[PF] Nerfing the spellcasters to a more reasonable level

[The Boz]

I want to make an ecksbawkshewg list of houserules that makes primary spellcasters actually interesting to play, and not just "let's pick a spell that picks the campaign apart or makes a mockery of the combat mechanics" borefest.
First off, the nerfage to the big offender spells:
Protection From Alignment - +2 Will save against control-type effects from alignment enemies. No immunities or such idiocy.
Disguise Self - No gender, height, weight or race change.
Grease - 5ft square. Huge creatures ignore it.
Resist Energy - Flat 10 specific energy resistance with only scaling duration. No quadratic scaling, damn it!
Knock - Disable Device with the caster's level + Int in place of the Disable Device skill. Second nerf: allow rogues to bypass magical locks with UMD.
Glitterdust - Instead of blind, targets attack with 20% miss chance. Stealth takes a -10 penalty, range is reduced to 10+10ft/level.
Levitate - Concentration checks are required for casting spells while levitating.
Fly - No soft landing clause. Spell is quite flimsy, and attacking or casting a spell instantly ends the effect.
Rope Trick - Control a piece of rope, string or similar item to do as you please for 1h/level. Can be commanded to bind or grapple with the caster's Wisdom as Strength modifier.
Greater Invisibility - Casting a spell suppresses or attacking the invisibility effect until your next turn.
Teleport - Casting time is 1 minute, range reduced to 5 miles per level, caster is fatigued if teleporting more than his load.
Greater Teleport - Casting time is 1 minute, 100 miles per level, no ill effects from success.
Time Stop - I'd rather not touch 9th level spells unless I really, really need to, and I feel a need to touch Time Stop. Can we make it incompatible with all metamagic? Nerf it to 1d3+1 rounds? Have the caster slowed for one round after casting it? Make it a full-round casting time? Anything!
Save-Or-Die - 3d6 damage vs huge damage with secondary effects that don't make the target instantly dead or close to it.

This is just a start. What to do with low-level killers such as Grease and Entangle? Need ideas, need advice!

[missmvicious]

Wow... that's a lot of work to nerf a spell-caster.

Try this instead:

A) Play 4e. They did all the work for you, and once you quit gnashing your teeth over how 4e "got it all wrong" it's actually a lot of fun to play. It took me a while to accept the drastic change, but now I don't mind so much and am actually really getting into it.

B) If 4e is out of the question, make all players select from only 1 school at level one (no bonus spells/day for this either), and they may gain a new school of magic at each level.

C) Or just trim the fat. No gestalt spell-casters, no spells outside of PHB1.

D) Or put them in a magic hater setting. Envelop entire towns in anti-magic fields. Once they leave town, they can fling spells wherever they want, but inside the city walls... sorry Charlie.

[The Boz]

1) This is for Pathfinder. The campaign is already running.
2) The campaign is already running.
3) This is for Pathfinder. Also, all you need to be a broken spellcaster is PHB1.
4) Campaign is already running.

[Jeraa]

Wow... that's a lot of work to nerf a spell-caster.

Try this instead:

A) Play 4e. They did all the work for you, and once you quit gnashing your teeth over how 4e "got it all wrong" it's actually a lot of fun to play. It took me a while to accept the drastic change, but now I don't mind so much and am actually really getting into it.

B) If 4e is out of the question, make all players select from only 1 school at level one (no bonus spells/day for this either), and they may gain a new school of magic at each level.

C) Or just trim the fat. No gestalt spell-casters, no spells outside of PHB1.

D) Or put them in a magic hater setting. Envelop entire towns in anti-magic fields. Once they leave town, they can fling spells wherever they want, but inside the city walls... sorry Charlie.

A) IF he wanted to play 4e, he would.
B) This helps how? Assuming I read you right, the caster picks a new school each level, meaning by level 8 (9? how many schools are there?) he has access to all schools again. At the very least, delays access to troublesome spells by a few levels. Does nothing to fix the problem.
C) The most broken spells are already in Core. This solves nothing.
D) So small areas of the campaign are off limits for spells? Still doesn't fix anything.

To the OP, one fix I use for teleport is to remove its accuracy. Teleport doesn't send you exactly where you want to go. Instead it will always send you to within 1d10x100 feet of your destination.You can still go across country with this, but you'll never appear right next to your target. At best, you'll appear outside the building if your target is inside. You still get close, however. And I've removed Greater Teleport. The distance of teleport is more then enough. If that still isn't good enough, increase it to 1d10 x 500 feet or 1d10 x 1000 feet.

Others:
Gate - never gives automatic control. Nothing automatically forces the summoned creature to be cooperative.
Glitterdust - doesn't make people blind, but gives them a 20% miss chance instead
Freedom of Movement - provides a bonus on saves or checks to resist those conditions, it doesn't make you flat-out immune to them
Knock - doesn't automatically open mundane locks, with 3 uses. 1) cast on a mundane lock, make a caster level check with a +10 bonus to open that lock. 2) Can be cast on another person as a buff spell to provide +10 bonus on Disable Device checks to open locks, but lasts for 1 round/level or 3) automatically negates/supresses arcane lock spells or similiar

[lightningcat]

One of the bigger nerfs I seen is simply changing all standard action spells into full round action spells, or as you did for teleport, having them take even longer. Although this may have greater implications for secondary and tetriary casters such as bards and rangers.

and as for Greater Invisibility, I think you mean that casting a spell or attacking suppresses the invisibility effect until your next turn. Not "Casting a spell suppresses or attacking the invisibility effect until your next turn."

[Jeraa]

One of the bigger nerfs I seen is simply changing all standard action spells into full round action spells, or as you did for teleport, having them take even longer. Although this may have greater implications for secondary and tetriary casters such as bards and rangers.


Something else I do, put didn't add it in my last post, is to make all 3rd level spells and higher a one-round casting time minimum. Not a full-round action, but a one-round action. (Yes, there is a difference.) But that was also because I got rid of AoOs, and wanted a way to still disrupt casters, so I didn't think it was fully appropriate here.

[Malachei]

The first question to ask yourself would be:

What makes my game special that it has to work different than the majority of games out there?

Not criticizing the fact that you feel the need for a change, but consider the many different possible reasons:

A) Pure personal preference
B) Casters have dominated every encounter
C) Your non-caster players' characters are much less optimized and feel bad about their characters role in the game

etc.

For B), I'd advise encounter design. As a DM, I've never ever had a game in which I came to the conclusion "I can't handle that caster". Even in high-level play, there is so much you can do as a DM to keep a caster busy. So I've never seen the need to nerf casters when I can solve an issue by adapting encounter design.

D&D is about teamwork and letting each character shine. The casters' role has already changed in 3.5 and further in Pathfinder -- many Wizards, for instance, focus a lot more on buffing their own party, which essentially lets the melee roles shine.

If your answer is A), of course, go right ahead.

[The Boz]

It's A with a bit of C. It's never about not being able to handle a caster as a DM, it's about handling the caster that isn't the equivalent of "OK, so while the wizard is destroying the seventh and eleventh orc platoons with orbital bombardment, the fighter is cleaving through two goblins and the ranger made a critical hit and killed an orc in one shot, nice job!"
I don't want my other players to feel let down.
And I don't want to place an optimized wizard as level-appropriate encounter, because just a single glitterdust/fly spellcaster would equal TPK. The group I'm playing with are a) all new to the PnP game and b) has a wizard, a druid, a barbarian, a rogue, a paladin and an inquisitor. So all kinds of tiers and all kinds of skill gaps are prevalent.

[The Boz]

Noone has any more opinions or ideas?

[Tyndmyr]

Wow... that's a lot of work to nerf a spell-caster.

Try this instead:

A) Play 4e. They did all the work for you, and once you quit gnashing your teeth over how 4e "got it all wrong" it's actually a lot of fun to play. It took me a while to accept the drastic change, but now I don't mind so much and am actually really getting into it.

Er...4e does not much resemble PF with fixed spellcasters. It's a completely different game. This is sort of like saying "Just play 7th Sea instead".


B) If 4e is out of the question, make all players select from only 1 school at level one (no bonus spells/day for this either), and they may gain a new school of magic at each level.

What? That fixes nothing.


C) Or just trim the fat. No gestalt spell-casters, no spells outside of PHB1.

PHB1 is the source of most of the troublesome spells. Including those he's changing.

Gestalt is something else entirely. Are you thinking of theurge? Because those typically aren't a problem.


D) Or put them in a magic hater setting. Envelop entire towns in anti-magic fields. Once they leave town, they can fling spells wherever they want, but inside the city walls... sorry Charlie.

AMF nerfs melee, dude. This means the spellcaster can just sit outside the walls and blow the town away with instant conjurations, while the people inside the town have to use purely mundane means of defense. Good luck with that.

