We Are Sorry to Interrupt This Spell

I have come to the conclusion that spell interruption makes no sense in the context of Vancian spellcasting. In the Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance, it may take hours to memorize a few spells, but once a spell is in the magician's mind, coiled like a spring, all he or she needs to do is utter a few syllables to unleash it. I imagine the effect being as immediate as the killing words in Dune. Ritual spellcasting, on the other hand, is another matter. Spells cast ritually are not memorized (at least, not in the same manner), but the casting time is greatly extended, affording ample opportunity for interruption. Coupled with an additional cost (such as possible hit point loss or temporary attribute reduction), ritual spellcasting becomes a viable method of extending the spellcaster's usefulness without resorting to power inflation (in theory, I should add, as I am currently playtesting it with Swords & Wizardry White Box). Dispensing with the idea of spell interruption for memorized spells helps me in two other ways. First, since I am no longer using the complicated combat round sequence of post-OD&D, I no longer have to worry about requiring spellcasters to commit to a spell before initiative is rolled—they are as free to cast or not cast as anyone else who is free to use or not use a weapon. Why does this matter to me? It matters because the game flows better, and when the game flows better, my players and I enjoy it more. Second, it preserves the value of memorized spells in contrast to ritually cast spells. And since I'm using Brendan's Simplified Spell Progression (i.e., reduced spell capacity), it's all the more important that the memorized spells become the reliable ones.

(I probably ought to note here that I am not observing the variable casting times of certain editions of Dungeons & Dragons. In my campaigns, memorized spells are cast instantaneously, whereas ritually cast spells have a uniform casting time of one turn [ten minutes].)

Here, then, are my latest revised rules for ritual spellcasting...

Ritual Spellcasting Variant 3

The standard rules of normal spellcasting apply (verbal and/or somatic components only; casting time of 1 round; memorization of all spells in 1 hour after 8 hours of sleep), but spellcasters may also cast any currently unmemorized (or unprayed for) spell that they are qualified to cast (i.e., are of a high enough level to cast) with the following restrictions:

1. Casting time is increased to 1 turn, after which the spellcaster makes a saving throw vs. magic. If failed, the caster loses 1 point of strength per level of the spell. Strength lost in this manner is fully recovered after 8 hours of sleep.
2. The casting must be uninterrupted. If it is interrupted, the spell is disrupted, but the caster must still make a saving throw or lose strength as described above.
3. Material components must be used. Magic-users may use either a magic circle with candles or incense, or an alchemical catalyst to be imbibed, poured, or otherwise destroyed. Clerics may use items appropriate to their religion and culture such as censors, holy water sprinklers, bells, chimes, gongs, prayer wheels, candles, bonfires, etc.
4. For magic-users, the book containing the spell must be available to consult during the casting. For clerics, a holy symbol, holy book, or sacred object must be present.

Cure This and That

If clerics can cast cure disease, why is there disease in your game world? Wouldn't all diseases eventually be eradicated? Wouldn't all those tables about diseases in the Dungeon Masters Guide be rendered useless except in areas where there are no clerics?

Assuming that there are Lawful clerics in your campaign world, why are they not constantly surrounded by ailing people seeking their healing powers? The clerics are peripatetic, you say? They take to the road to spread their faith? That wouldn't stop them from being mobbed by the sick wherever they go. That wouldn't stop the mobile sick from following them, nor would it prevent the newly cured and saved from tagging along. Imagine your small party of adventurers — a thief, a fighter and henchman, a magic-user, two hirelings, a cleric, and several hundred of the faithful in various states of health — embarking on a journey to raid the tomb of the lich duke. It will get very crowded down there, and you can forget about stealth. The conscience of a truly Lawful cleric would not permit him or her to leave a community where there are people in need of healing. So much for the adventuring cleric.

Well, the D&D cleric is more of a spiritual warrior who is needed to defeat great evil, you say. That explains the cleric's assignment, but it doesn't explain how he or she will avoid being constantly surrounded by the sick and injured unless the cleric's identity is kept secret. Could a cleric be sent on a mission in disguise? It's possible, but unlikely to work. How can a moral healer turn away a wounded friend or even a stranger in need? As soon as someone gets stuck with an arrow it will be cure light wounds here and neutralize poison there. There will be miracles all over the place, and miracles have a way of grabbing the public's attention.

