for my monsters, while not out to kill my player's characters on a malicious whim, I get a bit excited too when I roll that 20 and deflated that it does 2 or 3 points of damage).

 

We started playing with a new rule and its been working well thus far on both sides of the table:

 

Critical Hits are scored on a natural 20. The character inflicts his normal damage with all attendant adjustments, plus additional damage equal to half his Strength score (for melee attacks), his Dexterity score (for missile attacks) or his Charisma (for spell attacks, after any saving throws to reduce damage are made).

 

The simplest rationale for melee and missile attacks are that those 2 ability scores affect those forms of combat already, so we keep them in-house, so to speak. The choice of Charisma is that while Intelligence and Wisdom give you the ability to cast Arcane and Divine magic, the caster's force of will to bend the supernatural to his desires is an aspect of Charisma (how many people have you heard about that don't seem exceptionally beautiful or even good-looking, but you just feel they have some kind of presence). That's my rationale and its worked good so far.

 

For monsters, I use average stats:

• Smaller than Man-size - Strength 6, Dexterity 14, Charisma 10
• Man-size - Strength 10, Dexterity 10, Charisma 10
• Larger than Man-size - Strength 14, Dexterity 8, Charisma 10
• Giant-size - Strength 18, Dexterity 6, Charisma 10

In the case of giants hurling boulders, those are more like catapults firing at hobbits - here isn't a whole lot of careful aiming to do when hurling a rock larger than your target, your lobbing it in the general vicinity. Charisma is considered average unless you want to roll 3d6 for each spellcaster.

Another view on Skills

Sometimes you can have too much time on your hands to think but never enough to do anything with it. I've been commuting 2 hours back and forth to work in Virginia the last 5 weeks and during that drive and sitting in traffic alot of great (in my mind) things have come out, but since I'm driving no real way to capture the details (something about the police around the Baltimore/DC frowns on out of state people doing things besides just driving, I dunno).

Anyways, everyone that knows me knows I have this love for the red-head stepchild d12. Using Onn's Ability Score adjustments of +/-2, you have more leeway for adjusting the results of a d12 then a d6 when making some kind of dungeoneering skill check. For those frowning now and about to think 'oldschool D&D' didn't have such things and this new school crap doesn't have a place in D&D or its clones, I'll simply say generally in the B/X and OD&D rules, most things had a flat 2-in-6 chance of success (with some Referees houseruling ability adjustments can affect this) and even Gary and Dave and other founding greats used ability checks and other systems to determine success of certain things considered 'skills'.

But enough of digression, if you're still reading you want me to get to the crunchy bits of the post. So I made Onn's 'Dungeoneering Skills' a d12 when I wrote the Core Rules. With the small modifiers ability scores have and the chances to do things (converted directly from the x-in-6 chance) it worked well as a flat system, but offers little room for growth for characters well-practiced (after levels and levels of doing them).

Early D&D and its clones and retro-games are all based around percentages, even if 'funky' dice are used. 2-in-6 = 33%, elves and their 4-in-6 chance to detect secret doors = 66%, heck even hobbits had a high percentage chance (depending on the version of the game, as high as 90%) to remain unseen outdoors. Since D&D-type games are class and level based, organic growth like a skills-based game dont work very well hand in hand normally. I've seen some houserules for combat and magic that severed the ties to class and level that looks very fun and dynamic.

One thing I thought up while I was driving back and forth was a percentage-based skills system. This is thoroughly untested (so far) but a short discussion with my home gaming group refined what was in my head to this:

1) Characters begin play with a base of 8% + the skill's relevant Ability Score.

Example: if a character has an Intelligence score of 13, his ability to Pick Locks would be 21% (8+13) at 1st level.

• Races and classes that have any bonuses to skills would multiply the bonus by 4 and add the result to their base chance of success.

2) During the course of a game session, the players keep track of successful relevant uses of their skills (dictated by the Referee). At the end of the session, the player rolls a check for each skill he used, adding +1% for each relevant use to his chance of success, but subtracting each level attained. If the check is a success, the player adds +1% to his chance of success.