[Emmerask]

Noone has any more opinions or ideas?

Take every single caster class and prc reduce spellcasting progression by 50% (first level in a prc is always no casting to avoid overly clever players...).

Yes i think even such extremely drastic measures would create more balance then d&d (or pf) has in its current form.

Alternatively let spells only replenish once every week, though that only works if the campaign has quite a few time sensitive quests/missions.
Oh and ban all methods of faster replenishing (faster time demiplanes etc)

[Keneth]

Make the casting time of spells 1 round per spell level (with a standard action for 0-level). That will justify the strength of spells and force the caster (and the rest of the party) to think more strategically than simply "I make a 5-foot step and nuke everything in a 30-foot radius".

Note that this is a severe nerf and it might make the players very unhappy. It also makes some spells pointless and doesn't have any effect outside of battle.

[Tyndmyr]

Make the casting time of spells 1 round per spell level (with a standard action for 0-level). That will justify the strength of spells and force the caster (and the rest of the party) to think more strategically than simply "I make a 5-foot step and nuke everything in a 30-foot radius".

Note that this is a severe nerf and it might make the players very unhappy. It also makes some spells pointless and doesn't have any effect outside of battle.

Yeah, I dislike that one for the reasons already mentioned.

Many spells are perfectly fine as is, and do not need to be part of a general nerf. Some are extremely strong. Making specific spells take longer to cast could be reasonable. All spells? Probably not.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

If you have all new players the wizard dominating shouldn't be an issue. Unless he's a crazy fast study it should take a player the better part of a campaign to figure out how to play a wizard "pretty good" by CO standards. You should be worried about the druid I've seen new players dominate with druid out of the box.

Also, you probably shouldn't be doing mass nerfs after the start of the game.

[Keneth]

Many spells are perfectly fine as is, and do not need to be part of a general nerf. Comparatively most spells are far from fine but due to the slight buff of non-caster classes in PF they aren't quite that broken. But yes, this nerf hits the casters hard and it's meant to do so, I've only used it in one campaign where magic didn't quite fit in as something that happens on a whim and it would have destroyed the balance.

[lunar2]

one method I've found to balance the spell casters is to change the spell slot system entirely.

1. casting spells is no longer guaranteed to work. to cast a spell, the caster needs to succeed on a caster check, dc = spell level x4.

2. spell slots are no longer exhausted when a spell is cast. when a caster prepares spells, the spell slots are merely used to determine which spells he can cast, but he can cast any of them any time he makes the caster check. clerics and druids do not need to prepare their spontaneous spells (cure, summon nature's ally). sorcerers and bards either:
A. learn spells as they gain spell slots, and can change one per class level gained in addition to learning any new ones, or
B. Use the spells known table, but add 1/2 their charisma modifier to the caster check to cast a spell.

3. stress: any time a caster successfully casts a spell, add the level of the cast spell to the dc of subsequent castings. stress is reduced by 1 point for each 10 minutes of no strenuous activity (no movement faster than a walk, no combat, casting, or carrying medium/ heavy loads, etc.) and 1 point per 1 minute of rest

4: metamagic: whatever level a metamagic feat is supposed to add to the spell level, instead add twice that number to the dc of the spell. example, quicken spell, a 4 level metamagic, increases the dc by 8 instead. metamagic feats do not require preparing ahead of time, and can be added at will. metamagic no longer increases the casting time of sorcerers or bards.

5. Level 0 spells always succeed, no matter what the stress level or metamagic level may be. they also do not increase the caster check dc.

6. temporary bonuses to ability scores do not affect spell slots.

7. spell failure. instead of having a random chance to stop the spell, armor adds 2 to the casting dc per 5% spell failure chance to any spell with a somatic component. this applies to all spell casters.

example: 1st level wizard with 16 intelligence gets 3 cantrips and 2 1st level spells.

0 ray of frost
0 light
0 detect magic
1 mage armor
1 shield

when he enters combat, he casts mage armor at a dc 4, then shield at dc 5, then spams ray of frost for free. after the battle, he can walk for 10 minutes, or rest for one minute, and he's ready to go again. low level casters benefit greatly from this change, because they can now contribute to every encounter, instead of standing around looking like idiots because they are out of spells.

example 2: 20th level wizard. even at level 20, a wizard can't reliably cast anything above lv. 5 at the beginning of battle, and then has to steadily decrease the level of spell cast to avoid a chance of failure. a wizard can't possibly manage more than 1 level 9, or 2 level 8 spells in a single encounter, and will likely need to rest for significant amounts of time between encounters if he attempts to follow the traditional "blast everything" approach.

some magic items will, of course, need to be reworked a bit.

ring of wizardry applies to all spell casters, but its effect is now to add its number as a competence bonus to the caster check to cast a spell.

pearl of power now applies to all casters, and acts as a single free casting of whatever spell level it is. they now cost 20% more. alternatively, they can cost the same, but add to the stress level when used.

as for individual spell problems, if it's a weird spell, like glitterdust, you can always just remove it from your campaign. for invisibility type effects, i always say that they still have an outline, that can be spotted with a dc 25 spot check (dc 20 while moving), and that being spotted works just like any other illusions (the person that spotted them now sees them as translucent, but clearly visible.)

[The Boz]

I don't want any general nerfs, I consider something like 85% of the spells perfectly balanced, particularly all the direct damage dealers such as fireball and magic missile.
The problems crop up when people realize that Disintegrate brings down entire castles, that Fly allows a wizard to mutilate every low-magic encounter, and that Rope Trick makes 15 minute adventure days with spellbarrages the main way of dealing with everyday life.

[Tokuhara]

Ironically, I say look to World of Darkness for inspiration on how to handle magic (I know, different system).

They use a "Butterfly Effect" system that has magic do something VERY bad as a side effect somewhere else. This is easy to impliment in a pre-running campaign. Have the party encounter some aberrations who the party finds out were brought to the world from the Far Realm BECAUSE the party's arcane spellcaster cast spell X. As the spell levels go up, ramp up the CR of the monsters. Perhaps casting a 9th level spell opens a gateway for some Eldritch Horror that destroys a major settlement, and the destruction appears like the spell the Arcane Caster cast, thus pointing the blame on him. Having this in place makes Arcane casters more conservative with their spellcasting

[Person_Man]

Have you tried the easy spellcaster nerf of buying your players some beer and pizza and just asking your players who use spellcasters to tone it down?

Alter Self and Polymorph are great examples. Let them use it, but ask them to keep it reasonable. If they use Polymorph to turn into a bird so that they can spy on enemies, then fine. If they use Polymorph to turn into a War Troll and dominate combat, then it takes away from the fun for the other players. If players realize that and are mature, they'll usually edit themselves so that everyone can have a good time.

It's a lot simpler then creating elaborate lists of house rules.

[Palthera]

I don't want any general nerfs, I consider something like 85% of the spells perfectly balanced, particularly all the direct damage dealers such as fireball and magic missile.
The problems crop up when people realize that Disintegrate brings down entire castles, that Fly allows a wizard to mutilate every low-magic encounter, and that Rope Trick makes 15 minute adventure days with spellbarrages the main way of dealing with everyday life.

How does disintegrate bring down a whole castle? It only destroys a ten-foot cube. At best you're going to bring down a tower of a section of wall...

I haven't considered any of the spells that broken, Glitterdust only covers a ten foot spread, and the creature can attempt a new save each round to not be blinded any more.

With regards to the rope trick thing, I found that simply pointing out to the players that they can't just rest after every fifteen minutes of activity was all that was required. Or I made things move on without them. Plus the rope is still there, I'd probably set a trap or burn the rope or something if I were the monster.

[lunar2]

I don't want any general nerfs, I consider something like 85% of the spells perfectly balanced, particularly all the direct damage dealers such as fireball and magic missile.
The problems crop up when people realize that Disintegrate brings down entire castles, that Fly allows a wizard to mutilate every low-magic encounter, and that Rope Trick makes 15 minute adventure days with spellbarrages the main way of dealing with everyday life.

ahh. in that case, remove rope trick, add a concentration check to any spell cast while flying, and rule that disintegrate can't affect more than a 5 ft. cube of inanimate matter with one casting. and like i said, make invisible characters spot-able (IIRC, the Dmg had something like that as a variant rule, anyway), remove glitterdust, etc.

[Blisstake]

My opinions on your suggested changes:


Protection From Alignment - +2 Will save against control-type effects from alignment enemies. No immunities or such idiocy.

Pretty much helps casters resist casters, so changing this doesn't really alter the balance between them much.


Disguise Self - No gender, height, weight or race change.

Fair enough


Grease - 5ft square. Huge creatures ignore it.

Eh, that seems a little too weak. I honestly like how PF changed it, but it could just be: Reflex save or prone, then treat as difficult terrain.


