🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <22DEC199221221623@gergo.tamu.edu>, carl@gergo.tamu.edu (Carl D. Perkins) writes:
|> >I made another post that I hope clears up this little misunderstanding. To
|>>repeat: it is not the spells that are used up, but rather the spell using the
|> >particular components researched by the Wizard. The Wizard is free to keep
|>>finding new components that can be put together to make a Fireball spell, but
|> >once he has done so, the spell begins losing its effectiveness each time it
|>is used. The spells can have the same name and similar properties, but if they
|>>use different components, they are considered different spells. Finally, the
|> >number of possible components is nearly infinite, but they are difficult to
|>>discover - requiring hefty investments in time and materials. A novice wizard
|> >is unlikely to know more than a few components or spells.

Just talking variations on a theme here.

|> This sounds like a lot of bookkeeping. You have to keep track of every
|> component every wizards has ever researched and how many times it has been
|> used by each. So Clunk the Competent knows Fire Production 117, 221, and 437
|> and has used them 9 times, 5 times, and just 1 time respectively...
|>Now immagine that each wizard knows 3 or more  different components in each of
|> 3 or 4 different component type categories...
|>

Why not just have the player state that 'I am attempting to design spell
X which uses the following components.'  Have a simple method of
determining the 'obscurity' of the spell from the number and rarity of
the combined components, and roll a dice to determine if this particular
spell has been cast before.  The player need only keep track of the
spells his character has attempted to design in a particular scenario.
It would be pointless to try and bookkeep between different scenarios.