PDA

View Full Version : A stab at houserules for full casters



Boci
2010-04-08, 01:40 PM
Whilst I would not consider myself an expert on the mechanics of DnD I am fairly confident that I do have considerable knowledge of it and the flaws of the full casters. So I thought I may as well try and think of my own set of houserules to amend this.

1. All spells that can be cast as a standard action now require a 1 round to cast. Spells that already took 1 round to cast can be nerfed according to the DM.

This means casters will still be vulnerable to having their spells being interrupted in combat, and should encourage greater use of pre-combat buffing, which if often considered to be less of a problem, and conveniently enough bring me to my next rule.


2. A creature can benefit from a maximum of 1 buff per school of magic. If a new spell is cast on the creature that conflict with another already active, the creature chooses which one to keep. For the purpose of this houserule, a buff is a spell that has “target: you” and/or “saving throw: yes (harmless)”, but a duration longer than instantaneous. This extends to spells replicated by magical items, when the effect of said item is not continuous.

This should keep casters from covering their every basses with a spell which becomes problematic at higher levels where 1 hour/caster level may as well be all day. I am sure this houserule also kills some fun melee combos, but I doubt it is a huge nerf to non-casters.

These two houserules should do a good job at preventing casters from being overpowered in combat. I.e., the easier half of the problem. Now for the harder part: casters breaking the game out of combat.

3. Almost all spells cast leave behind a lingering presence in the square they were cast and (when applicable) the creature they targeted. Invisible to the naked eye they can only be observed by someone under the affect of the 1st level track magic spell (to be properly stated out latter) where they appear as a sparkly of brightly coloured flecks of energy. As a move equivalent action, an observer can make a spellcraft or intelligence check to learn more info about the spell and its caster. To identify the exact spell cast, the DC is equal to 5 + the spell’s level. Additionally, by rolling higher than the caster’s CL, the astral frequency of spell’s weaver is revealed. This is a code of 15 symbols; each caster has their own unique one. The lingering presence of a spell last for a number of days equal to the spells level.

This is made to add a risk to casting spells. Do it too often, and you risk granting your opponent a potentially powerful piece of knowledge about yourself, not to mention a trail of cookie crumbs to whoever knows your astral code. Reserve feats and magical items leave behind a lingering presence but no astral frequency, the former being raw gouts of energy, the latter having no direct contact with the user. Staffs and any other items that use your caster level are an exception to this rule.

Note: I plan to have more spells relating to the astral frequency of a caster, but I am not making this houserule only to have a 2nd level spell Hide Code. Removing your astral frequency from a single lingering presence would be a 7th level spell with a casting time of at least 1 hour (the spell to remove the lingering presence would itself not leave one naturally). Changing your astral frequency would be a 9th (if not epic) level spell, with a 25k gp material component, leave you unable to cast spells for a week and 1 creature could benefit from the spell only 1 every decade.

4. Add risks to spells that can be abused in ways that are most relevant when the spell is used in its most problematic way. Yeah I know, this isn’t really a houserule, it more like telling the DM to use rule 0 to fix everything, which fixes nothing. But, my goal is to make a list of these spells and their risks to make less abuse able. For example, our beloved rope trick. Proposed solution:

If a creature enters the space created by a casting of rope trick before 24 hours has elapsed since it exited a space created by rope trick (now that was worded awfully) there is a stance the continual exposure to the unstable extra dimensional matter will cause an ill affect to occur. The chance is 5%, +5% for every time the creature enters waiting for 24 hours to elapse between castings. Roll once for each creature that enters and consult the following table:

1: Creature is ejected from the space back onto whichever plane it entered from after just 10 minutes.

2 – 5: Creature becomes atoned to the air inside the pocket. Upon leaving they find the air too thin or heavy and

6-9: Random extraplanar creature of appropriate CR enters pocket, focusing attack on creature indicated by this roll

10 – If this is rolled for a single creature in the bubble, ignore all the other affects for the other creatures and apply this one to all. Nothing bad happens, but the pocket’s exit now leads to a different plane, determined by the DM.

Now, rope trick is still a powerful spell. It provides secure and hard to detect (it will be one of the few spells exempt from leaving a lingering presence) shelter for a nights rest, with no chance of an ill affect. But if you cast this spell for every night's rest, luck will eventually bite back. Just make sure you warn the players of these houserules or else they will be justifiably annoyed with you.

Hopefully together we can make many more such examples that will eventually allow someone to use as a guidelines to quickly assign a risk to a spell not specifically covered.

I am sure there are still some holes left, but what do you think of this for a first attempt?

Flickerdart
2010-04-08, 02:02 PM
A full-round action and a 1 round action are not the same thing. Evidently you intended the latter.

Boci
2010-04-08, 02:10 PM
A full-round action and a 1 round action are not the same thing. Evidently you intended the latter.

Right you are, fixed.

JaronK
2010-04-08, 03:18 PM
Whilst I would not consider myself an expert on the mechanics of DnD I am fairly confident that I do have considerable knowledge of it and the flaws of the full casters. So I thought I may as well try and think of my own set of houserules to amend this.

1. All spells that can be cast as a standard action now require a full round action to cast. Spells that were already a full round action to cast can be nerfed according to the DM.

This means casters will still be vulnerable to having their spells being interrupted in combat, and should encourage greater use of pre-combat buffing, which if often considered to be less of a problem, and conveniently enough bring me to my next rule.

Reasonable enough, but a full round action isn't more interruptable. Did you mean a casting time of one round, such that it goes off at the beginning of their next turn?


2. A creature can benefit from a maximum of 1 buff per school of magic. If a new spell is cast on the creature that conflict with another already active, the creature chooses which one to keep. For the purpose of this houserule, a buff is a spell that has “target: you” and/or “saving throw: yes (harmless)”, but a duration longer than instantaneous. This extends to spells replicated by magical items, when the effect of said item is not continuous.

Bad idea. You want to encourage casters to buff party members... it distributes their power amongst the rest of the group. Remember that "overpowered" generally means "more powerful than the rest of the group."


3. Almost all spells cast leave behind a lingering presence in the square they were cast and (when applicable) the creature they targeted. Invisible to the naked eye they can only be observed by someone under the affect of the 1st level track magic spell (to be properly stated out latter) where they appear as a sparkly of brightly coloured flecks of energy. As a move equivalent action, an observer can make a spellcraft or intelligence check to learn more info about the spell and its caster. To identify the exact spell cast, the DC is equal to 5 + the spell’s level. Additionally, by rolling higher than the caster’s CL, the astral frequency of spell’s weaver is revealed. This is a code of 15 symbols; each caster has their own unique one. The lingering presence of a spell last for a number of days equal to the spells level.

