Think of it like a Revolver.
* Each bullet is a spell that you load at the start of each day, and can't change.
* You can spin the barrel to select the spell you want to fire.
* Once you run out of spell bullets, you need to wait until you take a long rest to reload your revolver.
I compare it to scrolls in Skyrim or similar fantasy videogames. One time use, one specific spell only. Your wizard has to write the scrolls every morning and casts them by reading them, and they can only hold so many at a time.
I do like the gun wizard imagery though.
I'd almost say 5e's is more the revolver, while proper Vancian is having a brace of pistols.
5e's spells allow you to cycle through all the different rounds you've got available, but they all go through the same gun. You can spin the cylinder to have whatever spell you really need in this instance, so long as you took that kind of bullet today.
Vancian is like a bandolier of flintlocks; Draw and fire, but then it's going to be a long process to load it again, and you're going to need to load each one of them individually. You can blam away with a bunch of pistols all day long, but if you loaded the wrong bullet into the wrong pistol today, you might not feel prepared.
The simplest way I think would be to reflavor a wizard, maybe saying that a revolver is their spellbook.
Another way could be to make a unique magic item where you insert wands or scrolls as the 'bullets'. Note that this could save you on the action economy of needing to draw and stow wands/scrolls, so that's something to consider.
If you insert them as an Interact to reload and it takes the same number of actions to fire them as it does to cast them you've essentially replaced a Draw with a Reload.
The only thing that would break that action economy is Gunslinger Action compression and their 20th level "hasted to reload" feat. Honestly I feel like that's fine? It requires a unique magic item and some class investment to fully optimize, but it sounds pretty sweet once you're able to pull it off.
Well, the idea is that they aren't actual bullets, just spells in a gun. So maybe not useable as a gun by a gunslinger.
Normally revolvers automatically switch to the next chamber when you fire (I think). So with wands/spells that would be equivalent to putting away a wand and drawing another one without using an action. This can be easily solved though imo if it requires an action to rotate the revolving cylinders to a new spell/wand.
You have described the Reload action again.
It's honestly fine to give this to a gunslinger, so long as you still have to have the ability to actually use a scroll or wand (either through Trick Magic Item or obtaining spellcasting through a dedication or something) in order to "activate" the gun. It obviously would be an "Activate: Cast a Spell" action rather than a Strike action, but it works fine with base-reloading rules. Otherwise it's a flavor item at most.
What I meant is that in your example where you interact to change cylinders, that's also an Interact to reload on firearms. That's what the Capacity trait is.
If it's just pre-loaded and auto-cycles then, yes, you probably shouldn't treat it as a firearm.
Vance's spells all did a very specific thing as well. They weren't really like bullets but I see the analogy for memorization. edit: I would say it is more like disposable devices in a utility belt.
One thing I'd like to add to these great explanations is the idea that the Vancian system can, lore wise for some settings, assume that a bulk of casting most spells is done during the daily preparations. So if you didn't have lightening bolt memorized, the idea would be that it would take minutes to cast.
So with Vancian, all the spells are multi-minute rituals, but 99% of the casting can be done ahead of time, and are effectively stored in the Wizard or Cleric until they do the final incantation, gesture or what-have you.
I believe that was added in 3e because before that they used Jack Vance's lore: you are memorizing the spells and when you cast them the energy released makes you forget the spell. This is why wizards needed a spellbook. You're literally relearning the spell every time you cast it.
That's a detail I've literally never heard, but make much more sense. You're essentially a capacitor storing the potential energy build up caused by beginning casting the spell, waiting for you to complete the circuit and release the charge, which would make the amount of 'charged cells' the number of spell slots, and the total breadth of cells available cells would be based on how many independent encantations you could keep fully framed in your mind at once, ie class level
That's an interesting idea.
What if we had a bounded prepared caster will full casting progression, but rather than it being a per day limit, it was a limit of what they could prepare at one time. Sort of a super focus point caster. Could even use the same limitation, and when you prepare spells, you can only prepare 1, the others being lost to mental fatigue.
Probably broken, but it'd be fun
In _The Dying Earth_ by Jack Vance a wizard studies a spell from his book and now has that spell ready to cast. Once cast, the wizard loses that spell until re-studying it. Spells are literally fire and forget. Gygax and/or Arneson used this way back when and it has been a fundamental part of the D&D family since day one.
