Quote from: DackeTHAT's what I mean when I say that the wand is a game-altering item. Its absence totally changed the way the party treated the dungeon.

It did for us too. In the Whispering Cairn, after the first encounter with only one cleric and no magic items it took us two days rest to get people back to full hit points. Then another 8 hours for the cleric to get his spells back. So we got past one room. 3 days. We encountered the really deadly trap and that was another 2 days to recover. Then we met the next deadly challenge, and had to rest 3 more days. After that we had saved up enough to by some cure light wounds potions so we took on two encounters without a rest next time.

Now admittedly it was a lot to do with bad adventure design with the first three encounters being something like EL 3+ each against a EL 1 party so we weren't using 25% of our resources we were using more like 85% to 90% on each encounter, but at least if had the wand the adventure would have followed better. It would have changed our style of play, to be a little bolder. As it was the whole thing had a very stop start feel to it.

I'm running Arcana Evolved which kind of sidesteps the problem.  There are two major healing spells -

(1) Transfer Wounds.  The lowest-level version is 1.  At its basic level it's 1d10+level (up to+5), takes a full round to cast (making it much less useful in combat), and deals half the amount healed in subdual damage to the caster.

(2) Battle Healing.  The lowest-level version is level 2 (though can be cast as 1st-level once the character can cast the higher-level one).  This is cast in a standard action and heals a mere 1d6+level (up to 10 IIRC), leaving scars behind in the process.

Sure, these are higher level.  This is balanced by the fact that any spellcasting character can cast both of these spells since AE doesn't use the Arcane/Divine distinctions.

Wands of Transfer Wounds are nice - but leave the user pretty drained.  Wands of Battle Healing are a lot more expensive, since it's a 2nd-level spell.

-O

Quote from: obrynI'm running Arcana Evolved which kind of sidesteps the problem.  There are two major healing spells -

(1) Transfer Wounds.  The lowest-level version is 1.  At its basic level it's 1d10+level (up to+5), takes a full round to cast (making it much less useful in combat), and deals half the amount healed in subdual damage to the caster.

(2) Battle Healing.  The lowest-level version is level 2 (though can be cast as 1st-level once the character can cast the higher-level one).  This is cast in a standard action and heals a mere 1d6+level (up to 10 IIRC), leaving scars behind in the process.

Sure, these are higher level.  This is balanced by the fact that any spellcasting character can cast both of these spells since AE doesn't use the Arcane/Divine distinctions.

Wands of Transfer Wounds are nice - but leave the user pretty drained.  Wands of Battle Healing are a lot more expensive, since it's a 2nd-level spell.

-O

These are cool. How hard would it be to use them in regular DnD and drop the cleric/druid classes...if one were so inclined? I'm not familiar with AE obviously , but I like what I've heard so far.

Quote from: SigmundThese are cool. How hard would it be to use them in regular DnD and drop the cleric/druid classes...if one were so inclined? I'm not familiar with AE obviously , but I like what I've heard so far.

If you rip out all the magic using classes and throw AE in, you should be fine.  And if you get their recently published spell book, all the OGL spells are supposed to be in there, so you can still magic missile and fireball.  (Though I bet both of those are exotic spells.)

This is what I do in my games:

Anything that uses charges is converted to a charges/day system. So, a ring of the ram is now kind of cool, since it has 6 charges per day. In my games, it went from being something that the party would sell ASAP, to a tool they actually use. (Expensive charged items blow, because every time you use them you're burning loot.)

For wands, I give them 10 charges per day for weaker ones, 5 charges per day for stronger ones.

Single use items remain the way they are.

Quote from: CyberzombieIf you rip out all the magic using classes and throw AE in, you should be fine.  And if you get their recently published spell book, all the OGL spells are supposed to be in there, so you can still magic missile and fireball.  (Though I bet both of those are exotic spells.)

Sorcerous Blast is actually a little better than Fireball.

Damage is the same, range is longer (I think!), AoE is the same, and - the kicker - if you cast it at a target rather than in the middle of a formation, your target needs to save twice or else take full damage.  Oh, and it can be any element type, to boot.

I am not sure, but I'd bet magic missile is not to be found in the Spell Treasury.  It's honestly just too damn good for a 1st-level spell.

-O

Quote from: SigmundThese are cool. How hard would it be to use them in regular DnD and drop the cleric/druid classes...if one were so inclined? I'm not familiar with AE obviously , but I like what I've heard so far.

I've heard of games where Magisters are in play alongside regular Mages and I've heard it works okay.  I can't speak from experience.

The greenbond is roughly analogous to a non-lame druid with some serious blammy potential if they get the right feats.  The magister is roughly a hybrid mage-sorceror.

It might require some re-working, but in theory everything in AE is balanced against everything in the core books.  In theory.

-O

Quote from: obrynI've heard of games where Magisters are in play alongside regular Mages and I've heard it works okay.  I can't speak from experience.

The greenbond is roughly analogous to a non-lame druid with some serious blammy potential if they get the right feats.  The magister is roughly a hybrid mage-sorceror.

It might require some re-working, but in theory everything in AE is balanced against everything in the core books.  In theory.

-O

I wass actually just asking about those two spells, the transfer wounds and battle healing things. Would it be possible to just use those 2 spells for wizards, or is the magic system different enough to make it a pain?

Quote from: BillyBeanbagWhat about the Deck of Many Things?

Pure. Game. Killer.

Surprised it took someone this long to say it.

Quote from: SigmundI wass actually just asking about those two spells, the transfer wounds and battle healing things. Would it be possible to just use those 2 spells for wizards, or is the magic system different enough to make it a pain?

The spells themselves would be easily transferred over. Most of the changes in the AE magic system are to things around the spells, not to how spells work.

A case of Mountain Dew.  Nothing beats it for game-influencing power.

Quote from: BillyBeanbagWhat about the Deck of Many Things?

Pure. Game. Killer.

This needs to be repeated just in case someone missed it.
I've seen this damn thing in like 8 campaigns in the last 20 years.  The least damage it has done is cost half the characters.  Some became too powerful and some too broken, and some too weak.

Quote from: Xavier LangThis needs to be repeated just in case someone missed it.
I've seen this damn thing in like 8 campaigns in the last 20 years.  The least damage it has done is cost half the characters.  Some became too powerful and some too broken, and some too weak.

It's very fun to introduce a Deck of Illusions, inside a neat little box clearly labeled "Deck of Many Things." :heh:

Quote from: Xavier LangThis needs to be repeated just in case someone missed it.
I've seen this damn thing in like 8 campaigns in the last 20 years.  The least damage it has done is cost half the characters.  Some became too powerful and some too broken, and some too weak.

It showed up in my campaign when I was running through a mod that had it included, and I got off pretty well.  The one guy who got the god-use out of it (going up two or three levels and getting a shitload of money) dropped out of the campaign for personal issues anyway, and the one guy who got a few wishes out of it didn't ask for too much and had to use some of them to cancel deaths anyway.

But yeah, DoMT is best used only if you want your campaign to mutate randomly.

or if you get bored and can't come up with any ideas...