Unearthed Arcana present Tome & Blood: more options for arcane casters

[subtledoctor]

It literally just adds a Wondrous Recall effect to all 1st-level spells - and makes some balance adjustments to account for it. (EDIT - some of those adjustments might require the EE game.) Works fine with scripts, works fine with SCS... in theory I would prefer other cantrip systems, but in practice I use this specifically because it works with scripts and enemy AI. 
 

Anyway if the AI is behaving improperly I don’t mean to take attention from that. Sorry. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

I must be thinking of a different mod that I tried, that added some new innate cantrips that refreshed themselves. Weird. Thought it was yours, but I guess not!

Edited January 11, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Jarno Mikkola]

On 1/11/2021 at 8:14 AM, Bartimaeus said:

I must be thinking of a different mod that I tried, that added some new innate cantrips that refreshed themselves. Weird. Thought it was yours, but I guess not!

I am pretty sure it's the same mod. See, the mod has 3 different components/variants.

[subtledoctor]

Playing a game now with an Arcanist Charname, Jaheira and Branwen chose spontaneous casting via FnP, and Keto is an MnG bard with Arcanist-style casting. Then picked up Arath the druid, who for whatever reason can only cast spells the old way... and it is unreasonably annoying. I’m starting to see this more as a convenience tweak, than a special kit feature. 

Maybe I’ll turn this into a complete overhaul of the spellcasting system, possibly for @Aquadrizzt’s 5E conversions. Question is, what should that look like? How should it be balanced? How should sorcerers be integrated? Nitty-gritty stuff. Maybe something like:

— Mages: can choose a specialty school.* Function as Arcanists do now: they prepare a limited number of spells each night, and can cast them spontaneously the next day. Spells in their chosen school do not need to be prepared, or learned from scrolls; they are always available to be cast. 

* Maybe let them choose a forbidden school? Not sure if I ever figured out how to implement this, though OlvynChuru’s recent mod might provide a way.

— Sorcerers pick spells automatically, like in the vanilla game. They can know more spells than mages can prepare, and have more casting slots. So more powerful and more flexible in any given moment, but less flexible in the long term. They can swap out one known spell each time they gain a level.**

** I would like to make them burn a scroll for this. That way 1) scrolls still matter; and 2) a small constraint is applied to this rather powerful class. But not sure how to implement it. Maybe an inventory check could bolted on to the existing spell-swapping scripts?

Both sorcerers and mages could have exotic kits where they get access to spells not normally available. Something like a Favored Soul or Dragon Disciple etc. But we could make such kits available in the mage class as well. Which is cool. This could be a choice as simple as, instead of choosing a specialty school, you choose to have innate access to healing spells, or animal summoning, etc. 

— Clerics would function just like mages: you would know a large set of cleric spells (determined by a sphere system, if you like that sort of thing); and can prepare a smaller subset of those spells before resting; and can cast those prepared spells spontaneously. 

— Bards... bards. I lean toward the Might & Guile model: a “bard” is anyone who can sing bard songs, and never mind the underlying character class. MnG has a pretty robust bard song system, which can be used by a cleric kit, a thief kit, a fighter/thief kit, and various mage/thief and fighter/mage kits. The spellcasting variants can use Arcanist-style casting. By forcing them to be multiclassed we naturally restrain their spellcasting, so there is no need to resort to things like a distinct spell table. (Though the Arcanist casting system makes it easy to adjust casting slots on a per-kit basis, so it would be easy to give them a slight nerf to balance their bard song and multiclass skills.)

The existing systems already support all of these ideas. The only current issues are the spell-choice/feat-choice issue in multiplayer games, and the ability-score based casting slot bonuses are a bit screwy. (My Arcanist is getting about +6 slots instead of +2. Though the issue is not affecting Keto or Branwen, so I’m a bit mystified by it...)

[Endarire]

As a Sor fan, I don't want to be item-dependent for spell learning/swapping.  The spell swap system is meant to make spell selection less burdensome in the long-term.