Resist Energy - Flat 10 specific energy resistance with only scaling duration. No quadratic scaling, damn it!

Fair enough, but you might also want to provide a nerf to Protection from Energy.


Knock - Disable Device with the caster's level + Int in place of the Disable Device skill. Second nerf: allow rogues to bypass magical locks with UMD.

How about +caster modifier so it's good for bards and sorcerers as well? Also, why only rogues? And can't they already bypass it with a high enough Disable Device check?


Glitterdust - Instead of blind, targets attack with 20% miss chance. Stealth takes a -10 penalty, range is reduced to 10+10ft/level.

Maybe blind for 1 round only would work better rather than 20% miss for a round/level.


Levitate - Concentration checks are required for casting spells while levitating.
Fly - No soft landing clause. Spell is quite flimsy, and attacking or casting a spell instantly ends the effect.

Makes sense.


Rope Trick - Control a piece of rope, string or similar item to do as you please for 1h/level. Can be commanded to bind or grapple with the caster's Wisdom as Strength modifier.

This isn't a nerf; it's completely changing a spell so it doesn't even close to resemble the original.


Greater Invisibility - Casting a spell suppresses or attacking the invisibility effect until your next turn.

I think you meant casting or attacking supresses the spell? Not sure if people would still use the spell after this change. It would definitely still have uses, but maybe it could also be lowered a spell level?


Teleport - Casting time is 1 minute, range reduced to 5 miles per level, caster is fatigued if teleporting more than his load.
Greater Teleport - Casting time is 1 minute, 100 miles per level, no ill effects from success.

Very nice changes, especially increasing the casting time. Fatigued thing seems a bit pointless though.


Time Stop - I'd rather not touch 9th level spells unless I really, really need to, and I feel a need to touch Time Stop. Can we make it incompatible with all metamagic? Nerf it to 1d3+1 rounds? Have the caster slowed for one round after casting it? Make it a full-round casting time? Anything!

This spell is very problematic. Maybe it prevents the caster from moving (including teleportation) after casting it? I propose that metamagic isn't allowed to bring a spell's effective level over 9, no matter what slot it ends up taking, which would prevent the metamagic abuse.


Save-Or-Die - 3d6 damage vs huge damage with secondary effects that don't make the target instantly dead or close to it.

I don't quite understand what you're getting at here. I do like the huge damage thing in PF, though, because it makes casters the most likely people to die after failing their saves instead of the more hardy melee characters.

Other ideas-

Wall of Force: Significantly lower its hp/hardness so it actually can be destroyed (even if not easily). Or maybe make it a full round action to cast?

Icy Prison: First failed save makes you entangled, and makes you make a second save on your next turn. A failed save there makes you helpless.

Murderous Command (1st level spell): Targets get a +4 bonus to the save if it makes them attack someone they are at least friendly with.

Terrible Remorse: Someone can only be affected by this once every 24 hours.

Color Spray (1st level spell): Lower duration to 1 round.

Entangle: Seems fine to me, honestly. The area could be smaller, though.

[charcoalninja]

Personally I don't think turning Rope Trick into Animate Rope is a good idea. If you don't like wizards creating other dimensions to sleep in, simply ban those spells. Though there's always ways around it.

Nerfing protection from X I don't think is a good idea because its primary purpose as an easily available spell is to help mundanes not get dominated every day.

Grease is overnerfed, yes its powerful, but its not broken by any stretch especially as its a spell that works to help make the mundanes more awesome via debuffing the monsters.

Fly is much too hardcore of a nerf. 5th level wizards die to archers anyway and flying is awesome fun. And if not archers a manticore will certainly deal with the errant caster.

I also find it interesting that you're not nerfing the big I wins like GATE, Simulacrum, Prismatic anything, Forcecage, Contingency. 9th level spells are the worst game breakers and yet you don't want to touch any of them nor have you done ANYTHING that stops a wizard from decimating entire armies with orbital bombardment. They can still gate or bind a flying critter, polymorph into a flying critter and blast away, summon other critters to blast away for them, use scry and die, build vast armies of whatever they want, break the world's economy, and the action economy. Teleport and greater teleport's casting time is irrelevant when contingency is involved.

Time stop should be banned as its completely beyond the scope of anything martial classes can ever do and guarentees that a wizard can end an encounter single handedly.

The best way to take casters down in my experience is to simply make most spells cost a full round action to cast, crappy "sub optimal" spells like the healing line can stay a standard, and limit all tier 1's and 2's to 6th level spell progression. Their spell lists are just THAT good that they'll still be better than anyone else. Except this time they won't be that out of control. In PF it eliminates most of the craziness they're capable of. For summoning of crazy good demons you have high level Summoners as the only guys with access to Gate and such, though if you keep that around you should make it work like planar binding with a HD limit of caster level.

[Tyndmyr]

Comparatively most spells are far from fine but due to the slight buff of non-caster classes in PF they aren't quite that broken. But yes, this nerf hits the casters hard and it's meant to do so, I've only used it in one campaign where magic didn't quite fit in as something that happens on a whim and it would have destroyed the balance.

Casters in PF are no worse off. Not even a little. Possibly better(with the exception of druid).

That said, if you have new players, the imbalance is not likely to matter. New casters are, if anything, often overwhelmed by the options available. I would vote for ignoring it, and if it becomes a problem, just asking your players to play nice.

[Pigkappa]

Protection From Alignment - That way it would be a terrible spell. I wouldn't modify this one.

Rope Trick - You are effectively deleting a very nice and flavourful spell. I'd change its duration to 8 hours (so a single casting is not enough for the group to prepare new spells), and make it well-known in your world that wizards often use this spell to hide and rest. This means that more or less anyone with some intelligence and Detect Magic can find it and prepare for the moment you come out.

Dimension Door - range reduced to Short. It's still a wonderful spell to reach weird locations or hide in a building, but it's no more an absolute lifesaver.

Teleport - 10 minutes casting time is ok too.

[Blisstake]

I also find it interesting that you're not nerfing the big I wins like GATE, Simulacrum, Prismatic anything, Forcecage, Contingency.

Eh, Forcecage isn't much of an issue in PF, Gate was nerfed, but could maybe use some fine tuning, and Prismatic anything is just unreliable. I don't find Contingency a giant issue either as long as it keeps your 6th and extra spell slot unavailable - I'm not quite certain how it works (this biggest issue with it in 3.5 was in conjunction with the Celerity line of spells, if I recall, which thankfully aren't in PF).

Simulacrum is just a messy spell period. I don't think many people would miss it if it were trashed.

[CTrees]

Just ban full casters.

Personally, if I'm a player, and I'm given a huge list of alterations and nerfs, I'm likely to avoid the affected classes entirely. A few tweaks, fine, but over a given critical mass, well, I know the rules of the actual game, and now I have to learn all of these, too? I'll just play an ubercharger or diplomancer or something. If you ban full casters, suddenly the problem spells either are no longer accessible or are accessed later, when they're less of a problem, and the overall power disparity is brough way down. Also, you're playing Pathfinder, so you have half-casters like the Magus, which are tremendous fun.

If you have one or two players who are specifically breaking the game with their spellcasting... Inevitables. They actually make sense to have doggedly attacking problem individuals, especially if they're acting as high-op T1. Throw on class levels for real fun.

[Blisstake]

Just ban full casters.

Again, this isn't really helping OP anymore than the "play 4e" suggestion. All he's looking for are ways to tone down specific problem spells. Half-casters also get access to particular game-breakers anyway.

[Fax Celestis]

Take every single caster class and prc reduce spellcasting progression by 50% (first level in a prc is always no casting to avoid overly clever players...).

Similar to this: Cut any 9th level casters back to the bard's spell progression. Extrapolate a progression for 7th to 9th spells from the bard's spell progression. Ban contingency. Also consider cutting back casters that naturally have the bard's progression (magus, inquisitor, bard, etc.) back to the paladin's progression.

This makes the peak of non-epic magic heal, harm, mass wombat's buff, communal stoneskin, antimagic field, greater dispel magic, wall of iron, true seeing, disintegrate, flesh to stone, and lucubration. It psuhes problem spells like disjunction, greater teleport, temporal stasis, time stop, gate, wish, limited wish, mind blank, prismatic wall, control weather, shapechange, holy word, resurrection, and true resurrection into epic range. It also delays early-game problem spells to mid-range levels: glitterdust, for example, is available at 4th instead of 3rd; fly becomes available at 7th instead of 5th; stoneskin is 10th instead of 7th; cloudkill is 13th instead of 9th.

[Swooper]

I didn't read the entire thread, but I think this is a good time to plug my buddy's homebrew.

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194002).

