Any reason not to move to a ToB dynamic for spellcasting?

[Daiba]

...where spell slots, etc. would only regulate combat spells. Utility would be handled by feats and rituals. I imagine a spell like Knock becoming a feat that lets you use spellcraft on open lock checks.

All the problem spells can be shunted to rituals, which would require, money, time, and possibly quest components. You could have an entire adventure, for example, where an evil cabal of wizards has captured the king and is preparing a ritual to dominate his mind. You have to rescue him before they succeed, so you have to seek out an ancient pool in the mountains somewhere which can be used for a scrying ritual, etc.

Since it's a big overhaul anyway, might as well get rid of the buffing problem by dividing spells into the following categories:

Invocation: typical spell, casting time ranging from a move-action to multiple rounds
Contingency: like a ToB counter, cast as an immediate action
Boost: A swift cast buff of some kind that lasts no more than 1 round, maybe several rounds if it has some kind of circumstantial activation requirement
Chant: Has indefinite duration, but must be maintained as a standard action each round. Summoning elementals, barrier spells like wall of force, and long duration buffs like enlarge person.
Spellstance: Personal buffs like fireshield and stoneskin...only have one up at a time.

Other than the large amount of work involved, is there any reason not to switch to this system?

[User3]

Not really, it really just is a huge amount of work. You're better off starting from scratch then converting existing material.

[User3]

Its no work at all. Its called "playing Shadowrun".

You basically just described the Shadowrun system. While its a good system, its no DnD. DnD is played so often because its easy, and what you want is complicated.

[RandomCasualty]

Really, I agree with everything you said except this...

1165416409[/unixtime]]...where spell slots, etc. would only regulate combat spells. Utility would be handled by feats and rituals. I imagine a spell like Knock becoming a feat that lets you use spellcraft on open lock checks.

Combat spells tend to be the things that people could cast as often as they like, similar to ToB manuevers, limiting each spell to once per battle would probably be fine.

Utility spells on the other hand seem to need spell slots, at least many of them do. You just don't want someone casting augury or divination on every single decision for instance.

[Daiba]

I gave Knock as an example "magical" utility feat because it was the first thing that came to mind...it's certainly not the only way to handle utility. I've always disliked casters stealing the niche abilities of other classes without any kind of permanent investment, so this kind of change is something I've wanted to implement for a long time.

1165450956[/unixtime]]You just don't want someone casting augury or divination on every single decision for instance.

What do you think of divination spells like augury being handled by rituals? Augury could take, say, 4 hours to cast and require being in a holy place of the relevant deity. That would prevent you from casting it on a whim. It would cost money, but that hardly stops people from casting it right now. You could probably also perform a ritual augury without actually being a spellcaster...you just need X ranks of Knowledge(religion), or something like that. I like the idea of priests being able to accomplish things for their deities without having lots of PC class levels.

I imagine rituals of X level or higher requiring quest components. For example, the genesis ritual might require pieces of a dead god, and the specific god chosen would determine the qualities of the plane, etc. Acquiring pieces of the deity you want could become a really cool quest in its own right.

[RandomCasualty]

1165501662[/unixtime]]
What do you think of divination spells like augury being handled by rituals? Augury could take, say, 4 hours to cast and require being in a holy place of the relevant deity.

Well, the problem with that is that it makes it a rather terrible spell for PCs. That'd be such a nerf to most divinations that it renders most of them useless, at least until you can teleport.

The idea behind divinations and utilit is that really they should be X uses per adventure. So like once in each adventure you can consult your god for advice. That prevents them from being overused.