# Do you use material spell components?



## uv23 (Mar 30, 2002)

I've been doing a lot of work lately on making sorcerers more distinct from their wizard brethren and I keep coming back to one thing - spell components. Specifically material components. In my view, it doesn't make sense for sorcerers to use them since their talent is natural. But then I am faced with a possible balance issue based on this advantage. Or am I? Are material components that important or are they just a bother that should be forgotten altogether?

Tell me about material spell components in your campaign. Do you use them? Why or why not? And opinions on the core issue would be appreciated as well.


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## Lady Dragon (Mar 30, 2002)

Material spell components help make the game more interesting in general it gives wizards and sorcerers something to search for.
They especially come into play at higher levels.A they do effect overall game balance.

Some high level spells require rare and/or expensive components. If you take them out of the game many wizards would cast these spells continuously unbalancing the game.The other classes have a hard enough time competing with wizards at high level.


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## Volaran (Mar 30, 2002)

Well, in the game I play in, sorcerors do not require material or verbal components.  

As a tradeoff, in addition to any normal focus components that the sorceror would provide for the spell, they have school focuses.  Basically, an item of personal value that they channel magic through, and must be replaced at great cost (mostly in time) if they are destroied.  They can later take feats called "Great Focus" and "Inner Focus" to mitigate this penalty.

In addition, though they only need to use somatic components, sorcerors cannot take the still spell feat, and there is really no way to hide their powers.  When they cast spells, things like glowing eyes and localized increases in wind speeds, temperatures, ect.  rather give away their nature.


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## Crothian (Mar 30, 2002)

Our DM doesn't enforce it for the cheap stuff, but the spellcasters enjoy using it as flavor.  Plus, we've found other ways of using the combonents.  Once the wizard took the component for his fireball and flung it in the face of the evil warlord who had just captured us.  Boy, did we pay for that one.....


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## Dr. Zoom (Mar 30, 2002)

Just give all sorcerers in your world Eschew Materials as a free bonus feat at 1st level.  That way they don't need M components unless they are worth more than a gold piece.  So a sorcerer still needs a 100gp pearl for identify spells, but no bat guano and sulfur for fireballs.  You could also change the gold piece value to 25 or even 50 if you wanted.  I would not go too high, though.


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## Ace32 (Mar 30, 2002)

You could make your sorcerers not be required to obtain the non-GP material components, and then for the pricey stuff, convert to XP, just make some consistant formula, and stick to it.


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## uv23 (Mar 30, 2002)

For anyone who'se interested, I have compiled a list of sorcerer spells requiring material componets along with their spell level (see attached doc). It was interesting reading to see what was required for spells with material components. Some had pricy gems or so forth but others with no gold piece value per say still had what I would consider rare and/or valuable requirements, such as hide off of a displacer beast or a piece of iron from an iron golem. (The attached doc does not differentiate between spells with GP/non-GP material components)


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## DWARF (Mar 30, 2002)

I just up the monthly living costs one level for the mages and sorcerors.  So a wizard living in poor conditions pays for good conditions monthly, to account for non-priced components and library fees, etc.


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## Ace (Mar 31, 2002)

DWARF said:
			
		

> *I just up the monthly living costs one level for the mages and sorcerors.  So a wizard living in poor conditions pays for good conditions monthly, to account for non-priced components and library fees, etc. *




Brilliant! thats exactly what I do. Geat minds run in the same channel.


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## 1StrangeFellow (Mar 31, 2002)

Generally, in our group we ignore material components if you have that ever-present spell component pouch and there is not an expenisive component listed, or a component with a price - for both wizards and sorcerers.

Personally, I think it would have been cool to do something with sorcerers that reflects the fact that they are tapping internal powers... like taking subdual damage instead of having spells per day and components.  Anyway, I digress.

It's been a while since I've been around the 'EN' boards.  Isn't this the type of thing the mods would have moved over to the rules forum back in the day?  I've seen several other instances of this glancing through the forums.  The old 'neighborhood' looks a little different.


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## Omegium (Mar 31, 2002)

We usually don't really care about components, just use the spell component pouch.
Something I like about some of the spells in Relics and Rituals is that there are spells whose effect is based on the material component you use. There is, iirc, some kind of strength enhancing spell which has the blood of a creature with a certain strength score as a material component. Although no price is given you have of course to collect, and I think this kind of MC usage is rather cool


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## Chronosome (Mar 31, 2002)

*IMHO.*

A cool thing about the sorcerers-get-Eschew Materials-free-bit
(which I've just inserted into my campaign) is that it's really just
an option.  Since modifying a spell via metamagic is a full-round
action for a sorcerer*, there's still a reason for them to have a
component bag around...great flavor, though, and certainly
doesn't give bloodcasters an unfair advantage.



(*for a one action spell, of course...full-rounders take longer.)


