Sacred and Sorcerous:

Spell-casting Basics for the Divine and Arcane Caster

By Darkgolem

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Success as a divine or arcane caster requires understanding basic principles in how magic works in Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO).  By learning these principles, you form the basis for excelling in spell-casting regardless of what spell-casting class you wish to play.

Choosing Primary Characteristics:

The primary characteristic of a spell-casting class is of utmost importance.  Your primary characteristic determines how well you cast spells, whether you receive bonus spell slots you can prepare, and the highest level spell you can learn for your class. Paladins, clerics and rangers share wisdom as their primary ability for spell casting.  Bards and sorcerers share charisma, and wizard use intelligence as theirs.

Each even point above 10 that your primary characteristic has gives a bonus of 1 to the difficulty class of your spells. Similarly, your primary characteristic bonus translates directly into bonus spell points.

You can only cast spells of spell levels equal to your primary characteristic minus 10 or lower.  So if you have reached 9th level as a wizard, and now have 5th level spells available, but you only have 14 intelligence, then you cannot cast 5th level spells.  

Characters receive enhancements as they level throughout their adventuring career, and some of these enhancements increase a statistic, including a spell-casters primary characteristic.  It should be noted that these enhancements are not permanent, since you can change them as your level, and as such, with regard to spell-casting, only affect the difficulty class of the spells you cast.  They do not provide extra spell slots, or extra spell points, nor do they increase the level of spell you can cast.

At every level divisible by four (4, 8, etc.) a character receives the opportunity to raise one statistic by one point.  These characteristic increases are permanent, and will (retroactively to previous levels) raise your spell point total, and provide bonus spell slots.

Gaining spells:

Wizards have to copy their spells into their spell books for them to be available. To do so, they must purchase the expensive scribing components for the appropriate level of spell.  These are available at arcane reagent vendors throughout Stormreach.  Once the scribing material for a spell level is available, the wizard selects a scroll containing the spell he wishes to scribe, and then clicks the scribe skill.  After a short time, the spell will be scribed into the wizard's spell book.  If a wizard has a higher level scroll and scribing material, the wizard can copy the spell into his spell book, even if he cannot yet cast that level of spell.

Clerics, bards, rangers and paladins have access to all spells of their level automatically.  Clerics automatically have cure spells prepared when they prepare spells.  Sorcerers and bards only gain new spells as they level, and do not need to keep spell books.

Gaining spell points:

All classes gain spell points when they gain the ability to cast spells. You receive a set number of spell points for your class at each level, plus bonus spell points for having a high primary statistic, and you can have bonus spell points for items, feats and enhancements. While I haven't yet been able to determine exact numbers for upper levels, wizards and clerics start with 100 spell points, sorcerers with 150, bards with 50. For bonus spell points based upon your primary statistic, use the following formula:

Bonus spell points = your primary statistic bonus x 10 (for level 1) + your primary statistic bonus for each level after.

For example, a wizard with a 18 intelligence has a + 4 bonus due to intelligence, gaining 40 bonus spell points at level 1, and 4 bonus spell points each level after on top of that.  If the wizard ever brought his intelligence permanently to 20, than the bonus would be 50 for level 1, and +5 spell points for each level after, and these would apply retroactively.

Spells cost 10 points for a first level spell, and each spell level higher costs 5 points more than the previous spell level.

Spell Components:

Spell components are the needed ingredients, besides will power and knowledge, needed to cast a spell.  For example, the tumble spell requires material, verbal and somatic components to cast.

If a spell does not require a verbal component, then the caster can be prevented from speaking by circumstance and still cast the spell.  If a caster does not have the correct material component for a spell (and is not able to use the Eschew Material feat), then the caster cannot cast the spell.  If the caster wishes to cast a spell that does not require a somatic (movement related) spell component, then there is no penalty for that caster if that caster is bound, wearing armor, or otherwise hindered.

Material components can be found at arcane reagent vendors throughout Stormreach.   Each spell level has a material component for it.  Some spells require more than one level spell component.  A second level cleric spell might, for example, require a single 2nd and 1st level spell component to be cast.

Preparing Spells:

All classes must prepare spells. Based upon your class, you have a number of “slots” to prepare spells in for each spell level.  Clerics must have one slot each level designated toward a cure spell.  For example, a cleric can have up to 3 spell level 1 slots at character level 1 for preparing spells.  In this case one slot (for clerics) is always a cure light wounds spell, and the other two would be any two spells from the clerics spell list for that level.

To prepare a spell, first go to the spell section of your character sheet, and drag out any spells you don't want to keep from the slots at the bottom of each level's page.  Then drag in the spell you wish to cast from your spell list.  If you wish to have your spell on your hotbar, then drag the spell from your spell list to a spot on your hotbar.

By understanding the basics of spell-casting you can start in Eberron with a firm understanding of how to pick ability scores for spell casting, how to prepare spells, and how to increase the spells in your repertoire as your advance.  

Further and detailed description of spell-casting including metamagic feats, will be detailed in Spirituality and Spellbinding, to be published soon!

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