Why not use Detect Magic for this?


This is made to add a risk to casting spells. Do it too often, and you risk granting your opponent a potentially powerful piece of knowledge about yourself, not to mention a trail of cookie crumbs to whoever knows your astral code. Reserve feats and magical items leave behind a lingering presence but no astral frequency, the former being raw gouts of energy, the latter having no direct contact with the user. Staffs and any other items that use your caster level are an exception to this rule.

All this does is say who cast the spell. That's not hugely useful, especially in a game where casters can do things like teleport to other planes and disappear from the local radar.


4. Add risks to spells that can be abused in ways that are most relevant when the spell is used in its most problematic way. Yeah I know, this isn’t really a houserule, it more like telling the DM to use rule 0 to fix everything, which fixes nothing. But, my goal is to make a list of these spells and their risks to make less abuse able. For example, our beloved rope trick. Proposed solution:

Risks are really annoying as gameplay mechanics. You either find a way to negate the risk or deal with the risk or don't cast the spell, but either way it's just annoying. If you don't want them abusing the spell, remove the abuse... don't just keep the abuse and then punish them for using it, as that really doesn't help. A better proposed solution to rope trick is that the opening to the rope trick is still visible or easy to enter, but you can use a hide check to hide the opening. It's only a second level spell, after all.

I think what you really need to do is define in general what is overpowered about casters, then make specific changes to those things. For example, one overpowered thing is that they spend short term reusable resources (spell slots) for long term permanent gains (Wall of Stone, Fabricate, etc). Thus, all spells that last extremely long or permanently must have associated costs that last as least as long as the spell. Fabricate should either "unmake" itself after a set period of time or have some additional permanent cost, for example.

JaronK

Boci
2010-04-08, 03:31 PM
Reasonable enough, but a full round action isn't more interruptable. Did you mean a casting time of one round, such that it goes off at the beginning of their next turn?

Yeah, I edited the post.




Bad idea. You want to encourage casters to buff party members... it distributes their power amongst the rest of the group. Remember that "overpowered" generally means "more powerful than the rest of the group."

How reguarly are party members buffed with more than 1 spell from a single school of magic?


Why not use Detect Magic for this?

Its a 0 level spell and I was worried that would make it too powerful.


All this does is say who cast the spell. That's not hugely useful, especially in a game where casters can do things like teleport to other planes and disappear from the local radar.

You don't think caster's leaving behind their signiture is relevant? No more stealth operations for starters. Especially since I said I was going to exspand on that. Assuming I leave teleport untouched (as an oppose to allowing you to teleport from to a list of specific sights) I will make someway to find out what the exact variables of the spell were, such as destination of plane shift or teleport.


Risks are really annoying as gameplay mechanics. You either find a way to negate the risk or deal with the risk or don't cast the spell, but either way it's just annoying. If you don't want them abusing the spell, remove the abuse... don't just keep the abuse and then punish them for using it, as that really doesn't help. A better proposed solution to rope trick is that the opening to the rope trick is still visible or easy to enter, but you can use a hide check to hide the opening. It's only a second level spell, after all.

If you don't want anything bad to happen to you for using rope trick don't cast it anymore than every other day. There, now you will never trigger the ill effect. Use it more often at your own risk.


I think what you really need to do is define in general what is overpowered about casters, then make specific changes to those things. For example, one overpowered thing is that they spend short term reusable resources (spell slots) for long term permanent gains (Wall of Stone, Fabricate, etc). Thus, all spells that last extremely long or permanently must have associated costs that last as least as long as the spell. Fabricate should either "unmake" itself after a set period of time or have some additional permanent cost, for example.

JaronK

Good point, I'll make note of that. Wall of stone could be become really brittle after a while (save, 1 hour / caster level), like chalk or softer.

Flickerdart
2010-04-08, 03:37 PM
A significant part of why magic is overpowered is that oftentimes, the only way to counter magic is with other magic (Mind Blank, True Seeing, etc). Giving some way for the nonmagical types to defend against the offensive/defensive spell arms race would help the balance.

Boci
2010-04-08, 03:41 PM
A significant part of why magic is overpowered is that oftentimes, the only way to counter magic is with other magic (Mind Blank, True Seeing, etc). Giving some way for the nonmagical types to defend against the offensive/defensive spell arms race would help the balance.

Tome of Battle? Besides, non-casters will always rely on casters. Rather than try and fight that I am trying to make situation where casters rely on non-casters more frequent.

RagnaroksChosen
2010-04-08, 03:42 PM
How reguarly are party members buffed with more than 1 spell from a single school of magic?

Quite often enlarge and (bull str, bears endurance,etc) and stone skin and there are others. That specific nerf would destroy the buff others ability of transmutation and abjuration.




Its a 0 level spell and I was worried that would make it too powerful.


I would keep the skill check but add it to detect magic. I would also make the base DC higher (start at like 10 or 15 or what ever the standard tracking rules are).



You don't think caster's leaving behind their signiture is relevant? No more stealth operations for starters. Especially since I said I was going to exspand on that. Assuming I leave teleport untouched (as an oppose to allowing you to teleport from to a list of specific sights) I will make someway to find out what the exact variables of the spell were, such as destination of plane shift or teleport.

I would look at the psionic power anticipate teleport for ideas.





If you don't want anything bad to happen to you for using rope trick don't cast it anymore than every other day. There, now you will never trigger the ill effect. Use it more often at your own risk.

We all ways played with it leaving a gaping hole in the sky/room/what ever that any one standing below it could see into. You could still roll up the rope to make it harder to get in but any one with Fly/ a bow could try to target you.

Kinda like it makes enough room for people to lay down and what not.





Good point, I'll make note of that. Wall of stone could be become really brittle after a while (save, 1 hour / caster level), like chalk or softer.
Is wall of stone that much of a problem?



Edit:
I also found nerfing bonus spells helps as well. (for full casters)

Flickerdart
2010-04-08, 03:45 PM
Tome of Battle? Besides, non-casters will always rely on casters. Rather than try and fight that I am trying to make situation where casters rely on non-casters more frequent.
ToB gives melee more options, but doesn't much protect them.

You could go the other way, and make magic less capable of countering melee. Sword against sword, spell against spell, that sort of thing.

