'Choose your spell drain stat'

[andreww]

Has anyone ever experimented with different stats being used for the spell casting costs as determined by the player? If when choosing a wizard at chargen you 'locked in' which stat was drained in spellcasting and that was fixed for the rest of that character's career. So you were forced to pick one of the following, with the risks stated up front.

Choose STR as your battery. Risk: Physical collapse, armour becomes a burden etc
Choose LUK as your battery. Risk: Everything, especially in a dungeon environment, and you're becoming a liability to the party.
Choose WIZ as your battery. Risk: Magical resistances are lowered.
Choose CON as your battery. Risk: Pretty obvious.

Probably adds unnecessary complexity but I just wondered if anyone had tried it.

[zanshin]

I think Con would be a game breaking stat choice in 2 ways - it doesn't refresh at the rate that the others do, and it has no trade off when curing itself with a Poor baby, eventually leading to exponential CON recovery, but initially meaning you would be swapping damage.

I would also add Charisma as a possible spell stat - TOG uses it for some casters, and the idea of using force of personality and will to use magic is logical enough.

If Wizardry exists I would make it the default, but perhaps a secondary stat could be 'tapped into'.

[ProfGremlin]

Hi andreww, I'll second zanshin's suggest for Charisma. AFAIK, it's the only way you can have a functional fairy wizard. Having, at best, ~5 Str (1/4 Str Modifier) in earlier editions, eg 5th ed, really restricts their spell casting to that of a single effect. Here's a post of mine in a thread on fairy wizards explaining a solution I worked out with a GM.

[order99]

I've always liked Zanshin's CH drain as well-it really takes into account the 'Glamor' that a high CH Wizard suggests-and that aura can sometimes be more useful than the spells it powers...a depleted caster is revealed in all their ordinary drabness when that 'otherworldly' force of will is gone...I think that there's a reason neither Gandalf the Grey nor Wormtongue were seen casting spells too often, they were far more effective Movers and Shakers without them!

I tried using LK drain in a far-gone Liavek campaign, and it fit the tone quite well-"Do I keep my connection to Fate whole, the Universe working in harmony to keep me alive and moving with surety in combat...or do I assert my will upon the Cosmos for an Unnatural gain, and face the backlash as Fate itself retaliates against me?"

Still, being mostly an unregenerate modified 4th Edition Luddite, my go-to is still ST drain. "Gasp...one more spell in me I think-Oh Gods somebody hold my backpack! Did I get it? _{I can't see too well right now I think i'm going to pass}....".

[andreww]

Feb 6, 2022 19:05:15 GMT -5 order99 said:

I've always liked Zanshin's CH drain as well-it really takes into account the 'Glamor' that a high CH Wizard suggests-and that aura can sometimes be more useful than the spells it powers...a depleted caster is revealed in all their ordinary drabness when that 'otherworldly' force of will is gone...I think that there's a reason neither Gandalf the Grey nor Wormtongue were seen casting spells too often, they were far more effective Movers and Shakers without them!

Really interesting way of conceptualising it. It strikes me too that if CHA was the casting stat and you explained it this way, it does a lot to push your campaign further into high fantasy, since magical individuals would more rarely be unremarkable or commonplace and there might not be as many hedge wizards or utilitarian casters and like around - they're more likely to be legendary figures, or movers and shakers as you put it!

[stefanj]

I have an Under Construction ms describing far-northern Otter Island. The Ice Shamans of that land burn luck to power their magic. They can even go negative on their Luck, but each time that happens they risk a demon showing up. And some of the arctic demons are really, really nasty:

This dismal creature is an undead reindeer bull, grown to monstrous size and possessed of malignant intelligence . . . The Yeriot Bull's pelt is mangy, and several patches of its flesh (including half of its face) have rotted away, revealing glowing green bones and pulsing grey flesh which drips over-sized maggots.

[graymouser65]

I play only 5th edition but I love using CHA as the stat to power spells, especially for Fairies, for all the reasons everyone has mentioned. It fits with how my group thinks about “wizards” and a side and interesting role-playing benefit is that the character becomes either more “horrific” (for “evil” casters) or more “unlikable’ (for “good” casters) as they use up their battery. I can recall a particularly humorous encounter when the usually likable fairy turned into a demanding, irritating, terror of a party member when she went from her normal 26 CHA to 2 after casting one spell. It was hysterically funny watching the player role play her “Charisma of 2” interactions with the other party members for the rest of the fight and until she could rest and get some CHA back.

There are (at least in my group’s opinion) two possible down sides though.

First, CHA is used in some spell effects, like when it is added to other stats to produce a total that is compared with MR or whatever. So if one is spending CHA to power spells, these spells will potentially be less effective as the caster casts more and more spells. This is okay with my group, and also some spells I believe use STR which would have the same issue if using rules as written, so this is not a huge deal I don’t think in terms of it greatly affecting the rules as Ken wrote them.

The second possible down side is that CHA does not improve when a character gains a new level at the same rate as STR, CHA goes up half the new level while STR goes up equal to the new level, so the battery for casters improves more slowly than if STR is used to power spells. What we did was house rule it so that for Wizards STR improves at 1/2 new level number and CHA improves at the new level number, for Warriors it’s as written (STR at new level number, CHA at half new level number), and for Rogues we let the player choose, either follow the rule for Warriors or for Wizards. They have to choose at character creation. I think we would do the same for Warrior-Wizards as well (have them choose) but honestly we have never had one in our games.