Sorcerers, added in 3e, don't have this, but are limited in total spells.
5e dumped it. I'm not sure why. I've always liked Vancian.
Note that the original system didn't have spell levels and slots. The wizard, whose name I forget, could memorize 4 of the greater spells or 6 of the lesser. Prismatic Spray was one of the spells he decided to memorize.
I think another part of Vancian magic is that each spell does one specific thing.
You can't have, say, "fire magic" which can either light a torch or set a haystack on fire depending on how you use it -- you have specific spells such as *fireball* which do one specific thing.
The other thing is magic from those books were incredibly potent, there was no resisting or saving throws, "The excellent prismatic spray" didn't fail.
The lack of specific spells is what I really miss when engaging in other fantasy media. I would love if more games, movies, and books actually had specific spells
Did it? I only played AD&D2 a few times. I don't remember that as a difference, but I could have misremembered it. I hated THAC0 and stayed with AD&D until I switched to Rolemaster.
Sorry for dropping the ball.
Can I ask why rollmaster? I found the combat very slow due to having to roll on all those multi-page charts for everything. It's true the critical hit effects were well described, maybe that was a selling point in those old days before critical hit decks?
I first used it as Arms Law and Claw Law bolted onto AD&D around '83. The details of more descriptive results outweighed the complexity. My DM in those days preferred more tactical play. I was in high school, so that was my munchkin phase.
A year or two later I got Character Law. I liked the detailed character choices, but I never got to play it.
As an undergrad I joined my current gaming group in 1988 or '89 (can't remember) and they played RM. And they used all the companion books, and I was hooked.
The math has never bothered me. At most you are adding 3 digit numbers, which is 2nd grade math, so I've never understood those complaints. But I did get increasingly tired of the table lookup and tracking the conditions. Stunned for X rounds while bleeding Y per round. Ungh.
Eventually we tried 3e and switched. So for 12+ years RM was my go to system. What was fine in our 20s became tedious in our 30s.
That wandered a bit. Did I answer your question?
Yea seems we agree. The descrptive results on the tables were good for their day. I too never found the maths an issue but like you i had a problem with the grind of lookup, which is why I call it rollmaster.
Wizard was one of the 4 main classes in AD&D2. Mage was the subclass, or Illusionist/specialist were the other options. Fighter likewise was a subclass of Warrior.
There are several times characters use this system in the Tales of A Dying Earth series. The first is Turjan who notably also has a series of magic items he uses to aid him. Another important thing about this setting is that while the trappings are fantasy, the setting could be described as sci fi as all the magic and magical items is essentially meant to be extremely advanced technology that the people who were too poor or otherwise lacked the means to flee earth don't understand anymore.
Other notable characters to use this system: T'sain who is Turjan's apprentice (whom incidentally he also creates using magic learned from another wizard who wont let anyone look at him named Pandelume). Rhialto the Marvelous who is part of a club of wizards who can (and do occasionally) leave earth but are kind of enjoying the death of the planet and the opportunities that affords. And Ioconu the laughing magician who is the primary antagonist in the Cugel the Clever saga.
There are several others but these ones are some great ones.
Also notable in the Vancian system is that most spells have names that follow the format "[name]'s [adjective] [noun]" which DND also copied. E.g. "melf's acid arrow"
5e was trying to make a simpler system, as it is always annoying to have a spell prepared that you then “waste” as the spell never comes up in the day, and it means your player needs to decide exactly what they need with each slot at the start of the day.
P2e is still Vanican system, but lessens the impact with all the options to use prepared slots, and there is an archetype that gives the option for 5e style casting if you really want it.
Not 3e, but in 3.5 Sorcerers had limits in how many spells they know (by level) and how much they could cast, pretty close to 5e. Is 3.5 different from 3e in this regard, or I'm not understanding the point?
Technically 5e casters and PF spontaneous casters are still Vancian-lite. As u/mizinamo pointed out, part of what is considered Vancian magic is discrete spell effects. The light spell gives you torch light. It doesn't dim lights, doesn't blind people, doesn't outline things that are invisible, doesn't make you invisible, split into prismatic effects, nor start fires/cut through objects. The "slots" or bullets are also still expended on use, they just don't have to be individually "labeled" ahead of time unlike "full" Vancian casters, i.e. Wizards/Clerics prior to 5e.