In short, Ernir took the entire magic system and rewrote it from scratch, using psionic mechanics. Not for everyone (and I personally disagree with a lot of design choices he made - I feel the balance point is a bit too high), but if this happens to be close to what you're looking for he has done all the heavy lifting for you. Every core spell has been rewritten in some form (some were merged into other spells, a few were dropped because of redundancy or other issues). Most, if not all, of the problematic spells have been adjusted to more reasonable levels (depends on what you consider problematic spells - I don't think he nerfed fly, for example).

Edit: This is, obviously, based on 3.5, but should still be relevant here since it isn't hard to convert.

[Evard]

On my phone so I only read the op

Have wizards be a bit MAD. Make schools of magic or idividual spells rely on say... wisdom con dex str and cha along with int.

To cast a transmutation spell the caster must have a str score of 10 plus spell level. Etc. If a spell targets a save then they need a high wisdom, dex, or con not just Int.

[Tyndmyr]

I want to make an ecksbawkshewg list of houserules that makes primary spellcasters actually interesting to play, and not just "let's pick a spell that picks the campaign apart or makes a mockery of the combat mechanics" borefest.
First off, the nerfage to the big offender spells:
Protection From Alignment - +2 Will save against control-type effects from alignment enemies. No immunities or such idiocy.

Leave the immunity. It's the entire purpose it exists. Trim the immunity to summons, it almost never comes up unless someones abusing it.


Disguise Self - No gender, height, weight or race change.

Disguise self is a static bonus to disguise. As such, it should do anything the disguise skill does. Note that negative modifiers for disguising yourself as something wildly different still apply. The only thing you need to do, if you feel it's too powerful, is to change the static bonus.


Grease - 5ft square. Huge creatures ignore it.

Grease was already changed for PF once. It's not really that bad. Design encounters with more creatures or less choke points.


Resist Energy - Flat 10 specific energy resistance with only scaling duration. No quadratic scaling, damn it!

Two things scaling is not the same as quadratic scaling.

This is mostly for the benefit of sorcs, not for wizards. Leave it be.


Knock - Disable Device with the caster's level + Int in place of the Disable Device skill. Second nerf: allow rogues to bypass magical locks with UMD.

Not in place of. Make it a static bonus to disable device(or, UMD if relevant). Also, make it for the next person to attempt to open it. So, the caster uses it to help the rogue, not displace the rogue.


Glitterdust - Instead of blind, targets attack with 20% miss chance.

Why 20%? Note that they save at the end of every turn, which substantially reduces the potency of this.


Stealth takes a -10 penalty, range is reduced to 10+10ft/level.

You have just made this spell worse than a bag of flour. You might want to rethink that.


Levitate - Concentration checks are required for casting spells while levitating.

Con checks are a joke.


Fly - No soft landing clause. Spell is quite flimsy, and attacking or casting a spell instantly ends the effect.

Am ok with the lack of soft landing clause. That's why feather fall exists. Failure/backup plans is a good thing. Importing the invisibility clause is only reasonable if you also make an improved fly later that negates that.


Rope Trick - Control a piece of rope, string or similar item to do as you please for 1h/level. Can be commanded to bind or grapple with the caster's Wisdom as Strength modifier.

Animate Rope already exists. Why would this be necessary or desirable?


Greater Invisibility - Casting a spell suppresses or attacking the invisibility effect until your next turn.

Well, that's pointless, then. Technically worse than Invisibility. Just use dispels instead. Or glitterdust or whatever.


Teleport - Casting time is 1 minute, range reduced to 5 miles per level, caster is fatigued if teleporting more than his load.

Greater Teleport - Casting time is 1 minute, 100 miles per level, no ill effects from success.

No real problems here.


Time Stop - I'd rather not touch 9th level spells unless I really, really need to, and I feel a need to touch Time Stop. Can we make it incompatible with all metamagic? Nerf it to 1d3+1 rounds? Have the caster slowed for one round after casting it? Make it a full-round casting time? Anything!
Save-Or-Die - 3d6 damage vs huge damage with secondary effects that don't make the target instantly dead or close to it.

This is just a start. What to do with low-level killers such as Grease and Entangle? Need ideas, need advice!

Dude...ninth level spells are crazy. If you want to get into this tier of game...the campaigns almost over. They SHOULD crush the baddies at this point. It's Wish and Gate and Genesis tier. Time Stop is not out of line with this.

[Mustard]

I probably won't change your mind, but I'd like to try. I think most of the adjustments in the original post are not necessary. I'm approaching this from the angle of "the casters are nice to the party, and aren't selfish with their buffs", because there's no way to fix selfish casters, apart from asking them to be team players, with a reasonable level of effort.

Protection From Alignment - Let the players keep their immunity to mind control, it only lasts minutes per level anyway.
Disguise Self - I like the built-in limits on size change is sufficient, and the caster still has their own voice.
Grease - It's not really all that powerful, should be easy for a powerful enemy to save against. It's silly when they fail, but that's not really all that often.
Resist Energy - I really don't see what's wrong with this spell. Try to mix up encounters so there's no good way to predict which element to guard against. And if your PCs do intel, this is a great way for the caster(s) to protect the entire party.
Knock - Already virtually useless IMO. (Edit: rephrased, it's even worse than I thought) On a level appropriate lock, the caster level check still has to be extremely lucky. In comparison, a rogue may fail a check, sure, but will likely get it after a few tries, and you can take 20 with Disable Device to unlock, but you can't do that with Knock. If there's a rogue who is investing points in Disable Device, the caster would do better to prepare something else other than Knock.
Glitterdust - This is the only way for a caster to help reveal an invisible baddie to the group, save magic items. If you want to nerf its revealing characteristic, allow a second invisibility to hide the glitter. As for the blindness, the victims get a save every round, that's pretty fair already. Maybe make it a full-round action to remove the glitter from one's eyes after 2-3 unsuccessful saves?
Levitate & Fly - Using these spells should make the caster a target for arrows. If you want to nerf, require Fly checks as though the caster was using wings.
Rope Trick - I don't have enough experience with this to comment.
Greater Invisibility - I'd prefer: reveals your location until the next turn, but you still get the 50% concealment.
Teleport - Teleporting is one of the best things to look forward to as a caster, IMO. It's just so much fun. It's not without its own risk, though. (Edit: Actually the increase to casting time is reasonable, but note that this may affect some monsters you want to be able to escape easily).
Greater Teleport - I'll admit you might be on to something here.
Time Stop - Haven't used it except in Neverwinter Nights, so no comment.

I find that when a melee fighter is bored or feels useless, it's usually due to enemies flying (or perched somewhere), being invisible, and/or having DR. They should always carry an assortment of weapons, but that's not always possible.
Instead of limiting spells, help out the mundane folks. Here are some ideas inspired from experience:

Provide magical arrows/bolts in treasure. Players will never willfully create those things, as it's a terrible waste of money, but if found, they may realize it's better to save 4 highly specialized arrows than to sell them. So if you have a flying enemy, the melee fighter may decide to dust off the bow and use a special arrow just for that encounter. If it's magical, it'll be more likely to have a meaningful effect on an enemy with DR.
Remind them that bags of flour can reveal invisible enemies. The rules don't seem to be clear on how it should work, though I could be wrong, so work something out.
Provide some oils of Versatile Weapon if your PCs don't tend to plan ahead with multiple weapon types and such.
Lift the restriction that potions cannot be self-only spells. This opens up "mundanes" to have potions of See Invisibility and Fly. Maybe reduce duration down by a step, such as hours to minutes, minutes to rounds, and disallow rounds per level and instant potions as an exception. Or since CL on a potion is not likely to be high anyway, probably doesn't matter that much.
Give out the Clustered Shots feat for free and introduce a corresponding feat for melee weapons (if it already exists, even better) to help with the DR problem. (Edit) give that feat free, too. Maybe introduce an encounter where the award is giving those feats for free.


Sometimes though, especially if you have multiple casters, they may come up with plans that only involve them due to not having enough resources, e.g. they both need to fly. With that you simply have to discourage them from doing that. It's really an unwritten rule: be a team player. If the character is selfish, the player better find some pretext to have the character reluctantly admit the whole team needs to be involved. That kind of thing.

You can always bring in enemies with SR. That's often a "hey, BSF, I need your brawn" type situation. There aren't a lot of targeted/area spells with SR:no.

[Gnaeus]

Fly - No soft landing clause. Spell is quite flimsy, and attacking or casting a spell instantly ends the effect.



And I don't want to place an optimized wizard as level-appropriate encounter, because just a single glitterdust/fly spellcaster would equal TPK. The group I'm playing with are a) all new to the PnP game and b) has a wizard, a druid, a barbarian, a rogue, a paladin and an inquisitor. So all kinds of tiers and all kinds of skill gaps are prevalent.

