Author Topic: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?  (Read 5998 times)

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Sjappo

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #20 on: June 07, 2011, 07:12:32 PM »
The thing is, expensive components are accounted for in LOOT.
Your regular loot is in fact above your WBL for a reason.
Right. So do you advocate leaving expensive components alone or lowering loot?

O, and what is regular loot? Does that even exist? If a DM uses mostly animals and undead you gain almost no loot. Dragons, NPCs have tons of loot. As a PC you are not entitled to X loot.

ShadowViper

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #21 on: June 07, 2011, 09:03:29 PM »
Even though animals and undead may not have any treasure or "loot" that shouldn't mean that the players get behind on WBL. A DM running a "no treasure" creature heavy campaign should be giving the PCs their "loot" in the form of quest rewards. "Wonderful! You all took out that graveyard full of zombies! Here's your payment!"
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Lycanthromancer

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #22 on: June 07, 2011, 09:59:49 PM »
Even though animals and undead may not have any treasure or "loot" that shouldn't mean that the players get behind on WBL. A DM running a "no treasure" creature heavy campaign should be giving the PCs their "loot" in the form of quest rewards. "Wonderful! You all took out that graveyard full of zombies! Here's your payment!"
And any wizard worth his salt-cows can turn adversity into opportunity. Stitch those undead together into a Cthulian horror!
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oslecamo

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #23 on: June 07, 2011, 10:03:09 PM »
Well, pillaging is probably a matter for another thread(and board section for the matter), but resaleability(limited range of buyers or else scrap buyers(low percentage of value) is useful for DMs seeking to keep them from ripping up the furnishings/casting spells that generate saleable items so much, Fabricate aside. And of course markets can approach saturation. Why buy salt when theres such a glut.
Well, that works until you get Teleport and Plane Shift.  Then you run into planes with infinity layers and such.

Infinite planes also means infinite competition. :smirk

Sjappo

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #24 on: June 08, 2011, 10:00:14 AM »
Even though animals and undead may not have any treasure or "loot" that shouldn't mean that the players get behind on WBL. A DM running a "no treasure" creature heavy campaign should be giving the PCs their "loot" in the form of quest rewards. "Wonderful! You all took out that graveyard full of zombies! Here's your payment!"
Beside the point. There is no such thing as standard loot. Sure, DMs are advised to heed the WBL table. Removing costly components does nothing to change that. Just give out slightly less loot because without costly components PCs won't burn GP as fast. Or not, DM choice.

What would happen is that spells with expensive components will be cast more often. I'm arguing that this is not a bad thing and won't affect game balance in the slightest. Sure, players will seek out the 17th level cleric for that true resurrection instead of settling for raise dead, but is that so bad?

On a whole the most expensive spells are not the most powerful, so who cares?

bkdubs123

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #25 on: June 08, 2011, 11:08:28 AM »
On a whole the most expensive spells are not the most powerful, so who cares?

But what if they were?

As part of a "two-pronged attack," what if:

1) The most powerful spells of any given level required a costly focus component (but one that could be used for any spells that need a focus)?

2) The costly material components of other spells WERE NOT compensated for by loot, but were assumed to be bought by casters using their actual WBL?

So, if Mr. McWizard wants to cast his Color Sprays and Glitterdusts and Cloudkills and Force Cages and other powerful "attack" spells he'll need to carry around an expensive magical staff or something. In order to cast his Celerities and Major Creations and Greater Teleports he needs to purchase costly reagents. "Weaker" spells, like Knock, Orb of Fire, or Greater Dispel Magic could be cast without worrying about material components.

Might such an approach have a "positive" effect on game balance?

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #26 on: June 08, 2011, 11:23:54 AM »
Infinite planes also means infinite competition. :smirk
Good point.
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Shiki

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #27 on: June 08, 2011, 01:13:14 PM »
On a whole the most expensive spells are not the most powerful, so who cares?

But what if they were?

As part of a "two-pronged attack," what if:

1) The most powerful spells of any given level required a costly focus component (but one that could be used for any spells that need a focus)?

2) The costly material components of other spells WERE NOT compensated for by loot, but were assumed to be bought by casters using their actual WBL?

So, if Mr. McWizard wants to cast his Color Sprays and Glitterdusts and Cloudkills and Force Cages and other powerful "attack" spells he'll need to carry around an expensive magical staff or something. In order to cast his Celerities and Major Creations and Greater Teleports he needs to purchase costly reagents. "Weaker" spells, like Knock, Orb of Fire, or Greater Dispel Magic could be cast without worrying about material components.