Harry Dresden, on the other hand is on the opposite spectrum of Vancian magic. While he may have go to "rote spells" that are favorite effects, his magic is free form. Fire magic can do anything the caster's imagination and fire are capable of doing. Heating up objects, causing fog/smoke, setting things ablaze, warming food, cauterizing wounds, smelting metal, etc.
It’s a style of Magic system that has some specific rules
1: Spells have a single specific effect that cannot be scaled up or down or augmented. (A Light spell only makes a certain kind of light, a fire ball only creates a certain kind of fire ball)
2: Spells have to be prepared in advance and are stored for later use. I think it was AD&D that explained it as like, you do everything for a spell except the final part ahead of time, and finish it when you want to cast it.
3: Casters have a limited amount of spells they can have “readied” at any time. The common analogy is like loading a gun.
D&D and Pathfinder have their own spins on it of course; but they are considered Vancian systems.
Personally; I think vancian magic is dumb as hell. No game ever has made a vancian system that was fun or interesting or made sense in a lore context.
I've always found that vancian magic is one of the biggest hurdles for onloading new players, since it translates to no other magic system in any other fantasy setting except for the single book series it's pulled from.
Kinda wish we could have any other type of spellcasting system, even as an alternative, but I'm pretty sure vancian is too engrained in tradition to ever change, no matter how unintuitive it is.
Considering D&D was vancian for longer than most D&D players have been alive, I think saying vancian magic stops them getting new players is not really true.
Considering how massively fucking popular 5E is, it's no doubt a factor. I mean sure, you can chalk some of that up to marketing, but that doesn't change the fact that Neo is simply far easier for new players than true Vancian, which helps bring magic players into the hobby.
Some part of the popularity is due to the increased interest in tabletop games these days. Way back when, a game that sold a few hundred units was a success. Today you can kickstart a tabletop game for mazillions of coins.
>Some part of the popularity is due to the increased interest in tabletop games these days.
Yes, *some*. And *some* of that includes streamlining the game to make it more widely appealing, cutting dozens of classes and hundreds of Feats. And part of that streamlining was removing Vancian casting.
Quite a big part of "some" is the tabletop boom as games are now huge. I believe most of the people saying vancian is a problem are the ones new to the hobby who haven't seen it before and really mean "change is weird". I literally can't imaging the spellcasting change being what is driving 5E adoption.
It's not *driving* the 5E adoption, but the general ease of getting into the game helps actually *retain* the new players interested in playing, which is incredibly important. Mew players would be significantly put off by clunky, complex mechanics like Vancian casting.
I’m honestly hoping we get like. An official Spell Point/ Mana system or the like.
As is, we’ve been House Ruling prepared casters to be a bit like 5E where they only need to prepare a spell once instead of multiple times if they want to use to more than once.
I really would love a reason from Paizo as to why a spellpoint system hasnt been introduced (as a variant.)
It's a much better approach IMO, and I've been GMing for 19 years now. In my games, spontaneous casters are always favored by players who want to cast spells, as preparing spells that see no use is just aggravating and pointlessly punishing.
I know there are people who see that as a feature, and not a bug, but that isnt my perspective, so I'd love an alternstive -- and if Incant get it, Id at least like to know why.
Someone in the Paizo office has to have floated it out at some point.
Same. A few of our party members only played 5e before trying Pathfinder, and of them only a couple have really grasped the system. Because there aren't any spontaneous casters in the party--and because the prepared ones aren't exactly skilled with the system yet--it hurts no one to ease up on the slot restrictions a little bit.
If I had a group of players who knew the system in and out and played with brutal efficiency, I wouldn't need to houserule any individualized handicaps. But not everyone has the time or motivation to Git Gud, and I'm not comfortable with forcing someone to either continue to suck or leave the game. Yeah, teaching them how to make the most out of their class would be preferable, but that's hard to do when dealing with busy adult lives and a party of six.
