House Rules - Casting Times & Spell Components for Clerics, Druids & Shamans

Magic-users and Elves aren't the only characters in the game who cast spells, of course, Clerics get important spell abilities when they reach 2nd level of experience. Somewhat unlike the former casters, the Cleric's spells are critical to the success of the entire party, healing and protecting the Cleric's allies when things get tough.

Since the rules are not totally clear, many players interpret them to suggest that Clerics get to choose their spells on the fly, not needing to memorize them daily like MUs do. I personally don't like this. Like the Elf, the Cleric gets spells and pretty respectable combat prowess, so why further punish the player who picks a MU by only applying the "Vancian" rule to them? Given that thought, I require Clerics to pick their spells daily just like their MU compatriots, with the caveat that, as in later versions of d20 D&D, they can swap out a prepared spell for a healing spell of equal or lesser level on the fly, provided they succeed on a wisdom check (equal or less than their WIS on a d20 roll) at the time of casting.

But, you might point out, these posts are all about getting around Vancian spellcasting! Right, and Clerics get similar options.

Clerics* who cast their spells on the fly without daily prayer and preparation suffer the same penalties to their initiative as MUs do; -1 to individual initiative per spell level of the desired spell.

Like MUs, the player may choose to use material components to remove the initiative penalty, in the exact same way as MUs. The only real difference is that in addition to the optional spell component, the Cleric must always have their holy symbol during spellcasting, or the spell fails. Of course, a lenient DM may take mercy on the Cleric whose symbol is lost or destroyed through no fault of their own, allowing them to perform a WIS check, with a +2 penalty to the roll, to cast spells without their symbol, as long as an effort is being made to replace it ASAP.


The power of Gygax compels you!
The required components for each spell are similar in nature to their MU spell counterparts, but the Cleric player who wants to swap out for non-standard components should take their particular deities dogma into account. While a god of nature and peace would be fine with a bundle of fresh herbs being used to invoke a Cure Light Wounds spell, for example, a savage god of war might prefer the heart of a freshly killed enemy. DM discretion rules the day, as usual, in regard to work works and what does not.

Here are my suggested components for the official Basic Rules 1st level cleric spells, to get your creative juices flowing:

SPELL - COMPONENT (Symbolism)
1a Cure Light Wounds - 1 vial of holy water (considered to contain the divine essence of the patron god)
1b Cause Light Wounds - small chunk of metal, wood or stone from a broken weapon (to invoke the now inert damaging potential or bloodlust of that weapon)
2a Detect Evil - the preserved eye of an animal considered in the Cleric's culture to be friendly or "good", like a domestic breed of dog, songbird, sheep, etc (most cultures acknowledge the enhanced senses of animals)
2b Detect Good - as for Detect Evil, but from a bad or evil animal, like a snake, rat or pirahna (same as Detect Evil)
3 Detect Magic - the preserved eye of a cat, raven or crow (these animals have a strong symbolic connection to wizards and witches)
4a Light - a live or preserved firefly (a creature thought to be sent by the gods to guide their faithful in the darkness)
4b Darkness - a preserved wing (or freshly harvested one) of a bat (bats are known to "see" and fly straight in the darkness, after all)
5 Protection from Evil - 1 vial of holy water (to invoke the essence of the god for divine protection)
6 Purify Food and Water - A handful of salt (often used to preserve food, salt is thought by Clerics to have divine properties that drive off rot and decay)
7a Remove Fear - a small children's doll (to recapture soothing memories of home and security)
7b Cause Fear - the preserved head of a snake or other nasty small animal (the fact that most sane folk fear and avoid snakes leads Clerics to believe the gods mark those creatures with a fearsome aura to warn us of their danger)
8 Resist Cold - a chunk of coal or sulphur, unburnt (to invoke the latent flame spirits thought to live within)

I suggest giving Cleric players a lot of flexibility in choosing alternate materials to substitute, as long as the player is making some creative effort to play out the faith of her PC. While some MU types, though not so much Elves, consider magic to be a rather exact science, Clerics view divine magic as the malleable will of their patron god, infinitely adaptable to intent and circumstance.

With these notes and the guidelines from the MU article before them, you should be able to freely add these options to all the spellcasters in your game without too much difficulty or bogging down of play, all that is really required is a bit of creativity and some minor bookkeeping by the players.

*Clerics, in the context of this article, include Druids and Shamans, and any other variant classes (such as an OD&D paladin, perhaps) with similar divine or spiritual magical abilities.

