Divine casters researching Arcane Spells (Geo and Dresden keep out)

[crichelle]

Hey all,

I am currently DM'ing a campaign for two players. One player is a unoptimized Human Warmage and the other is an fairly optimized Forest Gnome wildshape/summon nature's ally Druid. The campaign started at level 8 as it was a continuation of a previous campaign world we had campaigned in and I wanted the players to be able to switch between the new characters and their old characters. After the first session, I told the players they could respec their characters (mostly for the Warmage who I was hoping would take the lessons learned from the first couple fights and streamline his characters feats).

The druid's backstory had him stuck on a seperate plane for 10 years before the start of play and he has asked is he could use some of that time to have researched new spells prior to the start of the campaign. In particular he wants to have researched a divine version of Shadow Conjuration.

I have read the spell before, but I am worried about the already optimized Druid getting access to grease and web, but even tougher would be him getting Sepia Snake Sigil and Glitterdust.

Has anyone had any experience letting divine casters get access to arcane spells or vice versus and not had it break the game balance? Any suggestions on how to handle it? I am trying to avoid getting the game to the point where the Warmage's prescence is completely unneeded for the Druid to succeed.

[gbprime]

The general rule for making an arcane spell accessible to a divine caster or vice versa is to add a level to it. Let him have it as a 5th level spell that can mimic spells of 3rd level and lower as normal.

If you still think this is unbalancing, just say no. You're the DM, you can do that in moderation.

[crichelle]

Bumping the level would be a good idea. Do you remember where you first found the guidelines for the level increase? I found the section in the DMG about setting the spell level for damage and the cost to actually research it, but I couldn't find anything on the arcane/divine issue.

[gbprime]

There are a lot of examples in the rules of spells that are different levels for Sorc/Wiz and Cleric. But the big example is Wish and Limited Wish... Limited Wish can be used to give you any 6th level Sorc/Wiz spell, or any 5th level spell from another class.

Therefore, picking up a spell from a class list other than your own is a 1 level bump. There are some cases (like domain spells) where the 1 level difference is not applied, but it's a great general rule.

[Hazzardevil]

I'd say adding 1 level is fine really.
By Geo and Dresedn, did you mean Geomancer and another PrC?
If so what is dresden?

[gbprime]

By Geo and Dresedn, did you mean Geomancer and another PrC?
If so what is dresden?

I'm assuming those are the forum names of his players whom, on their honor, he does not want reading this thread?

[crichelle]

Geo stands for Geophyll and he is a Forest Gnome Natural Shape/Summoner Druid.

Dresden is a Human Warmage.

Gbprime is right, they are the current PCs in the campaign and I wanted to make sure if they happened to read the forum while reading the comic, they wouldn't see the discussion.

As a side note, I ended up giving the player the choice of how to handle the spell research. He could either reduce the level of spell emulated by Shadow Conjuration to spells of 2nd level and less, or he could increase the Shadow Conjuration to a 5th level spell and keep the emulated spells at 3rd level and less.

Thanks for the advice.