Gizmo for Vancian wizards

[khorboth]

I have been playing with an idea and want some feedback.

I'm running a game with the Vancian magic as put forth in Thaumatology. What do people think about allowing the use of gizmo to allow a retroactive memorization of a spell?

The wizard would have to set aside the points to have memorized the spell just like someone would have to have the money available to have purchased something. Gizmo is already a time-causality breaking advantage. And for the price of gizmo, they could memorize 2.5 additional spells.

Thoughts?

[Akicita]

If I were GMing this, I would allow it. I don't see any problem.

[mhd]

For fluff reasons, I'd limit it to re-memorization, i.e. the wizard must have used that spell once before, it can't be a completely new spell from his book. Shouldn't be a problem, though.

[Ts_]

I don't like it unless it is limited to low-powered (utility?) spells because Gizmo isn't about drawing a bazooka out of your pocket either.

Regards
Ts

[Anaraxes]

The only point to using Vancian magic is to emphasize the strategy of memorizing spells ahead of time. There's a game in guessing what you will need. Adding a feature that lets you retcon your memorization phase is the same as just allowing the choice of spell at cast time. If that's what you want, why have Vancian magic in the first place?

If you're angling for a blend of "wizard" and "sorceror", then you might just have two different kinds of spell slots -- one that requires pre-mem, and the other than can be configured instantly. (And is thus more expensive, which will naturally lead your players to try to trade off instant slots to have more pre-mem slots.)

[khorboth]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The only point to using Vancian magic is to emphasize the strategy of memorizing spells ahead of time. There's a game in guessing what you will need. Adding a feature that lets you retcon your memorization phase is the same as just allowing the choice of spell at cast time. If that's what you want, why have Vancian magic in the first place?

That's a good point. I'm running in Krynn where the Vancian restrictions are put in place by the gods. I may disallow it just to keep the restriction, but I'm thinking to allow the advantage to squirm around the godly restrictions a bit.

[khorboth]

Originally Posted by mhd

For fluff reasons, I'd limit it to re-memorization, i.e. the wizard must have used that spell once before, it can't be a completely new spell from his book. Shouldn't be a problem, though.

Would you care to elaborate? What fluff reasons? Why?

[mhd]

Originally Posted by khorboth

Would you care to elaborate? What fluff reasons? Why?

Just how I'd imagine such a device to work. The spells are still in your brain, but as a self-defense mechanism access to it is shut of lest wizards go mad. The device just affects the brain, opening the access again. I probably would couple that with a minor mental Temporary Disadvantage or Backlash, just for fun.

Still, that depends a bit on the style of the game and the magical theory. If a Vancian spell is considered almost alive, then it's probably completely gone out of the brain of the caster. Then such a device would work upon spells themselves or even time. Herding them into the caster's memory, or giving him a transcendental timeout to learn them.

For a D&D style of game, I'd go with the former, but if you're all-out playing Rhialto-level archmages with ioun stones floating around like there's no tomorrow, it's definitely the latter.

Edit: I remember someone having a nice interpretation of D&D spellcasting, where it's not so much memorization than having them prepared and floating around. Even the spell-levels were in-game material, called valences (yeah, I know…). Then it's not so much about memory, but about bringing the spell back from its trace evidence, some kind of quantum magical mechanics. That would make bringing something back seem better, too, as getting a new spell out of a spell book into memory has less "scientific" support in such a system. Scrolls might be another matter, as they're basically in a state of almost-being-cast (A gizmo that just worked on scrolls would be pretty cool, too). Weird timeouts might still be possible, but that's usually quite powerful in the magical theory of D&D worlds. Especially Krynn.