What exactly is the rationale behind a class of individuals who routinely work miracles? At least in Empire of the Petal Throne it made sense: a secretive and jealous priestly caste that had few humanitarian instincts. In Dungeons & Dragons, however, it is much less clear. The cleric class is based on the Christian priesthood, more or less, apparently with elements of Bram Stoker's (or Peter Cushing's) Van Helsing. Imagine what the world would have been like if every medieval priest had been a spellcaster. Imagine what a typical fantasy world in fiction would be like if every priest were a spellcaster. It would certainly alter the balance... of everything.

This is not a rant about whether the cleric class ought to exist. It's a proposal that perhaps it ought to exist differently. For my own campaigns, I'm taking a cue from Roger the GS inspired by FrDave and replacing cleric with prophet. Prophets are not nearly as numerous. They are not necessarily members of the clergy and their talents are not necessarily as well advertised. Being very scarce, there is no institution surrounding them and no expectation of how they will react when encountered. In fact, they are usually not even identifiable as prophets unless they introduce themselves. My own prophet class will have a number of other differences, but just the change of name and what it entails has a profound impact on the game world.

Incidently, I revisited this conundrum when a new player heard me mention a "cleric" and thought I meant a secretary. That's another benefit of the name change.

Level Equals Spell Capacity

I am thinking about adopting Brendan's Simplified Spell Progression. I'll use it unmodified for both magic-users and clerics (I have always allowed clerics to have one 1st level spell at 1st level) and combine it with Ritual Spellcasting Variant 1 and 2. Spell memorization is thus simplified without sacrificing access to other spells (which may be cast ritually with a considerable increase in casting time).

One aspect of the simplified spell progression I really appreciate is the fact that it can be used to refer to a spellcaster's level in-character and actually be relevant in the game world. Depending on the setting, it may be common knowledge to everyone or possibly just to those with magical training that a spellcaster's level refers to how many spells can be held in the spellcaster's mind at one time. "She's a sorceress of the fifth level? Why, she can do five magical things every day with the snap of her fingers!" In my campaign, it will also be known that spellcasters commonly carry scrolls that enable them to cast even more spells (thanks to Holmes Basic), and that even without memorized spells and scrolls they can still use ritual magic. Some of Telecanter's Vancian Spell Ideas (namely #16) about magic items with their own spell slots that can be used by a magic-user to increase spell capacity is particularly useful here and fits in well with many fantasy settings in literature where objects often hold much of a spellcaster's power.

Overall, I think the combination of simplified Vancian magic and ritual magic will make magic-users more competent at low levels, less ultra-powerful at higher levels, and generally more enjoyable to play.

Ritual Spellcasting Variant 2

The Ritual Spellcasting Variant really only applies to magic-users, so here is the variant for clerics. As before, the standard rules of normal spellcasting in Basic/Expert D&D and Labyrinth Lord apply (verbal and somatic components only; casting time of 1 round; granting of spells with 1 hour of prayer after 8 hours of sleep), but clerics may also cast any currently unprayed for spells that they are qualified to cast with the follow restrictions:

1. Casting time is increased to 1 turn, after which the spellcaster makes a saving throw vs. magic. If failed, the casting time is increased by another turn, followed by another saving throw. Repeat until saving throw is successful or spellcasting attempt is abandoned.
   
2. The casting must be uninterrupted.
   
3. Material components must be used.
   
4. An appropriate holy book or sacred object must be present.
   

Clerics may use material components appropriate to their religion and culture such as censors, holy water sprinklers, bells, chimes, gongs, prayer wheels, candles, bonfires, etc. Rituals may also involve meditation, chanting, singing, bowing, dancing, acrobatics, theatre, or other activities appropriate to the cleric's religion. For the ritual to work, it must be something of a production and may or may not require participation by others.

This lends the cleric a little more versatility in fulfilling his or her duties, enables the creation of alternatives to the standard cleric (medicine men and women, witch doctors, shamans, and other practitioners of religion-based ritual magic), and allows for a style of spellcasting based on religious invocation familiar to many readers of fantasy literature.

[Edit: Casting time revised 5 June 2014.]

