Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492601I don't know about the ballancing aspect...  In D&D, a 15th level MU has enormous power, but it takes time to apply. By way of comparison, a 15th level Monk could make short work of said MU in a one-on-one situation.

The D&D spell casters can amazing things including destroying entire cities (eg. the Tsunami Wu-Jen [MU] spell in Oriental Adventures), but if somebody can get to them, they're not too tough unless they have crazy protection spells in place.

Personally I never had much of an issue with spellcasters and their power level. But it is a very campaign and group specific thing I think. If someone is having issues with balance and spellcasting, components are a good way to do it.

I think the best way to reign in spells and their power is to limit which ones are available in your campaign in the first place.

Tsunami too much?

Don't allow it.

Quote from: Blackhand;492611I think the best way to reign in spells and their power is to limit which ones are available in your campaign in the first place.

Tsunami too much?

Don't allow it.

Yep.  There's never been a wish spell in my campaigns, not that I've ever seen a group get high enough in level that it would be an issue.  Wishes are embedded in magical items.

Another balancing factor in 1e that's often overlooked is the amount of time it takes to memorize a spell (this got watered down severely in 2e).  I don't have the books to hand here at work, but I remember calculating that an arch-mage (an m-u capable of casting spells up to level 9) would need something like 6 weeks of uninterrupted time to memorize their entire complement of spells.  So there's lots of prepwork involved.

Quote from: Kaldric;492607I'm thinking that I'll make the casters in my upcoming campaign write down the components in a "component bag" list. Just a list of the components, separated by what spell they're used for. That way, if any really odd situations come up, they'll  at least know what they've got in their component bag. Put a reasonable baseline number next to each component, that's how many he always has when he leaves the house - at least that many, probably more. This number is up to him, but it needs to reasonably fit in whatever conveyance he's got.

Interesting idea.

I could also go for components if they were limited in nature. Say, fifteen interchangable "items" neccessary to cast fifteen spells. To cast the spell, you have to pull the energy from the item - which disappears.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492617Interesting idea.

I could also go for components if they were limited in nature. Say, fifteen interchangable "items" neccessary to cast fifteen spells. To cast the spell, you have to pull the energy from the item - which disappears.

My buddy Kevin used to use a generic "component bag" that cost 5 gp or so; you had to have that on you to cast spells.  I thought that was a good idea, maybe increasing the cost as more powerful spells became available.

I like your 15 component idea a lot, though.  That would be an interesting project, correlating spells to components and such.

Quote from: Blackhand;492611I think the best way to reign in spells and their power is to limit which ones are available in your campaign in the first place.

Tsunami too much?

Don't allow it.

Yes, and a very good point. A lot of GMs seem to think they have to allow ALL the spells listed simply because they are there. If a spell has proven in the past to be unballancing or the GM simply doesn't want it, there's no reason it has to stay.

I've excluded certain spells before and players have never had an issue with it.

I've never been a fan of all spell components evaporating after you use them.  I mean, unless it's a diamond or something that is worth money AND specifically states that it is used up, I prefer to think of these things as foci.

Except, you know - live spiders.  Those are plentiful enough (except in the dead of winter) not to really worry about.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;492610Personally I never had much of an issue with spellcasters and their power level. But it is a very campaign and group specific thing I think. If someone is having issues with balance and spellcasting, components are a good way to do it.

I use goblinoids, giants, and humanoids for about 90% of my npcs, so in my games certain types of wizards can be game breaking. I tend to use a lot of house rules to balance wizards back instead of mixing up the badguys to negate his memorized spells. Wizards are op if they know what's coming, so you either need house rules or random monsters in my opinion.

When playing D&D, I always assume that what's in the PHB is dead common. If there's stuff in there the players can break - I fix it so it doesn't destroy the campaign.

Anything not in the PHB enters the campaign at my discretion. I like the Wizard's Spell Compendium from 2e, there's not much that's not in there, and it's got a rarity system that I use with fair results.

