Easy Wizard Fix (Discuss?)

[Kane0]

UPDATE: Reworked my solution. Its still not a be all and end all solution, but it should help the average session.

Change the spellbook into more of a reference book that the wizard needs to reference every week or so and change his prepared spellcasting into spontaneous.

To summarize:
- Spell book becomes reference book
- Only need to use reference book once every few days to change spells or to maintain spells as memorized.
- Spellcasting becomes spontaneous
- Spells known as sorc
- Spells per day as Wizard (less than sorc)
- Can change 'spells known' by looking it up in his book. It takes half an hour per spell to change spells known
- Writing spells into book as normal

This way the Sorcerer would still be better on a daily basis as he can cast more often but the Wizard has the advantage of changing spells with a little prep time, lending him the edge in versatility.


In case you wanted to have a look at my old solution for some reason:
No new mechanics, no changed abilities. Just gameplay and thematic restrictions, thats it.

A wizard always has two kinds of spellbooks, a Grimoire and a Field Spellbook. These are detailed in complete arcane but the premise is that a Wizards Grimoire sits in his study/library/inner sanctum and contains all his written spells and is intricately protected while his Field Spellbook is what he uses on an adventure and contains his most commonly used spells.

The Grimoire contains as many pages as needed for all the wizards spells and is normally not readily portable.

The Field Spellbook normally contains about 100 pages, which on average does not have space for more than a few spells per spell level, especially the higher up ones. If you want more you need another field spellbook, and must choose which one you want to get your spells from that day.

This has two main effects on play.
- The wizard cannot pull any spell he has recorded 'out of thin air'. He now has to either spend time and space transcribing the spells he wants into his field book before he leaves his Wizard Tower or leave them behind.
- When the Wizard finds scrolls or other written spells (other Wizards books) he can only copy a few into his field spellbook due to space constraints, so he will have to wait until he gets home to copy the rest or simply use the other wizards spellbook (if it is a field book he can understand).

The end result is that the Wizard player needs to keep track of two spell lists: His Grimoire containing his entire collection of spells sitting at home, and his field spellbook which he has cherry picked or modified from his previous field book. If a situation pops up where the next day he needs a spell that isnt in that book, then tough luck, you better hope you have a teleport to get home and pick up the scrolls of that spell you left behind. Given that most wizard players are already fmailiar with their spellbooks it shouldnt burden the flow of the game any more than it already does. Once the adventure is underway the more limited selection of spells actually should make things quicker in terms of spell preparation.


Note how nothing is actually new here, Its all in complete arcane. I believe it addressed the Wizard flexibility/power problem very well. They also included rules for using other wizards' spellbooks and other things like that. What im really posting this here for is for others' point of view on if this actually works in practice.

[Draken]

Hmm... I don't really see what this solves.

The baseline grimoire is a 100 page book with each spell taking a number of pages equal to its level (minimum one). Depending on how many splats you scour for cantrips, you can very well end up needing an extra grimoire by level 7. This extra grimoire is added weight to the backpack of a character who probably dumped str.

You are supposed to only be able to prepare spells from a single field book at a time? That is... Inelegant. Lack of elegance is the usual issue that begets 'it doesn't make sense', because nobody really cares about making sense, it is about elegance, inelegant solutions tick people the wrong way.

It is also ineffective. Again, the book given is basically the same already avaiable. At most it will require, at somewhat high levels, that the wizard take a bag of holding and fill it with books containing general use spells and various niche spells (if even that). But niche spells are mostly for flair. The spells wizards use are relatively few anyway.

"Fixing" wizards (and clerics and druids, etc) requires a large number of spells to be rewritten and more than likely a small number of other spells to be removed completely. And it is not just nerfs everywhere, some spells could use improvements.

But of course, the real concern is not so much wizard power as it is the utter lack of lateral capability the non-caster classes are saddled with.

[Kane0]

What im trying to get at is that a wizard cannot feasibly carry around every spell he knows in one book. He would have one that has everything and cannot be carried around for everyday use and one that is but holds far less to be able to do so. A wizard dosent really want to risk losing every single spell if something happens to his Grimoire.

Like in your example you may want to fill a bag of holding with a few field books, but you can only use one at a time cant you? You may as well have that one book and maybe a backup if your paranoid and have the spells you want in there. You will still perform the same way but if the need for 'the perfect spell for tomorrows occasion' pops up and you dont have it in your field book for whatever reason you have to deal with it, much as the sorceror must deal with choosing only a ferw spells to know at any given time. If what you say is true and the spells wizards commonly are few then it would only be an inconvenience and that is the point. This fix isnt really to fix his power level, it is to fix his access to the solution to any given problem at any given time with the only cost being an 8 hour rest.