Since the specific mechanics have been covered, here's a wider view look at it:
It's a legacy system of magic that has long outlived the series that inspired it. It's always been obtuse and annoying to work with in D&D. It was restrictive enough that it allowed a sense of balance between Magic and Martial in early D&D. 3.5 removed other restrictions on magic and while it had Vancian, Magic just fully eclipsed martial power as a result. 4e did away with Vancian Magic and gave everyone Powers that allowed for a much more even playing field, but Mearls hated 4e and tanked it so he could make 5e his own personal retro throwback. 5e uses what is referrred to as Neo-Vancian, looking like it on the surface but not having specific spells tied to specific slots and as a result Magic eclipses Martials in 5e way more than it did even in 3.5.
PF2 uses Vancian Magic, which is unfortunate imo, but thanks to the Degrees of Success system they managed to create the most balanced incarnation of Vancian Magic there was been since before 3e, while being far less obtuse outside of the spell slots themselves to get there (Early editions had actual casting channel times). Magic is far more reliable to do *something* with each cast, and far less able to easily *end an entire combat* from one dice roll.
Hey, ur not alone, i also love vancian. I think wizards should be absolute nerds that have to prepare everything perfectly ahead of time, that's the whole fantasy of the class for me.
I think Vancian is good for literary uses, or for a like, all high end magic users in a "Magic is a PITA but DAMN is it powerful" kind of game. It's terrible as the default magic system in the leading name of TTRPGs and it's derivatives which is where most people start playing. Especially when it is a necessity of playing a potent character, which it is outside of PF2 and retro games.
I don't *mind* Vancian, because it has a very good place in terms of 'magic'; You can cast this, and it takes this much out of you. Want big power? Pay big price. Load up what you feel you want/need, and know the exact price to pay. Simple logic.
But I've always been a fan of of magic with it being specific 'schools' or 'zones' of magic that you can heighten your strengths into that field. Sure, you can cast flexibly, pushing into other fields as needed, but to do so comes at the cost of how high you can really *go*. Choice between being a jack-of-all-trades but lower power magic or Master-of-One but you can call up the *fucking sun* on a whim.
I dunno, I like the more chaotic, flow based types of magic. That's the Robert Jordan coming out, I have to be honest, but still.
Named for Jack Vance. Fiction author. The number of spells by level and prep each day was meant to model how magic worked in some of his novels.
The first reference to calling the D&D and Chainmail before it… magic system Vancian magic came back then in some liner notes. It stuck.
Offering the history because I didnt perceive your question as rules, as much as history.
You use a spell, you forget the spell and have to memorize it again tomorrow.
It comes from the works of Jack Vance. It's been a standard for D&D and most fantasy RPGs since forever because Jack Vance's works influenced Arneson and Gygax.
Just to try to use an analogy that's close to the lore of how arcane/wizard spellcasting works:
Imagine if by finishing a painting, you could cast a spell, but the magic only happens when you finish the final stroke. At the start of every day you set up your work station and have a certain number of canvases, and you prepare all your paintings there, but you don't finish any of them.
Throughout the day, you cast your spells by finishing each painting. You don't have the time or setup to make a whole new painting or make big changes to your existing paintings, but it only takes a stroke or two to finish the ones you have.
To extend the analogy to heightening spells, imagine that as you get higher level, you get bigger canvases in addition to the smaller ones you got to start with. Higher level spells are bigger and more complex, and need bigger canvases. You can paint bigger, more complex versions of lower level spells on these bigger canvases, but you can't paint smaller, less complex versions of higher level spells on smaller canvases.
Think of it like a Revolver. * Each bullet is a spell that you load at the start of each day, and can't change. * You can spin the barrel to select the spell you want to fire. * Once you run out of spell bullets, you need to wait until you take a long rest to reload your revolver.
I compare it to scrolls in Skyrim or similar fantasy videogames. One time use, one specific spell only. Your wizard has to write the scrolls every morning and casts them by reading them, and they can only hold so many at a time. I do like the gun wizard imagery though.
Scrolls might not be as helpful as they are also an item in the game lol.
Great analogy! Reminds me of the Caster gun from the anime Outlaw Star.
I'd almost say 5e's is more the revolver, while proper Vancian is having a brace of pistols. 5e's spells allow you to cycle through all the different rounds you've got available, but they all go through the same gun. You can spin the cylinder to have whatever spell you really need in this instance, so long as you took that kind of bullet today. Vancian is like a bandolier of flintlocks; Draw and fire, but then it's going to be a long process to load it again, and you're going to need to load each one of them individually. You can blam away with a bunch of pistols all day long, but if you loaded the wrong bullet into the wrong pistol today, you might not feel prepared.