Skip the second part of the fly nerf. It is pointless. If you want to keep it, you need to nerf about a dozen additional spells/powers/abilities, because...

The druid can get a pet bat and ride on it, casting spells from the air all day long...

The druid can wildshape into a flyer and let the wizard ride on him, casting spells from the air all day long.

The Wizard or Druid can summon a hippogriff or dire bat with summon monster III/Summon natures ally II and ride on it, casting spells from the air.

Wizard can cast Phantom Steed.

At slightly higher levels, polymorph, animate dead, Dominate animal and half a dozen other powers give ways to beat up gravity and take its lunch money. Better just to assume, as the game does, that after level 5-7 most characters will have access to flight in some form, at least occasionally.



...A lot of stuff I agree with, except:
Glitterdust - This is the only way for a caster to help reveal an invisible baddie to the group, save magic items.

Faerie Fire?

[Tyndmyr]

Exactly. Just leave the "oh crap, im falling" portion, and suddenly, having it end/dispelled will matter, and people will prep feather fall as a backup strat.

Encouraging the use of spell slots on backup strategies mitigates spellcasters quite a lot.

[Emmerask]

Faerie Fire?
invisibility purge?
gust of wind + chalk?
... one million other things ^^

[The Boz]

I probably won't change your mind, but I'd like to try. I think most of the adjustments in the original post are not necessary. I'm approaching this from the angle of "the casters are nice to the party, and aren't selfish with their buffs", because there's no way to fix selfish casters, apart from asking them to be team players, with a reasonable level of effort.
That is plan A. Plan B is to enforce plan A by making selfish play less rewarding.


Protection From Alignment - That way it would be a terrible spell. I wouldn't modify this one.

Leave the immunity. It's the entire purpose it exists. Trim the immunity to summons, it almost never comes up unless someones abusing it.

Protection From Alignment - Let the players keep their immunity to mind control, it only lasts minutes per level anyway. All well and good until someone decides to enchant something with it. Level 1 immunity to all Dominate, Command and similar spells? Really? OK, I guess I see where you all are coming from. If the dominate range of spells is meant to be useful against commoners and certain monsters, but not BBEGs, his lieutenants or the heroes, I'm fine with that.


Grease was already changed for PF once. It's not really that bad. Design encounters with more creatures or less choke points.
I totally forgot that it was already nerfed in PF, I had the 3.5 version in my head. You're right, it's fine now.


Two things scaling is not the same as quadratic scaling. This is mostly for the benefit of sorcs, not for wizards. Leave it be.


Resist Energy - I really don't see what's wrong with this spell. Try to mix up encounters so there's no good way to predict which element to guard against. And if your PCs do intel, this is a great way for the caster(s) to protect the entire party.
My beef with it is that it makes people almost completely immune to an entire class (Warlock), school of magic (Evocation), a few types of creatures (dragons, elementals etc.) in ~level appropriate encounters. Further emphasizes the weakness of blaster wizards and sorcs.


Not in place of. Make it a static bonus to disable device(or, UMD if relevant). Also, make it for the next person to attempt to open it. So, the caster uses it to help the rogue, not displace the rogue.

Knock - Already virtually useless IMO. (Edit: rephrased, it's even worse than I thought) On a level appropriate lock, the caster level check still has to be extremely lucky. In comparison, a rogue may fail a check, sure, but will likely get it after a few tries, and you can take 20 with Disable Device to unlock, but you can't do that with Knock. If there's a rogue who is investing points in Disable Device, the caster would do better to prepare something else other than Knock.
OK, I'll change it to be more team-friendly as per Tyndmyr's advice. How about it lowers the lock DC by 10 for one minute?


Why 20%? Note that they save at the end of every turn, which substantially reduces the potency of this.

Glitterdust - This is the only way for a caster to help reveal an invisible baddie to the group, save magic items. If you want to nerf its revealing characteristic, allow a second invisibility to hide the glitter. As for the blindness, the victims get a save every round, that's pretty fair already. Maybe make it a full-round action to remove the glitter from one's eyes after 2-3 unsuccessful saves?
I agree, I did this one badly. And I like Mustard's idea of a full-round remove, I think I'll go with that.


Am ok with the lack of soft landing clause. That's why feather fall exists. Failure/backup plans is a good thing. Importing the invisibility clause is only reasonable if you also make an improved fly later that negates that.

Levitate & Fly - Using these spells should make the caster a target for arrows. If you want to nerf, require Fly checks as though the caster was using wings.
Concentrations checks are enough to make a caster think twice about doing it, as there's always the risk of failure, no matter how small. And there'll be an Improved Fly at about level... 5? Reduced duration, free reign in flight and spellcasting, just enough to make choosing spells actually matter.


Animate Rope already exists. Why would this be necessary or desirable?
Because I forgot Animate Rope existed. But I absolutely HATE this spell. So yeah, consider it gone instead.


Well, that's pointless, then. Technically worse than Invisibility. Just use dispels instead. Or glitterdust or whatever.

Greater Invisibility - I'd prefer: reveals your location until the next turn, but you still get the 50% concealment.
That's what I meant, I just said it really, really badly. So yeah, you're still invisible after attacking or casting a spell, but people see you move just barely.


Dimension Door - range reduced to Short. It's still a wonderful spell to reach weird locations or hide in a building, but it's no more an absolute lifesaver.
Range: Medium (100+10/lvl feet)? Agreed. Full casters already dominate ranged encounters, there really is no point to give them a perfect tool to ensure an encounter stays that way.


Teleport - Teleporting is one of the best things to look forward to as a caster, IMO. It's just so much fun. It's not without its own risk, though. (Edit: Actually the increase to casting time is reasonable, but note that this may affect some monsters you want to be able to escape easily).
If you want to get away in a hurry, you should not be able to escape to a whole other continent.


Dude...ninth level spells are crazy. If you want to get into this tier of game...the campaigns almost over. They SHOULD crush the baddies at this point. It's Wish and Gate and Genesis tier. Time Stop is not out of line with this.
I agree. I already expressed my reluctance to touch it because of exactly this.


Provide magical arrows/bolts in treasure. Players will never willfully create those things, as it's a terrible waste of money, but if found, they may realize it's better to save 4 highly specialized arrows than to sell them. So if you have a flying enemy, the melee fighter may decide to dust off the bow and use a special arrow just for that encounter. If it's magical, it'll be more likely to have a meaningful effect on an enemy with DR.
Already done.


Lift the restriction that potions cannot be self-only spells. This opens up "mundanes" to have potions of See Invisibility and Fly.
I love this idea. Done.

Further nerfs:
Contingency and Simulacrum: While active, these spells can't be removed from the list of memorized spells, and they cound as expended. The same holds true to the spell that Contingency is used to store.
However, Contingency is buffed to accept a much number of possible spells, not just spells that affect the caster. (or am I reading that spell wrong?) However, all spells in a contingency will still target the target of the contingency, so summons are a no-no, fireballs are a bad idea (unless you want to blackmail someone, or use a suicide bom HEY I JUST GOT A NEAT IDEA FOR A CAMPAIGN!).

[The Boz]

Skip the second part of the fly nerf. It is pointless. If you want to keep it, you need to nerf about a dozen additional spells/powers/abilities, because...

The druid can get a pet bat and ride on it, casting spells from the air all day long...

The druid can wildshape into a flyer and let the wizard ride on him, casting spells from the air all day long.

The Wizard or Druid can summon a hippogriff or dire bat with summon monster III/Summon natures ally II and ride on it, casting spells from the air.

Wizard can cast Phantom Steed.

At slightly higher levels, polymorph, animate dead, Dominate animal and half a dozen other powers give ways to beat up gravity and take its lunch money. Better just to assume, as the game does, that after level 5-7 most characters will have access to flight in some form, at least occasionally.

OK so... In a moderate-magic environment, how does your campaign survive wizards, sorcs, clerics and druids who double as Lancaster bombers? Sure, I could think of a few defenses, a few offenses, but that would herald the start of an arms race that suspension of disbelief and plausibility just can not win.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Similar to this: Cut any 9th level casters back to the bard's spell progression. Extrapolate a progression for 7th to 9th spells from the bard's spell progression. Ban contingency. Also consider cutting back casters that naturally have the bard's progression (magus, inquisitor, bard, etc.) back to the paladin's progression.