Sorry if my wall of text is a bit convoluted, im trying to unjumble my thoughts as i go.


Edit: For example, say in the way it is organised now your spellbook can hold as many spells as you like. So for an average mid level wizard you have 10 cantrips, 10 level 1 spells, 10 level 2s, 8 level threes and 6 level 4s.

Under this change your grimoire still contains all those same spells as normal, but the field book which you have on you at the time may only have 8 cantrips, 8 level 1s, 8 level 2s, 6 level 3s and 4 level 4s with some room left over in case you find some more you want to copy in.

It dosent immediately and magically fix all the wizards problems, but its a step in the right direction. To truely fix it you would need to do some serious rewriting but to the average DM this may help just that little bit. If only we could do the same to the druid and cleric...

[Kuma Kode]

The wizard is going to have to do a lot of erasing, or buying new books and starting from scratch because his old one doesn't have a new combination of spells he wanted and he doesn't feel like erasing it all.

Why exactly can the wizard not use a second field book? Why can he use someone else's field book but not two of his own? What if, regardless of its portability, the wizard actually wants to carry his grimoire with him, maybe on their ship or in their wagon or other vehicle. Now what? "You can't?" What about carrying it in an extradimensional space? "You can't?"

It's illogical if enforced to its extreme and ineffective if not. Sorry, but "Easy" and "Wizard Fix" cannot be uttered in the same sentence.

[Kane0]

The wizard is going to have to do a lot of erasing, or buying new books and starting from scratch because his old one doesn't have a new combination of spells he wanted and he doesn't feel like erasing it all.

Nah, i wouldnt go that far. just select the spells you want to have on hand and magic them into your book.



Why exactly can the wizard not use a second field book? Why can he use someone else's field book but not two of his own? What if, regardless of its portability, the wizard actually wants to carry his grimoire with him, maybe on their ship or in their wagon or other vehicle. Now what? "You can't?" What about carrying it in an extradimensional space? "You can't?"

As i understand it you have to have the book there to cast as well as prepare. Sure you can carry around some more, but youd have to memorize and familiarize with what is where all over again for the new one your using (Complete Arcane calls it 'attuning' IIRC).
By all means a Wizard can take his Grimoire with him, but thats just begging the DM to play all do all things of nasty things to the wizards spellbooks just as he can now. The point of the grimoire is to catalogue all your spells in one place, not be your book for the day. Wizards all have good INT, so it wouldnt be hard to say your wizard isn't dumb enough to risk his entire spell collection in the field without significant reward or safeguard.


To make it an analogy: You have a desktop and a laptop. The desktop has everything you need and use on it plus keeps backups of your laptop, with plenty of space and power to spare. Your laptop has far less space and power so you only load it with what you need for the week or even day, then save it all to your desktop regularly. Which would you take on an overseas work trip that lasts a weekend or so? Which could you survive losing? Which is the smartest thing to use on a daily basis?

[Kuma Kode]

As i understand it you have to have the book there to cast as well as prepare. Not as far as I am aware. The book is only necessary for preparing the spell, like an instruction booklet. You prepare the spell as the book says, and near the end you hit a breakpoint where the preparation freezes. It sits in your mind already collected until you start up the spell again and do the last hand gesture or whatever to complete it. So unless you can find me a convincing quote from the books or something that says the wizard needs his spellbook present to cast, not just to prepare, the wizard could prepare from his grimoire on the ship instead.

[Kane0]

Prepared Spell Retention
Once a wizard prepares a spell, it remains in her mind as a nearly cast spell until she uses the prescribed components to complete and trigger it or until she abandons it.

You are correct.
That means that a wizard can indeed prepare spells from whatever available spellbook is on hand, with only a minor time increase for using more than the one.

So a wizard could still take their entire collection in multiple field books in a magic bag or some other extradimentional space and only need the one to access the others, negating the biggest part of the solution. Back to the drawing board unless you simply want to rule it in, but simply dosent make sense.

If anyone has a suggestion on how to circumvent this or any other idea please do :smalleek:


Edit: Also ruling in that spellbooks need to be in hand to cast would do more harm then good, especially for Gishes. Maybe including it as part of the somatic component of spells would work but only for the ones that require somatic components, and seems too clunky to me.

[Yitzi]

Basically, the problems this faces are firstly that there's nothing to keep the wizard from bringing multiple spellbooks (e.g. using bags of holding and maybe pack animals or strength items), and secondly that some spells are broken all by themselves (looking at you, shapechange and gate). If you can solve the first problem, you'll depower the wizard to what tier 2 should be, but that's still too much for noncasters.