Why Resurrection Is Bad for D&D

As presented in Dungeons & Dragons, spells that restore life to the dead—actual life, not an undead existence—would have catastrophic effects on any world if taken to their logical conclusion. The primary culprits are the clerical spells raise dead and resurrection. Unsustainable population explosions are often cited as one side effect of this boon. Another, likelier, byproduct of such spells would be the inevitable rise of theocracies wherever there are clerics with the ability to cast them. Surely the ultimate tool that could be used to win converts would be the allure of eternal life. Surely the primary form of corruption would be the fleecing of the wealthiest to ensure their resurrection. The highest level clerics would inevitably become either the power behind the throne, effectively reducing all monarchs to puppets, or they would rule outright. Who would deny their legitimacy at the risk of losing the opportunity to be resurrected? In such a world, the primary concern of all people would be to earn the right to be resurrected. All wars would be religious wars, because every nation would be under the direct control of a specific religion. The ultimate form of rebellion would be the deliberate rejection of resurrection and those who control it. All of this is fine for an alternative dystopia, but it utterly fails to reflect any fantasy world I've seen depicted in literature or gaming.

Apart from the vast global implications of resurrection spells, what about the personal implications? If I am playing a lawful good cleric capable of casting resurrection, how could I not spend the rest of my days restoring life to every corpse brought to me by a grieving relative? Do all clerics rise in level to become resurrection factories? How can one be selective without being consumed with guilt? Whether the scale is large or small, raise dead and resurrection as standard clerical spells simply fail to support the emulation of any fantasy world I've ever read about, gamed in, or seen. That is why I would abolish them.

I would be willing to consider resurrection as a unique power that might exist in a single relic, or which might be granted by a god under extraordinarily rare conditions (perhaps once per century... or millennium), but as a spell, most emphatically no.

Reincarnation is another matter.

Liberated Clerical Spell Selection

I confess I'm not very familiar with editions of D&D past 1st edition AD&D, so the following may not be the first time this idea has been expressed. (I'm fairly certain it has already been expressed in some capacity, if not an official one, by someone. I'm just recording some thoughts on the subject.) It seems to me there ought to be more to differentiate clerical spells from magical spells than their source. I addressed the idea of changing the nature of verbal components to reflect the communicative role of clerics (spreading the faith), but I think the nature of spell selection lends itself to modification as well. If magical spells are selected and memorized as a matter of forethought and strategy (an intellectual exercise), perhaps clerical spells should be chosen only in times of need (an exercise in faith). Unlike magic-users, who owe their powers to academic study, clerics owe their powers to their deity and their faithfulness in serving that deity. (This is not to say that clerics do not engage in study, but that their study is of a theological nature rather than quasi-scientific inquiry.) A cleric should not have to guess which spell may or may not be useful in advancing his or her patron deity's divine plan. Rather, when the time comes for divine intervention through the agency of the cleric, the right spell within the cleric's capacity should be available for casting. In other words, a cleric prays daily for his or her due allotment of spells based on his or her level, not for specific spells. When the time comes to cast a spell, one spell slot of the appropriate spell level is marked as having been used for that day. If the cleric's mission necessitates that three cure light wounds be cast in a single day or one cure light wounds, one protection from evil, and one light, so be it. It is the deity's will. Clerical magic should, after all, be miraculous. It is a little less than miraculous for a cleric to be forced to admit, "Well, remove curse would have been useful, but I'm afraid I picked locate object instead. Sorry." Aside from falling short of inspiring awe, it doesn't even resemble how divine magic is presented in mythology or literature. The cleric's deity should either enable the clergy to predict which spells would be needed (in which case the referee is choosing the spells for the cleric each day), or the cleric should be able to invoke an available divine power when the need arises. The latter more accurately reflects a priest's decision of which prayer to say or which verse to read on a given occasion (and this ties into the idea of reciting an extemporaneous prayer when casting a spell). Does this unbalance the game? Does this flexibility make clerics too powerful? I haven't playtested this yet, but I think the fact that clerics must act strictly in accordance with their religion or lose their spellcasting ability is a strong limitation. Certain deities may even render the casting of a spell impossible on a case-by-case basis if it is judged to be a frivolous (or maybe selfish) use of divine power. Magic-users, of course, have no such restrictions.