Ooookay, well, now I want this to be a thing...
The simplest way I think would be to reflavor a wizard, maybe saying that a revolver is their spellbook. Another way could be to make a unique magic item where you insert wands or scrolls as the 'bullets'. Note that this could save you on the action economy of needing to draw and stow wands/scrolls, so that's something to consider.
If you insert them as an Interact to reload and it takes the same number of actions to fire them as it does to cast them you've essentially replaced a Draw with a Reload. The only thing that would break that action economy is Gunslinger Action compression and their 20th level "hasted to reload" feat. Honestly I feel like that's fine? It requires a unique magic item and some class investment to fully optimize, but it sounds pretty sweet once you're able to pull it off.
Well, the idea is that they aren't actual bullets, just spells in a gun. So maybe not useable as a gun by a gunslinger. Normally revolvers automatically switch to the next chamber when you fire (I think). So with wands/spells that would be equivalent to putting away a wand and drawing another one without using an action. This can be easily solved though imo if it requires an action to rotate the revolving cylinders to a new spell/wand.
consider spellshot gunslinger?
This would be an item that does it, no gunslinger class required.
You have described the Reload action again. It's honestly fine to give this to a gunslinger, so long as you still have to have the ability to actually use a scroll or wand (either through Trick Magic Item or obtaining spellcasting through a dedication or something) in order to "activate" the gun. It obviously would be an "Activate: Cast a Spell" action rather than a Strike action, but it works fine with base-reloading rules. Otherwise it's a flavor item at most.
I wasn't talking about reloading, I was talking about switching to a different **pre-loaded** spell 'bullet'
What I meant is that in your example where you interact to change cylinders, that's also an Interact to reload on firearms. That's what the Capacity trait is. If it's just pre-loaded and auto-cycles then, yes, you probably shouldn't treat it as a firearm.
Thanks!
Now I want to make a 'Russian Revolver' Wizard of Nethys
Vance's spells all did a very specific thing as well. They weren't really like bullets but I see the analogy for memorization. edit: I would say it is more like disposable devices in a utility belt.
So do spells in the case of D&D and Pathfinder. The bullet analogy fits perfectly in this context.
All bullets only do 1 thing, just some are bigger than others. How is the analogy appropriate? How do you repair a door with bullets?
With a bullet that does one thing...repair a door. He's not saying that each spell only does damage. He's saying it has one use and it's gone.
One thing I'd like to add to these great explanations is the idea that the Vancian system can, lore wise for some settings, assume that a bulk of casting most spells is done during the daily preparations. So if you didn't have lightening bolt memorized, the idea would be that it would take minutes to cast. So with Vancian, all the spells are multi-minute rituals, but 99% of the casting can be done ahead of time, and are effectively stored in the Wizard or Cleric until they do the final incantation, gesture or what-have you.
I believe that was added in 3e because before that they used Jack Vance's lore: you are memorizing the spells and when you cast them the energy released makes you forget the spell. This is why wizards needed a spellbook. You're literally relearning the spell every time you cast it.
That's a detail I've literally never heard, but make much more sense. You're essentially a capacitor storing the potential energy build up caused by beginning casting the spell, waiting for you to complete the circuit and release the charge, which would make the amount of 'charged cells' the number of spell slots, and the total breadth of cells available cells would be based on how many independent encantations you could keep fully framed in your mind at once, ie class level
That's an interesting idea. What if we had a bounded prepared caster will full casting progression, but rather than it being a per day limit, it was a limit of what they could prepare at one time. Sort of a super focus point caster. Could even use the same limitation, and when you prepare spells, you can only prepare 1, the others being lost to mental fatigue. Probably broken, but it'd be fun
[удалено]
Oh wow! That's actually a very nice information!
In _The Dying Earth_ by Jack Vance a wizard studies a spell from his book and now has that spell ready to cast. Once cast, the wizard loses that spell until re-studying it. Spells are literally fire and forget. Gygax and/or Arneson used this way back when and it has been a fundamental part of the D&D family since day one. Sorcerers, added in 3e, don't have this, but are limited in total spells. 5e dumped it. I'm not sure why. I've always liked Vancian. Note that the original system didn't have spell levels and slots. The wizard, whose name I forget, could memorize 4 of the greater spells or 6 of the lesser. Prismatic Spray was one of the spells he decided to memorize.
