Inner book a repertoire of spells for old school spell-users

Art by Earl Geier
from Scarlet Heroes free Art Pack

The Inner Book is a small list of spell that the spell-user can memorize even without a physical copy of her spell-books, it is a spell book existing in the spell-user mind, a sort of specialized form of photographic memory.

Use of the Inner Book
The spell impressed in the Inner Book can be memorized as if the mage had a spell book, the time to memorize a spell is double the normal time of memorization.

Max number of spell in the Inner Book
The number of spell that can be impressed in the Inner book is 5 plus Intelligence bonus (Or half Intelligence value rounded down).

Cost of impressing a spell in the Inner Book
The cost to impress a spell in the Inner Book is 100 gp per level of spell and the use of the same spell from memory, the procedure will take 1 day per level of spell.

Cost of erasing a spell in the Inner Book
To free space on the book the cost is much higher, to erase a spell the mage need 1 week per level of spell to be erased plus 1000 gp per level of spell.

Problems from having spells in the Inner Book
To have even a single spell in the Inner Book means that the character is obviously a spell-user, he will have magical markings moving on his skin, an eerie demeanor and a general -2 to reactions from mundane people.

This article give a way to create a repertoire of spell that can be used for the polyspells presented here: Polyspell an option for spontaneous casting, a middle step between classic vancian and sorcery

Furthermore this article works well with the Recharging Spells a Vancian optional system for AD&D and OSR

Health Dice a different use of Hit Dice for OSR and 5th edition

Art by Luigi Castellani
from the Spears of the Dawn free art pack

Health Dice
The basic idea behind this article is that Health Dice (HD) are fixed (10+Constitution bonus) and the type of die (d4, d6, d8) is determined by the character class.

Hit Points (HP) are, as before, just based on class and level.

In this system HP will better represent the ability to avoid fatal damage, while HD will represent the capacity of the character to recover HP.
Furthermore HD are recovered slowly and so they will represent the overall status of Health and Stamina of the character.

Number and type of Health Die (HD)
Each character will have HD equal to 10+Constitution bonus (-3 to +3) and the type of dice will be based on their class (in an OSR game we will have: Magic-Users d4, Hybrids d6, Warriors d8).
So a Fighter (d8 HD) with Constitution 13 will have 11d10 HD, a Mage (d4 HD) with Constitution 7 will have 9d4 HD.

HP recovery
As for 5th edition rules you can recover one or more (HD+Con bonus) during a "short rest" (anything from 10 minutes to one hour of rest).

HD recovery
As in 5th edition you will recover half maximum HD for each "long rest" (a full night of sleep) .

Cure Wounds
Cure spells (and  cure spell from wands, scroll and the like, potions and elixirs could make exception) should work in a slightly different manner (specially when this rules are used with the Recharging Spells rules).

Each Cure spell when used on a character will work by instantly giving the effects of a powered up "short rest", a cure spell will consume 1 HD from the receiving character that will recover (1+level of the cure spell)*(HD).

EG: a character with d8 HD will recover 2d8 from a 1st level Cure light Wounds and 5d8 from a 4th level Cure Critical Wounds, while a character with d4 HD will recover 2d4 from a 1st level spell and 5d4 from a 4th level spell.

Wounds, Fatigue, disease and other ailments
Optionally such rules can add a simple way of tracking various long term ailments of the character.

The recovery of some or all the HD can be blocked by specific conditions that can be removed by specific remedies.

Wounds
Wounds are long term damage that the character will get when he goes to 0 HP, at 0 HP a character is Knocked Out and is wounded or dead.

The severity of wounds can be rolled with various systems. The use of a Death and Dismemberment table is a good option (here an example and some link to other tables: Morte e Mutilazione).

Another very quick system could be this one: calculate the number of hp beyond zero and roll as many HD as needed to match that numbers of points, the number of needed HD represent the severity of the wound. To get back the ability to recover that HP you must first fully heal that wounds. 1HD need 1 day, 2 HD 1 week, 3 HD 1 month, 4 HD 1 season, 5 HD 1 year (heal), 6 HD permanent (regeneration), 7+ HD death.

Diseases and Poisons
A disease will block the recovery of 1 or more HD, each disease will have it's special effects.