This spontaneous casting could be made a toggleable option on installation.  I agree that spontaneous casting is more fun.

[subtledoctor]

The whole way sorcerers learn spells is ridiculous, with no in-game explanation. If it’s really “natural affinity” that you have no control over, then you should have to roll randomly for spells, and make the best use of whatever you get. Of course that would work much better in a real role-playing session than in a squad-based tactical murder simulator like BG2. 

There is a much better case for divine spontaneous casters to choose their spells, since they commune their deity/faith. With whom does a sorcerer commune to learn spells? How does a natural caster learn a spell like Otiluke’s Sphere or Mordenkainen’s Sword, which were designed and created by magical scholars?

Anyway, I’m not talking about disturbing how sorcerers learn spells, dumb as it is. I’m proposing a bonus: since they seem to understand magical scrolls (how, I don’t know), allow them to use that understanding to burn the spell into their mind, replacing an existing one. It’s a pure bonus over the vanilla sorcerer.

Edited January 20, 2021 by subtledoctor

[Endarire]

If burning a scroll to be able to replace a spell known is allowed in addition to the replacement per X levels, I am for it.  Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

The idea is, you could swap out one known spell each level, but you must posses and destroy a scroll for the new spell when you do it. 

I’m a role player; telling me you want it to be this way or that way in game because the class is awesomesauce and it would make your character an uber-powerful munchkin will never work with me. Rather, make up some lore that fits the game setting which explains how a sorcerer can change out their known spells by snapping their fingers. How do sorcerers gain spells in the first place? How does this class actually work? Somebody make something up, something that is satisfying from the point of view of narrative and characterization. 

I’ve given you the argument for using scrolls: I don’t know how they learn spells because stupid Bioware /WotC never explained it. But we know they can understand scrolls, because they csn cast spells from them. So it could make sense that they can use scrolls in this new way. (Plus, the game is full of scrolls, and if you run sorcerers instead of wizards that whole aspect of the game becomes meaningless, which is bad design.)

Tell me a better story than that. 

[Endarire]

My present understanding of how Sors learn spells is via innate talent and understanding.  For example, in real life, some people just "understand" music or programming or something else and can do it well with minimal formal training or study.  Others can reach similar levels of competence, but require significant amounts of training/formal study.

[subtledoctor]

On 1/22/2021 at 6:05 PM, Endarire said:

My present understanding of how Sors learn spells is via innate talent and understanding.  For example, in real life, some people just "understand" music or programming or something else and can do it well with minimal formal training or study.  Others can reach similar levels of competence, but require significant amounts of training/formal study.

In that case they should be able to learn from scrolls/spellbooks. And they should be able to know more than 5 spells per level. But they cannot, instead they learn upon level-up, and they can only know 5 spells.

The class has never made sense to me - except from a pure powergaming standpoint. That's not to say it couldn't make sense... I'd love for someone to tell me a story about sorcerers in which the mechanics make sense. And then that story could inform any changes I might want to make to improve the class.

[Endarire]

Fluff-wise, the spells known were due to bloodline.  Mechanically, it was made as a sort of spontaneous Wizard.

[Hypaspist]

Please disregard, wrong topic.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Hypaspist

[Guest Ragnar]

Tome and blood component ability Score Spellcasting Bonuses has the following notes:

install AFTER any mod that changes spell tables!): 0.9.4
 

Does that apply also for SCS, or can I install scs safely last? 

[subtledoctor]

I don’t believe SCS changes spell tables. It shouldn’t make any difference. Note however the rest if TnB very much should be installed before SCS. 

FYI this exact same component exists in Scales of Balance. So if it is easier for you to wrap your head around it, you can skip it in TnB and install it from SoB. (SoB is installed right around the same time as SCS.) 

[Guest Ragnar]

The exact component exist, but I remember that you had to install the two components from the two different mods to get 
the stat bonuses (from Scales of Balance)
the spell casting bonuses (from Tome of Battle)

Was this changed? By the way, thanks for the mod.