Boci
2010-04-08, 03:54 PM
Quite often enlarge and (bull str, bears endurance,etc) and stone skin and there are others. That specific nerf would destroy the buff others ability of transmutation and abjuration.

I dunno. You've got a point, but I still think this houserule hurts fullcasters more than non-casters. Ability enhancers do not stack with items, and stoneskin + enlarge is a good combo, but melee can survive without it.


I would keep the skill check but add it to detect magic. I would also make the base DC higher (start at like 10 or 15 or what ever the standard tracking rules are).

I want the DC to be really though to increase the chance of the wizard's astral frequency being discovered.


I would look at the psionic power anticipate teleport for ideas.

Not quite what I had in mind, assuming its identicle to the arcane equivilant in complete arcane, but i will have a look.


We all ways played with it leaving a gaping hole in the sky/room/what ever that any one standing below it could see into. You could still roll up the rope to make it harder to get in but any one with Fly/ a bow could try to target you.

Since you're the second person to suggest this I will consider the option.


Is wall of stone that much of a problem?

More symbolic that casters cannot create something permenant.


Edit:
I also found nerfing bonus spells helps as well. (for full casters)

I'm sure. Test of spite is a good place to start.


ToB gives melee more options, but doesn't much protect them.

There are a couple of meneuvers that help with saves, high touch AC or miss chance can help against spells that require a touch attack, did I miss anything?


You could go the other way, and make magic less capable of countering melee. Sword against sword, spell against spell, that sort of thing.

Do you have any specific houserules towards this?

krossbow
2010-04-08, 04:02 PM
One thing my group does is this:

All casters require two casting stats, ala the favored soul. One increases DC, one increases spells per day.

Failed or interupted spells produce magical backlash of 1d6 per spell level. SUCCESSFUL spells still cause magical backlash of 1 nonlethal per spell level.

We require a full round action to cast a spell.

All spells requires a caster to perform a concentration check to succeed. The DC is equal to 5 times the spell level. A caster can "extend" a spells casting by one, two or three additional rounds, and roll an additional d20 when
making their check.

Enemies with spell like abilities can either do a concentration check or an attack roll to perform their spell like abilities (same DC as the concentration DC). Wands Require a use magical device check equal to the spells concentration DC to use.

Higher saves all around. High DCs are 3/4, low DC's are 1/2 (Basically, at level 20 you're looking at 15/10 natural DCs instead of 12/6's).

Most abusive spells, such as rope trick or shivering touch have been nerfed/changed.

Boci
2010-04-08, 04:12 PM
One thing my group does is this:

All casters require two casting stats, ala the favored soul. One increases DC, one increases spells per day.

I like that.


Failed or interupted spells produce magical backlash of 1d6 per spell level. SUCCESSFUL spells still cause magical backlash of 1 nonlethal per spell level.

Are you sure thats required? Sounds a bit harsh.


We require a full round action to cast a spell.

Do you mean 1 round? (I made the same mistake)


All spells requires a caster to perform a concentration check to succeed. The DC is equal to 5 times the spell level. A caster can "extend" a spells casting by one, two or three additional rounds, and roll an additional d20 when
making their check.

Enemies with spell like abilities can either do a concentration check or an attack roll to perform their spell like abilities (same DC as the concentration DC). Wands Require a use magical device check equal to the spells concentration DC to use.

This just seems unnessicary.


Higher saves all around. High DCs are 3/4, low DC's are 1/2 (Basically, at level 20 you're looking at 15/10 natural DCs instead of 12/6's).

Again, not so sure on this one.


Most abusive spells, such as rope trick or shivering touch have been nerfed/changed.

Obviously. I always thought the most logical one for shivering touch was to make it a penalty. What does your group do?

Superglucose
2010-04-08, 05:32 PM
How reguarly are party members buffed with more than 1 spell from a single school of magic?
This is why I generally ignore these houserule threads.

A fighter would want any and (often) all of the following:

Prot Arrows
Prot/Magic Circle
Stoneskin
Mind Blank

Bear's Endurance
Bull's Strength
Cat's Grace
Enlarge Person
Haste
Fly
Polymorph
Barkskin

And that's just core, using all wizard/sorc spells + barkskin.

RagnaroksChosen
2010-04-08, 05:34 PM
I dunno. You've got a point, but I still think this houserule hurts fullcasters more than non-casters. Ability enhancers do not stack with items, and stoneskin + enlarge is a good combo, but melee can survive without it.


I wouldn't do it if you have a player wanting to play a buffer. Also look at cleric and druid buffs when thinking about this not just arcane.

JaronK
2010-04-08, 05:35 PM
How reguarly are party members buffed with more than 1 spell from a single school of magic?

DMM Persistant Clerics will do it regularly (I persist Lesser Mass Vigor, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, and Recitation... then I start casting buffs). War Weavers do as well. Frankly, I think the one area you really don't want to nerf is party buffs. You might actually consider making it harder to buff yourself while making it just as easy to buff others.


Its a 0 level spell and I was worried that would make it too powerful.

Making it first level doesn't change much. Besides, all it does is track magic... making that easy is what you want, right?


You don't think caster's leaving behind their signiture is relevant? No more stealth operations for starters. Especially since I said I was going to exspand on that. Assuming I leave teleport untouched (as an oppose to allowing you to teleport from to a list of specific sights) I will make someway to find out what the exact variables of the spell were, such as destination of plane shift or teleport.

You'd have to do a lot with that. It's possible, but it's not a huge deal, especially if you then give casters the ability to clean up their signature. However, I suspect a lot of players would respond by simply completely annihilating all opposition... no one can track you if you're dead. If you want to clear a dungeon, just make sure to clear it completely, then destroy the entrance and leave. No one will ever find the signatures.


If you don't want anything bad to happen to you for using rope trick don't cast it anymore than every other day. There, now you will never trigger the ill effect. Use it more often at your own risk.

Then the risk nerf does nothing, really.

Wall of Stone was just an example by the way. There are many spells that create significant power increases permanently with insignificant long term costs. Fabricate is a huge one. Animate Dead can be all kinds of abused. Animate Dread Warrior too, if you can make it spell like.

JaronK

Cute_Riolu
2010-04-08, 05:37 PM
You could go the other way, and make magic less capable of countering melee. Sword against sword, spell against spell, that sort of thing.

Maybe something like an attunement stat that increases your spells' DCs but also increases your susceptibility to them? Hmm...

krossbow
2010-04-08, 05:55 PM
Are you sure thats required? Sounds a bit harsh.