House Rules - Casting Times & Spell Components for Magic Users, Elves and Wicca

One part of playing a spellcaster in AD&D, either 1st or 2nd edition, that I've always found fun is the use of material components for casting a spell. For those unfamiliar with the idea, it basically means that most spells require a little bit of some physical material that is used to harness and focus the magic required to cast the spell. The components are usually figuratively or metaphorically (and often somewhat humorously) connected to the spell being casting, so the Identify spell to determine the nature of a magic item requires a pearl (pearls of wisdom), and a fireball needs a pinch of bat droppings (as anyone who's had bats in their attic knows, the stuff is highly flammable when it dries out). I tinkered with different ways to use the idea in a Basic game without overly complicating things, and here's what I've settled on. We'll start with Magic-Users and similar classes today, and get back to actual material components in a minute, first we need to talk about casting times for spells, another AD&D mechanic I borrow to balance the use of components.

Spell Casting Times:
Usually in Classic D&D, when a spellcaster wants to cast a spell she has memorized, the player just announces that intent and when their turn comes up in initiative, the spell is cast and takes affect.

This optional system does not change that at all, spells memorized for the day according to the rules are cast normally, and 'go off' right when they are cast on the caster's initiative segment.

However, to give the players of spellcasters a little more flexibility in choosing spells for the day, the DM may allow the use of casting times, whereby the player may choose any spell known to the caster as long as they have an unspent spell 'slot' of that level available for the day. In this case, where spells are chosen on the fly instead of selected and prepared in the morning, an initiative penalty of -1 per spell level of the desired spell, to reflect the additional time required to recall and cast the spell, which was only briefly reviewed that morning. If standard group initiative for the party is used, the penalty applies only to the caster, not her allies.

Example: Luna wants to cast a lightning bolt against her enemies this round. The DM rolls initiative for the monsters on a d6, as normal, resulting in a 4. The party rolls a 5 for their group initiative, but Luna is casting an unmemorized 3rd level spell, so she gets a penalty of -3 to her individual initiative, so while the party wins initiative and goes first on a 5, Luna goes on 2, after the monsters.
Since the DM is probably choosing the spells for NPC casters on the fly anyway, this procedure is not used for NPC or monster casters. It is intended solely as a cheat for the players who don't want to be restrained by picking their daily spells before the day begins.

Material Spell Components
Now, what if you want the flexibility of casting on the fly, but don't want to suffer those nasty initiative penalties, which essentially guarantee that higher level magic users casting 5th or 6th level spells will always lose initiative? That's where material components (MCs) come in.


An MC is a small bit of material that serves two purposes in spellcasting. First of all, the metaphorical relation to the nature of the spell being cast helps jog the caster's memory and focus his thoughts on channeling the spell. Second, because of that same figurative relationship to the spell's intended effect, the presence of the material substance helps the caster more quickly gather and focus the magical energy to power the spell.

If the Magic-User* possesses the required material component and uses it to empower the spell, the spell's casting time is negated, allowing the spell to go off on the caster's unmodified initiative segment. The component is 'spent' in the process, and though it may still physically remain in the caster's hand, it is forever drained of its innate magical potency and is unusable as a future material component.

For now I'm only going to suggest specific MCs for the standard 1st level spells in the Basic rules, to give you an idea of the possibilities to guide you in assigning MCs for other spells.

SPELL - SUGGESTED COMPONENT (Metaphorical Meaning)
1. Charm Person - A 4 to 6 inch piece of olive tree branch (symbolic of peace or friendship)
2. Detect Magic - An owl's Feather (symbolic of wisdom and insight)
3. Floating disk - A marble sized chunk of Lodestone or Magnetized Metal (symbolic of the property of magnets to repel other magnets with the same charge), allowing one to 'float' above the other if carefully positioned)4. Hold Portal - A large nail or small spike forged of iron or steel (symbolic of literally spiking a door shut)
5. Light - The intact body (dead or alive) of a firefly (repesentative of the ability to create light)
6. Magic Missile - An arrowhead previously used in battle (representative of the arrow's potential to strike and wound)
7. Protection from Evil - A miniature carved copy of the holy symbol of a lawful or goodly god (symbolic of a god's power to protect his followers)
8. Read Languages - A lense from a monocle or spectacles (symbolic of aiding the ability to read)
9. Read Magic - A scrap of parchment, vellum or paper once part of a spell scroll or spellbook page (representative of magical writing)
10. Shield - A scrap piece of metal from a suit of armor (representative of armor's protective qualities)
11. Sleep - a scrap of cloth from a child's blanket (representative of peaceful 'babylike' sleep)
12. Ventriloquism - A 2 or 3 inch diameter carved or sewn dolls head (representative of a ventriloquists dummy)

MCs for 1st level spells should generally cost no more than 1gp, and if the PC is unable or unwilling to forage for them in the field, can be purchased in most general stores or apothecaries in towns or cities, or from fellow magic-users, though these folks may insist on barter or trade instead of coin.