Example: Our lock picking character has 6 successful attempts under his belt the Referee allowed him to record. At the end of the session, he rolls a Lock Picking check against a 27% chance of success (base 21+6). If successful, his base chance rises from 21% to 22%.

3) When a character attains levels beyond 1st level, he gains (3+Int adj) x 5 percentage points at each level. The points can be distributed as the player sees fit, but no more than 5% can be added to a skill at each level.

Example: Our character with the 13 Intelligence has a +1 adjustment. On attaining 2nd level, he gains 20 points ((3+1)x5) to distribute among his skills. He decides lock picking has been a useful skill so he allocates 5% to it, raising it up from a 22% to a 27%.

Using percentages allows the Referee more latitude in assessing bonuses and penalties and allows for some more organic growth without breaking the bank, so to speak.

Using the HD values for PC Combat Statistics

Since the last post lead into this sorta and I feel its relevant, I worked up a chart depicting the Attack Bonuses and Saving Throws (using the Monster's Single Saving Throw Target from Swords & Wizardry for this simple example). Onn caps Monster Attack Bonuses at +15, so using the HD progression given in the last post, this is what it looks like:

Attack Bonus/Saves by HD - CHARACTERS

Level	Cleric	Fighting-man	Magic-user
1	+0/18	+1/17	+0/18
2	+1/17	+2/16	+1/17
3	+2/16	+3/14	+1/17
4	+3/14	+4/13	+2/16
5	+3/14	+5/12	+2/16
6	+4/13	+6/11	+3/14
7	+5/12	+7/9	+3/14
8	+5/12	+8/8	+4/13
9	+5/12	+9/6	+4/13
10	+6/11	+9/6	+5/12
11	+6/11	+10/5	+5/12
12	+6/11	+10/5	+5/12
13	+6/11	+11/4	+5/12
14	+6/11	+11/4	+5/12
15	+6/11	+12/3	+6/11
16	+7/9	+12/3	+6/11
17	+7/9	+13/3	+6/11
18	+7/9	+13/3	+6/11
19	+8/8	+14/3	+6/11
20	+8/8	+14/3	+6/11
21	+8/8	+15/3	+6/11
22	+9/6	+15/3	+6/11
23	+9/6	+15/3	+7/9
24	+9/6	+15/3	+7/9
25+	+9/6	+15/3	+7/9

Now, on the surface this looks pretty even, especially at lower levels where Monster attack ability outstrips the fighting-man's. Now Onn has a maximum bonus of +2 for generated ability scores, so using the most extreme example, a 1st level Fighting-man could have anywhere from a +1 (no additional bonuses) to a +4 (+1 base attack, +2 Str and +1 for using a weapon of choice) for a +1 to +4.

At 9th level a Fighting-man has the same +9, but with an additional +0 to +6 (if he was lucky enough to find up to a +3 weapon he's mastered in) for a total of +9 to +15! Clerics and Magic-users as well can get up to a total bonus to hit of +10 and +9 respectively at 9th level.

The Monsters at 9 HD have a flat +9. Now you could come up with some system for determining ability scores for them, but this would add to the bloat of the stat block. You could up the Monster HD to d10 or even d12 since they would be taking more damage more often. Or you could lower the PCs HD from d6/d8/d4 (Cleric/Fighting-man/Magic-user) to d4/d6/d3 and make them more fragile.

This is where the level system shines. Adding in the fact that PCs gain abilities more numerously than monsters, splitting their HD from their direct combat statistics allows for a more dynamic system where the extra abilities of the characters are more in balance with the power of the monsters they face.

Hit Dice Beyond Name Level

Ok, so with damage scaling uncapped by most spells (as it should be), eventually you get to a point where even saving for half will decimate characters and kills them. I've been thinking about something Bart (a good friend in one group I played with in the past), made a suggestion that a character should continue to get new HD, but a slower progression. Instead of gaining a fixed number of HP at levels beyond Name Level, the character would have levels where no HD or HP are gained, but then gain an additional HD (adjusted by Constitution).