I rather like this idea as a fix for spellcasters if you want to use a fix, but Bards are arbitrarily restricted to 6th level spells. Their progression would put them at 7th level spells pre-epic. Maaaaybe something like this:

{table=head]Spells Per-Day
{table=head]Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
1st | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
2nd | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
3rd | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
4th | 3 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
5th | 4 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
6th | 4 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
7th | 4 | 3 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
8th | 4 | 4 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
9th | 5 | 4 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
10th | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - |
11th | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - |
12th | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - |
13th | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | - | - | - | - |
14th | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | - | - | - | - |
15th | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | - | - | - | - |
16th | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | - | - | - |
17th | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | - | - | - |
18th | 7 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | - | - | - |
19th | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | - | - |
20th | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 1 | - | - |
21st | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 2 | - | - |
22nd | 8 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | - |
23rd | 8 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | - |
24th | 8 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 2 | - |
25th | 8 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
26th | 9 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
27th | 9 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
28th | 9 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
29th | 9 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
30th | 10 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
[/table][/table]

Progression for each spell level goes: 1, 2, 3 (x2), 4 (x4), 5 (x4), etc.
For 7th-9th level spells, it becomes: 1 (x2), 2 (x2), 3 (x3), 4 (x5), 5 (x5), etc.

Spell levels are gained every three levels. 1st level spells at 1st level, 2nd level spells at 4th level, 3rd level spells at 7th, etc.

[Mustard]

Yikes, I got grilled on the reveal invisibility thing. I admit the oversight! I'm mostly familiar with arcane spells, my mistake. The main point was that normally non-casters don't have a good way to find invisible opponents. There's flour, of course, but if Powder [APG] is any indication of how it should work, it only momentarily reveals whether there's a creature there. So, it's not fantastic.

[Infernalbargain]

I want to make an ecksbawkshewg list of houserules that makes primary spellcasters actually interesting to play, and not just "let's pick a spell that picks the campaign apart or makes a mockery of the combat mechanics" borefest.
First off, the nerfage to the big offender spells:
Protection From Alignment - +2 Will save against control-type effects from alignment enemies. No immunities or such idiocy.
Disguise Self - No gender, height, weight or race change.
Grease - 5ft square. Huge creatures ignore it.
Resist Energy - Flat 10 specific energy resistance with only scaling duration. No quadratic scaling, damn it!
Knock - Disable Device with the caster's level + Int in place of the Disable Device skill. Second nerf: allow rogues to bypass magical locks with UMD.
Glitterdust - Instead of blind, targets attack with 20% miss chance. Stealth takes a -10 penalty, range is reduced to 10+10ft/level.
Levitate - Concentration checks are required for casting spells while levitating.
Fly - No soft landing clause. Spell is quite flimsy, and attacking or casting a spell instantly ends the effect.
Rope Trick - Control a piece of rope, string or similar item to do as you please for 1h/level. Can be commanded to bind or grapple with the caster's Wisdom as Strength modifier.
Greater Invisibility - Casting a spell suppresses or attacking the invisibility effect until your next turn.
Teleport - Casting time is 1 minute, range reduced to 5 miles per level, caster is fatigued if teleporting more than his load.
Greater Teleport - Casting time is 1 minute, 100 miles per level, no ill effects from success.
Time Stop - I'd rather not touch 9th level spells unless I really, really need to, and I feel a need to touch Time Stop. Can we make it incompatible with all metamagic? Nerf it to 1d3+1 rounds? Have the caster slowed for one round after casting it? Make it a full-round casting time? Anything!
Save-Or-Die - 3d6 damage vs huge damage with secondary effects that don't make the target instantly dead or close to it.

This is just a start. What to do with low-level killers such as Grease and Entangle? Need ideas, need advice!


Knock opens stuck, barred, or locked doors, as well as those subject to hold portal or arcane lock. When you complete the casting of this spell, make a caster level check against the DC of the lock (see table at right) with a +10 bonus. If successful, knock opens up to two means of closure. This spell opens secret doors, as well as locked or trick-opening boxes or chests. It also loosens welds, shackles, or chains (provided they serve to hold something shut). If used to open an arcane locked door, the spell does not remove the arcane lock but simply suspends its functioning for 10 minutes. In all other cases, the door does not relock itself or become stuck again on its own. Knock does not raise barred gates or similar impediments (such as a portcullis), nor does it affect ropes, vines, and the like. The effect is limited by the area. Each casting can undo as many as two means of preventing access.

They already fixed knock for you (only difference is that it's about on par with a rogue's check early on).

Time Stop: The #1 problem with casters is action economy. They utterly destroy it either through multiple actions per round or simply robbing the enemy of their actions. Quite honestly, time stop is just something that needs to be outright cut if you are even pretending to fix things.

Now the SoD's have already been toned down in PF in a way that I find quite reasonable. Flesh to Stone is the best SoD out there, and your suggestion of changing it to a pile of damage doesn't make sense. It is even better than death in many ways.

Divinations: This is where a lot of the heavy lifting of casters is done. The first thing is quite obvious: divinations know nothing of the future. The other thing is to make it obvious to the person being scried upon.

[DrDeth]

I don't want any general nerfs, I consider something like 85% of the spells perfectly balanced, particularly all the direct damage dealers such as fireball and magic missile.
The problems crop up when people realize that Disintegrate brings down entire castles, that Fly allows a wizard to mutilate every low-magic encounter, and that Rope Trick makes 15 minute adventure days with spellbarrages the main way of dealing with everyday life.

Apparently you're also running a low magic game?

Really, the best way to nerf tier 1 spellcasters is to nerf them, not nerf spells. Require full spellcasters to take a level of non-spellcater every 3rd level. Or use Fax Celestis's idea.

We nerfed spellcasters a little by having a game were we started at 2nd, but the 1st level had to be a NPC class (except the adept). So, skillmonkeys and tanks were fine.

Fly? Well flying critter should attack flying PC's. Then there's archers. Few spells outrange a bow. I assume you're not letting them drop unlimited boulders or something?

[Set]

Make the casting time of spells 1 round per spell level (with a standard action for 0-level). That will justify the strength of spells and force the caster (and the rest of the party) to think more strategically than simply "I make a 5-foot step and nuke everything in a 30-foot radius".

Even increasing all standard-action spells to a full-round action would return magic to the 1st/2nd edition balance of all spells being interruptable, and not merely by readied actions.

A weaker version of the Quicken Spell feat (named Hasten Spell?) could add +2 levels to the effective spell level and allow the spellcaster to cast a spell as a standard action, instead of a full-round action.

[Jeraa]

Even increasing all standard-action spells to a full-round action would return magic to the 1st/2nd edition balance of all spells being interruptable, and not merely by readied actions.

A weaker version of the Quicken Spell feat (named Hasten Spell?) could add +2 levels to the effective spell level and allow the spellcaster to cast a spell as a standard action, instead of a full-round action.

That why I made the changes I did. I limited it to 3rd level spells and up because you get those around 5th level. Starting at 6th level is when non-casters start having to take a full round action to get all their attacks, while casters still only needed a standard action to cast any spell. Its unfair to noncasters - they have to take a longer action to get their full attacks in, but casters aren't affected in the least. So I changed that. Though I chose a one-round action, not a full round action. That way, they are casting the entire time, until right before their next turn, which makes them easier to interrupt.

And I removed Quicken spell completely. It breaks the action economy and is unneeded. Spells are powerful enough as it is, there is no need to cast multiple ones per turn.

[share and enjoy]

I've been thinking about 'the caster problem' since I plan on trying my hand as dming soon, I was playing with the idea of limiting general casting ability to mid (bard) progression with the ability to cast more but it being dangerous to the caster flavour-wise magic is harmful to the body. I'm thinking forcing a con check to cast beyond a bards spells per day that goes up with each casting (probably dc 10 + spell level + spell levels cast) but having never played a full caster to a high level would that hit them too hard would it ruin the wizard if the bard could cast as well as him and still have his mid bab and music?

Penalties I'm still not sure about maybe hitting them with fatigue and exhaustion or con damage or maybe bleeding or something I need ideas for penalties is what I'm getting at here.

I also plan on letting casters cast in groups for higher level spells or more spells per day probably as a give spell slots up individually to provide a 'pooled' slot would I need to look at halving the value of spell slots for this so you would need to say use 3 lvl 6 slots (each worth 3 levels of spell slots) to cast a lvl 9 spell?

[The Boz]

To fix Flesh to Stone:
Three round duration. Target rolls a Fortitude save each round.
First failed save: Target is slowed, as per the spell.
Second failed save: Target is immobilized.
Third failed save: Target is turned to stone.
When the spell duration is done, the target is left with the last status as permanent. The slow can be removed with a remove curse, the immobilized can be remobed with lesser restoration, but a flesh to stone (or higher spell) is required to remove the petrification.
You like?

[bloodtide]

OK so... In a moderate-magic environment, how does your campaign survive wizards, sorcs, clerics and druids who double as Lancaster bombers? Sure, I could think of a few defenses, a few offenses, but that would herald the start of an arms race that suspension of disbelief and plausibility just can not win.

The answer is easy:You have wizards, sorcs, clerics and druids who double as Ak-AK guns, SAM's and Fighter Interceptors.

