... now with 35% more arrogance!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Clone Project: Spell Progression

The next stage in the potential clone project should be how many spells of each spell level the Magic-User and Cleric get at any given class level. The first thing that is obvious is that spell progression above 6th level for Clerics is pretty simple:
Clerics above 6th level can cast (level)/2 - 2 spells of each spell level; round up for spells of less than 4th level, round down for spells 4th level and higher.
For Clerics 6th level and below, the progression looks odd, but it's relatively easy to describe:
Clerics can cast spells of up to (level)/2, round down: one spell if the Cleric's level is even, two if it is odd. They also can cast two spells for each of the lower spell levels and gain one 5th level spell at Cleric Level 6.
It takes a little more work to describe the Magic-User spell progression Previously, I have used HD = max spell level, which only goes out of sync with the LBBs for 6th level spells. By the book, MUs don't gain 6th level spells until 12th level, instead of the 11th, but I like the simplicity, plus it's only a slight change that lets us use a rule like the first one for Clerics:
Magic-Users above 12th level can cast (level)/2 - 3 spells of each spell level; round up for spells of less than 4th level, round down for spells 4th level and higher.
There's another slight change I've decided to make: adding an extra 2nd level spell at 6th level, to make the progression "4 3 2" instead of "4 2 2". This means we can do this:
Magic-Users can prepare one spell of (HD) spell level; two spells of (level)/2 spell level, three of (level)/2 - 1, and four of (level)/2 - 3 spell level, rounding down for all. Exception: Magic-Users can prepare as many 1st level spells as their character level, up to 4. No Magic-User of 12th level or below can prepare or cast more than four spells of any spell level.
Just add the rule for Magic-Users above 12th level after that rule and you have a complete description for the MU progression, which differs slightly from Vol. 1 at levels 6 and 11+.

2 comments:

  1. Hmm ... this may be one of those occasions where the chart is easier to understand than the algorithm used to generate it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, the MU progression is a bear. I'm trying to come up with a non-standard chart to compress it all down.

    I've considered keeping just the HD = max spell level, one 1st level spell per level up to 4, and half-level minus 3 rule and suggesting that GMs not worry about other spell slots -- you can't prepare more spells of a higher level than of a lower one, but no other specifics.

    ReplyDelete