As the level of the spells increase, the DM is free to limit availability of components to reflect the rarity of more potent substances and items, and the average price/value of the MC will go up, generally as follows:

Spell Level - Suggested Average Price/Value
1 - 1gp
2 - 5gp
3 - 10gp 
4 - 25gp
5 - 50gp
6 - 100gp
7 - 200gp
8 - 350gp
9 - 500gp

Improvising Spell Components
Sometimes a specific component may be unavailable, or a creative player may suggest an alternative component from items they find or have on hand. I'm all for this as long as there is a bit of thought and creativity behind the suggestion. A PC could suggest using a stirge's beak instead of an arrowhead for the Magic Missile spell, or a handful of phosphorescent moss instead of the firefly for a Light spell, for example. You should always reward imagination and creative problem solving in the game, so this kind of thing is perfectly fine. I simply require the Magic-User succeed on a simple INT ability check (a roll of equal or less than their INT score on a d20) when casting the spell with the alternate component for it to operate as intended. If the ability check fails, the spell still works, but the normal initiative penalty described above applies. 

*Magic-Users, as used in this article, include the Elf class and Wicca/Wokani class option for non-standard 'monster' classes. Other classes with similar spell casting ability may qualify as well with the DMs approval.
That's about it for Magic-Users.

The Known World Setting - Spellcasting in the Five Faceted Faith

I was thinking over some general ideas about how the different magic using classes approach their spellcraft, and how it fits into the Five Faceted Faith. None of this has any real impact on game play, it's just a little in character flavor to make the characters something more than a checklist of available spells.

The only optional "rule" I'd consider in regard to all of this is maybe requiring an INT/WIS check (whichever is applicable) for one type of arcane or divine caster to learn spells from a caster of a different type. Arcane casters cannot learn Divine spells at all, and vice versa, but making the subtle differences in how magic users, elves and wiccas approach magic, for example, come into play with a fairly easy ability check once in a while might make the setting a little more interesting.

Arcane Caster Types
Magic Users - Whether they actively participate in the "religion" of the sphere or not, most magic users relate to the sphere of thought closely. Their approach to magic is an esoteric mix of math, science, allegory and symbolism, and obscure knowledge that allows them to start to understand how the multiverse operates. By subtly manipulating aspects of all five of the spheres, they begin to be able to cause real changes in reality that manifest as spells. Though some of their rituals may resemble religious ceremony or dogma, there is really nothing spiritual or divine about how a magic user invokes her magic.

Elves (and creatures like dragons with innate spell casting talents) - Some creatures are literally born magical, the balance of the five spheres that results in mundane life is slightly tweaked in one way or another in these creatures, sometimes giving them the ability to use spell like powers without having to learn, memorize, or cast them in a normal fashion. Elves are a special case, existing on a figurative border between the real, balanced realm of the Known World and the mysterious and magical world of Faerie. While elves are blessed with an innate magic that aids them in quickly understanding how to use spells, they still have to learn those magics like humans do. Elven magical lore is not quite as technical or mathematical as that of humans, and borrows some concepts that seem to derive from druids or shamans.

Wiccas - Wiccas tend to hail from cultures and societies that are a little more primitive, relatively speaking, than the human standard. Rather than science and mathematics forming a strong part of their approach to magic, they focus much more on the symbolism, allegory and simple practical application of magic. Proper magic users claim that this simple, undisciplined approach is why wiccas are incapable of mastering the advanced, high powered magic that high level wizards can, but most wiccas would respond that such magics are frivilous and not worth the effort anyway.

One quick note about the use of the term Wicca. For whatever reason, this is the term the Classic D&D designers of the 1980s chose to assign to hedge mages, tribal wizards and other "minor" users of arcane magic. In the context of the D&D rules and the Mystara setting, absolutely no connection to the religion philosophy of the same name in the real world is implied or intended.

Divine Caster Types
Clerics - While most clerics have at least a rudimentary understanding and acceptance of the Five Faceted Faith, they choose a unique way of invoking magic from it. Rather than learn to influence things themselves, clerics form a pact of sorts with a being or beings of Immortal existence, in which their devotion and service to the agenda of those beings is rewarded with the ability to channel a small portion of the divine power of their patrons. Some clerics are narrowly focused and only directly serve one Immortal, or a small selection of allied Immortals, while others serve the will of all the Immortals of one sphere, or those of all spheres equally, but there is no difference in the manifestation of clerical powers which of these paths they choose.

Druids - Druids view nature and reality as a delicate balance of all five spheres, and through this understanding, they learn to subtly tweak that balance in order to invoke their magic. Most druids are careful never to push things too far and upset the natural order, and will often spend time in meditation and contemplation before acting to avoid any unwanted side effects.

Shamans - Shamanic magic is similar to that of clerics, in that their power derives from other entities. Rather than distant Immortals, however, shamans look to the natural spirits around them; dead ancestors, the essence of living and non-living natural things, and so on. Also, rather than channel the power of these spirits directly, as clerics do, the shaman's service to the spirits is rewarded by the spirits basically creating magical effects for them. Clerics claim that the inferiority of these spirits to true Immortals is the reason for the somewhat weaker nature of shamanic magic, but most shamans and the spirits they serve find this attitude pretty insulting.