The first line of defense is intelligence: you want to know about an attack before it happens. And other then agents to gather this, you also have divinations.


The rule books only have a selection of adventuring type spells, that is the way the books are written. Very few books have the 'common sense' spells that would have been created over the years.

You might also have the Year One problem. This is where your saying that the day the players start is the first day of the campaign. So even if your world is 1,000 years old, not a single wizard has attacked a city by use of the spell fly, and not a single place has come up with a defense for that. Most cities should have CAPs(combat air patrols), of flying folks. The same way you have to assume that if magic has been around for at least a year that the 'arms race/MAD' has already happened.

You might also need to 'up' the fantasy a bit and make your world more amazing then mundane. Lots of DM's love the LotR/Connan type game where everything in the world is bland and 'just like Earth'. But a little spice can change a lot. Take winged dogs, for example. Not game breaking, but they sure cause trouble for flying folk. And there are tons of flying monsters in the MM alone.

A great thing to add is non standard very flavorful stuff, such as a city defended by:
*A Ghost Dragon, that does not so much protect the city as it does it's hidden treasure in the city, but still prevents attackers from getting in
*A golem left over from the old, old days
*A Curse/Blessing that stops attacks
*A powerful artifact, like a 10' shield stone that makes a force dome over the city.

[Gnaeus]

OK so... In a moderate-magic environment, how does your campaign survive wizards, sorcs, clerics and druids who double as Lancaster bombers? Sure, I could think of a few defenses, a few offenses, but that would herald the start of an arms race that suspension of disbelief and plausibility just can not win.

As bloodtide says, archers have longer ranges than most spells, and artillery even more.

But also, the bigger issue is that it isn't just those 4 casting classes that can do it. Yes, they are the only ones who can do it as a class ability by level 5 (Actually, that isn't true either, Warlocks, Archivists, Artificers, Spirit Shamans...), but a ranger can summon a flying steed, or wildshape into a flier. A Paladin can get a winged mount. Anyone can buy a trained hippogriff for 4000 gp (although I would recommend at least a little bit of ride and handle animal), or a flight item.

With regards to that arms race, they are living in a world with evil dragons, arrowhawks, beholders, demons, devils, and about a hundred other fliers with ranged attacks. If your city/army has no air defenses, you are in for a world of hurt, whether casters can fly or not.

[The Boz]

OK, working on arcanely militarizing my campaign world then...

[The Boz]

With regards to that arms race, they are living in a world with evil dragons, arrowhawks, beholders, demons, devils, and about a hundred other fliers with ranged attacks. If your city/army has no air defenses, you are in for a world of hurt, whether casters can fly or not.

After thinking about random stuff that I could add, I realized that doing this would again put me at square 1. If the entire world is militarized against flying spellcasters by whatever means, what happens to the "mundane" physical classes?
They're still on the ground, twiddling their thumbs, while the dragon and the wizard are having a spectacle up in the sky. What are they supposed to do? Start killing some random mook orcs while the real classes are having all the fun?

[Novawurmson]

From the Dreamscarred Press forums...


Angellis_ater:
----
Fix: Make Fighter a NPC class, remove the cleric, druid and wizard. Add in psionic classes. Problem solved.

[calar]

I rather liked the way the Midnight campaign setting handled casters. First off, casting progression is seriously limited. Second, to gain access to a school of magic (and even then only a subset of a given school), you are required to use a feat. This seriously limits spell selection early on, but more importantly it limits metamagic feat abuse. Also, all caster classes are lumped into one, which means you need to concentrate your specializations to get healing, blaster spells, or other types of magic while being forced to sacrifice the ability to cast in other areas. Additionally, casters are HEAVILY discriminated against (aka killed on sight) in Midnight, which makes casters more cautious to use magic on a whim.

[bloodtide]

After thinking about random stuff that I could add, I realized that doing this would again put me at square 1. If the entire world is militarized against flying spellcasters by whatever means, what happens to the "mundane" physical classes?
They're still on the ground, twiddling their thumbs, while the dragon and the wizard are having a spectacle up in the sky. What are they supposed to do? Start killing some random mook orcs while the real classes are having all the fun?


Why would you think mundane physical classes can't fly? First, there are dozens of races that can fly. Second, there are dozens of templates to give anyone wings. Third are flying mounts, and fourth are flying items.

Just look at your example of a dragon. Is a dragon a spellcaster type or a mundane physical type? Or a mix of both?

And your mundane physical types are also the archers and the militarists.


And again, to just add a bit of fantasy and stop thinking like 'real world earth'. So a city has 45 half orc half demon warlocks as part of the defense. Plus 30 archers on griffons, each with magic weapons. A couple of air elementals. And so on.

D&D is not magic vs mundane, it's not archwizard vs fighter warlord where the fighter has zero magic. In D&D fighters have lots of magic(just not pure spells, per say).

[Gnaeus]

Or the wizard just casts fly on the fighter, which in that case is better than taking to the air himself anyway.

[ZerglingOne]

In my campaigns, I have some house rules for magic. Putting more than 3 buffs on any one person causes temporary constitution loss due to magic poisoning. 2 points for every buff after 3. As you can imagine, this severely limits how much a caster can buff himself given the low hit point totals.

Grease: Give your villains/monsters ranks in balance.

Glitterdust: Move out of the area.

Knock: Open lock check equal to 2 + CL + int mod. Less effective by essentially 1 than a rogue of same level.

Fly: Was wrong about fly, thought it had average mobility (was thinking of overland flight). Just make it average mobility instead of good so you always have to fly forward at least half speed and can only turn 90 degrees on any round. You can also y'know...have dungeons with low ceilings where fly is basically useless.

Greater invis: See invisibility is a 2nd level spell.

And cmon man, everything that's available to your players is available (and often more) to you as a DM. If your players cheese you, cheese them back.

OOOH and of course, who could forget golems? Better start swinging that quarterstaff or running.

[CactusAir]

Knock - Disable Device with the caster's level + Int in place of the Disable Device skill. Second nerf: allow rogues to bypass magical locks with UMD.


AFAIR, Rogues can bypass magic locks with Disable Device in 3.5E (treat magic locks as magic traps). Why did pathfinder nerf that?

[Gnaeus]

OOOH and of course, who could forget golems? Better start swinging that quarterstaff or running.

They really aren't half the threat to a prepared caster that most people think they are. SR:no spells work fine, and there are lots of ways to take mindless things out of combat.

[Midnight_v]

"Nerf spellcasters, thurdsays.
Tome of battle tuesdays.
2 dollar ale specials happy hour.
all here at the playground"

I'm just curious what people want from the spell casters, I hear all this talk of nerfing them, but I'm wondering what on earth they want a d4 caster to do at level 1 if grease doesn't work. or color spray later ... or any of the things on the list.
Like with the guy above talking about "Magical buff poisoning" wait whut? Itsa weird to thing that a big portion of people don't want fighters to have nice things, while another portion balks at the "Caster doing everything". There has to be a breaking point at this. The cleric of the war god, should totally, be as awesome at fighting as the fighter is at fighting, or moreso depending on the terrain. The Cleric of the Laughing god that has no temples Rogue, should really be on par with a rogue or bard or whatever that guys the patron of. . .
I'd have much less a problem with it when the melee's are good at their jobs, SANS, hardcore optimization.

I realize this is a PF, based thread. . . I've heard people herald PF as a way more balanced alternative, is this not the case, even with all the playtesting they do?

[The Boz]

If the fighting Cleric is as good as the Fighter at fighting, what's the Fighter supposed to do?

[Gnaeus]

If the fighting Cleric is as good as the Fighter at fighting, what's the Fighter supposed to do?

A valid question.

My question is why he needs more than 3 buffs to do it?

Wizard: Polymorph (or PAO, or Shapechange). any 2 other buffs of choice. Fill the rest of his list with touch spells or quickened or swift action attacks or debuffs.
Druid: Venomfire, Bite of wereX, Any other buff of choice (shapechange at high enough level)
Cleric: Persist Divine Power, Persist Righteous Might, Persist Righteous wrath of Faithful.

Yes, the three buff rule does make most of the Primal X line and Heart of X line useless, but it doesn't prevent me from meleeing. At all.

[bloodtide]

If the fighting Cleric is as good as the Fighter at fighting, what's the Fighter supposed to do?

The fighter fights.

I think a lot of this type of problem comes from the ''15 minute day'' crowd. Yes, when your group has three whole encounters over 15 minutes and then immediately sleeps for eight hours, then spellcasters become unbalanced as they always have spells.

But compare to a spell caster that has to be awake and ready 16 hours a day. They simply can't cast spells and buff up to fight more then four or five times. They will simply run out of spells.

[CactusAir]

The fighter fights.

