Get rid of meditate skill

[Solaghar]

I was answering a question from a new player today who was wondering what he had to do to memorize a spell. It got me to thinking about the purpose of the meditate skill. Meditate is a low level skill. It's also one that rises extremely quickly, most people have it GMed before level 20 because you can train it just by sitting down and meditating, forgetting all your spells then doing it again. So I'm going to present a simple case for getting rid of meditate...

1. There's no D&D analogue, it's a pure remnant of Diku/Merc systems designed to slow down casting/regain mana
2. It only affects low-level characters, wizards more than anyone, who already have a tough time at low levels
3. It disproportionately affects newbies to the game, who don't know how to work things to make their characters effective by training the "right" skills and feats.

Once meditate is GMed, no one ever gives it a second thought, it's a passive skill rather than an active one people need to practice. Essentially, meditate adds nothing fun or interesting to the game when you do have it, but not having it makes it tedious and tiresome. It hurts newbies and it makes the newbie areas feel more tedious than they already often are. If we remove the meditate skill, it will make the life of a low-level player much less tedious and no one of a higher level will ever miss it.

[Selveem]

I, personally, never understood why resting just wasn't enough.

I'd support Meditate's removal, even though I see the reasoning for accelerated spell availability on a MUD as opposed to an actual D&D campaign.

In short, I think 'meditate' should be inherent and not something that needs to be trained. The condition should be resting or sleeping to attain the 'accelerated spell recovery' state for classes that utilize spells.

[Adabelle]

As long as you don't have to sleep in order to regain spells. Spell casters would end up spending a lot of time just staring at a blank screen, so to speak.

[Bellayana]

Maybe that would be a good thing, there are spells that allow people to be communicated in their sleep or tortured. I mean let's be honest how many people really sleep that long anyhow?

[Isolrem]

This makes so much sense it's ridiculous. However I assume by suggesting its removal you propose all classes to be able to regain spells at the current GM pace via resting?

[Selveem]

Speaking for myself, yes. Everyone is the most relaxed, laid back caster they possibly can be. They come with a free kegger-belly.

[Keltorn]

Lots of good ideas here!

Meditate is necessary right now in FK since no caster could ever get in the required eight hours of uninterrupted rest followed by another hour of meditation for clerics, druids, wizards, rangers, and paladins. That's fourty-five minutes of real time! However, if simply resting could restore those used spell slots in a reasonable amount of time (perhaps at the same rate as GMed meditate does now, like Isolrem said), then meditate could be wiped out.

As Bellayana said, requiring sleep for regaining spell slots could be a good thing. Has the Nightmare spell ever been used successfully? It might finally see use if casters have to sleep. However, sleep needs to regain those spells quickly. No one wants to be stuck asleep for fourty minutes of real time.

Some other ideas... The new crafting system utilizes offline time to progress on a crafting project. Maybe, with the right application, spells could be regained while offline? If done instead of resting, this could seriously hurt the ability of low-level wizards to grind through dummies, but it would also limit just how many times high level casters can rearrange the universe in just a couple of days without taking a break. If done in addition to resting... I don't know, is there any downside to allowing that?

Honestly, I don't really get the original point that Solaghar is trying to make. The way I see it, the only way meditate hurts low level characters is by being so unavailable at those levels. I'd be happy if meditate was available to train from level 1 (for full casters, anyway) and could be trained in the newbie areas. It just doesn't make sense to restrict such a vital skill for so much of a caster's early career.

In short, I think meditate is fine like it is, it just really needs to be available sooner for the people that need it. However, if simply resting has the same effect, then meditate could definitely be eliminated. I'm thinking that spell restoration by resting should carry the same post-combat lag seen in meditate, sleep, and the quit command, though. If you run out of spells in the middle of combat, that's your own fault.

[Adabelle]

I am against encouraging people to log off.

I can burn through 50 prayers pretty quick in the correct situation. Replacing meditate with something that requires you to either log off or sleep will encourage spell casters to log off or sleep for long periods of time. That may give more consequences to using spells but it also discourages RP. Unless your idea of RP is watching someone sleep.

Considering how long it takes to GM a spell making someone log off ever time they used a spell will increase this time significantly.

Considering what I have heard about the time and effort needed to make a potion having to log off between each attempt sounds like it would make the process close to impossible.

If you Log off to memorize spells does this mean the spells you have cast on yourself don't fade while memorizing new spells? Currently casting defensive spells then re-memorizing spells has the consequence that as you sit there meditating those spells you just cast are ticking down and expiring. If you can meditate off line does that mean you can meditate a new set of spells without allowing your affects to fade?

[Solaghar]

Regaining spells being done offline is a horrible idea and I'm totally against it because as Adabelle said, who wants to log off in the middle of an adventure to regain spells? It has nothing to do with my own simple suggestion of just removing the meditate skill and everyone regains spells at the now-GM meditation rate simply by sitting. I don't even want to have a possible derail so if anyone thinks that idea is worth defending, you can feel free to make another thread proposing it.

Here's how it works:
1. Get rid of meditate
2. Everyone regains spells at the current GM rate by simply sitting.
3. There is no 3, that's it.

No need to complicate the basic idea, which people have restated several times.

[Mask]

I see no compelling reason to remove meditate at this time. If you wish to suggest a cohesive alternative to how spell regeneration currently works, please start a new thread where that can be discussed.