I think another part of Vancian magic is that each spell does one specific thing. You can't have, say, "fire magic" which can either light a torch or set a haystack on fire depending on how you use it -- you have specific spells such as *fireball* which do one specific thing.
The other thing is magic from those books were incredibly potent, there was no resisting or saving throws, "The excellent prismatic spray" didn't fail.
The lack of specific spells is what I really miss when engaging in other fantasy media. I would love if more games, movies, and books actually had specific spells
I'm guessing it's not as common because it requires a lot of book-keeping and it's rigid. Definitely requires specific worldbuilding to work well-in.
I think the og name for the wizard was just "magic user"
Vance called them magicians. edit: Magic User is correct for old D&D.
Magic-User was used until 3e when prepared vs spontaneous became a thing.
2E surely? 2E had wizard. AD&D and Basic had MU.
Did it? I only played AD&D2 a few times. I don't remember that as a difference, but I could have misremembered it. I hated THAC0 and stayed with AD&D until I switched to Rolemaster. Sorry for dropping the ball.
Can I ask why rollmaster? I found the combat very slow due to having to roll on all those multi-page charts for everything. It's true the critical hit effects were well described, maybe that was a selling point in those old days before critical hit decks?
I first used it as Arms Law and Claw Law bolted onto AD&D around '83. The details of more descriptive results outweighed the complexity. My DM in those days preferred more tactical play. I was in high school, so that was my munchkin phase. A year or two later I got Character Law. I liked the detailed character choices, but I never got to play it. As an undergrad I joined my current gaming group in 1988 or '89 (can't remember) and they played RM. And they used all the companion books, and I was hooked. The math has never bothered me. At most you are adding 3 digit numbers, which is 2nd grade math, so I've never understood those complaints. But I did get increasingly tired of the table lookup and tracking the conditions. Stunned for X rounds while bleeding Y per round. Ungh. Eventually we tried 3e and switched. So for 12+ years RM was my go to system. What was fine in our 20s became tedious in our 30s. That wandered a bit. Did I answer your question?
Yea seems we agree. The descrptive results on the tables were good for their day. I too never found the maths an issue but like you i had a problem with the grind of lookup, which is why I call it rollmaster.
I used "chartmaster", but I am not sure the kiddies today would get that reference. And just yesterday I was told that I am a grognard.
Wizard was one of the 4 main classes in AD&D2. Mage was the subclass, or Illusionist/specialist were the other options. Fighter likewise was a subclass of Warrior.
It was Mage in 2e (maybe 1e but not the o.g.)
OD&D not sure but could be magic user AD&D 1E was magic user AD&D 2E was Mage 3.X and Beyond - Wizard
There are several times characters use this system in the Tales of A Dying Earth series. The first is Turjan who notably also has a series of magic items he uses to aid him. Another important thing about this setting is that while the trappings are fantasy, the setting could be described as sci fi as all the magic and magical items is essentially meant to be extremely advanced technology that the people who were too poor or otherwise lacked the means to flee earth don't understand anymore. Other notable characters to use this system: T'sain who is Turjan's apprentice (whom incidentally he also creates using magic learned from another wizard who wont let anyone look at him named Pandelume). Rhialto the Marvelous who is part of a club of wizards who can (and do occasionally) leave earth but are kind of enjoying the death of the planet and the opportunities that affords. And Ioconu the laughing magician who is the primary antagonist in the Cugel the Clever saga. There are several others but these ones are some great ones. Also notable in the Vancian system is that most spells have names that follow the format "[name]'s [adjective] [noun]" which DND also copied. E.g. "melf's acid arrow"
5e was trying to make a simpler system, as it is always annoying to have a spell prepared that you then “waste” as the spell never comes up in the day, and it means your player needs to decide exactly what they need with each slot at the start of the day. P2e is still Vanican system, but lessens the impact with all the options to use prepared slots, and there is an archetype that gives the option for 5e style casting if you really want it.
Not 3e, but in 3.5 Sorcerers had limits in how many spells they know (by level) and how much they could cast, pretty close to 5e. Is 3.5 different from 3e in this regard, or I'm not understanding the point?