I think a lot of this type of problem comes from the ''15 minute day'' crowd. Yes, when your group has three whole encounters over 15 minutes and then immediately sleeps for eight hours, then spellcasters become unbalanced as they always have spells.

But compare to a spell caster that has to be awake and ready 16 hours a day. They simply can't cast spells and buff up to fight more then four or five times. They will simply run out of spells.

Except the game was supposedly designed around typically having 4 encounters per day. Any spellcaster who can't handle 4 ECL-appropriate encounters a day and still have spells left over by level 6 is incompetent and should be sent to remedial school.

Fighters are underpowered, and PF's minor buffs to the fighter completely fail to make up for the massive power gap between Fighter and Cleric. This is simple mathematical fact.

[Fax Celestis]

But compare to a spell caster that has to be awake and ready 16 hours a day. They simply can't cast spells and buff up to fight more then four or five times. They will simply run out of spells.

Persistent Spell and hours/level buffs would like a word with you.

[Midnight_v]

If the fighting Cleric is as good as the Fighter at fighting, what's the Fighter supposed to do?
*resists urge to give obligatory; See: Warblade*

Well the fighter supposed to fight also. He should go about it a different way but the net effect should be the same.
He's probbably supposed to have feats that work as well as spells.
Also, well he should have the benefit of knowing he's not going to get dispelled and die.

The difference is the fighter shouldn't have to run buffs to get to the same results as the Cleric of War.

So lets say that for example Divine might is the war clerics thing. He might cast another buff after than to get ahead, maybe something like haste (for simplicity sake I'll just say "haste" but it doesn't matter what the other buff is.). The first round, and every 3rd round the combat lasts the WarGod's cleric cast a wall of arbitrary to keep the other team split.
I think that's what the war cleric does. Full attacks and keep the enemy separated.

The fighter should be doing something similar but not need buffs to do it. Our game is ruined because the fighter has to jump through hoops to do valuable things, and when he does that it's either binary like shocktrooper kings or too anime like people say the tome of battle is, or a multiclass masterpiece.

I could show you some of the things but I'm sure you can view the char op forums till you find examples you like.

However, what would it take for a fighter to cross the battlefield making a attack against any opponent who comes within his reach during his movement?
What would it take for a melee attack like that to matter? Damage? Effects?
The problem isn't so much that the Cleric of Mars is great at fighting, one would expect that char to be good at fighting.
Its that the fighter is fairly poor at melee without enough books allowed, and decent optimization knowledge, but some people blame the cleric for making the fighter feel small in the pants. . . maybe thats different in pathfinder.
If the two classes fight rough approximate as well it's actually NOT a problem, for the game, as there are other people like the barbarian and ranger who also fill the same slot, as the fighter and War Cleric should be filling in a party.

[bloodtide]

Except the game was supposedly designed around typically having 4 encounters per day. Any spellcaster who can't handle 4 ECL-appropriate encounters a day and still have spells left over by level 6 is incompetent and should be sent to remedial school.

Fighters are underpowered, and PF's minor buffs to the fighter completely fail to make up for the massive power gap between Fighter and Cleric. This is simple mathematical fact.

This is one of the biggest problems with 3X/P, the '4 encounters' a day thing. It leads directly to the '15 minute day' problem.

The problem is that everyone wants the characters at 'near 100%' at all times for expendable abilities and such. The view is that if a character can't do their 'special or cool' ability in every combat, then the player will sit in the corner and pout.

A great example are spellcasters. Yes, they can use half a dozen spells(and or spell slots) to dominate a battle field. But only a couple times a day.

The answer is so easy, just have 8-12 level appropriate encounters a day. That way, no spell caster can go 'nuke'. They have to save spells all day.

[Tyndmyr]

All well and good until someone decides to enchant something with it. Level 1 immunity to all Dominate, Command and similar spells? Really? OK, I guess I see where you all are coming from. If the dominate range of spells is meant to be useful against commoners and certain monsters, but not BBEGs, his lieutenants or the heroes, I'm fine with that.

Counters to enchantment should exist, and they should exist prior to the levels at which you're hijacking all control. Otherwise, you get a tippyverse. Protection against X is good...but it's specific. You need the right version up. Also, true neutral people just don't care. So, it's a limited immunity.


My beef with it is that it makes people almost completely immune to an entire class (Warlock), school of magic (Evocation), a few types of creatures (dragons, elementals etc.) in ~level appropriate encounters. Further emphasizes the weakness of blaster wizards and sorcs.

3.5 lock does untyped damage, I suggest using that instead if the PF one uses one type only. Otherwise, this is, like Protection against X, a stronger than usual defensive buff balanced by the specificity of the protection. Pick the wrong element? No help at all. Pick the right one? Awesome!



Concentrations checks are enough to make a caster think twice about doing it, as there's always the risk of failure, no matter how small. And there'll be an Improved Fly at about level... 5? Reduced duration, free reign in flight and spellcasting, just enough to make choosing spells actually matter.

Skills don't auto-fail, so no...there's not always a risk of failure. Note that Overland Flight already is worthwhile, and makes choosing spells actually matter.


Range: Medium (100+10/lvl feet)? Agreed. Full casters already dominate ranged encounters, there really is no point to give them a perfect tool to ensure an encounter stays that way.

Be aware that a number of short-hop style teleports exist at lower levels. Not in core, perhaps, but splattered around various places. So, this basically makes DD irrelevant.


If you want to get away in a hurry, you should not be able to escape to a whole other continent.

Why not? This, coupled with Dimension Door nerfs, sounds suspiciously like "You should not be able to escape".

Note that counters to teleportation already exist.

[The Boz]

Counters to enchantment should exist, and they should exist prior to the levels at which you're hijacking all control. Otherwise, you get a tippyverse. Protection against X is good...but it's specific. You need the right version up. Also, true neutral people just don't care. So, it's a limited immunity.
The RAW is rather unclear and implies immunity to enchantments from all enemies, not just the right alignment. But I already agreed that this spell can remain as is if it gave specific immunity, not blanket.


3.5 lock does untyped damage, I suggest using that instead if the PF one uses one type only. Otherwise, this is, like Protection against X, a stronger than usual defensive buff balanced by the specificity of the protection. Pick the wrong element? No help at all. Pick the right one? Awesome!
Yeah, the PF Warlock does elemental damage, but can choose his element with each attack. Then again, the PF Warlock isn't core, sucks, and is not comparable to core Pathfinder classes in strength, versatility or quality. It can stay, I'll just try harder with developing spellcasters/ability users, and refrain from elementally thematic foes.


Skills don't auto-fail, so no...there's not always a risk of failure. Note that Overland Flight already is worthwhile, and makes choosing spells actually matter.
I don't need them to auto fail, but as long as you can't take 10, there's still a chance of failing, no matter how small. Sure, there are counters to flying mages, but they are severely limited at the level Levitate becomes available, and they're all subject to counter-counters such as Protection From Arrows.
As for Overland Flight, it gets the ~same treatment as Fly. No offensive spellcasting.


Be aware that a number of short-hop style teleports exist at lower levels. Not in core, perhaps, but splattered around various places. So, this basically makes DD irrelevant.
Only speaking of core Pathfinder right now. DD is still great for getting out of tight spots, and is viable both tactically and strategically.


Why not? This, coupled with Dimension Door nerfs, sounds suspiciously like "You should not be able to escape".

Note that counters to teleportation already exist.

If you want to escape, a single relatively low-level spell should not guarantee 100% success. With a shorter range, you can still combine Dimension Door to get to immediate safety and then attempt casting, say, Teleport while there are looking for you. Or try a more conventional escape. But escaping to a whole other country as a standard action? I have a problem with that.

[Yora]

I cap the game at 10th level, with 11th to 13th level open for a very small handful of super-powerful NPCs.

That makes most things a lot more reasonable.

[Sception]

If you're nerfing individual spells, you might want to check out magic jar, since iirc that made it through to PF untrouched. Yeah, I know, nobody takes it because it's confusing. But what if they did?!

Because I sure do.

[Tyndmyr]

Except the game was supposedly designed around typically having 4 encounters per day. Any spellcaster who can't handle 4 ECL-appropriate encounters a day and still have spells left over by level 6 is incompetent and should be sent to remedial school.

Fighters are underpowered, and PF's minor buffs to the fighter completely fail to make up for the massive power gap between Fighter and Cleric. This is simple mathematical fact.

See, everyone says that...but then everyone also presumes the use of giant piles of buffs.

Those cut into your available spell list.

Then, everyone tends to presume action economy abuse to cast more spells.

Yup, available spell options dwindling. Not to mention that your spell slots are not at all equal. Those cantrips are pretty situational. Level 1 slots are not much better.

At level 6, even at fairly decent op levels, it's easy to blow a goodly portion of your resources on a single encounter.