The Spell Point System Normally, wizards, priests, and other spellcasters are limited to a strict spell progression table which lists how many spells of each level they may retain in memory at one time. For example, every 7th-level mage shares the same spell capacity of four 1st-, three 2nd-, two 3rd-, and one 4th level spell, although specialist wizards (or priests with exceptional Wisdom scores) gain a slight advantage in this area because of their bonus spells. When a spell is cast, it vanishes from the caster’s memory, and he cannot make use of it again until he has a chance to rest and study his spell books once again.

Spell points work a little differently. Characters no longer receive a standard spell progression table. Instead, they are assigned a number of spell points based on their character class and level. When the character studies his spell books or prays for spells, he uses these spell points to purchase the spells he wishes to memorize, with some reasonable restrictions. Naturally, higher-level spells are more expensive than lower-level spells, but high-level characters have more spell points available. Under the spell point system, a 7th-level mage may decide to memorize five 1st-level spells instead of the four he is normally allowed, at the cost of giving up his higher-level spells for that day. Or, he could choose to memorize four 4th-level spells, giving up all his lower-level spells, or strike any balance between the two extremes that he likes.

Specialist wizards receive the normal amount of spell points allowed to a mage of the same level, but also gain an amount of bonus points. These bonus points must be used to select spells from the specialist wizard’s school of specialization, but the specialist can spend them as he sees fit. For instance, a 7th-level invoker normally receives one 1st-, one 2nd-, one 3rd-, and one 4th-level spell as a bonus for his specialization, but with spell points he could choose as many as eight bonus 1st-level spells.

There are three general guidelines the wizard must still obey when memorizing spells by using spell points:

The wizard must be well-rested and have access to his spell books in order to memorize spells. He still may memorize only those spells that he knows and has available at that time. It takes about 10 minutes per spell level to commit a spell to memory.

The wizard is limited in the maximum spell level he may cast, based on his character level (and possibly his Intelligence score). For example, a 5th-level wizard is still limited to spells of 3rd-level or lower. (See Table 17 : Wizard Spell Point Progression.)

The wizard is limited in the maximum number of spells of each level that he can memorize, regardless of how many spell points he has available; for example, a 5th-level mage can’t memorize more than four spells of any given spell level. Even 1st-level spells are difficult to memorize, and a wizard can’t have more than nine spells of any one level in his memory, no matter how many spell points he has available. See Table 17.

Some of these guidelines are relaxed or ignored for the optional systems of magic described later in this chapter. These systems dispense with the old assumption that spells vanish from memory when cast and use other restrictions to limit a wizard’s power.

Table of Contents