E.G.: The red death: who gets this disease will have to do one saving vs death (or a Constitution save) each day for 15 days in a row, for each failed save he will lose one HD (zero HD means death). If the character don't die after 15 days he will recover one HD each day of full rest.

Energy Drain
Energy Drain will take away HDs (instead of levels) at 0 HD the character will die and possibly come back as an undead, such HD will be recovered only by the use of "restoration" or "wish" spells.

Designer's Notes
The idea of this rule come from the necessity to synchronize the rules for magic (presentend in the article Recharging Spells a Vancian optional system for AD&D and OSR)  with the rules for HP.

The overall guiding idea is to change the economy of innate character resources by giving more resources to low level characters and lesser resources to high level character and at the same time without changing the economy of the resources that the characters can use in a single encounter.

The net effect hoped for is to have a more homogeneous feel when playing low level characters (1-6) and high level characters (14+).

Enjoy!

Recharging Spells a Vancian optional system for AD&D and OSR

Art by Luigi Castellani from the "Spears of  the Dawn" free art pack

This article presents a variant magic system for Old School systems that use fire and forget (or vancian) magic. 

It is a streamlined version of the italian article "Memorizzare, Caricare e Lanciare incantesimi" (which is full of options built on this same rule).

In this system the mage don't lose memory of the spell when cast but only lose the magic energy charged in the spell, memorization works as usual (15'xlevel of spell to be memorized after a night sleep) but we will call it spell locking, casting spells works as usual, the big difference is in charging spells (spell caster have 30 points/day that can be used to charge spells), charging take about 1'xlevel of spell and can be done after a turn or more is gone without spell casting.

The system in a nutshell

1) Spell Locking
2) Spell Charging
3) Spell Casting


1) Spell Locking

In this system memorization is permanent (spell locking) until the spells memorized are changed with a new memorization. Spell locking follows the usual rules for memorization: the mage must be rested, needs his books, needs about 15'xlevel of spell to lock a single spell. 
Optionally it could be wise to enforce the rule of bulky and expensive books, so that the mage has to get back at his tower/library to change spells.
Notice that a spell must be "locked" multiple times to allow multiple casting during a single battle.


2) Spell Charging

After spells have been locked in the spell-caster mind they must be charged. 
Spell casters have 30 "Charge Points" each day (they regain them after a full night of sleep).
To charge a spell the magic user need to concentrate for 1 minute per spell level (so if you want to charge 3 first level spells you need 3 minutes, 3 3rd level spells you need 9 minutes, 2 1st and 2 2nd need 6 minutes). Spell charging can happen only after 1 turn has elapsed from the last spell casting (Optionally the lag can be upped to 1 turn per level of the highest spell used).


3) Spell Casting

Charged spell can be cast as for normal rules (the only difference is that only the charge will be lost, the locked spell will remain ready to be charged again).

Designer Notes

This system introduce a big change in the economy of spells while keeping the system almost identical during combat.
The idea is also to give a little more power to low level spell caster (since they will be able to use more spells during the day), while keeping high level spell caster in check but more "adventurous".

Notice that if a spell caster want to be able to cast 2 times the same spell in the same battle he have to "lock" it 2 times, just as before when a magic user that wanted to be able to cast 2 lightning bolt needed to memorize it 2 times.

I chose 30 "charge points" considering that in 1st edition a magic user could memorize up to 8-12 hours (32-48 spell levels), from this I considered a number that was level independent.

Obviously you can change this number to better suit your campaign and fine tune the level of magic.

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Continually spell slot recharging and sorcery for all

Rule

Spell-casters recharge spell slot as follows:
1) must be awake
2) must not be tired
3) 1 level of spell slot each 2 turns (20 minutes)
4) must be recovered first lower level spell slots then higher level ones 
5) while recovering spell slots spellcasters are more easily surprised (-2 on surprise rolls)
6) if a spell is cast spell recovery is interrupted
7) no more than 30 spell slot level day

Note: in effect all spell caster function as D&D 3.x sorcerer with the added benefit of recharging continually (but this is an hindrance at higher levels), and the possibility to change ready spell (but this take longer than before). The number and levels of spell in a caster Spell Progression no more represent the spell a caster can cast in a single day but the maximum number of charged spell slot that the spell caster can have at any given moment. 