I think a better way of implementing components is to have them as enhancements to the spell. So if you want to go to the time and trouble of getting them, then they have a concrete spell effect. They still vanish after the spell is cast, but the MU can have a bag of tricks up his sleeve for special occasions. For normal casting he needs nothing.

So, for example - Spider Climb, Component: Giant Spider web, Cost: 100 GPs, Effect: Lvl+2 for Duration purposes

Magic Missile, Component: +1 Bolt or Arrow per missile required upto your maximum, Cost (?dunno off top of head), Effect: +1 damage per missile

You could come up with several per spell and come up with super combos that'd cost you a fortune but be quite funky.

I've done this with Rolemaster spells in the past and called them catalysts.

I usually say that if you go to the trouble of actually using components, it effectively "maximizes" the spell effects; max duration, max damage, etc. (still based on your level of course). That way if the player WANTS to take the trouble to buy and track his components, there's a payoff, but if not, magic still works like normal.

And you HAVE to have a spell book and you HAVE to scribe new spells in it, not just automatically learn them at every level. You can cast without a book, but only memorized spells, and if you DON'T have your book after you fire off your spell - sorry, Charlie.

Scrolls are extremely valuable - not just as one-shots, but for the party's mages to use them to scribe in their books. They'll even write down ones far above their current level so they'll have them once they get there, that kinda thing.

Quote from: One Horse Town;492647I think a better way of implementing components is to have them as enhancements to the spell. So if you want to go to the time and trouble of getting them, then they have a concrete spell effect. They still vanish after the spell is cast, but the MU can have a bag of tricks up his sleeve for special occasions. For normal casting he needs nothing.

So, for example - Spider Climb, Component: Giant Spider web, Cost: 100 GPs, Effect: Lvl+2 for Duration purposes

Magic Missile, Component: +1 Bolt or Arrow per missile required upto your maximum, Cost (?dunno off top of head), Effect: +1 damage per missile

You could come up with several per spell and come up with super combos that'd cost you a fortune but be quite funky.

I've done this with Rolemaster spells in the past and called them catalysts.

Nice, but that brings us back to the original problem: book keeping of the components.  Players will just buy in bulk, same as before.

The incentive will quickly lead this to be the "standard" - not having the components will be seen as inferior and to be avoided, since it's not the maximum potential allowable by the spell.

In fact this might be worse, because now you have to keep track of what is essentially two different versions of the same effect.

Quote from: Blackhand;492653Nice, but that brings us back to the original problem: book keeping of the components.  Players will just buy in bulk, same as before.

The incentive will quickly lead this to be the "standard" - not having the components will be seen as inferior and to be avoided, since it's not the maximum potential allowable by the spell.

In fact this might be worse, because now you have to keep track of what is essentially two different versions of the same effect.

Well, you could make the components as difficult to acquire as you like. Maybe you need a sample of a web spun by Lolth - good luck buying that in bulk. I'd probably treble duration for that.

We typically only require some of the costlier ingredients - incense, pearls, gemstones and such - and avoid the rest. But it turns out there is something in enforcing component-hunting to a 't' if the time required to do it doesn't disrupt the game. It adds a layer of challenge to playing a M-U.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492583BTW, here's an example of a really elaborate spell component:
Repulsion - 7th level MU spell (PH pg 86)
"The material component of this spell is a pair of small magnetized iron bars attached to two small canine statuettes, one ivory and one ebony."

Amazingly enough, this precise component has come up in the 3.0 FR game I am playing in. We were in Bumfuck, Calimshan (~large enough city to have a significant bazaar, but bit of a backwater), and when the party wizard tried to obtain something like that, you could just sense the merchants' mouths dropping with a silent "WTF is this guy smoking?!"

Afterwards, he was very happy he could obtain components for globe of invulnerability and lightning bolt.

Some good points raised in this thread....


I have used spell components before. Like the encumbrance rules, I have found the rules for components to be tedious to track and usually not that rewarding in terms of game play.