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View Full Version : Miscellaneous wizard fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)



Yitzi
2011-09-09, 12:30 PM
This fix is designed to supplement my fixes here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211136), here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211826), and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=212607); together with those, the goal is for wizards to become tier 3:

-A caster can only prepare spells once per day, no matter how much he rests.

-You cannot take 10 on Spellcraft or Knowledge skills.

-The Wish spell is changed slightly:


Universal
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, XP
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: See text
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: See text
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: Yes

Wish is the mightiest spell a wizard or sorcerer can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality to better suit you.

Even wish, however, has its limits.

A wish can produce any one of the following effects.

* Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
* Duplicate any other spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
* Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 7th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
* Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
* Undo the harmful effects of many other spells, such as geas/quest or insanity.
* Create an item, whether magical or nonmagical, of up to 25,000 gp in value.
* Accelerate the creation of a magic item. Each wish can reduce the creation time by up to ten days or by one-half of the remaining time, whichever is more. This does not remove the gold and experience costs for magic item creation, but if the time is reduced to zero no appropriate workspace is required.
* Create a magic item without access to the required prerequisites. Ignoring a class feature or racial prerequisite, or a spell prerequisite that is on your spell list (even if of a prohibited school) requires one wish. Ignoring a metamagic feat prerequisite or a spell prerequisite for a spell not on your class list requires two wishes. Ignoring any prerequisite available only to epic-level characters may only be done with a wish affected by Heighten Spell. This does not affect the time, experience, or gold costs of item creation.
* Permanently increase a single ability score for a single creature. A creature's base ability score (including increases gained every 4 levels and from this usage of Wish, but not including racial bonuses) cannot exceed 18 plus one-fourth its HD.
* Cause a creature to permanently gain up to 5 ranks in a single skill. The creature's total skill ranks, counting cross-class skills double, may not exceed (3+level)X(skillpoints/level), where the skillpoints/level are calculated based on its current intelligence. If the creature is multiclass, calculate for each class separately, but the skill ranks must be assigned in a way that could be acheived through normal progression through its levels (neglecting changes to intelligence).
* Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects are cured of the same kind of affliction. For example, you could heal all the damage you and your companions have taken, or remove all poison effects from everyone in the party, but not do both with the same wish. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.
* Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead creature back to life by duplicating a resurrection spell. A wish can revive a dead creature whose body has been destroyed, but the task takes two wishes, one to recreate the body and another to infuse the body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was brought back to life from losing an experience level.
* Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. If the target is unwilling, the caster must have line of effect to the target, and it gets a Will save to negate the effect (and local conditions may still affect the efficacy of the spell if the target fails the save by a small amount), and spell resistance (if any) applies.
* Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s successful critical hit (either the attack roll or the critical roll), a friend’s failed save, and so on. The reroll, however, may be as bad as or worse than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.

You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment.)

Duplicated spells allow saves and spell resistance as normal (but save DCs are for 9th-level spells).
Material Component

When a wish duplicates a spell with a material component that costs more than 10,000 gp, you must provide that component.
XP Cost

The minimum XP cost for casting wish is 5,000 XP. When a wish duplicates a spell that has an XP cost, you must pay 5,000 XP or that cost, whichever is more.


All other effects granting inherent bonuses (e.g. tomes and manuals) are changed in a similar manner; they increase the base score rather than granting an inherent bonus.

-When determining caster level for the bonus to a d20 roll, the DC to a d20 roll, or the maximum HD of the target of a spell (including the maximum HD of a form taken through Polymorph effects), the caster level is equal to the class level in the relevant class plus any prestige class levels that increase spellcasting as if taking a level in that class. Other increases, such as ioun stones, an archmage's Spell Power ability, or even (if extending this to psionics) a wilder's Wild Surge, do not apply.

(Note: If this last one is too complicated, an alternate approach, suggested by Jiriku, is to turn all unnamed bonuses to CL into competence bonuses.)

Thoughts?

jiriku
2011-09-09, 01:03 PM
Although I support your goal here, I would have concerns about these changes:


A caster can only prepare spells once per day, no matter how much he rests.

