Converting Vancian to Spell Point Casting?

I’ve had a request from a player to find an alternative to Vancian casting in PF1, ideally with a spell point/power point system. I can’t think of anything offhand, so I’m thinking of changing an existing class to a spell-point variant.

I’m thinking in particular of trying this on the mesmerist or psychic, but I’ve never worked with spell points and not sure how to make the conversion—and whether this would end up altering the class’s overall power and utility. Are there existing conversions for mesmerist and/or psychic along these lines, and if not how would I go about implementing this?

3.5 had a variant rule in Unearthed Arcana that did that, it should be up on the d20srd. It should probably still work with Pathfinder.

I don't know if anybody wrote anything specific to Pathfinder, but the 3.5 SRD includes spell points as a rule variant. It should be just as easily applicable to Pathfinder classes. It can be found here.

Edit: Ninja'd.

Dreamscarred Press did a PF1e psionics book.

This is primarily a tool for turning lots of low-level spells into fewer high-level spells. I don't recommend it; I think wizards and sorcerers are powerful enough.

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Originally Posted by Maat Mons

Dreamscarred Press did a PF1e psionics book.

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You can also import Psionics over from 3.5, it's built from the ground-up for point-based skill usage, and includes point expenditure to power up abilities and for metapsionic feats to improve said abilities.

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Originally Posted by Tzardok

I don't know if anybody wrote anything specific to Pathfinder, but the 3.5 SRD includes spell points as a rule variant. It should be just as easily applicable to Pathfinder classes. It can be found here.

Edit: Ninja'd.

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I was looking at that because I was scouring through this thread and I found this beauty of a sentence that I think sums up the entire thing:

Spoiler: spoiler

Show

If a 15th-level cleric needs to cast heal a dozen times during an adventure, he can do that (though not much else).

I created a spell point system quite a while back. Take whatever you'd like from it, if you find it useful.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...stem-3-5-PEACH

It appears the tables are broken. I can get you the original files, if you'd like.

A while back, I hacked together some guidelines for translating the 3e core casters to spell points. I ended up with roughly the following:

• Points cost = Level of required spell slot.
• Daily limits:
  
  • Sorcerer: 3 x Class Level + Max. Spell Level
  • Cleric/Druid/Wizard: 2 x Class Level + Max. Spell Level
  • Bard/Paladin/Ranger: Class Level + Max. Spell Level
• For Clerics and Wizards, only the class level component of their spell points may be spent freely. The spell level component must be spent on domain/specialist spells.

This should not give casters too many extra uses of their best spells (it definitely doesn't at 20th level), but it hasn't been playtested and might be too limiting in practice.

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Originally Posted by Palanan

I’ve had a request from a player to find an alternative to Vancian casting in PF1, ideally with a spell point/power point system. I can’t think of anything offhand, so I’m thinking of changing an existing class to a spell-point variant.

I’m thinking in particular of trying this on the mesmerist or psychic, but I’ve never worked with spell points and not sure how to make the conversion—and whether this would end up altering the class’s overall power and utility. Are there existing conversions for mesmerist and/or psychic along these lines, and if not how would I go about implementing this?

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do you just want spell points or a whole alternative system? Because spheres of power runs off spell points and is a whole alternate magic system. You can find it all on the spheres wiki.

http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/

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Originally Posted by lesser_minion

A while back, I hacked together some guidelines for translating the 3e core casters to spell points. I ended up with roughly the following:

• Points cost = Level of required spell slot.
• Daily limits:
  
  • Sorcerer: 3 x Class Level + Max. Spell Level
  • Cleric/Druid/Wizard: 2 x Class Level + Max. Spell Level
  • Bard/Paladin/Ranger: Class Level + Max. Spell Level
• For Clerics and Wizards, only the class level component of their spell points may be spent freely. The spell level component must be spent on domain/specialist spells.

This should not give casters too many extra uses of their best spells (it definitely doesn't at 20th level), but it hasn't been playtested and might be too limiting in practice.

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That is a pretty brutal gutting of spell-casting ability. With the exception of Ranger/Paladin (which still keep 80% of their "spells per day") you are looking at at least an 80% reduction of actual spells cast per day. Sorcerers go from 60+ spells per day to 7~39 (13 average) spells/day. It doesn't even let them cast extra 9th level spells in exchange for those 9ths being their entire daily casting.

A more quick and dirty method is to make each spell cast either their level, or 2x level-1 (rounded up) and assign spell points based off how many of x spell they could cast. The https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm for bonus spell points works well, but it somewhat gimps the classes (other than Ranger/Paladin) for total spells. As such you should calculate that manually instead of using the provided class tables.

