Casting spells above what you "know"

[Finarvyn]

I've started tinkering with some rules whereby low-level magic users can try to cast spells above those known according to the class charts. (For example, what if a 4th level MU wanted to cast fireball, which by the charts couldn't happen until 5th level.) I've been looking at the spellcasting system from Chainmail as inspiration, and am considering side effects like Exhaustion from 5E. Before I spend too much time on this, however, I thought I would see if anyone else has done anything like it already. Hate to re-invent the wheel and all.

(1) Has anyone tried to do rules like these? Did it unbalance the game too much?

(2) Are there any RPGs (especially anything D&D-like) that have such a freestyle casting?

I'll be honest: this is driven by my gaming group. I like to run low-level games because they keep hit points low and danger high, but my wife (who only runs wizards) has said that she would like to try higher level games so she can try out some of the high level spells. My thought is that by allowing some sort of "overcasting" rules I could maybe combine both with one rule.

[tombowings]

What I do:

All magic-users begin with a book containing three spells, chosen by the player. To cast a spell, magic-users select a spell and roll 2d6. Then they compare the result to the Chainmail Spell Casting Table to determine is their spell is cast Immediate, Delayed one round, Negated completely. If a magic-user’s spell is delayed or negated a first time, the character becomes Fatigued. A fatigued magic-user whose spell is delayed or negated becomes Exhausted. An exhausted magic-user is unable to perform magic. 8 hours of rest removes any fatigue and exhaustion.

No spells per day, just spell level.

Fireball and lightning bolt become a bit too powerful at high levels, so I've toned down those spells. Otherwise, I've been happy with this system.

[Red Baron]

How about giving her a treasure map to a wizard's tomb containing a good number of high-level scrolls?

That way you can pick out a few of the more interesting high-level spells like polymorph and teleport to give her without having to worry about every combat being decided by fireballs.

[tombowings]

If she's like me, I never use limited use items. I horde them, worrying I'll need them more later.

[talysman]

Haven't used any such house rules yet, but I allow anyone to learn a spell of any level. They have to use either Read Magic or the spell research rules (weeks of time and buttloads of money) to learn it, but once learned, they can read and use scroll versions of that spell, and may even be able to write a scroll of that spell, even if they aren't high enough level to memorize the spell.

I fiddled with ideas for spell exhaustion before, but if I were to actually add them, I'd keep it very simple: exhausted on a 5+ on 1d6, can't cast spells when exhausted. Maybe roll 1d6 per spell level, must rest 1 turn per 5 or 6 rolled to recover. Oh, and if a character can't memorize a spell because the level is too high, they have to cast from a book, so use those rules (my rule is a quarter hour per spell level for casting from a book, but yours might be different.)

[Desparil]

One of the optional books for AD&D 2nd Edition had an allowance for this tucked inside of its spell point system. The way they handled it was that it cost twice as many spell points to memorize a spell as its level would normally indicate - in addition to possessing fewer spell points than a wizard of the appropriate level would, this made it a pretty steep cost. If you wanted to adapt something like this without switching to spell points altogether, you could maybe do something similar to the following:

To memorize a spell of a normally-inaccessible level, you must use up memorization slots whose levels sum to twice the level of the desired spell. For example, for a 4th level wizard to memorize a fireball, she would have to give up both her 2nd level spells and two of her 1st level spells for the day.

[clownboss]

I pretty much keep it by the rules. Tampering with forces beyond your comprehension, before you are ready, will destroy you.

[talysman]

Dec 21, 2020 16:27:54 GMT -6 clownboss said:

I pretty much keep it by the rules. Tampering with forces beyond your comprehension, before you are ready, will destroy you.

Are you talking about wizards, or GMs?

[Finarvyn]

Dec 21, 2020 8:05:47 GMT -6 tombowings said:

What I do: All magic-users begin with a book containing three spells, chosen by the player. To cast a spell, magic-users select a spell and roll 2d6. Then they compare the result to the Chainmail Spell Casting Table to determine is their spell is cast Immediate, Delayed one round, Negated completely.

That's sort of the direction I was leaning. I just was wondering if in play MU's might abuse the system too much.