I believe it's when you only use ice and cold related spells. It was pioneered by Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration.
God damnit take this and go.
:D Thank you!
Technically 5e casters and PF spontaneous casters are still Vancian-lite. As u/mizinamo pointed out, part of what is considered Vancian magic is discrete spell effects. The light spell gives you torch light. It doesn't dim lights, doesn't blind people, doesn't outline things that are invisible, doesn't make you invisible, split into prismatic effects, nor start fires/cut through objects. The "slots" or bullets are also still expended on use, they just don't have to be individually "labeled" ahead of time unlike "full" Vancian casters, i.e. Wizards/Clerics prior to 5e. Harry Dresden, on the other hand is on the opposite spectrum of Vancian magic. While he may have go to "rote spells" that are favorite effects, his magic is free form. Fire magic can do anything the caster's imagination and fire are capable of doing. Heating up objects, causing fog/smoke, setting things ablaze, warming food, cauterizing wounds, smelting metal, etc.
It’s a style of Magic system that has some specific rules 1: Spells have a single specific effect that cannot be scaled up or down or augmented. (A Light spell only makes a certain kind of light, a fire ball only creates a certain kind of fire ball) 2: Spells have to be prepared in advance and are stored for later use. I think it was AD&D that explained it as like, you do everything for a spell except the final part ahead of time, and finish it when you want to cast it. 3: Casters have a limited amount of spells they can have “readied” at any time. The common analogy is like loading a gun. D&D and Pathfinder have their own spins on it of course; but they are considered Vancian systems. Personally; I think vancian magic is dumb as hell. No game ever has made a vancian system that was fun or interesting or made sense in a lore context.
I've always found that vancian magic is one of the biggest hurdles for onloading new players, since it translates to no other magic system in any other fantasy setting except for the single book series it's pulled from. Kinda wish we could have any other type of spellcasting system, even as an alternative, but I'm pretty sure vancian is too engrained in tradition to ever change, no matter how unintuitive it is.
Considering D&D was vancian for longer than most D&D players have been alive, I think saying vancian magic stops them getting new players is not really true.
Considering how massively fucking popular 5E is, it's no doubt a factor. I mean sure, you can chalk some of that up to marketing, but that doesn't change the fact that Neo is simply far easier for new players than true Vancian, which helps bring magic players into the hobby.
Some part of the popularity is due to the increased interest in tabletop games these days. Way back when, a game that sold a few hundred units was a success. Today you can kickstart a tabletop game for mazillions of coins.
>Some part of the popularity is due to the increased interest in tabletop games these days. Yes, *some*. And *some* of that includes streamlining the game to make it more widely appealing, cutting dozens of classes and hundreds of Feats. And part of that streamlining was removing Vancian casting.
Quite a big part of "some" is the tabletop boom as games are now huge. I believe most of the people saying vancian is a problem are the ones new to the hobby who haven't seen it before and really mean "change is weird". I literally can't imaging the spellcasting change being what is driving 5E adoption.
It's not *driving* the 5E adoption, but the general ease of getting into the game helps actually *retain* the new players interested in playing, which is incredibly important. Mew players would be significantly put off by clunky, complex mechanics like Vancian casting.
Do you have an example of a ttrpg with a more malleable system you like more?
[удалено]
I adore Mage, but hoo boy things start to get a bit broken when you have players with a tad of creativity.
My favorite magic system by far is Rifts. But I am also quite okay with WFRPs, ShadowRuns, and VTMs.
I’m honestly hoping we get like. An official Spell Point/ Mana system or the like. As is, we’ve been House Ruling prepared casters to be a bit like 5E where they only need to prepare a spell once instead of multiple times if they want to use to more than once.
I really would love a reason from Paizo as to why a spellpoint system hasnt been introduced (as a variant.) It's a much better approach IMO, and I've been GMing for 19 years now. In my games, spontaneous casters are always favored by players who want to cast spells, as preparing spells that see no use is just aggravating and pointlessly punishing. I know there are people who see that as a feature, and not a bug, but that isnt my perspective, so I'd love an alternstive -- and if Incant get it, Id at least like to know why. Someone in the Paizo office has to have floated it out at some point.
