#spell slots

[yipyipallyall]

IDK if I even count as a spoonie but I feel this rating of "make important phone call" deep in my soul.

[persuasioncheck]

"So, she's not quite a sugar baby... she's a stevia baby!"

- Player, discussing a warlock

[category-five-autism-event]

I remember when I asked my first therapist as an adult (my last one, not the one I'm with currently) what self care was. Because I'm Autistic and genuinely didn't know, needed someone to explain the concept.

I remember her words; "It's something you do that takes no energy, helps relax you."

And thinking back on her understanding of self care, with my present knowledge of the subject-

[Legit had to stop typing in the middle of this because the crisis team people were knocking on my door lmao]

That she was a bit wrong with describing it as taking no energy. Sometimes self care takes a lot of energy, sometimes moderate. Kind of thinking of Spoon Theory as I type this, and I've also heard people call them Spell Slots. Self care can take spoons.

Especially someone who is Neurodivergent and Physically Disabled. There is nothing I can do in this world that will take no energy, no spoons. There is nothing in this world that I can do while not being in constant pain and discomfort. But there are things I can do to lessen the load of straw on the camel's back (As the saying goes), and I consider those things, those tasks, to be self care.

Sometimes having an episode of being nonspeaking is self care for me. Sometimes blocking people on the internet is self care for me. Sometimes clicking out of that video that is starting to trigger me is self care. Sometimes hyperfixating on a video game for three hours is self care.

[purplelapislazuli]

Can someone help me find a post?

It was about a neurodivergent person saying how doing some things feel like a cantrip. But others are like a first level spell. They take some energy but are doable. But then the higher the spell, the more difficult the task is. And this high level tasks are also limited, like high-level spells. You can only do so much in a day. And their therapist was mind gobbled, writing about dnd rules while this person was saying this

[bean-cookies]

Credit to one of my irl friends (yes, I have those) for the caption, which inspired the drawing.

Drawing this little goblin felt a bit like drawing a self-portrait 🙃

[thryth-gaming]

Vancian Casting

One of the key mechanics of D&D is Vancian spellcasting where the spellcasters have a certain number of "spell slots" that they can prepare in a given day. Magic Users (the precursors to wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers) would "memorize" spells and the Clerics (and later Paladins) would "pray" for spells. Later, druids and rangers would be added which would also pray for spells.

This was one of my biggest stumbling blocks for getting D&D magic because it didn't make sense to me that you just stopped knowing something because you used it once. And while I get the idea of becoming tired, the spell slot system was too rigid to represent how exhaustion works.

The Concept Broken Down

This is called Vancian magic because it is based on the Dying Earth novels by Jack Vance. None of which I've read, which probably contributes to my just not meshing well with Vancian casting.

In the series, magic was released by using magical words and the human mind could only hold a limited number of syllables in mind at a time and using them would wipe the knowledge from their mind. So the wizards would have to study their tomes everyday to regain their ability to perform magic. This mechanic was carried over to priests save that they would begin the day by asking their god for specific miracles. In both cases, the spellcaster needed to pick specific spells and couldn't change over to different ones if they decided that they didn't need a prepared spell after-all.

Raymond Feist, the novelist who created the Midkemia setting and wrote the Riftward novels, did some earlier work on D&D and refined this narrative into the idea that spells were long rituals but wizards had eventually built in a cutoff at the end where they could leave a spell unfinished save for a word or two. They would then have that spell basically just hanging on their word to release. Mechanically similar, though the narrative is different.

I have read some of that series and his approach to Vancian casting was the first one that made some sense. It accounted for why you "forgot" a spell. You didn't, you just expended the ritual and didn't have time to set it up again. And it explained why you had to prep spells ahead of time. Again there would be no time to do the ritual on the fly. However, it still didn't account for why the spell slots were rigidly structured on a level basis. And I still felt that surely you could do something with all that raw power even if you couldn't shape something intricate.

My Epiphany

What finally made the idea of magic slots work for me ... sort of ... is the video game Nioh 2. But even here there aren't slots, there's a "capacity" and each technique uses up a certain number of points of that capacity. But that's not the big "ohhh" moment for me here.

In Nioh 2, your Onmyou (and Ninjutsu) are physical tools and talismans which are consumed. So you would go to the nearest shrine and choose to "Ready Jutsu"

This would bring you to a menu show your capacity and what skills you've learned.

And then you could assign those pieces of gear to one of your eight hot-key slots. Resulting in me having a bunch of stuff I want available immediately and some items I use between fights so I can take my time about activating them and thus don't need to use one of my limited hot-buttons.

The main thing that made me go "That makes Vancian magic make so much more sense" even more than Feist's rituals with the cut-offs. Is that each of these tools is a consumable item and once you use it, you have to make another one.

The energy isn't something you have on tap where rituals are used to funnel it. It is something you take effort and time to create and then you expend it like a grenade, potion, or ammunition.

On top of this, Nioh 2 does have powers that you can use repeatedly over time as power builds up in the form of yokai powers and yokai shift. Both of which hinge on your nature as half-yokai and the yokai spirits that have allied with you. For these powers you have two pools of endurance that build up over time, one of which you can use piecemeal to summon your yokai powers and one of which you have to build up to a specific threshold in order to shift into a yokai form.

So they both have consumable one-use spells in the way D&D does in the form of Jutsu and inherent magical energy to fuel powers in the form of Anima (fueling yokai powers) and the Amrita Gauge (the threshold for changing into yokai form). But they are separated.