Dec 21, 2020 16:39:24 GMT -6 talysman said:

Dec 21, 2020 16:27:54 GMT -6 clownboss said:

I pretty much keep it by the rules. Tampering with forces beyond your comprehension, before you are ready, will destroy you.

Are you talking about wizards, or GMs?

In my case, the "forces beyond your comprehension" are my wife.

[tombowings]

Dec 21, 2020 18:50:03 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

That's sort of the direction I was leaning. I just was wondering if in play MU's might abuse the system too much.

I haven't had too much trouble. I moved a couple of spell levels. Sleep and Charm Person became 2nd level spells. I also don't allow MUs to cast spells when engaged in melee combat. Overall, I've been quite happy with the system.

[linebeck]

Homebrew Spell complexity rules (an ODD/chainmail/DCC/Dark Fort hybrid).

I’ve been tinkering with this idea, and here is where I am currently. Has not been playtested.

My intent with these rules is to give lower-level casters early access to higher level spells yet maintain game balance. They also provide the fledging magic-user the impetus to seek out and covet new spells. As a bonus, these rules do not require any tables, either for number of spells known or chance of spell failure.

Each spellcaster starts the game with “read magic” and 1d3 other spells of any level that they can pick from to memorize.

It is essential for the game balance that the 1d3 starting spells be random. Depending on the rolls, a caster could have access to spells that they are unable to cast.

Each spell has a complexity number of 1-6 (corresponding to the spell level as outlined in the 3LLB).

To cast a spell, roll one die.

The die rolled when casting depends on spell-caster’s level. It starts with a d6 and increases up the dice chain for every odd-numbered level until level eleven. At level eleven there is no further progression. For example: 1d3 for the first level, 1d4 for third level, 1d6 for the fifth level, 1d8 for the seventh level, 1d10 for ninth level, and 1d12 for the eleventh level.

The goal is to roll as high as possible.

Specifically, you want the number rolled to be higher than the spell complexity number. In that case, the spell goes off immediately (during the missile fire segment of combat that round) and retained in memory.

If the roll is precisely the spell complexity, the spell goes off the next combat round and forgotten.

If the roll is under the spell complexity level, it is a misfire, and the spell is lost (wiped from memory). High and low rolls have optional extra good and extra bad effects (per referee fiat).

Magic-user may encompass (memorize) 1 spell per level.

Magic-user can only cast one spell at a time (i.e. cannot cast another spell if the one they just cast was delayed).

No double memorization.

Treat all spells as if they are of the caster's level for purposes of effect (i.e. a first level magic-user casting a fireball does 1d6 damage).

Example:
2d level magic user has two spells, fireball (complexity 3) and sleep (complexity 1). He casts fireball, rolls a three on d3. The spell goes off next round, doing 2d6 damage. Next he casts a sleep spell and rolls a three. Because he exceeded the spell complexity, the spell goes of that round and the caster retains the spell in his memory.

[Deleted]

That's gonna be a save vs. spells, and a System Shock roll if you fail. Same as trying to cast a spell when you've expended all your slots. In my game world, anyway. The consequences of failing both rolls are generally going to be some type of death or permanent disability, such as insanity or paralysis.

[smubee]

Personally, I don’t run full on OD&D campaigns (not by personal choice), but will occasionally run some one off adventures.

They’re all typically first level characters, and I give all magic-users “Read Magic”, let them pick 1 spell that they know, and can cast multiple times. If they find spell scrolls of higher levels, then they can read the magic from the scroll to cast it.

I wouldn’t even know what to do if I was running a full campaign. In theory, I suppose I would allow for them to copy the spell scroll into a spell book.. But I would limit that spell to once per day?

I’m genuinely not sure. Too many higher level spells for low level MUs is silly, but (in my opinion) so is casting Light once and then not having a spell for the rest of the dungeon.

[hamurai]

I've sometimes allowed casting higher-level spells as rituals with good preparation and not in the dungeon. So no combat spells or similar. Those spells I allowed to be cast that way were usually vital to the story or cost the players a good amount of time and/or money to prepare, to prevent abuse.