Talk:Spell Chains (3.5e Variant Rule)

I had a similar idea.

First off - Sorry for the necro.

Anyway. I've been looking into a similar idea for my own take on a D20 game and actually? Looking at Wordcasting (And, weirdly, at a Minecraft mod I use that lets you make spells in-game), I've thought about characters learning spell Shapes and Effects rather than fully-formed spells, and being able to (For prepared casters) "build" spells ahead of time from these components, or (for spontaneous casters) shape such spells on the fly. Less shapes and effects known but can mix and match on the fly and use their spells more often.

If I did that, I'd combine it with the modified strain-casting system I used for this thing.

ALSO I kinda sorta wanted overcast/undercast rules? Meaning you can cast a known spell in a lower-level slot to achieve a reduced effect (But you still have to know the original spell first and the original still requires the same minimum level to learn it), or prepare them in a higher-level slot to achieve a greater effect (Like Heighten Spell but more useful than just increasing the DC). The DMG has guidelines for damage based on spell level that would be used for the damaging spells with the overcast/undercast rules, but I'm not sure how to govern range and area. I'd say move the range down down one step (Long > Medium > Close > Touch) for every 2 spell levels lower than the original, but that would let you cast Chill Touch as a Long-range Ray if you used a 9th-level slot to do it.

Anyway uh? Just yell at me when you see this, gimme your thoughts. If I can get enough together, I might actually start typing up some stuff about it. --Zhenra-Khal (talk) 19:51, 13 May 2017 (MDT)