Eh, i've seen what casters can do unchecked, so i generally err on being too harsh on them. My group tries to avoid just slapping them on the wrist. Overall, it seems to have worked decently; your lower level spells function more or less fine, while your maximum level ones are a gamble.



I always thought the most logical one for shivering touch was to make it a penalty. What does your group do?
Reduces the effects down to 2d6, and allows a fortitude save for half.

jiriku
2010-04-08, 06:09 PM
Many good caster nerfs can be had by tinkering with other classes. For example, I houseruled the ranger's woodland stride ability into the scout's peerless stride, and allowed that peerless stride is effective even against magical barriers like entangle, wall of sand, and wall of thorns. Monk purity of body works against magical and supernatural diseases. Damage reduction granted by certain spells can be bypassed by cold iron weapons.

The concept here is not to nerf the spellcasting per se, but to eliminate the asymmetric "you need magic to defeat magic" pattern that pervades 3.5. The downside is that because that pattern is so pervasive, you'll need a battery of houserules to break it down, which means a lot of time spent writing them out, and the risk that you and your players won't remember them when they're applicable.

Boci
2010-04-08, 06:46 PM
This is why I generally ignore these houserule threads.

Huh? I'm not saying melee doesn't need buff or magical items, I'm just saying how many spells do they usually get cast on them by the party's wizard?


A fighter would want any and (often) all of the following:

Okay, the fighter wants these spells. How often do they get all of them in the games you play? Assuming you have a fighter and a rogue, there are very few ways to get all these spells on them for each fight.


And that's just core, using all wizard/sorc spells + barkskin.

I am not denying this hurts melee, but don't you agree it hurts casters more?


DMM Persistant Clerics will do it regularly (I persist Lesser Mass Vigor, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, and Recitation... then I start casting buffs). War Weavers do as well. Frankly, I think the one area you really don't want to nerf is party buffs.

Dammit, this is a hard one. I am at least right in assuming that a caster buffing himself with multiple hour/level spells is a source of significant power for them?


You might actually consider making it harder to buff yourself while making it just as easy to buff others.

I considered that but a certain degree of internal consistency is neccissary.


Making it first level doesn't change much. Besides, all it does is track magic... making that easy is what you want, right?

Fair point.


You'd have to do a lot with that. It's possible, but it's not a huge deal, especially if you then give casters the ability to clean up their signature.

It would be 7th level minimum and probably cost 1k per casting. Not too much, but you cannot really afford to erase every single signiture.


However, I suspect a lot of players would respond by simply completely annihilating all opposition... no one can track you if you're dead. If you want to clear a dungeon, just make sure to clear it completely, then destroy the entrance and leave. No one will ever find the signatures.

I was under the impression that if the players don't annihilating all opposition, then that was because they couldn't. Also, when I DM, civilization is never that far away from the PCs, so brute force doesn't always work. But yes, I hadn't considered that it would be almost meaningless if the whole game was a dungeon crawl.


Then the risk nerf does nothing, really.

Basically, most of the complaints I've seen on the forume about rope trick involve the PCs using it every night and thats what I was trying to combat.


Wall of Stone was just an example by the way. There are many spells that create significant power increases permanently with insignificant long term costs. Fabricate is a huge one. Animate Dead can be all kinds of abused. Animate Dread Warrior too, if you can make it spell like.

JaronK

If I make a list for every spell in core I should be able to use it for guidlines when dealing with splat book ones. For animate dead, its only abused with certain corpses right? So you could just inform players that sometimes the corpse will loose NA and/or strength, if either one is high for its CR and it has few special abilties to loose.

Ogremindes
2010-04-08, 07:03 PM
How about this:
All full casters have

Bardic Spell Progression
Int for spells-per-day
Wis for max spell level
Cha for spell DCs

sofawall
2010-04-08, 07:05 PM
Assuming you have a fighter and a rogue, there are very few ways to get all these spells on them for each fight.

But one of them in particular is so powerful, it is worth the lost caster level. Time Stops for the whole party? Yes, please!

Boci
2010-04-08, 07:16 PM
But one of them in particular is so powerful, it is worth the lost caster level. Time Stops for the whole party? Yes, please!

Are you refering to the war weaver PrC?

JaronK
2010-04-08, 07:40 PM
Dammit, this is a hard one. I am at least right in assuming that a caster buffing himself with multiple hour/level spells is a source of significant power for them?

Yes, but the solution is probably to make it so he can't cast them on himself, or to make all his good buffs group buffs (and making necessary changes to said spells). Deleting a few of the self only buffs (like Divine Power) is probably wise as well.


I considered that but a certain degree of internal consistency is neccissary.

Perhaps, but if the goal of a Cleric's power is to spread his god's influence around the world, it makes sense that he be good at buffing others more than himself.


For animate dead, its only abused with certain corpses right? So you could just inform players that sometimes the corpse will loose NA and/or strength, if either one is high for its CR and it has few special abilties to loose.

Animate Dead costs you almost nothing (no spell slots after the first day, minimal gp cost) and gives you more actions (in the form of attacks from your minions). That's the issue. Any spell like that is going to lead to problems.

JaronK

JaronK
2010-04-08, 07:41 PM
Are you refering to the war weaver PrC?

War Weavers can't cast Time Stop into the weave, but it sounded like that was what he was talking about...

JaronK

Merk
2010-04-08, 07:52 PM
I think it might also be good to look through some common powerful spells (especially spells that are "no buttons") and modify them.

For example, change wind wall to merely give a +4 bonus to effective AC against projectile weapons instead of automatically deflect arrows.

Boci
2010-04-08, 07:54 PM
I think it might also be good to look through some common powerful spells (especially spells that are "no buttons") and modify them.

For example, change wind wall to merely give a +4 bonus to effective AC against projectile weapons instead of automatically deflect arrows.

I think a miss chance would be more apropriate, but yes I catch your meaning.


Perhaps, but if the goal of a Cleric's power is to spread his god's influence around the world, it makes sense that he be good at buffing others more than himself.

Still leaves the other full casters, and that doesn't sound like something that would be a universal trait amoungst clerics.


Animate Dead costs you almost nothing (no spell slots after the first day, minimal gp cost) and gives you more actions (in the form of attacks from your minions). That's the issue. Any spell like that is going to lead to problems.

JaronK

You get weak soldier who will be slower than the party and weaker. Would you suggest removing the material component and making the duration 1 day or something?

SensFan
2010-04-08, 08:10 PM
How about just agreeing on an approximate power level, and having everyone agree not to surpass that? If one or more players are routinely outstripping the other characters, that won't change no matter if you make everyone play Adepts or Fighters. If the whole group is using the overpowered nature of full casters, than boost the difficulty of encounters without boosting XP.

