Talk:Recharging Magic (3.5e Variant Rule)

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Aarnott dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

This nerf on casters goes against the spirit of the game, in my opinion, which is fun. I did some trials with both low-level casters (both wizard and sorcerer) as well as a 10th level sorcerer. In the case of low-level characters, they basically find their combat being reduced to 3-4 spells cast out of 10 rounds, the rest of the time being forced to use a crossbow with their poor BAB. In the case of the 10th level, things are almost as bad. I tried to use a conservative strategy and aggressive strategy for reclaiming spells. The conservative strategy would try to get back the spell that was most likely to be able to be returned (ie. lowest level). In a above-average combat (ie. good rolls) a sorcerer would maybe get 3 castings of 5th levels and 4th levels total (2 5ths and a 4th or 2 4ths and a 5th) and then fluctuate between 2nd and 3rd levels. In a really lucky combat, the sorcerer would be fluctuating between 5th and 4th level and maybe drop to 3rd and 4th level. An average combat would have the character cast 1 5th, 1 4th, 2 3rds, 2 2nds, and then fluctuate between 1st and 0th. The conservative strategy basically means that your caster gets increasingly less effective the longer combat goes on. I suppose it fits the glass cannon to some degree, but it seems like not so much fun. The aggressive strategy came out with one of 2 results. Either lots of 5th and 4th level spells, or quickly dwindle away to 0th levels. The first would completely stomp opposition (assuming spells were balanced to encounters). The later would quickly be stomped. Both of these aren't really fun (the first can be a few times, but coinflip combat is a bit boring, no?). I don't even want to consider how awful a wizard would be. The sorcerer at least has an average that can hang around 2-3rd level spells. The wizard (using simple probability) would hang around 0-1st with the conservative strategy. At level 10. One reason GW made it random was to avoid chains of alternating actions. Both strategies basically do this after a few rounds. Also, the example of the 10th level sorcerer scales to every level above. Just increase the spell levels and it works the same way. This means characters will always be feeling the burden of puttering out or going all glass cannon and either causing everything to explode or go play some video games and come back to try to roll well each round so that they can have something worthwhile to do next turn. This rule does nothing to prevent rocket launcher tag or creating things like CoDzilla. The casters still get to shoot out their top-level spell in the first round. My biggest problem is mainly the reliance on die rolls to even attempt meaningful actions. Considering the Law of Large Numbers, it is almost certain that even a player going for a conservative approach will have many combats stuck in the 0/1st level spell rut and many other combats shooting out tons of arcane power. This is not balance. One way to consider it: you are rolling to see if your character will be playing between a Moderate balance point and a Very High balance point. You are rolling for your class features. I'd redesign this from the ground up where the strategy relies on situational choices, but not on the probability of the next spell coming up. Players already need to do risk management with their actual actions (beating saving throws & AC). It only makes the game worse, I think, to make risk management bleed into availability of class features so pervasively.