Hi,

Please point out a potential problem in the following:

I'm planning to drop entire mechanism of Faith and Power points for wizards and priests. We have one mage in our group and it's the slowest turn when he first Channels and then casts a spell. 80% of the time Channeling works as it should and 20% of the time our mage is having a very dull turn.

As spells have recharge rating, why not just let the mage / priest use them as any skills? Spell ranks already limit the most powerful spells to higher level PCs.

Personally, I think you're opening a big can of worms. There are a number of issues, IMO, with removing power requirements.

1) Miscasts. Channeling + casting increases the difficulty of spells, which increases the chance of miscasts. (and omens for priests)
2) Spells are (relatively) powerful, especially the ones with higher Power/Faith costs, even Rank 1. Making a wizard/priest able to cast every round, regardless of "power cost" will be a bit too unbalanced.
3) Reduces the balance of the stats, as WP and Fel become less important due to not providing power/faith/channeling/curry favor.
4) I'd have to double check the rules, but I don't believe that Rank actually limits the acquisition of spells/blessings. It merely costs more to acquire them.
5) Balance at higher ranks. Can you imagine allowing a wizard/priest at rank 3 to cast a high-power/favour blessing every single round without reprecussion/limitation?
6) Bright Wizards could not use their career ability and funnel additional power to deal more damage, plus other spell/blessing cards that have "power/favour" effects.
7) RP-wise casting spells and blessings are/should be draining for the wizard/priest.

Personally, I liked the WFRPv1 magic system, and disliked the WFRPv2 system. I always thought that a power point system worked better.

The fact is, that you really need to look at the balance at higher ranks. Sure, lower rank (and therefore power) spells/blessings don't look like its a big deal to allow them to be cast often and ignore power. Power 3/4 spells are relatively on par with most action cards. Consider the power 6/7/8 spells, which scale significantly in potential. The other action cards (Melee, Ranged, Support, etc), which don't have the built-in restriction, do not scale. Power/Favour is a mechanism to allow the increase in potential for the cards yet keep them balanced with other action cards.

One trick that works very well is to have the player make their channeling/power up roll BEFORE his turn. You could also pre-calculate the chance of success and if it's really high, just say "no roll for same or lower rank spells).

jh

Thanks for comments.

Winds of Magic expansion rules restrict spell ranks to wizard careers.

Dvang, did you remember recharge times on spells? A wizard or a priest will not be casting a powerful spell each round.

As wizards and priests have been least favored careers in our group I don't mind to give them a good boost.

I demand that wizards/priest make their channeling/curry action before their turn is up. Otherwise they simply don't get to use it. That way it's never an issue. They just put the power gained in a stack next to their power and add it when their turn is up.

stanmons said:

Maybe not the same powerful spell each round, but they can alternate between all the spells they have much easier. This will also front load the combat damage that they can do - casting all of their heavy spells and then cycling through them as they recharge.

It also removes the power limitation on spells with the reaction trait, making them all easier to use.

It unbalances the Amber order's Beastform; Channel Power does not have the Beastform trait, and thus cannot be used while in Beastform, which restricts them to using spells only when equilibriam brings their power up high enough. Several of the spells with the Beastform trait have a recharge of 0, so removing power from the game really boosts these spells.

That being said, if it would improve the experience of your group then I don't see a huge problem. WFRP 3 is not too keenly balanced to begin with and the change you propose does not unbalance things too terribly. Wizards and priests are supposed to be pretty scary and powerful, so it wouldn't go against fluff. Just be aware that you will see an immediate boost in power for these characters, and then their power will easily outpace other careers in both damage output and general versatility.

-Thorvid

As Thorvid said, I wasn't referring to casting the same high-rank spell, but multiple high-rank spells.

Re: spell ranks. I've read WoM and see nothing preventing a wizard from learning a spell of a higher rank. They are "suggested" not to in general rp-wise by the Colleges, but nothing actually prohibits them.

"If the wizard ignores such warnings, he can acquire such a spell if he has the advances to do so. Keep in mind that a character can acquire spells of higher rank, by paying one additional advance per spell rank above the character's rank."

It does add more challenge dice, but a newly created 1st rank wizard could technically start with a Rank 3 spell, for example, if he wanted to spend 3 action cards at creation to get it (or even a Rank 4 spell, if any rank 4 spells are released at some point). He could even keep his WP at 2, and still be able to "power" a 7 or 8 power cost spell with no additional difficulties, if you eliminate power costs. Give him 3 sessions, and he can buy a second rank 3 spell, and at 6xp he's got a 3rd one. Now he can cast 3 rank 3 spells in a row the first 3 rounds of combat at only a 2d difficulty (in general, barring card costs) with impunity, while still being only a Rank 1 PC. That's a bit unbalanced, and it only gets easier as he goes up in ranks (b/c the imposed difficulty goes down). Power is meant as an additional means of controlling the use of magic, which tends to be very versatile and can get fairly powerful.

Consider this too: One of the specific career limitations of the hedge witch is the fact that they don't get Channeling, and so must rely mostly on equilibrium to cast their spells (barring some additional abilities that they can use to gain some extra power at a cost). They are not trained in harnessing the Winds, and must rely on natural talent/ability to gather power. By removing power costs/channeling, you've now removed this explicit design limitation on this career.