[Prince Zahn]

Well, just read this thread thread, you probably would need to do mechanical fixes to make it work after all...
My Suggestion, per se, involves your quote, Kane:

Nah, i wouldnt go that far. just select the spells you want to have on hand and magic them into your book.
Perhaps you should keep the grimoire and field book, but tamper with the wizard as well: such as giving him a spell-like ability to magically edit his spellbook via a magical connection. The wizard will be capable of adding/ removing spells magically from his field book through the grimoire, each spell removed or added will take 1 minute/page to edit, the wizard need not concentrate on the page he is editing, so the page would finish up even if the wizard is distracted. Adding spells to the grimoire, from a field book or another grimoire, however, would require 10 minutes per page and the wizard must concentrate for that entire duration...
You cannot remove spells from a grimoire using this ability.
Allow me use your laptop-desktop analogy, where(taking it further) you would, download what you require from your bulky desktop into your easily portable laptop, should your space be full or you want to add/remove programs, what would you rather do?
A. Buy a new laptop every time it runs out of space?
Or:
B: just "connect a wire" between them and change your contents as of what you'd like for the time being, and change it's contents as you would a flash drive?

Hope this helps.
PZ.
EDIT: rather than schlepping the grimoire yourself, why not have the fighter-character in your party lug it around and use it as needed? (which though numbers are variable and considering you adventure in a party - odds are he has about 3 more points to his Strength modifier than you).

[bloodtide]

So a wizard could still take their entire collection in multiple field books in a magic bag or some other extradimentional space and only need the one to access the others, negating the biggest part of the solution. Back to the drawing board unless you simply want to rule it in, but simply dosent make sense.

If anyone has a suggestion on how to circumvent this or any other idea please do :smalleek:

Even if a grimore was 'Atlas sized'(like two feet wide/tall) there is no reason a wizard could not take that book with them. And once a wizard passes 5th level it gets very easy with extradimensional spaces, teleports, secret chests and so forth. And that is on top of a library of field books.

You can't really limit the wizard much with spellbooks. No matter the limit, the wizard can just get around it or just ignore it. For example, if you said each book only had one spell, then the wizard would just teleport home every night an sleep in the library.

And trying to limit the spellbooks ignores the three big problems with 'broken' wizards anyway:

1.Gamers will still allow a wizard to know every single spell in the multiverse with no restrictions, limits or such.

2.It won't effect the type of game that lets a wizard dominate. The typical 'low magic/low fantasy' type world where everyone just sits around like targets waiting for the wizard to effect them, for example. Plus the 'Buddy DM type' that lets a wizard play do anything with a wink and a smile.

3.It does nothing to help the players that like martial type characters and will not be happy unless martial characters can cast spells and be exactly like spellcasters in every way, except the name(otherwise known as the 4E approach).

[Grod_The_Giant]

I actually did a lot of work with this idea of two spell lists with my own wizard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230721)fix. I ultimately settled on a limited number of spells known and a big list of spells-as-rituals, which take significant periods of time to cast. You might want to take a gander at it, since I think I accomplished a similar goal to yours.

[lsfreak]

Two problems with this. One is that it doesn't really address a wizard's power, it just reinforces that the wizard determines the party's day. Now you have the whole party waiting for the wizard to re-scribe spells, rather than just having a wizard call the end of the day when his spells run too low.

The other thing is it encourages even more min-maxy behavior: if you're limited to just 3 or 4 spells per level at once, they're going to be damned powerful spells. So he may not have all the tricks of a normal wizard to be overly prepared... but preparing nothing but solid fogs, hastes, metamagicked enervations, and teleports, he's still the one single-handedly ending encounters.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The other thing is it encourages even more min-maxy behavior: if you're limited to just 3 or 4 spells per level at once, they're going to be damned powerful spells. So he may not have all the tricks of a normal wizard to be overly prepared... but preparing nothing but solid fogs, hastes, metamagicked enervations, and teleports, he's still the one single-handedly ending encounters.

You're not going to drop a spellcaster below tier 2 without either dramatically limiting the possible spells he can know (like the Warmage does) or a complete overhaul of the magic system.

[Yitzi]

3.It does nothing to help the players that like martial type characters and will not be happy unless martial characters can cast spells and be exactly like spellcasters in every way, except the name(otherwise known as the 4E approach).

That's what ToB (or 4E) is for. Many players don't want that, and that's generally the bigger challenge because you can't use ToB or 4E.


You're not going to drop a spellcaster below tier 2 without either dramatically limiting the possible spells he can know (like the Warmage does) or a complete overhaul of the magic system.