In my experience wizards rarely re-prep spells, and thus, this doesn't strike at the reason that wizards are more powerful. No point in making a change to rebalance the wizard if the change doesn't address the reasons a wizard is unbalanced.


The Wish spell is changed slightly

All other effects granting inherent bonuses (e.g. tomes and manuals) are changed in a similar manner; they increase the base score rather than granting an inherent bonus.

This change makes wish and bonus-granting items more powerful, not less, because now you can boost all your secondary and tertiary scores to 18 + 1/4 character level.

As an alternative, consider this:


Wish can grant permanently grant a creature a +2 enhancement bonus to an ability score. Multiple uses of wish for this purpose stack, up to a maximum bonus of +6. The bonus is considered extraordinary once gained.

Tomes now grant permanent enhancement bonuses to the indicated ability score, and come in +2, +4, and +6 varieties. The bonus is considered extraordinary once gained. The base price of a tome is therefore 6,000 gp (+2), 24,000 gp (+4), or 54,000 gp (+6).

Now wish or a tome no longer stacks with stat-boosting items, but the bonus can't be suppressed in an anti-magic field and are no longer dependent on wearing gear (as is the cast with stat-boosting items). This is a wish-nerf with no loopholes or exploits.


When determining caster level for the bonus to a d20 roll, the DC to a d20 roll, or the maximum HD of the target of a spell (including the maximum HD of a form taken through Polymorph effects), the caster level is equal to the class level in the relevant class plus any prestige class levels that increase spellcasting as if taking a level in that class. Other increases, such as ioun stones, an archmage's Spell Power ability, or even (if extending this to psionics) a wilder's Wild Surge, do not apply.

This makes the use of caster level boosters very complicated, since one now has a remember a laundry list of different uses for caster level and keep track of which work normally and which are nerfed by the house rule. Because of the high complexity and low impact of the rule, I think it takes more away from gameplay than it adds. A simpler rule might be to rule that any untyped bonus to caster level (or perhaps every bonus to caster level) is a competence bonus - this limits the stacking of the effects and is much easier to remember.

Yitzi
2011-09-09, 03:15 PM
In my experience wizards rarely re-prep spells, and thus, this doesn't strike at the reason that wizards are more powerful. No point in making a change to rebalance the wizard if the change doesn't address the reasons a wizard is unbalanced.

It really depends on the wizard. This is not a major point, but most of the major points have been dealt with in the three posts I linked; this is for everything else.


This change makes wish and bonus-granting items more powerful, not less, because now you can boost all your secondary and tertiary scores to 18 + 1/4 character level.

You (perhaps understandably) misunderstand the point of the change.
My goal isn't to make Wish less powerful (except in that it can no longer be used to beat WBL without limitation except by spending 1/5 as much XP, which is obviously prohibitive.) It's already balanced by an extremely high XP cost.
My goal here was to change the MAD/SAD balance (which definitely affects the relative power of wizards a great deal) at the top levels. After all, Wish might be more powerful, but all the wizard's other spells are less powerful now that he can't get an inherent bonus to INT (and his target can boost the key abilities to his saves by a greater amount.)


This makes the use of caster level boosters very complicated, since one now has a remember a laundry list of different uses for caster level and keep track of which work normally and which are nerfed by the house rule.

Not really; it's a pretty straightforward rule. If there's a d20 involved or there's a maximum of caster level, the archmage's or hierophant's Spell Power ability (the only Core example of something removed, as far as I can tell) doesn't apply.


Because of the high complexity and low impact of the rule, I think it takes more away from gameplay than it adds. A simpler rule might be to rule that any untyped bonus to caster level (or perhaps every bonus to caster level) is a competence bonus - this limits the stacking of the effects and is much easier to remember.

While the rule is definitely not low-impact (it makes "hierophant using Holy Word" a far less broken strategy, not to mention killing that pesky "shapechange into a Solar" bit), your fix would definitely work as well for all Core purposes (it will still cause problems in terms of wilders being too powerful as dispellers if using psionics, though). Personally, I prefer mine (perhaps because I don't consider it as complicated as you do), but I'll put a note in there for the alternative.