I have no idea what would be the perfect system, but I have always hated this. I’m a magic man with magic powers, just let me magic. Keeping track is such a pain in the ass when melee classes can use their shit every turn like it’s nothing. I want to use my magic all the time, this is supposed to be fantasy fun time, not work.
One dungeon I played took 7 in game days because we long rested after every room with enemies.
That’s silly, if you’re spending an entire day in a dungeon resting and sleeping then monsters should definitely be interrupting you and making it so you can’t exploit the rules.
“I have spent time in the morning casting every part of the Fireball spell except the final trigger word four times, I need to rest and pre-cast it again.”
People tend to ignore that spells are very difficult and intricate things. Unless you have innate or divinely inspired spell casting, every spell is simply too much to retain for regular people forcing spells to work for them. This goes for both components and the spell itself. If you get even the smallest detail wrong, it could be disastrous.
I think of it like an engineer or some such. Sure they have some approximate knowledge of most formulas they need for their work and they will know some by heart. But building a bridge from memory, just because they have been building bridges for twenty years won’t be possible without proper preparation and work.
Also why wizards are the only class that can learn all spells. They are the only nerds on the block willing to put in the work.
I used to be like Anon. But it’s called Vancian Magic for a reason.
I did end up getting it, even if I think it’s completely inappropriate for the kind of adventures commonly played around tables.
So many better systems out there.Whitehack has the best magic system.
If you have a spell called “Practical deflagration” then you can use it for stuff that sounds like what it is cheaply. So idk lighting a campfire is maybe 1HP, setting someone’s closes on fire is maybe 1HP. Throwing an orb of fire that explodes is further from the wording, so maybe that’s 3 or 4 HP (figure it out at first use).
Flexible, on hand, rewards player creativity, balanceable in play. It’s good shit.
Especially when you get to stuff like “my class is combat linguistician and I cast conjugate”
