Cheering up the Wizard.(Making him less SAD)

[thompur]

Hi Playgrounders. This is a house rule I have been contemplating for my new campaign world, and I wanted to get your feedback.
First, a little background. About 1100 years ago, the Sarkrith invaded and set off, for lack of a better term, Anti-Magic ‘nukes’. Even they underestimated how effective they would be. It took over 700 years for supernatural abilities to re-emerge. Another 100+ years for SLA’s. Innate spell casters started appearing a little over 200 years ago, and Wizards just a century or so.
Now Sorcerers and Wizards have different spell lists: some spells, like Fog Cloud, or Fireball, are currently excusive to Sorcerers, and others, like Glitterdust and Fire Trap are only known to Wizards. There are spells that both lists share, but they may have subtle differences. There are also a lot of spells that either haven’t been re-discovered, or have yet to be created. For instance, since there has been no contact with the Outer Planes in over 1100 years, spells like Gate, Banishment and COP either don’t exist or, more likely, just don’t work. Invokers, popularly known as Warlocks, are the only ones who can teleport any distance at all, and the furthest any of them have gone is about 80 feet.

With all that being said, I want to give each school of magic a secondary attribute. As follows:
• Abjuration – Strength
• Conjuration – Charisma
• Divination – Wisdom
• Enchantment - Charisma
• Evocation – Constitution
• Illusion – Wisdom
• Necromancy – Strength
• Transmutation – Constitution

The Idea being, if you have a negative modifier in the secondary stat, you can’t cast spells from that school. If you have no modifier, the spells work as normal. If you have a positive modifier, the spell will work better in some way. The easiest example is something like Burning Hands, where a + will add half your mod rounded down (min. +1) to each die of damage.
Also, since wizards are the only ones who can create new spells, they would get a bonus on their chance to succeed in their endeavor to research a new spell in that school.
So…What do you think?

[flumphy]

You gave one of the best schools (transmutation) a secondary stat that no sane caster would neglect anyway. Probably not the best move. Indeed, the change seems like it could help casters more than hurt them, which is not necessarily the best move balance-wise.

[Randomguy]

You've also made optimization even more rewarding: Your average generalist wizard sucks even more now, and a focused specialist can just ban schools they don't have high stats in. I agree with flumphy: You really just made transmutation and evocation slightly more powerful, because they now gain bonuses from stats that all casters have positive modifiers in.
The only downside is that wizards now need at least 10 in every stat. (And even then, they could dump dexterity by taking the zen archery and a monk's belt.) Also, saving throws are a little easier to make, because the point buy distribution means wizards can't put as many points in intelligence if they want access to every school.

If you go by rolling ability scores instead of pointbuy, the nerf would be a bit bigger at lower levels, since someone with a couple of really bad rolls wouldn't be able to cast spells from some schools. At higher levels, it would just reduce wealth by level, since they'd need to spend some money to get items that bring their scores up above 10.

[lunar2]

a better idea would be for all primary casters to be DAD. wizards and sorcerers are INT/CHA (one for high level spells, one for save DCs), clerics and druids are WIS/CHA. rangers, paladins, and bards can still be SAD casters, since they are MADder than primary casters, anyway.

also, reverse sorc/wiz, and clr/drd. so wizards are int for level and cha for saves, while sorcs are cha for level and int for saves.

[Feralventas]

If you don't mind a concept from a different D20 (Fantasycraft), you can set up 'casters or wizards in particular so that their ability to cast a spell is tied to Int, their ability to know a spell is tied to their wisdom, and then set the DC to wisdom.

This would allow some circumvention via self-buffs and magic items. Reading the above, I'm not sure it would translate as well, so perhaps wisdom might be the Extra Spells ability score while intelligence remains the casting requirement.

[Zaranthan]

I would make two changes: split the two con-linked schools to str and cha, and declare that specialist wizards cannot ban a school they couldn't cast otherwise (i.e. a wizard with 8 strength cannot ban necromancy). This way, you're not rewarding players for doing things they were going to do anyway.

[Big Fau]

In other words, you are rehashing a scrappy mechanic from 3.0 Psionics.

Couple of things:

The mental stats still have dominance.
The two Str-based schools are two that are commonly banned by Focused Specialists.
Constitution being tied to Transmutation means people do the same thing they normally did.
Conjuration becomes marginally less attractive, but it is still the best school.
You give a bonus to casters with a stat higher than 10 in the secondary, meaning the two most powerful schools can get even better.
Evocation and Enchantment get worse.
You only need a 10 in every stat you are going to be using. If you are rolling stats in any way other than "Roll 3d6, in order", this has very little impact. If you are using PB, your players now have lower highs, but otherwise are unaffected.



I cannot see this as a good idea in any way.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Evocation and Enchantment get worse.

But Evocation is based off con. :smallconfused:

[Big Fau]

But Evocation is based off con. :smallconfused:

That would be my dyslexia kicking in.

[Endarire]

3.0 Psionics had a system where each discipline was based off a stat. People didn't like it.

[Godskook]

Instead of making random assignments, how about making a system that actually makes some sense within the mechanics, such as:

Old primary stat - determines if you can even cast a spell or not, but now needs a stat mod equal to the spell level of the spell. With a +8 mod available with a starting score of 10, this isn't too bad, but casters will need high scores here, especially since the bonuses are backloaded towards the later levels in the game.
Str - Magic now requires a physical exertion upon the Aether. Bonus spells are now tied to your Str score. Must retain the bonus for 24 hours before you begin to see benefit from it.
Con - Spells now deal backlash damage, equal to 2d6 per spell level. This is reduced by 1 die per con mod.
Dex - Spell's somatic components are now far more difficult to perform, adding a 5% ASF per spell level. Your dex mod reduces it by 10%.

I wouldn't add modifications for Wisdom or Charisma/Intelligence, cause I kinda always liked that different mental strengths brought out different flavors of magic.

[imneuromancer]

I've always played with the idea that for wizards your bonus spells and spellcraft come from INT, the level you can cast comes from WIS, and the spell DC comes from CHA.

That way you can't bump just one ability score and get huge save DCs, extra spells, and the ability to cast the spells.