Sinfire Titan
2010-04-08, 08:18 PM
How reguarly are party members buffed with more than 1 spell from a single school of magic?

I don't know about you, but I love Polymorphing my Fighter buddy and then throwing Haste onto him. Or using Animalistic Power+Haste with the Dragon Mag feat that makes the bonuses to ability scores 2 higher.


Or, you know, Protection from X and Resist Energy?

Milskidasith
2010-04-08, 08:33 PM
To give you an idea of how many buffs people want, in the Test of Spite threads, buffs, with all day buffs and three buff rounds, generally involved around 10 buffs at the least. Buffs are very, very useful, whether on the wizard, the cleric, the barbarian, the summoned critters, the animal cohort, the bard, the ranger, or whoever else you can think of.

Temotei
2010-04-08, 08:34 PM
To give you an idea of how many buffs people want, in the Test of Spite threads, buffs, with all day buffs and three buff rounds, generally involved around 10 buffs at the least. Buffs are very, very useful, whether on the wizard, the cleric, the barbarian, the summoned critters, the animal cohort, the bard, the ranger, or whoever else you can think of.

The enemy! :smallbiggrin:

Milskidasith
2010-04-08, 08:38 PM
The enemy! :smallbiggrin:

Buffing the enemy is not generally part of my strategy. Debuffs, however, are.

I wonder, do debuffs cont towards the 1/school limit on this? If I were to, say, dominate an enemy, could I cast an enchantment buff on them, or not?

Boci
2010-04-08, 09:09 PM
To give you an idea of how many buffs people want, in the Test of Spite threads, buffs, with all day buffs and three buff rounds, generally involved around 10 buffs at the least. Buffs are very, very useful, whether on the wizard, the cleric, the barbarian, the summoned critters, the animal cohort, the bard, the ranger, or whoever else you can think of.

Does the Test of Spite take into account you could have multiple encounters per day?


Buffing the enemy is not generally part of my strategy. Debuffs, however, are.

IotSFV?


I wonder, do debuffs cont towards the 1/school limit on this? If I were to, say, dominate an enemy, could I cast an enchantment buff on them, or not?

No, I deliberatly worded it so that the limit only applied to personal spells and those that allowed a saving throw but were harmless, so yes, you could cast a buff on a dominated enemy.

Milskidasith
2010-04-08, 09:30 PM
Does the Test of Spite take into account you could have multiple encounters per day?

Three rounds of buffing, and you have at least 10 spells up (and quite possibly more). At least some of those are going to be all day. It's usually just one fight, so you'll be burning high level spell slots for the whole thing, but a significant number of the spells used at high level play where wizards dominate are all day buffs (either persisted through some method or just long duration buffs), and hurting buffbots hurts the party more than it hurts the wizard.


IotSFV?

I have no clue how that relates to anything. Any wizard can debuff enemies. Enervation, for instance, isn't restricted to anybody, save those who bar necromancy.

JaronK
2010-04-08, 10:55 PM
Still leaves the other full casters, and that doesn't sound like something that would be a universal trait amoungst clerics.

I suppose. I still like casters buffing party members, because it promotes teamwork and keeps the party together.


You get weak soldier who will be slower than the party and weaker. Would you suggest removing the material component and making the duration 1 day or something?

That's one possibility. And yes, the soldier is pretty weak, but he's basically free.

JaronK

randomhero00
2010-04-08, 11:20 PM
Meh, you can't fix casters. The problems are too inherent in the system. Not to mention most average players don't play casters in an overpowered way. I've literally never met one person in real life that plays a caster the way the TO (theoretical optimization) or even PO (practical optimization) threads talk about.

So in the average game I wouldn't consider running these rules. If you have a problem with a power-gamer ruining the balance, well, nerfing casters won't fix that. There are OP builds in martial classes as well. The problem is with the power-gamers not really with casters. Casters just have more possibilities to exploit.

Ironically, I have met one person (in real life) who optimizes martial characters. He's way way more powerful than our wizard or any caster I've played with in a game.

Hawriel
2010-04-08, 11:34 PM
You could always inforce the rules for spell components, and gestures. Alot spells use more than component. Lighting bolt needs a glass rod and a piece of wool. Need to free hands for that. Of corse you need a glass rod to cast the spell. When was the last time the wizard spoke to a glass blower?

gdiddy
2010-04-08, 11:35 PM
All casters in my Low Magic setting take Con damage equal to the spell level cast.

This is not fixable with magic. It rewards all the things that wizards are good at, while making them very vulnerable for days after doing their job. Lot's of Grease and Hideous Laughter. Less Gate.

EpicEvokerElf
2010-04-08, 11:45 PM
Ouch. A level 7 wizard who cast all his daily spells would die, unless he had a Con of 24 (assuming 16 Int, and that cantrips have no cost).

Trekkin
2010-04-08, 11:46 PM
If you want to penalize casters for casting (although that seems to me rather like forcing the party fighter to hold his sword by the blade) try the sanity mechanic from the d20 SRD.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm

Depending on their Wisdom scores, the Extreme option can really ruin a caster's long-term effectiveness.

Milskidasith
2010-04-08, 11:53 PM
All casters in my Low Magic setting take Con damage equal to the spell level cast.

This is not fixable with magic. It rewards all the things that wizards are good at, while making them very vulnerable for days after doing their job. Lot's of Grease and Hideous Laughter. Less Gate.

This is the worst method of nerfing spellcasters possible, or at least from the worst school of thought: make spellcasters still able to be broken, but make the costs so absurdly high it's pointless to do anything. Yeah, at level 20, you still have powerful spells, but unless your players are optimizing a ton they're probably blasting or using save or dies with no optimization so it's probably "don't die."

I mean, really, how does this fix anything? It makes buffing worthless, so wizards are even more inclined to be selfish, it further encourages the "only con and int matter" situation for wizards, because con is (effectively) their spell slots, so you don't even want to spend points on dex when you can increase con instead, let alone worthless stats like cha or str, it doesn't make broken spells less powerful (gate still allows you to chain gate infinite solars, con damage be damned), it doesn't fix the broken spells (Shivering touch is still a level 2 "I kill the big beast" spell), etc.

