3 comments:

Hamlet said...

I've always ignored negligible spell components and found that simply enforcing one or two of the higher cost compenents to be very interesting. Have had parties wandering around for ages at a time with unidentified magic items because they can't afford a pearl, or when they can afford it unable to find one for sale because they're a thousand miles inland.

It certainly creates interesting situations.

March 10, 2009 at 8:44 AM  

RipperX said...

I'm the same way, the spells given above are meant to be more controlled by the DM.

I find spell components to be interesting, I know lots of DMs whom don't use them, which is a shame. I consider spells learned in level advancement as free spells, and if a dead wizard is still in good condition (read not blown to a smoldering husk) there are chances that a captured traveling spellbook is also found with a bag of spell components for many of the spells which it contains.

After a wizard casts a spell for the first time, I usually just assume that he'll keep material components which he needs in stock.

Of course, another bonus is that a wizard can attempt to create a new version of the spell which can ignore expensive spell components, this gets a wizard player involved in the game, and also costs a ton of money, but what better way for a wizard to spend his gold, huh?

March 10, 2009 at 12:44 PM  

Hamlet said...

I've never permitted the "gain a spell free upon level advancement" rule. It almost always ends up being one of the boring spells that every player feels he MUST have. About 99.99% of the time, it'll be magic missile if he didn't get it at first level. Or fireball.

Keeping a much tighter reign on what spells go into a game, in my experience, leads to more interesting play as you can force the wizard's player to adapt to what spells he has as opposed to using the same spells every single other player has.

PS: Word verification was "Ingstach." I must now go and create an NPC named Ingstach.

March 10, 2009 at 2:15 PM