The number of ready spell is equal to the number of spells in the Spell Progression +2 for each level (a 1st level magic user in AD&D 1st edition can have 3 1st level spell ready, and 1 spell charge, at 3rd level it will have ready 4 1st and 3 2nd level spell and it will have 2 1st and 1 2nd level charge).

To change ready spell the spell caster need 1h*spell level with his book or in sacred place (if of divine nature) plus 10gp*spell level in ingredients, without his book it must engage in spell research or study under a mentor (that can also be a monster or extraplanar creature) in this case the time grows steeply:

• book/sacred place: 1h*level + 10gp*level of spell to ready
• mentor: 1day*level+100gp*level of spell to ready + service to be contracted with the mentor
• research/meditation: 1week*level+1000gp*level of spell to ready

Examples

1) Toran a 5th level Spellsword can charge up to 
2 slot of 1st level, 2 of 2nd and 1 of 3rd.

In a tough encounter with a band of ogres Toran cast a Lightning Bolt and a Magic Missile discharging a 3rd level slot and a 1st level one. After 20' the 1st level slot will be fully recharged, after another 60' also the the 3rd level slot will be recharged. But while recharging Toran will be -2 on surprise rolls, and if after the first 40' (he recharged fully the 1st level slot, but the 3rd level one is still recharging) he need to cast Invisibility he will need to start recharging from 0 and after 40' will recharge the 2nd level slot and will need other 60' to recharge the 3rd level slot

2) Eward a 14th level Archmage can charge up to 
4 slot of  1st, 4 of 2nd, 4 of 3rd, 4 of 4th, 3 of 5th and 3 of 6th.

His tower sieged by powerful forces Eward must use all his magical power during the 1st wave of attacks, now he will slowly but continually recharge his spell slot but first he will recharge his lower level slots. After 2h he will have recharged 4 1st level slot and 1 2nd level slot. To fully recharge all his spell slot (since slot will recharge only while the mage is awake and not tired) he will need 146 turns or 24 hours and 20 minutes about 3 days without casting any spell (and he cannot recharge more than 30 level each day, so since the total of spell slot is 73 levels he needs more than 2 days to fully recharge).

Designer's Notes

This simple rule changes a fundamental assumption in the ACKS magical system (but also of the D&D 5th edition system and of the sorcerer spell system of D&D 3.x and Pathfinder) that spell-caster recover all their spell slot in the morning after one night of rest (and about one hour of meditation).

This assumption is derivative from 3rd edition D&D, in fact in 2nd edition spell caster needed to impress spell in their memory taking 10' for each spell level (and in 1st edition the time was 15' for each spell level as it is also in OSRIC and Adventures Dark and Deep). The strange thing is that this assumption makes things harder for lower level spell-caster and give way too much power to high level spell caster.

In ACKS a 1st level arcane spell-caster has 1 level of spell/day and at the 14th level arcane spell-caster 73 level of spell/day (divine spell caster are not so far off and the numbers are not so different also in D&D 5th edition or for sorcerers in D&D/d20 system like 3.x sorcerer or Pathfinder sorcerer) this means that we have a gigantic difference in raw power from 1st to 14th level, no other classes see such a difference in raw power.

Introducing this rule we have that magical capacity of recovery is constant during the day and independent from caster level with, at least, the following beneficial effects:

1. spell caster will never be short of low level spells (a problem that in later edition of the game was resolved giving at will powers to caster and in previous edition with cantrips); 
2. high level spell caster to get fully recharged need more than one day w/out spell casting (as in older edition) as you can see in our 2nd example where the Archmage Eward ned almost 3 day to get fully recharged;

I decided for 20' (or 2 turns) because in ACKS you roll for wandering monsters each 2 turns.

Trance/Meditation (ACKS)
To modify the Trance/Meditation Proficiency is a necessary rule change with the rule presented: While in a meditation spell caster recharge 1 level of spell slot each turn. The mage can use meditation up to a number of hours equal to the maximum level of spell he can use.

Wizard Spell Recovery (D&D 5th)
Wizard can keep this edge since it can be used a limited number of times each day.

NOTE: for the italian version of this one go here: Ricarica Magica Continua