All it does is make it so that spellcasters are completely useless on an actual adventure unless it relies on casting very few spells, in which case you could use a skillmonkey with wands instead, and spellcasters go from being weak-ish early to broken late, to weak-ish early with even less HP and absurd glass cannons who have to cheese the hell out of every spell because otherwise they're going to put themselves at negative or near negative hit points after two or three spells (assuming a con of 30, a wizard 20 would kill himself with a seventh, eighth, and ninth level spell, or at least put him at quite literally a dozen HP if he got average HP rolls) for no tactical relevance for the next few weeks.

I can't imagine the situation that would lead to such an absurd nerf. Are your players actively trying to subvert your plot by using magic, or have they? If not, I don't see why you'd need this nerf, and if so, why don't you talk with them, because I doubt being nerfing their characters would make them likely to stay on the rails.

Also, as a note: Wizards really, really suck if you aren't optimized. I mean, if your group isn't optimal at all, then fighters are better anyway.

Another note: Yes, it's a low magic setting. That's still no reason to absurdly penalize players for wanting to pick a magic class. If you want casting, but don't want the full casting of wizards in your world, then make them play bards or dread necros or rangers or paladins or other classes that have limited spell lists/don't get ninths, rather than saying "You can still have gate cheese... but if you actually want to be relevant without using cheese to allow one spell to win all encounters for the next few weeks, too bad."

Arcane-surge
2010-04-09, 12:10 AM
So yeah. Punishing people for wanting to play casters seems silly. Not to say that casters aren't ridiculously overpowered, but this thread seems to be mostly ignoring the fact that not all casters are that overpowered, and any house rule designed to screw over the overpowered guys also screws over that guy who just wants to cast fireball a lot.

Seriously, Con damage? Not just damage, but burn. Why not just make a rule that every time the player of the caster says "I cast X" (where X is any spell at all) you just punch them in the eye? You could have it scale with level, a number of eye punches equal to the level of the spell.

Toward the OP, increasing casting times makes a lot of spells just not worth casting in combat, which means that while fireball guy is lucky to get off one spell every few rounds due to interruptions, the conjuror throwing around Web and Glitterdust is doing fine, because she only needs to cast one spell to end a fight.

1 buff per school of magic? Remember fighter, you're not cool enough to have both Enlarge and Haste. Why? Because that might make the wizard overpowered. Or Protection from Evil and any other abjuration spell ever.

But since this thread is about nerfing casters rather than giving non-casters nice things, I'll offer this. Casters aren't broken, certain spells are broken. Those broken spells? Take them out. Just go through your PHB or your Spell Compendium or whatever with a big black marker and cross them out. Planar Binding? Gone. Celerity and Time Stop? Gone. Rope Trick? Gone. Contact Other Plane? Not only crossed out but burnt. Alter Self and any other shapechanging spell in the PHB (plus Draconic Polymorph)? GONE. It doesn't even eliminate the idea of these things from D&D. Summon creatures from other planes with Summon Monster or Gate (Candle of Invocation? Gone! Hope you enjoy spending 1k xp/shot). Magically speed people up with Haste. Sleep overnight in Leomund's Tiny Hut, and shapeshift with things like Trollshape, Displacer Form, or Body of War.

You could probably "fix" casters by banning a few hundred spells, half a dozen feats, and making every druid be a shapeshift druid. The question is, is it worth the effort?

JaronK
2010-04-09, 01:29 AM
Easiest solution I know of: get rid of the T2 and T1 classes entirely. The vast majority of problems disappear, and you can still play pretty much all of the general character types (unless you wanted "guy with super godlike broken powers").

JaronK

Eric Tolle
2010-04-09, 03:24 AM
If I was going to limit casters, I would probably start by increasing saving throws. Possibly increasing them all across the board by +1 every two levels. This would give a similar effect to AD&D where saves at high levels made direct effect spells unlikely to work.

I would also require mages to announce their spells at the beginning of the turn, and apply an initiative modifier based on the level, of between -1/level and -3 per spell level. I would also increase the Concentration check difficulties- something like -2/point of damage, or increasing the base difficulty by +10.

From there it would mainly be looking at especially problematic spells like Polymorph Self, Gate, and Shape Change to reduce their unbalancing effects.

And oh yeah- I would make magic items more difficult to make. Not as bad as AD&D, but in 3.X magic items are far too easy to make.

JaronK
2010-04-09, 03:49 AM
If I was going to limit casters, I would probably start by increasing saving throws. Possibly increasing them all across the board by +1 every two levels. This would give a similar effect to AD&D where saves at high levels made direct effect spells unlikely to work.

Very few of the big power spells deal with saves. Glitterdust is an obvious exception, but when you look at the list of power spells, usually saves are either ignored or irrelevant (Grease makes you flat footed even if you make your save, the Polymorph line has nothing to do with saves, etc).


And oh yeah- I would make magic items more difficult to make. Not as bad as AD&D, but in 3.X magic items are far too easy to make.

Magic items generally benefit melees and skill monkeys more than anything else. Why do you want to nerf them?

JaronK

Boci
2010-04-09, 04:04 AM
Easiest solution I know of: get rid of the T2 and T1 classes entirely. The vast majority of problems disappear, and you can still play pretty much all of the general character types (unless you wanted "guy with super godlike broken powers").

JaronK

That is what I've done in the past (well almost), banned core classes, dips are acceptable but require DM's aproval. The new core (i.e. what you expect to see often) is: ToB, ToM (using a recharge variant for the shadowcaster. No one has ever wanted to play a truenamer so I have never needed to try and find a fix for it), Dungeonscape and the duskblade from PHII.
Psionics (I know the psion is tier 2, but I like it too much), Incarnum and wildhsaping rangers are alsdo perfectly acceptable and but rarer.

I was just taking a stab at making a list of houserules that combined with the gentlemen's agreement could force caster's to rely on non'casters in certain situations, thus balancing everything out.

TaintedLight
2010-04-09, 04:41 AM
I've recently come up with one that seems to be pretty fair. From what I can tell, what makes casters really powerful is their nigh-unlimited options when it comes to the right spell for the job. For every conceivable situation, there exists a spell or combination of spells that will, if not solve the problem, go a long way in fixing it.

So I decided to limit how much magic a wizard can learn. They get one specialized school and two other schools, that's it. This allows a wizard to get really good at what he does without being able to do everything else too. Also, it fits in with my perception of magic as something so vastly complicated that mastering all schools or even learning the basics of more than just a handful of them in a single lifetime is the closest thing there is in a fantasy world to impossible.

This leaves the obvious problem of spontaneous casters and other classes that choose their spells. One solution is to make it such that sorcerers get three schools to choose from, maybe four or five? Just leave spontaneous casting alone? I really haven't decided yet.

