Friday, May 23, 2014

Spontaneous Clerical Magic

I like Vancian spellcasting.  I think having limited choices focuses the player, makes planning important and inspires creativity.

That said, I'd much rather have my clerics and wizards memorizing some more "oddball" or "creative" spells than the usual Cure Light Wounds, Sleep, Magic Missile, etc. (More on Wizards in a later post)

I believe in D&D 3.0 (?) clerics can cast Healing spells without memorizing them.  Basically trading in a memorized spell for a healing spell (if it exists at that level.)

This allows them to memorize Detect Evil at first level and then trade it in later for Cure Light Wounds if it is needed.  Flexibility and choice.

In the game I was playing in, now running, I was privileged to be able to swap out spells for healing.  It made playing a cleric A LOT more fun.

So, here's some changes that I would make to the "swap" system.  I think this makes it even simpler.  You can always swap a higher level spell for a lower level spell, if you are so inclined.

Spell Level SwappedHealing AmountSwappable Spells other than Healing
11d8+1Create Water, Detect Poison, Purify Food and Drink
21d12+2Know Alignment
32d8+3Create Food and Water, Cure Blindness or Deafness,
Cure Disease, Remove Curse, Remove Paralysis
42d12+4Detect Lie, Neutralize Poison
53d12+5Raise Dead
6Use HealHeal, Heroes' Feast
7Use HealRegenerate, Reincarnate, Restoration, Resurrection
Created with the HTML Table Generator

You might not like my large healing dice rolls, so feel free to make your own.

As always YMMV.

1 comment:

Darnizhaan said...

Another way to do clerical spell casting is basing it on faith. The cleric can cast any spell on his or her list. Essentially they are producing miracles on the spot, like saints or prophets.

I always thought that would be a good way to do divine magic, but it is also a huge advantage. Of course it is also a huge advantage to enemy clerics, too.