Casting Spells Differently

In classic Dungeons & Dragons, magic is "Vancian" regardless of the spellcaster's class. Magic-users memorize mystical formulae and clerics pray for them (coincidentally for the same length of time), but spells always boil down to words that are charged with energy from the Positive or Negative Material Plane, which, when activated, are promptly erased from the spellcaster's memory. To be regained, the magic-user must memorize them again and the cleric must pray for them again. I recall reading somewhere that the magically charged words of a spell (or verbal components if you prefer) are impossible to understand or remember for anyone who happens to hear a spellcaster utter them. These words are more than words. They are the essence of primordial power. Not even another spellcaster can recall the words of a spell by hearing them. They must be committed to memory by a period of study lasting no less than one hour (in Basic/Expert D&D) or 15 minutes per level per spell (in AD&D). This is all well and good and I have no problem with any of it as it applies to magic-users, but there's something a little wonky as it applies to clerics. I have no problem with clerics sharing the same limitation of a certain number of spells per level, nor with clerics having to pray to regain spells, but I do have a problem with the words. That is, I do not like the verbal components of clerical spells to be identical in nature to magical spells, i.e. impossible to understand; impossible to remember. Clerics, as priests, are in the business of communication. They study the message of their faith, whether it involves interpreting scripture, interpreting omens, or speaking with spirits. They disseminate the message by preaching to congregations or spreading their faith as missionaries. Clerics communicate. Now, certain religions may indulge in a fair amount of obfuscation for various reasons (such as the use of secret symbolism to protect them from persecution if they are oppressed, or the use of complicated rituals and hierarchical structures to maintain power), but one thing most religions are not shy about is communication. It therefore stands to reason that the "spells" for which a cleric prays are not the arcane formulae memorized by magic-users, destined to fade from memory within seconds, unable to be understood even for a second by the uninitiated. On the contrary, clerical spells are words of power that manifest divine will through the agency of the cleric, and those words are a message that can be understood by anyone.* As the power to cast a spell is granted by a cleric's deity (or, in some cases, the deity's divine servants), the essence of the spell is not a formula to be understood by the cleric, but a message to be conveyed by the cleric. I would go so far as to say that any player character wishing to cast a spell as a cleric must state what his or her character is saying in order to make the spell work. This needn't be a formally composed invocation, but rather a statement of the cleric's faith and a supplication to his or her deity to enact the desired effects of the spell. This works best if it is stated in character in the player's own words. The same words are not required whenever the same spell is cast. In fact, it probably serves the game better if the words are personalized to reflect a given subject, situation, or location. The words chosen would certainly vary dramatically depending on the cleric's patron deity or sect. Each spell that is cast becomes both an affirmation and an act of proselytization (and it makes playing clerics more enjoyable, too). I should add that the words themselves, in a clerical spell of this type, do not trigger a spell's effects. It is the cleric's entreaty, the cleric's expression of desired intent, that enables him or her to become the vessel of divine will. The words alone do nothing if they are not accompanied by the cleric's faith and piety. I think this makes clerical spellcasting significantly different in flavor (and more interesting) without the fuss of new mechanical rules. * Even in a game world with multiple spoken languages, I think I would rule that the clerical spell as uttered would be miraculously comprehensible to anyone regardless of their familiarity with the cleric's language.

Clerical Spell: Sanctify Weapon

As I mentioned previously, fantasy worlds where magic weapons are rare in the extreme needn't be devoid of those supernatural horrors that can only be harmed by magic weapons, but adventurers will stand a better chance of surviving if they have some sort of alternative at their disposal. One alternative is the spell, of which the second level magic-user spell ensorcel weapon is one example (q.v.). The fourth level clerical spell sanctify weapon, described below, is another.

This spell conforms to the wisdom of Basic/Expert D&D and Labyrinth Lord in that creatures who are only affected by magic weapons are affected by any magic weapon regardless of its bonus.

Sanctify Weapon

Spell Class: Cleric
Spell Level: 4
Range: 0
Duration: special

This spell invests one ordinary weapon with a divine purpose: that of destroying supernatural forces of an alignment other than the caster’s. Specifically, it renders the weapon effective against those beings who are invulnerable to non-magical (or non-silver) weapons. The spell lasts as long as it is being used against such beings. If the weapon is ever used to strike any foe other than supernatural enemies, the weapon will become desanctified and the spell’s effect will end. This spell does not confer combat bonuses.

Lawful clerics may employ this spell against demons, devils, the undead, and hostile elementals. Chaotic clerics may employ it against angels and hostile elementals.

If the ninefold alignment system is being used, alignment opposition will be determined by Good vs. Evil, not Law vs. Chaos.