This is twofold in nature by not just allowing Constitution to play a factor in the acquisition of HP of the early levels and to continue to be a factor for the character throughout his career, but something else as well. HD is also used to determine when characters and monsters become immune to the effects of certain spells and effects and not their level. This would mesh well (in theory) with that, especially in the case of higher level magic. I've been turning this over in my head and came up with this (extremely untested):

Optional HD at Higher Levels

Level	Cleric	Fighting-man	Magic-user
8	8d6	8d8	8d4
9	-	9d8	9d4
10	-	-	10d4
11	9d6	10d8	11d4
12	-	-	-
13	-	11d8	-
14	10d6	-	12d4
15	-	12d8	-
16	-	-	-
17	11d6	13d8	13d4
18	-	-	-
19	-	14d8	-
20	12d6	-	14d4

Optional Two-weapon Fighting Rules

Since the World of Onn clarified the way I use Two-weapon Fighting (TWF) in my games, I've been giving it some more thought. Now, there are always dissenting opinions (and I welcome them here or through emails) on what guidelines or processes work 'best' or how to better reflect historical accuracy or make it more player friendly (ie, removing any TWF penalties). A long ways back I had thought of an alternative to the TWF Penalties Chart:

When TWF with an allowed off-hand weapon, the character's attack with his off-hand functions at half the character's actual level. If the character is using a weapon in his off-hand not on the allowed list, his offhand attacks at one-quarter of the character's actual level. Lastly, if the character is not proficient in TWF, his off-hand attacks are always made as if he were 0-level. Off-hand attacks may never make more than one strike per round.

This chart should help make things more clear for any math challenged among us (I know I am at times, and besides, I like charts!):

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Two-Weapon Fighting Attack Bonuses

Character Level	Primary Weapon	Off-hand Allowed Weapon	Off-hand Not Allowed Weapon	Unskilled Off-hand
1-2	+1	+0	+0	+0
3-4	+2	+1	+1	+0
5-6	+3	+2	+1	+0
7-8	+4	+2	+1	+0
9-10	+5	+3	+2	+0
11-12	+6	+3	+2	+0
13-14	+7	+4	+2	+0
15-16	+8	+4	+2	+0
17-18	+9	+5	+3	+0
19+	+10	+5	+3	+0

Knockspell #4 Available

Knockspell Issue #4 contains a veritable cornucopia of gaming content for your retro-clone or out-of-print fantasy campaign! Here's a preview of the table of contents:

From Kuroth’s Quill - Allan T. Grohe, Jr.
Beneath the Crossroads: an Adventure - Joshua James Gervias
Artist Interview: Christopher Burdett
Megadungeon Adventuring Tactics - Matt Finch
Isles on an Emerald Sea 3: An Adventure - Gabor Lux
Random Tavern Generator - Robert Lionheart
Artifact Type & Attributes - Scot Hoover
Spell Interval System - John Stater
Online Roleplaying: A Quick Overview - Marcelo Frossard Paschoalin
Rats in the Walls: an Adventure - Jeffrey P. Talanian
Stealing the Histories - Michael Curtis
Free-Form Rules as a Referee’s Toolbox - Al Krombach
Rolling Along: Wheeled Magic Items - James Bobb and Kimberly Nicholson
Weird Weather and other Unexplanable Phenomena - J Shoultis, J Larrey, J Hartleb
Review: The Dungeon Alphabet - Allan T. Grohe, Jr.
Weapon Generator - J.R. Cone
New Magic Items - James Bobb

Knockspell #4 is now available in both print and pdf versions from Black Blade Publishing.

My minor contributions (and Kimberly Nicholson's as well) to this issue are a few magical wheels and some other miscellaneous items of varying use to enterprising adventurers.