I'm going to set aside Anima and Amrita because they are basically "Sorcery that makes sense" and function by getting rid of spell slots.

The Jutsu is the method I'm focusing on here again because:

Each prepared "slot" represents a tool prepared using engineering, chemistty, mystical reagents, or appealing to spirits.

The stuff that makes the tools and talismans is external to the character.

The slots are not specifically numbered. As a note, point pools have been an alternative magic casting method since late 2nd edition.

This combination of creating a physical consumable and dropping the level-sorted slots was the thing that made Vancian casting make so much more sense. But then again... this wouldn't be Vancian casting, would it?

Side note, another facet of Nioh 2's "Jutsu" system is that leveling up the skill does not improve the damage that technique does. Fire Shot I, Fire Shot II, and Fire Shot III all base their damage on your Magic rating and other inherent bonuses.

What leveling up the skills does is increase their efficiency and increase the maximum number you can craft. For example

Fire Shot I: Prepare 1-6 fire shot talismans at 1 capacity each.

Fire Shot II: Prepare 1-8 fire shot talismans at 0.8 capacity each

Fire Shot III: Prepare 1-10 fire shot talismans at 0.7 capacity each.

This is largely just neat and not part of my epiphany on Nioh 2 and Vancian casting.

Now, you can't just change D&D to match that. It would be a completely different flavor of magic. But it is curious to see how it things would have developed if they had taken this track.

What If...

The big change here is that this mode of "magic" is more akin to being a D&D artificer than a D&D wizard. As you can also see, it would also have worked with some rogue abilities too with craftable thrown weapons, grenades, and medicines.

My suspicion is that if D&D had started with the assumption of wizards and clerics preparing relics and talismans between fights then it would be the sorcerer that was a late comer rather than the artificer. Though the artificer might not have been called such since it would be the base assumption.

I kind of suspect if the sorcerer had been introduced in that environment we would have heard something akin to the "no sci-fi in my fantasy" we get with artificers today but instead we'd be having "no mutant superheroes in my fantasy" with sorcerers.

[akkator]

Energy Systems

In DnD 5e we have gained a few different ways to track uses of features.

This will be a long rambling post so excuse me while I go off.

But if you want to see some incite into how I expand on Ki and Psionics look below.

Spell Slots

The most obvious, and most in depth, of these systems is the spell slot. A character starts with 2x 1st level slots. Every level* you increase the number of slots you have of that level until you reach its cap (4 for 1st, 3 for 2nd-5th, 2 for 6th-7th, and 1 for 8th-9th), though spell slots of 5th and higher require their highest above tier to be unlocked before progressing (this is the reason 5th-7th gain additional slots at 18th, 19th, and 20th level).

Spell Points

The frequently overlooked brother of spell slots. Though I exclusively use it with sorcerers to help differentiate them from wizards and other full casters.

They essentially brake down spell slots into smaller bits, giving you a pool of energy to draw upon. More like a mana bar in your typical RPG.

You loose out slightly in your high tier casting (as you lose the ability to cast multiple 6th and 7th level spells) but you more than make up for it in flexibility.

These are also useful as a measuring point between energy systems.

Ki

Relegated to the monk (in official use), Ki is mostly overlooked as its total supply is frequently lacking in low level play, though gaining it back on a short rest must be worth something.

Psionic Talent Die

Used exclusively by the Psionic Subclasses found in Tasha's. They are a pull of die that an be expended to preform effects and cast spells.

Mixing it up

So doing some converting between these I present the following.

Spell Slots/Spell Points

Characters that gain spell casting when they gain their class at first level, and progress in spell casting growth each level are known as Full Casters. Characters that gain spell casting when they gain their 2nd level in a class, and progress in spell casting every other level are Half Casters. Characters that gain spell casting when they gain their subclass (3rd level), and progress in spell casting every third level are Third Casters.

At max level:

A Third Caster has:

4x 1st level Slots (8 Spell Points)

3x 2nd level Slots (9 Spell Points)

3x 3rd level Slots (15 Spell Points)

1x 4th level Slots (6 Spell Points)

Totaling: 38 Points

Half Casters have 64 Points, and Full Caster have 133 points.

This allows us to more easily show the discrepancies in power from sources based on how the power is gained.

Using some conversion, we can calculate the total energy of other sources.

Ki

If the Monk can be thought of as a Martial Half Caster of the Ki world, using a mix of martial combat and magic Ki.

A hypothetical Ki Full Caster, we'll call it a "Priest". Would have around 42 Ki at max. Probably having 2+2/Level.

A hypothetical Ki Third Caster, we'll call it a "Friar" subclass for a Rogue or Fighter. Would have 12~ Ki at max. Probably call it Ki = Proficiency x2 for simplicity.

These are the calculations I used to make my version of the Four Elements Monk, "Way of Elemental Harmony" and have it feel on par with its Half Caster siblings (though in reality it's more like a Warlock because of regaining energy on a short rest).

Psionic Talent Die

If the Psi Knight Fighter/Soul Edge Rogue are the Third Casters of the Psionic world as they are gained through subclass.

A hypothetical Psionic Half Caster, we'll call it a "Psion". Would have around 20 Psionic Energy Die at max. Probably 1/level.

A hypothetical Psionic Full Caster, we'll call it a "Mystic". Would have around 42 Psionic Energy Die at max. Probably having 2+2/Level.

[another-rpg-sideblog]

Optional Feature: Spell Slot Flexibility by allolive on reddit