This would make lower level spells more appealing and would make picking spells more annoying for a prepared caster, but would be a stealth buff to Sorcerers and other spontaneous classes.

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Originally Posted by Zancloufer

That is a pretty brutal gutting of spell-casting ability.

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Not every spell slot is important. A system that lets casters turn their 1st- and 2nd- level spell slots into 8ths and 9ths is a significant buff that they don't need.

Maybe they were figuring on spell points refreshing at the start of every encounter?

Oops, ninja'ed. Guess they really did mean spell points to be a per-day resource.

Psionics is absolutely my go-to for point-based casting.

Also, how about Final Fantasy d20?

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Originally Posted by lesser_minion

Not every spell slot is important. A system that lets casters turn their 1st- and 2nd- level spell slots into 8ths and 9ths is a significant buff that they don't need.

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A fair point, to an extent. Though as I mentioned you changes don't even increase the number of 9ths a caster can cast per day.

Looking/thinking over it more I would probably (if we want something quick that passes a squint test) make each spell cost level*10 SP, but the SP gained something like 10/18/26 (+8 per spell level). Be pretty annoying to generate without a spread sheet though.

Also while being able to cast like 27 Gates instead of 7 seems pretty bonkers, one can also do something dumb like Magic Missile 300 times. Honestly the spam of lower level spells seems just as powerful as the high level ones.

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Originally Posted by Zancloufer

A fair point, to an extent. Though as I mentioned you changes don't even increase the number of 9ths a caster can cast per day.

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That's by design. The idea is to make things as simple as possible without allowing any spell to be used more often than it could be used before.

I agree that the end result is a nerf, and that it's a massive nerf on paper, but spell slot casters are extremely powerful and it's also a much smaller nerf at lower levels. As such, I don't think it will necessarily be that bad in practice.

Keeping it simple also means that it's easy to add more features to make it less of a nerf, if you find that that's needed. You could add mana shrines to your world, for example, or implement a system where spell points recharge over time instead of all coming back when you rest.

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Originally Posted by lesser_minion

Not every spell slot is important. A system that lets casters turn their 1st- and 2nd- level spell slots into 8ths and 9ths is a significant buff that they don't need.

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The whole point is simplification. Yes spellcasting is extremely powerful. Not everyone can bring out that full potential. Making it more simple mechanically could allow a player to play the character they want to play without playing at a level their character shouldn't be at.

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Originally Posted by Jay R

This is primarily a tool for turning lots of low-level spells into fewer high-level spells. I don't recommend it; I think wizards and sorcerers are powerful enough.

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Originally Posted by Zancloufer

Also while being able to cast like 27 Gates instead of 7 seems pretty bonkers, one can also do something dumb like Magic Missile 300 times. Honestly the spam of lower level spells seems just as powerful as the high level ones.

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Originally Posted by TheHalfAasimar

I was looking at that because I was scouring through this thread and I found this beauty of a sentence that I think sums up the entire thing:

Spoiler: spoiler

Show

If a 15th-level cleric needs to cast heal a dozen times during an adventure, he can do that (though not much else).

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IME, the advantage of a Spell Points style of casting is a) that you can cast lots of Flight, or Invisibility, or Cure Disease, or other (usually rather low-level) (usually utility) spell if the situation calls for it rather than spamming lots of / a few high level spells; b) and not have to say, "well, I can cast 7 9th level spells, but cannot cast another <necessary low level> spell... for reasons..." in ways that break immersion / suspension of disbelief for some, and violate principles of simplicity or fun for others.

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Originally Posted by Darg

The whole point is simplification. Yes spellcasting is extremely powerful. Not everyone can bring out that full potential. Making it more simple mechanically could allow a player to play the character they want to play without playing at a level their character shouldn't be at.

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It would be pretty difficult to get simpler than "You can cast known spells by spending a number of points equal to the spell's level" and "Your 10th-level sorcerer has 35 points" while still using the same spells and spell lists.

If I'd added up every spell slot that same sorcerer would have gotten, I'd end up with more than twice as many points even before allowing for ability score bonuses. This would completely destroy any assumptions the spell designers might have made about how frequently any given spell would be used.

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Originally Posted by lesser_minion

It would be pretty difficult to get simpler than "You can cast known spells by spending a number of points equal to the spell's level" and "Your 10th-level sorcerer has 35 points" while still using the same spells and spell lists.