Gnaritas
2010-04-09, 05:00 AM
Dunno if it's been mentioned, but most likely an easier way to fix casters is to give them slower spellprogression, much like the bards.

I use the bards progression, but one level earlier, which comes down to:
1st lvl spells at 1, 2nd level spells at 3, 3rd level spells at 6, adding a spell level every 3 levels after that...up to 7th level spells, no 8-9th level spells.

You might want to up the daily spell slots though.

Quirinus_Obsidian
2010-04-09, 06:09 AM
+1 to there being an actual penalty for casting spells / manifesting powers / etc. Using high level magic, or low level magic constantly all day every day is supposed to leave one drained. In the DND universe (no matter what the flavor) there is little to no penalty for using magic. Some material components, some powerful spells require XP, etc;, but for the transmuter casting buffs all day on melee folks, they get away effectively scot free. Taking tons and tons of CON damage is a bit harsh; perhaps 2d6 x spell level nonlethal damage for 1-3, an *unavoidable* (meaning you must have complete bedrest as per the condition) exhaustion effect after casting metamagic-enhanced and mid level spells (4-7) and 1d4 con damage or being unavoidably nauseated for 8-9th level spells.

I like the idea of <some> spells taking 1 round to cast, and having it go off at the beginning of the wizards turn.

No one, at all (except high level deities), should be able to interrupt or modify time. In my game, all of the time stop, celerity, haste, synchronicity, etc. spells and powers are gone. Kobolds with Antimagic fields abound (just kidding). Dead magic areas are everywhere. Wild magic areas are particularly deadly if one is not careful. Magic needs to be controlled in the game world; the DM is the one that makes this happen.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-09, 06:19 AM
DMM Persistant Clerics will do it regularly (I persist Lesser Mass Vigor, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, and Recitation... then I start casting buffs). War Weavers do as well. Frankly, I think the one area you really don't want to nerf is party buffs. You might actually consider making it harder to buff yourself while making it just as easy to buff others.

I'd go with:

Active buffs can interfere with spellcasting. All characters may have one buff per school of magic without penalty (two for a specialist school, and no limit for domain spells). Every buff over this limit in a school imposes a cumulative -1 caster level penalty.

Kurald Galain
2010-04-09, 06:24 AM
I have a houserule that whenever someone casts an arcane spell, the player has to give me $1 per level of the spell.

...what? :smallbiggrin:

Optimystik
2010-04-09, 06:25 AM
I have a houserule that whenever someone casts an arcane spell, the player has to give me $1 per level of the spell.

...what? :smallbiggrin:

*Plays a Spell-to-Power Erudite*
*thumbs nose at Kurald while clutching wallet*

Badgerish
2010-04-09, 06:50 AM
My plan for limiting casters is genius in it's simplicity (in that it's really simple!)

Force all casters to multiclass:
step 1) ignore the 'racial favoured class' rules for multiclassing (I think most people do this anyway)
step 2) your effective caster level and level for 'spells by level' is capped at half your character level (round up)

... that's it. less high-level spells (and they are weaker), more low level spells (still weaker). Psionic classes are effected the same way, with manifester level/power points/powers per level

Battle Clerics become cleric/fighters or cleric/barbarians. Caster Clerics and 'pure' wizards become cleric/wizards. Battle Wizards become Wizard/Rogues. Druids.... probably stay as Druids.


Problems:
direct damage goes from sub-optimal to down right terrible
multiclassing becomes the norm (I'm fine with this, but I can see some people taking issue)
druids can still singleclass -> wildshape -> stomp all over tokyo (although their radioactive breath is weak)
CR is less accurate (but it was hardly accurate in the first place)
spell-trigger items become more rare although technically the same price
no change at lvl 1
Arcane Theurge style PrCs possibly become too good (first time I've ever typed that)

Chen
2010-04-09, 07:49 AM
The easiest way to "nerf" spellcasters is to just disallow the broken spells or disallow the broken interactions between said spells. I can't think of a game I've actually played where the casters broke the game. You just need to limit what spells they can use.

Boci
2010-04-09, 10:06 AM
Taking tons and tons of CON damage is a bit harsh; perhaps 2d6 x spell level nonlethal damage for 1-3,

So at levels 1-4 were you cast 1 spell and then faint? At higher levels this is fine, bit if you start the game at level 1, sucks to be you wizard, I hope you like 0 level spells.


an *unavoidable* (meaning you must have complete bedrest as per the condition) exhaustion effect after casting metamagic-enhanced and mid level spells (4-7)

Exhaustion isn't that bad, but wizards will notice it, especially if they really on touch spells. This is good.


and 1d4 con damage or being unavoidably nauseated for 8-9th level spells.

Nauseated is harsh, like really, no standard actions? 1d4 con damage is trivial at that level, it can easily be healed.


I'd go with:

Active buffs can interfere with spellcasting. All characters may have one buff per school of magic without penalty (two for a specialist school, and no limit for domain spells). Every buff over this limit in a school imposes a cumulative -1 caster level penalty.

This is better thought out. How about also imposing a cap on just how many buffs can affect a single creature at one time, say 5? Or a total of 16 spell levels?

Yuki Akuma
2010-04-09, 10:23 AM
I have no clue how that relates to anything. Any wizard can debuff enemies. Enervation, for instance, isn't restricted to anybody, save those who bar necromancy.

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil's capstone ability: a targeted Dispel Magic that deals damage depending on how many spells it dispels.

Doesn't matter what the spells are.

Emmerask
2010-04-09, 10:47 AM
Isn´t there a spell I think in phb2 that basically does the same?

Quirinus_Obsidian
2010-04-09, 10:50 AM
1-3 levels: That may be too much non-lethal damage; maybe like 1d6 or 2d4.

4-7: Fatigued may be better than exhausted; from my point of view.

8-9th levels: I would prefer the nauseation opposed to the CON damage, or make the CON damage like vile damage; that cannot be healed outside of a hallowed area. Or to make it easier... unavoidably nauseated for 2d4 rounds, or something.


So at levels 1-4 were you cast 1 spell and then faint? At higher levels this is fine, bit if you start the game at level 1, sucks to be you wizard, I hope you like 0 level spells.



Exhaustion isn't that bad, but wizards will notice it, especially if they really on touch spells. This is good.



Nauseated is harsh, like really, no standard actions? 1d4 con damage is trivial at that level, it can easily be healed.



This is better thought out. How about also imposing a cap on just how many buffs can affect a single creature at one time, say 5? Or a total of 16 spell levels?