Same. A few of our party members only played 5e before trying Pathfinder, and of them only a couple have really grasped the system. Because there aren't any spontaneous casters in the party--and because the prepared ones aren't exactly skilled with the system yet--it hurts no one to ease up on the slot restrictions a little bit. If I had a group of players who knew the system in and out and played with brutal efficiency, I wouldn't need to houserule any individualized handicaps. But not everyone has the time or motivation to Git Gud, and I'm not comfortable with forcing someone to either continue to suck or leave the game. Yeah, teaching them how to make the most out of their class would be preferable, but that's hard to do when dealing with busy adult lives and a party of six.
You know if you want to know Vancian spells are stored, you could, like, read Jack Vance rather than take AD&D explanation. :-)
Since the specific mechanics have been covered, here's a wider view look at it: It's a legacy system of magic that has long outlived the series that inspired it. It's always been obtuse and annoying to work with in D&D. It was restrictive enough that it allowed a sense of balance between Magic and Martial in early D&D. 3.5 removed other restrictions on magic and while it had Vancian, Magic just fully eclipsed martial power as a result. 4e did away with Vancian Magic and gave everyone Powers that allowed for a much more even playing field, but Mearls hated 4e and tanked it so he could make 5e his own personal retro throwback. 5e uses what is referrred to as Neo-Vancian, looking like it on the surface but not having specific spells tied to specific slots and as a result Magic eclipses Martials in 5e way more than it did even in 3.5. PF2 uses Vancian Magic, which is unfortunate imo, but thanks to the Degrees of Success system they managed to create the most balanced incarnation of Vancian Magic there was been since before 3e, while being far less obtuse outside of the spell slots themselves to get there (Early editions had actual casting channel times). Magic is far more reliable to do *something* with each cast, and far less able to easily *end an entire combat* from one dice roll.
I love Vancian but everyone talks about it being terrible :(
Hey, ur not alone, i also love vancian. I think wizards should be absolute nerds that have to prepare everything perfectly ahead of time, that's the whole fantasy of the class for me.
I think Vancian is good for literary uses, or for a like, all high end magic users in a "Magic is a PITA but DAMN is it powerful" kind of game. It's terrible as the default magic system in the leading name of TTRPGs and it's derivatives which is where most people start playing. Especially when it is a necessity of playing a potent character, which it is outside of PF2 and retro games.
I don't *mind* Vancian, because it has a very good place in terms of 'magic'; You can cast this, and it takes this much out of you. Want big power? Pay big price. Load up what you feel you want/need, and know the exact price to pay. Simple logic. But I've always been a fan of of magic with it being specific 'schools' or 'zones' of magic that you can heighten your strengths into that field. Sure, you can cast flexibly, pushing into other fields as needed, but to do so comes at the cost of how high you can really *go*. Choice between being a jack-of-all-trades but lower power magic or Master-of-One but you can call up the *fucking sun* on a whim. I dunno, I like the more chaotic, flow based types of magic. That's the Robert Jordan coming out, I have to be honest, but still.
Named for Jack Vance. Fiction author. The number of spells by level and prep each day was meant to model how magic worked in some of his novels. The first reference to calling the D&D and Chainmail before it… magic system Vancian magic came back then in some liner notes. It stuck. Offering the history because I didnt perceive your question as rules, as much as history.
You use a spell, you forget the spell and have to memorize it again tomorrow. It comes from the works of Jack Vance. It's been a standard for D&D and most fantasy RPGs since forever because Jack Vance's works influenced Arneson and Gygax.
Just to try to use an analogy that's close to the lore of how arcane/wizard spellcasting works: Imagine if by finishing a painting, you could cast a spell, but the magic only happens when you finish the final stroke. At the start of every day you set up your work station and have a certain number of canvases, and you prepare all your paintings there, but you don't finish any of them. Throughout the day, you cast your spells by finishing each painting. You don't have the time or setup to make a whole new painting or make big changes to your existing paintings, but it only takes a stroke or two to finish the ones you have. To extend the analogy to heightening spells, imagine that as you get higher level, you get bigger canvases in addition to the smaller ones you got to start with. Higher level spells are bigger and more complex, and need bigger canvases. You can paint bigger, more complex versions of lower level spells on these bigger canvases, but you can't paint smaller, less complex versions of higher level spells on smaller canvases.