What am I missing? The spell effectively allows the caster to pump all his spells into an item and the next day he can cast DOUBLE the amount of spells he normally can. For a single spell each day, you are twice as powerful.
Please explain this to me so I don’t have to ban it…
4th Level Spell
This spell prepares a necklace, ring, or similar item to have up to six spells stored within it. Only the character who casts spell storing may store spells in the item. The caster stores spells in the item by casting them one at a time. All spells to be stored must be cast within 1 turn of spell storing being cast. Thereafter, any character who puts the item on automatically gains the knowledge of which spells are stored, and may discharge them as if a spellcaster of the minimum level required to cast the spell. The spells will remain stored in the item until discharged, or until one day passes, whichever comes first. This spell is used to create rings of spell storing.
I would probably rule that “one day passes” at about the same time you recover your spell slots. It’s not necessarily a literal 24-hours from when you cast Spell Storing.
The point of the spell (I think) is to be able to pass off some of your spellcasting ability to another character, in the form of an item.
Personally, I might have made it store a single spell—the real benefit in my mind is letting someone else cast the spell, or allowing a slight increase in a particular spell’s casting per day for 24 hours.
On the other hand, “broken” isn’t something I usually worry about with B/X—there’s too much to think about at that point.
I agree with Mike that it is too powerful. I get what it is ‘supposed’ to do. In practice, however, you can cast the spell the night before you go out adventuring and gain 6 extra spells.
To answer your original question Mike, I don’t believe this spell existed in B/X. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, please. Perhaps BECMI? It certainly didn’t exist in any form in AD&D.
My hunch is that a spell was needed to work with the magic item creation rules and thus was born Spell Storing.
Me neither. And, that’s why after an entire year of playing ACKS and over 100 sessions, the fact that this spell (in action) sent off warning bells and whistles like nuts is what makes me think it’s literally broken (i.e. not designed correctly, incorrect spell level, worded incorrectly, etc.).
Witness, that’s actually a good way to solve the problem of doubling your spells. If the storing last until you “prepared spells” again at the beginning of each day, then it would merely be a 4th level spell that allowed you to give some people your spells and also be able to cast from an item.
Or go further into house-rule territory and say that the spells stored in the item stay in your spell slots until it’s cast from the item. Just a slight change so that you could leave spells in items to the people on watch after you go to sleep. At that point you could even get away with extending the time it’ll stay in the item.
I don’t like a component cost so much. When it’s working as (presumably) intended it’s technically a reduction in power (lose a 4th level spell slot) for a gain in finesse (a fireball comes unexpectedly from a thief in the shadows for example). You can pay money for extra spell slots by making the ring if you want.
Isn’t another benefit of casting spells from a stored item, being that they aren’t interruptible? I’d say houseruling that the duration lasts until the caster refreshes his slots is a good way to solve the problem of doubling spells too.
Witness is correct, "one day passes" when the mage recovers his spell slots.
Sorry for writing the spell badly. The intent of this spell is not that you can cast it at 11:59pm, go to bed, wake up at 8:01am, refresh your spells, and have double your spells available untli 11:59pm that night. The intent is to let an arcane caster 'store' a spell and give it another person to use. For instance, if you want the highly stealthy thief to sneak forward and cast ESP, or you want the powerful fighter to be able to deliver a touch spell.
Hmmm… that is very different. Interesting. I have been feeling it was a bit over powered (though not too bad) so this reduction in power is certainly interesting to hear. I know my players aren’t going to be pleased though…