If your wizard is taking a long time with his turn, then it sounds like he just isn't familiar/experienced enough with the rules for channeling and spellcasting. It should take only a moment or two to make a Channeling Pool , roll it, and then figure out how much power he created. Once he knows how much power he has, then he can decide what to spend it on (or not). As some suggest, you could allow the wizard to channel his power before his turn arrives if you want. Personally, I think he just needs to practice rolling Channeling tests more often so it is faster and more natural to determine the results. Also, suggest he take a variety of spells of various power costs (especially some lower cost ones) so that he is likely to have a lower-cost spell as an option when a channeling fails to generate enough power.

House ruling to remove power costs will just break some significant portions of the game, IMO. Wizards are good/handy enough as they are.

We had a bright mage in my group and I must say his damage potential for what he was beginning out as was so depressing it really turned the whole group off to magic in general.

I do not think you will ever convince me that the damage potential of a mage in around a guy with a great weapon.

Kelmor said:

The damage potential of a bright mage is insane. He should simply over-channel his spells for added damage. That added damage bypasses soak, because soak has already been subtracted. On top of that, some of the area of effect spells can damage more enemies at once. In our group with an Iron Breaker, Archer and a Bright Wizard, the BW is by far the person contributing the most to overall damage.

Kelmor said:

The damage potential of a beginning Bright Wizard *should not* (let me repeat ... SHOULD NOT ) equal the damage of a starting PC with a great weapon. A Bright Wizard has a dozen various spells, many of which aren't combat oriented. A BW can heal wounds, set things on fire, etc. For combat spells, they have spells that can hit multiple enemies (which a GS-wielder cannot do). As mentioned, the BW special ability lets them use additional power to increase the damage of their spells. So, they get to do decent damage as well as a host of exceptional non-combat utilities.

So, you and your group really need to get your concept of wizards, including a BW apprentice, more in line with the reality of the game. They don't start off as super-powerful blasters. They can do some decent damage, plus a whole lot of nifty utility spells. Don't think of any wizards as primarily damage dealers. It's not like an MMO wizard where you should expect to be the highest DPS PC in the group. When they start getting up in rank, their spells get more dangerous, but starting off their non-combat abilities (even a BWs) are their strongest asset and make them excellent and strong PC careers.

Will this create a change in your game - yes, for all the reasons so far. You just have to decide if those changes are things you want. Also it basically makes PC casters work much like NPC casters, like cultists, shamans etc... where you aren't worrying about power points.

Perhaps to balance things out marginally. I'd suggest that they track their power points. If they have enough power to cast the spell it's a normal casting check. If they lack the power and would normally have to channel to cast the spell. Then they add 1 purple dice (simulates quick casting effect) then (and this would need to be tested) an additional purple die if they are short between 1 and their WP in power points, 2 purple die if they are wp + short in power points.

Which is to say if they are casting a spell that needs 5 power points, they have a wp of 4 and currently only 1 power point due to a previous casting. They'd need to roll 3 purple dice as part of the casting action. Wait one more round they'd have 2 power points (1 gained from equilibrium) so they'd only role 2 purple dice. Note that because they have a WP of 4 they'd always have to roll at least 2 purple dice to cast a power 5 spell.

In order to avoid Channeling extra roll and tracking power, maybe..

• All spells power <= WP are normal difficulty
• All spells power > WP are +1 challenge die

This would simulate the added difficulty for needing to Channel per round pretty effectively.

But thanks for input - I'll have to think about this.

Power is still meant as a throttle to control the amount of spellcasting done, and what you suggest do anything in that regard.

A wizard is not meant to consistently sling powerful spells round after round after round (I'm not talking about the same spell).

<shrug>

Don't forget that wizards in WFRP can wield weapons, like bows, guns, swords, etc They can do other things in combat besides sit back and throw spells.

One thing that you'll also get rid of if you do this is the difference between Wizards and Priests, which is mostly driven by the difference between Channel then Cast vs Cast then Curry Favor. It is a seemingly insignificant difference, but it isnt in practice and does make their styles of magic "feel" different.

I like the power / favor system as is, but if I did decide to scrap it, this is what I would most likely do:

I would use stress instead of power / favor to control spell use. You could have a character take stress equal to the amount the power / favor cost of a spell exceeds their Willpower. It would allow them to cast lower costing spells with no effort, but brake the use of the higher cost spells.

It's not a 1:1 correlation to the existing mechanic, but it is somewhat similar. It also means you could discard the custom rules on holding on to too much power, equilibrium, and so forth which simplifies things a bit.

The stress / fatigue system works pretty well, so this has a pretty stable mechanical underpinning and doesn't add much if any "weight" to the system to re-leverage.

KillerShrike said:

I like how power/favor works and I don't want to change it.

But if you DO want to get rid of it, then efidms idea is brilliant. Good one!

Interesting idea. Perhaps one way of allowing access to higher power spells is that you essentially put up your stress/fatigue as a stake to cover the difference in cost from your current power level to what you are trying to channel. If you successfully cast the spell you gain 1 stress or fatigue as per your choice. If you fail to cast the spell you gain the full amount of stress/fatigue that you had to gamble on.

Great - creativity unleashed!

I like the idea of linking spellcasting to stress. I'll try to invent a mechanism to support this to our next session 12th of March I'll let you know how it turned out.

Let the ideas roll in!

KillerShrike said:

I love the elegance of this optional rule, but the first thing that comes to my mind is a caster who goes reckless will be pummeled with stress. This could fit thematically since spellcasting is dangerous and should be used cautiously, but it is a concern none the less. Again this is this first thing that I thought after I read through the idea. I'm still giving serious consideration to at least trying it in my game, since it will simplify spell casting tremendously. Waiting to hear more ideas so I hope this thread continues to receive posts.