Agent_0042
2010-04-09, 12:04 PM
Without getting into numbers, one thing I've considered is giving a spellcasters a "channeling" score that increases as they level. Channeling functions as a sort of mental bandwidth, if you will, for ongoing spells. Any given spell has a certain overhead, proportional to both the level (higher level -> more overhead) and duration (instantaneous spells have the highest, permanent the lowest, with other spells falling in between as appropriate). In order to cast a spell, the caster needs to have an amount of channeling free equal to or greater than the overhead, ending ongoing spells if necessary to free up room.

Thus, you encourage longer-lasting buffs, as several of them combined have an overhead equal to a single instantaneous spell.


Isn´t there a spell I think in phb2 that basically does the same?
Slashing dispel, and warlocks get voracious dispelling which functions similarly.

Yuki Akuma
2010-04-09, 12:06 PM
Reminds me of Mage: the Awakening. An "active spells" cap, or some sort of penalty for having lots of spells active at once, could be a useful balancing factor.

Optimystik
2010-04-09, 12:30 PM
I'd go with:

Active buffs can interfere with spellcasting. All characters may have one buff per school of magic without penalty (two for a specialist school, and no limit for domain spells). Every buff over this limit in a school imposes a cumulative -1 caster level penalty.

I like this one, though I'd make it % Spell Failure instead.

You have to choose between being totally safe and barely effective, or being a true glass cannon. The choice is in the hands of the player, making for a more fun game.

Endarire
2010-04-10, 03:36 AM
In D&D, magic is expected. The core four party of Wizard/Cleric/Fighter/Rogue has two full casters and two non-casters who have an interdependence with the casters. At low levels, non-casters keep the low-stamina casters alive. At high levels, the casters make the non-casters (and sometimes even themselves) into glowing wads of magical uberness.

There's no fixing the fundamental disparity between casters and non-casters when casters alter reality and non-casters hit things.

A generous caster buffs his party and makes life easier for them by debuffing/crowd controlling foes, A selfish caster leaves his allies by the wayside as he solos encounters.

Increasing casting times or adding risk seeks to annoy frail low-level casters and make them want to use non-combat spells like divinations, planar binding, and simulacrum to protect their slow-to-cast mechanics. If I feel so strangled by measures meant to 'balance' casters and non-casters, I don't want to play in that game. I can still one-shot things as a Hood (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872838/Little_Red_Raiding_Hood_A_Tale_of_38_Guide_to_the_ 35_Dragoon) without casting a spell.

If you annoy caster players so much they don't want to play, leaving only non-casters, the game radically changes. Suddenly, even little creatures (mobs of kobolds, for example) become much deadlier. Enemies can cast spells with less regard for their survival depending on the DM.

There is no fix appropriate for everyone. If someone in your party is being especially party-unfriendly, talk to him civilly out of character as a friend.

D&D 3.5 is inherently unbalanced. It's more versatile and sells more books that way.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-10, 04:53 AM
I like this one, though I'd make it % Spell Failure instead.

You have to choose between being totally safe and barely effective, or being a true glass cannon. The choice is in the hands of the player, making for a more fun game.

I could see that.

Perhaps:
The energies in protective magics interfere with spellcasting. A caster may have one such spell active upon him(her)self without penalty. Further buff spells active impose a 5% spell failure chance per spell. If a caster is a specialist wizard, then he/she may select one spell from that specialist school at each spell level. These spells are not subject to this penalty. If a caster has access to domains, then any domain spell cast by the caster is not subject to this penalty. While similar to (and stacking with) arcane spell failure, this is not arcane spell failure, and applies to all spells cast, even if they have no somatic component.

That gives specialist buff casters an edge in buffing, but puts severe limits on others.

I'd be willing to consider adding lines to the Sanctuary spell that negates the above penalty while it is active.

Boci
2010-04-10, 06:58 AM
Increasing casting times or adding risk seeks to annoy frail low-level casters and make them want to use non-combat spells like divinations, planar binding, and simulacrum to protect their slow-to-cast mechanics.

None of those spells are low level, but their are planty of low level spells that can end encounters, so why is forcing casters to raly on melee to defend themselves whilst they cast colour spray/greace/sleep.


D&D 3.5 is inherently unbalanced. It's more versatile and sells more books that way.

So what, don't even bother trying? This thread has already produced solid framework for a houserule to stop casters buffing themselves to the high heavens (and without nerfing melee as my first one did).


Slashing dispel, and warlocks get voracious dispelling which functions similarly.

But the IotSFV's hurts so much more.

Rin_Hunter
2010-04-10, 07:27 AM
I've only read the first port here, so sorry if you've done anything to change any of them and I've not read it, but if you were my DM and implemented those house rules, I'd play a Fighter.

My favoured classes are all casters and I'd feel incredibly weak if my Magic Missile took one round to cast rather than being cast in an instant.

I get that you are trying to stop casters being power-houses and those rules would do that, but slower casting and one buff per school also cripples healing and aiding the Fighter do his job.

It would make sense to apply those rules to say, everything above 2nd level, meaning that lower-levels spells can still be used in emergency while the higher-level spells are reserved for when they are needed.

What place does Quicken Spell have in this system? This also destroys the ability for spontaneous casters to use metamagic by RAW.

Boci
2010-04-10, 08:13 AM
I've only read the first port here, so sorry if you've done anything to change any of them and I've not read it, but if you were my DM and implemented those house rules, I'd play a Fighter.

My favoured classes are all casters and I'd feel incredibly weak if my Magic Missile took one round to cast rather than being cast in an instant.

I get that you are trying to stop casters being power-houses and those rules would do that, but slower casting and one buff per school also cripples healing and aiding the Fighter do his job.

Dropped in favour of a system that makes active buffs interfere with spellcasting.


It would make sense to apply those rules to say, everything above 2nd level, meaning that lower-levels spells can still be used in emergency while the higher-level spells are reserved for when they are needed.

How about everything above level 0, since you can still end encounters with 1st level spells? Or make certain combat spells like direct damage exempt from that rule.


What place does Quicken Spell have in this system?

I might not make it a metamagic, and thus not allow the +4 tag to be reduced by metamagic reducers. Rapid spell could be a +2/+3 metamagic or something.


This also destroys the ability for spontaneous casters to use metamagic by RAW.

I removed that aspect from my games a long time ago (applying metamagic does not increase casting time), so it wouldn't change anything for me, but I did not intent to prevent spontenous casters from using metamagic.