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## mkletch (Mar 31, 2002)

*Sorcerer a mistake*

<rant> I almost think that the Sorcerer class was a mistake for 3E.  It seems as if people spend more time twiddling with the class (how do I make it different, how do I change it, whining that it is underpowered because of limited spell selection, it doesn't have the right flavor because of this or that rule) than actually playing the game.  Let's focus here, people. </rant>

That being said, if you feel compelled to change the class, I think the GP to XP conversion works best to show the 'inner power' aspect of the class that is so vaguely mentioned in the class description, but people latch onto like a toddler gripping a worn teddy bear.  XP cost is minimum of 1XP per spell with any material component.  If there is a GP cost, then divide it by 5 for the XP cost.  XP costs are handled normally.

-Fletch!


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## Eryx (Mar 31, 2002)

In my games, Bards and Sorcerers don't need components, but Clerics, Druids and Wizards do.

I've had no problems game balance wise with this situation.


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## BluWolf (Mar 31, 2002)

I rewrote my sorcerer class to include Eschew Materials feat at first level up to 50GP. But I won't go in to it here, wrong thread.

To answer the larger question, it really depends on m y players and the sort of campaign.

I prefer to play in and run lower level, deatailed oriented types of games. Wehre record keeping is an important part of that. Rations, ammo, forms of money .... they whole nine yards.
The group I currently play do not like those sorts of games. They prefer fast and loose when it comes to the minutia and the logictics of the games. They want to focus on the big issues, grand adventures and epic concerns.

So I don't pay attention to material components unless it is something big and obvious like 1,000 GP gem encrusted rod or a platinum miniture chest.

I miss the detail players.


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## Humanophile (Mar 31, 2002)

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head...

First, if you want an inner power based caster, use the psion.  Yeah, I know they've been hobbled, but you can find fixes aplenty depending on where you look and what you want.  I still feel that moodwise, the psion is more of an inner power caster than the sorcerer is, and moreso that than your standard image of a psychic.

Second, if you look at the Blood Magus in T&B, they have a damage for spell cost listing.  Using it for your sorcerers may overpower them a little, but I'm sure you could work other things out to balance.

However, put me down as thinking that giving up components wholeheartedly is just a bad idea.  Too many powerful spells are limited by the fact that it's just not wise to cast them all the time, and if you take away a good in-game reason for you not to, the casters obviously will.


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## mkletch (Mar 31, 2002)

Based on this thread and others I've seen here at EN and other places, I really am considering dropping the Sorcerer as a class form my campaign altogether.  It is not worth the bother and complaint.  I originally thought it was a cool variant for arcane spellcasting, but the whining has turned me off.

-Fletch!


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## uv23 (Mar 31, 2002)

mkletch said:
			
		

> *Based on this thread and others I've seen here at EN and other places, I really am considering dropping the Sorcerer as a class form my campaign altogether.  It is not worth the bother and complaint.  I originally thought it was a cool variant for arcane spellcasting, but the whining has turned me off.
> 
> -Fletch! *




Whining? What are you talking about? This thread is about creating a variant sorcerer that better fits into my campaign.


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## UofMDude (Mar 31, 2002)

mkletch said:
			
		

> *Based on this thread and others I've seen here at EN and other places, I really am considering dropping the Sorcerer as a class form my campaign altogether.  It is not worth the bother and complaint.  I originally thought it was a cool variant for arcane spellcasting, but the whining has turned me off.
> 
> -Fletch! *




Personally I wouldn't characterize this as whining.  But even if you do, so what?  What does it matter if other DM's whine about something?  It should only matter if your players whine about something.

I should know.  I tried to do something to wizards that I thought would a) add more flavor and b) make scribing easier but my player whined so I dropped it.  Specifically I wanted to change the wizard (before the campaign mind you) so instead of scribing spells (and incurring the scribing cost) the only way to add a spell to your spell book was to cast it off a scroll.  I was also going to allow someone to use someone else's spell book WITHOUT LIMIT (even without having "scribed" the spell yourself) as long as they made the easy spellcraft roll.  

Like I said, it's only your players whining that matters.

UofMDude


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## hong (Mar 31, 2002)

Actually, I can't remember the last time (ordinary) material components played a significant role in a gaming session. Most of the time they're just part of the background, along with all that preparation/learning/etc jazz. So I guess you could eliminate these sorts of material components and you wouldn't affect balance significantly.

The exception would be for spells that have a significant gp cost for their components. Things like stoneskin are partly balanced by the fact that casting them requires some money on the part of the mage. You would probably want to keep these. It shouldn't be too hard to finesse your handwaving so as to require sorcs to use these components.


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## Kesh (Mar 31, 2002)

I'll just echo what people are saying here. Common components are just considered to be in the spell component pouch, expensive/rare materials have to be specificially sought out and kept track of.


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