If I'd added up every spell slot that same sorcerer would have gotten, I'd end up with more than twice as many points even before allowing for ability score bonuses. This would completely destroy any assumptions the spell designers might have made about how frequently any given spell would be used.

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Maybe take a closer look at how psionic manifesters do things?

Their power costs are 1 power point for an unaugmented level 1 power, 3 pp for a level 2 power, 5 pp for a level 3 power, all the way up to 17 pp for a level 9 power. Note that those costs fall in line with the level at which you gain each new level of powers (level 3 for 2nd level powers, for instance).

The psion (sort of a mix of wizard and sorcerer in their general role and overall mechanics, but leaning more towards wizard) is here. Note that it gets 343 base power points at level 20, plus whatever bonus pp it gets for a high Int score. All power points from all sources are added to a single pool that can then be used for any and all purposes. Bonus pp are figured as: (key ability modifier × manifester level × 1/2) and added to the total.

That means a level 20 psion with a 30 Int (which is easily doable and relatively low) with no other sources of pp and no bonus MLs would have 343 + (10 × 20 × 1/2) = 443 pp, or a bit more than 22 manifestations at full augmentation (20 pp per each).

This seems like a lot, but I've noticed that a lot of players complain about running dry early. Since metapsionic feats usually cost additional power points, and most powers don't auto-scale like spells do (instead requiring extra pp be spent to bring them up to par), the whole system frequently requires regular rationing of power point resources to keep up. It's not terribly hard to do with the right power selections and proper use of other resources (such as skills, feats, and magic/psionic items, or just using powers that are strong despite not being fully augmented), but it does require some thought and effort, which seems about right.

Things are a lot tighter at lower MLs, of course.

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Originally Posted by lesser_minion

This would completely destroy any assumptions the spell designers might have made about how frequently any given spell would be used.

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You're assuming such assumptions were made in the first place. 3.5 seems to feel like it was designed from a status quo/realism/things are what they are perspective, rather than a gamist, lets balance everything perfectly perspective. I sincerely doubt the game would break significantly more with the inclusion of a handful more higher level spells. That being said, I'm with most others here, generally it feels like spellpoints result in far more lower level spells being cast, rather than more higher level spells. Generally speaking, the game breaking spells simply need to be in your repertoire to break the game. One casting will do it. Being able to cast it twice doesn't suddenly break the game twice as hard.

Having GMed for a 3.5 Dread Necromancer in Sunless Citadel, a very low level game (1-4ish), the spell point variant seemed to needlessly nerf this character. He could do some things well, but a spell point variant didn't help.

I've played with psionics as a PC in various levels of games. I felt like I generally lost out on daily uses compared to a Sor or Wiz because they had guaranteed spell slots per spell level. As a Sor/Wiz, normally I couldn't turn my level 1/2 spell slots into level 5+ ones, but I picked enough useful low-level spells that I was rarely concerned about them being obsolete. Only when I played in campaigns of spell level 7+ that the level 1-3 spells generally stopped mattering beyond buffs and the occasional utility spell.

In short, spell point systems either trade the Vancian system for more versatility while decreasing stamina or are a notable power increase if they don't.

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Originally Posted by lesser_minion

It would be pretty difficult to get simpler than "You can cast known spells by spending a number of points equal to the spell's level" and "Your 10th-level sorcerer has 35 points" while still using the same spells and spell lists.

If I'd added up every spell slot that same sorcerer would have gotten, I'd end up with more than twice as many points even before allowing for ability score bonuses. This would completely destroy any assumptions the spell designers might have made about how frequently any given spell would be used.

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A 10th level sorcerer has 26 base spell slots or 81 spell points. At 81 spell points the sorcerer can cast nine 5th level spells. Or the sorcerer could cast eighty-one 1st level spells. I think the expectation is that because spell points are more versatile you have to balance it out by making the average expected power level of resource expenditure be less because versatility is power.

TBH, spell points are unnecessarily complicated. I've personally used this variant:

Wizard: add class level points per level (+1 specialist point per level if a specialist) = 210 (230 specialist) at level 20
Druid: add class level points per level until level 10; from level 11 add class level +1 = 220 at level 20
Cleric: same as druid, but +1 domain spell point per level = 220 and 20 domain at level 20
Sorcerer: add class level +2 points per level = 250 at level 20
Paladin/ranger: add 1/2 class level -2 points per level = 56 at level 20
Bard: add 3/4 class level points per level = 150 at level 20

If you are a specialist wizard or have a domain, you can cast your specialist school spells or domain spells at the cost of specialist/domain points equal to the level of spell you cast including metamagic spell level increases.