Might such an approach have a "positive" effect on game balance?

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Sjappo

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #28 on: June 08, 2011, 01:43:34 PM »
On a whole the most expensive spells are not the most powerful, so who cares?

But what if they were?

As part of a "two-pronged attack," what if:

1) The most powerful spells of any given level required a costly focus component (but one that could be used for any spells that need a focus)?

2) The costly material components of other spells WERE NOT compensated for by loot, but were assumed to be bought by casters using their actual WBL?

So, if Mr. McWizard wants to cast his Color Sprays and Glitterdusts and Cloudkills and Force Cages and other powerful "attack" spells he'll need to carry around an expensive magical staff or something. In order to cast his Celerities and Major Creations and Greater Teleports he needs to purchase costly reagents. "Weaker" spells, like Knock, Orb of Fire, or Greater Dispel Magic could be cast without worrying about material components.

Might such an approach have a "positive" effect on game balance?
What you are effectively saying is that powerful (and thus expensive) spells are not part of a classfeature (spellcasting) but part of the WBL. Nice idea. It would force wizards/clerics/... to pick and choose between spells because he cannot afford to get them all. Assuming that each spell has its own focus.

Seconded. Now all we need is a tier system for spells and a price tag.

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #29 on: June 08, 2011, 04:31:37 PM »
On a whole the most expensive spells are not the most powerful, so who cares?

But what if they were?

As part of a "two-pronged attack," what if:

1) The most powerful spells of any given level required a costly focus component (but one that could be used for any spells that need a focus)?

2) The costly material components of other spells WERE NOT compensated for by loot, but were assumed to be bought by casters using their actual WBL?

So, if Mr. McWizard wants to cast his Color Sprays and Glitterdusts and Cloudkills and Force Cages and other powerful "attack" spells he'll need to carry around an expensive magical staff or something. In order to cast his Celerities and Major Creations and Greater Teleports he needs to purchase costly reagents. "Weaker" spells, like Knock, Orb of Fire, or Greater Dispel Magic could be cast without worrying about material components.

Might such an approach have a "positive" effect on game balance?
You know....that might actually fix spells balance.
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ShadowViper

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #30 on: June 08, 2011, 05:09:19 PM »
Even though animals and undead may not have any treasure or "loot" that shouldn't mean that the players get behind on WBL. A DM running a "no treasure" creature heavy campaign should be giving the PCs their "loot" in the form of quest rewards. "Wonderful! You all took out that graveyard full of zombies! Here's your payment!"
Beside the point. There is no such thing as standard loot. Sure, DMs are advised to heed the WBL table. Removing costly components does nothing to change that. Just give out slightly less loot because without costly components PCs won't burn GP as fast. Or not, DM choice.

There seems to be some confusion. I was simply pointing out that it is possible to give PCs loot and/or treasure in a campaign heavy with no-treasure monsters/creatures. That's it.
I hear it's amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on Hara-Kiri rock! I need scissors! 61!

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Sjappo

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #31 on: June 08, 2011, 05:58:10 PM »
Even though animals and undead may not have any treasure or "loot" that shouldn't mean that the players get behind on WBL. A DM running a "no treasure" creature heavy campaign should be giving the PCs their "loot" in the form of quest rewards. "Wonderful! You all took out that graveyard full of zombies! Here's your payment!"
Beside the point. There is no such thing as standard loot. Sure, DMs are advised to heed the WBL table. Removing costly components does nothing to change that. Just give out slightly less loot because without costly components PCs won't burn GP as fast. Or not, DM choice.

There seems to be some confusion. I was simply pointing out that it is possible to give PCs loot and/or treasure in a campaign heavy with no-treasure monsters/creatures. That's it.
I misunderstood. Thanx for clearing that up. And you're right of course.

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #32 on: June 08, 2011, 06:28:37 PM »
Hooray for shadowcraft mages?
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bkdubs123

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Re: Which spells should have expensive focuses or components?
« Reply #33 on: June 08, 2011, 08:02:14 PM »
Plus Fucking One.

What you are effectively saying is that powerful (and thus expensive) spells are not part of a classfeature (spellcasting) but part of the WBL. Nice idea. It would force wizards/clerics/... to pick and choose between spells because he cannot afford to get them all. Assuming that each spell has its own focus.

Seconded. Now all we need is a tier system for spells and a price tag.

You know....that might actually fix spells balance.

Alright! I'm on a roll lately. I'll crunch some serious numbers and try to work on consolidating a "tier system" for spells.