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Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry

Maybe take a closer look at how psionic manifesters do things?

Their power costs are 1 power point for an unaugmented level 1 power, 3 pp for a level 2 power, 5 pp for a level 3 power, all the way up to 17 pp for a level 9 power. Note that those costs fall in line with the level at which you gain each new level of powers (level 3 for 2nd level powers, for instance).

The psion (sort of a mix of wizard and sorcerer in their general role and overall mechanics, but leaning more towards wizard) is here. Note that it gets 343 base power points at level 20, plus whatever bonus pp it gets for a high Int score. All power points from all sources are added to a single pool that can then be used for any and all purposes. Bonus pp are figured as: (key ability modifier × manifester level × 1/2) and added to the total.

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Spell points are similar with the 1,3,5, etc base costs. Though the points per day are less than power points at 232 at level 20 for cleric, druid, and wizard and 249 for sorcerer vs the 343 for the psion and wilder.

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Originally Posted by Darg

Spell points are similar with the 1,3,5, etc base costs. Though the points per day are less than power points at 232 at level 20 for cleric, druid, and wizard and 249 for sorcerer vs the 343 for the psion and wilder.

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Thing is, most spells scale automatically, with only direct damage requiring further augmentation. Very few powers automatically scale to that level (aside from things like Close/Medium/Long Range, Duration, and similar), so you're spending FAR more power points for the same effect as a spell point wizard that doesn't focus on direct damage.

You're literally paying extra for that psionic flexibility.

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Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry

Thing is, most spells scale automatically, with only direct damage requiring further augmentation. Very few powers automatically scale to that level (aside from things like Close/Medium/Long Range, Duration, and similar), so you're spending FAR more power points for the same effect as a spell point wizard that doesn't focus on direct damage.

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Psionics uses its own list of powers that are designed to work with its points system (and with the way that most psionic characters acquire and use powers).

Also, outside of direct damage, power augmentations usually aren't things that spellcasters would get for free. Spellcasters almost always have to use metamagic or cast a higher-level spell to get similar results.

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Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry

Thing is, most spells scale automatically, with only direct damage requiring further augmentation. Very few powers automatically scale to that level (aside from things like Close/Medium/Long Range, Duration, and similar), so you're spending FAR more power points for the same effect as a spell point wizard that doesn't focus on direct damage.

You're literally paying extra for that psionic flexibility.

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I disagree. Most psionic powers that scale outside of damage are generally represented by multiple spells when you look at their equivalent vancian counterparts. For example psionic charm scales by creature type, but with a spell, it starts off as charm person, and later becomes charm monster, so it too scales by spell level (and thus by spell points in a spell point system), however you now need to get 2 spells, and there's 0 granularity along the way, and also remember that most psionic powers scale their DC as well while augmenting, so a 1st level power can often times be just as impactful as a higher level spell, in this case, psionic charm.

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Originally Posted by Endarire

Having GMed for a 3.5 Dread Necromancer in Sunless Citadel, a very low level game (1-4ish), the spell point variant seemed to needlessly nerf this character. He could do some things well, but a spell point variant didn't help.

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To be fair to the system, Dread Necromancers in general are sort of hamstrung by their limitations already, adding a little bit more versatility to how they cast doesn't really change the fact that they're drawing from an intensely narrow pool. I don't think I ever ran out of spell slots as a Dread Necro other than the highest-level ones I had at the time.

Rogue Genius Games has the Houserule Handbooks: Spell Points, and several more books building on that idea.
I got it for a game that fell apart before I got to try to use it. But RGG is usually good, and with 5 books in that line, will likely cover any situations.

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Originally Posted by Palanan

I’m thinking in particular of trying this on the mesmerist or psychic, but I’ve never worked with spell points and not sure how to make the conversion—and whether this would end up altering the class’s overall power and utility. Are there existing conversions for mesmerist and/or psychic along these lines, and if not how would I go about implementing this?

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Neither mesmerist nor psychic are vancian classes, which makes things considerably easier. Several other posters have mentioned it, but "psionics" as implemented in 3.x and Pathfinder is pretty-much exactly what you want: A point-based magic system with the same flavour as the classes you mentioned.

(Scare quotes around "psionics" because I am old enough to remember 2e, when psionics not an alternate magic system.)

If you want actual vancian classes, that is a bit more complicated because you have to figure out what to do with the "gotta catch 'em all" aspect (or the "knows whole list" aspect for Divine vancian casters). AE/Arcanist/5e-style readying maybe? Although that might be too close to what you are trying to get away from. The Erudite (StP variant especially) is also worth a look.