I'm pretty sure that just some limitation of the spells he can know (say only PHB ones) plus a more limited overhaul of the magic system (and of certain spells) will suffice.

[Kane0]

Pretty much your whole post


I like this idea. Does anyone else think it could work?
- The Wizard takes the standard time to prepare spells from his own field spellbook or grimoire (1 hour for all spells or 15 minutes for each individual spell)
- Memorizing spells from other sources takes much longer as he is not 'attuned' to them, and must do them individually (20 minutes per spell)
- You must be attuned to a spellbook to be able to edit it. Editing a field spellbook is one minute per page. Editing a Grimoire is 5 minutes per page.
- You can only be attuned to one field spellbook and one grimoire at any given time. Attuning to another book takes one hour per spell level of the highest level spell contained within the book.

So in the end this doesn't directly make the wizard less versatile or powerful, but does make it harder to do so.

I'm not going to make it impossible to take his grimoire with him, it is just inherently risky and inconvenient. It is mostly up to the DM to come up with devious ways to annoy the wizard for doing so and discourage the practice.

[Grod_The_Giant]

So in the end this doesn't directly make the wizard less versatile or powerful, but does make it harder to do so.

I'm going to go on-record as saying that this is a decisively bad way of nerfing... anything, really. Those who want to abuse the system can do so; they'll just inconvenience the rest of the party more (or else do the standard plane shift/faster time trick and sidestep things entirely). All you are doing is making things more difficult for "honest" players.

It's important to remember that the wizard's power is theoretical, not actual-- that is, he can be incredibly powerful if he works at it, but a poorly-played wizard may actually wind up understrength (especially due to the skill needed to pick good spells to prepare). You want fixes to hit the optimization end of the spectrum, not the casual use.

[Kane0]

It's important to remember that the wizard's power is theoretical, not actual-- that is, he can be incredibly powerful if he works at it, but a poorly-played wizard may actually wind up understrength (especially due to the skill needed to pick good spells to prepare). You want fixes to hit the optimization end of the spectrum, not the casual use.

That does seem to be the root of the problem. Does that mean that an 'easy' fix is almost entirely in the hands of the group instead of the rules? I'm at a loss as to how to go about this without rewriting 3rd ed spellcasting, which does not sound appealing.:smallfrown:

[Hiro Protagonest]

1. Buy a bag of holding, which is useful anyway
2. Put your grimoire book in it, or if that's super big, a lot of field books

There, fix circumvented.

[Grod_The_Giant]

That does seem to be the root of the problem. Does that mean that an 'easy' fix is almost entirely in the hands of the group instead of the rules? I'm at a loss as to how to go about this without rewriting 3rd ed spellcasting, which does not sound appealing.:smallfrown:

I mean, the best way not to break the game is to agree not to break the game. But as for the specific problem I identified, I'd say the best way is honestly to eliminate prepared casting. It makes more conceptual sense than spontaneous casting from slots, but it's slow, clumsy, and opens up too many problems in terms of batman casting. Pretty much everyone I've every played with agrees that spontaneous casting is more fun. The challenge is doing so in a manner that lets casters like the wizard maintain the flavor of versatility. I've tried to address the problem in my own class homebrew, but...

[bloodtide]

That does seem to be the root of the problem. Does that mean that an 'easy' fix is almost entirely in the hands of the group instead of the rules? I'm at a loss as to how to go about this without rewriting 3rd ed spellcasting, which does not sound appealing.:smallfrown:


No, the DM can always make rules for the group. The 'easy' fix, the one I use, is that the DM, not the players, is in control of the game. Very simple.

Easy fixes:

1.Drop the whole 'one roll to know everything about everything in the multiverse'. Make such things limited, so a person can't just 'remember' absolutely everything about absolutely everything.

2.Add a bit of common sense to the world. If magic was around, people would notice and act accordingly. For example, doors with three locks.

3.Add more fantasy. While a 'dirt poor harsh reality' is for some reason appealing to most DM's, adding more fantasy is an easy way to counter magic. For example the back door is guarded by archer bushes.

[Kuma Kode]

That does seem to be the root of the problem. Does that mean that an 'easy' fix is almost entirely in the hands of the group instead of the rules? I'm at a loss as to how to go about this without rewriting 3rd ed spellcasting, which does not sound appealing.:smallfrown:

That's what I was trying to get at earlier. "Easy" and "Wizard fix" cannot be uttered in the same sentence. The problem with the magic system is so fundamental and widespread amongst casters (clerics and druids are in the same boat as wizards) that there can be no easy fix. You either have to rewrite the magic system or go through and alter or ban problematic spells individually, through any splatbook you use. And if you want to publish it online and actually have it be useful to other groups, you'd have to go through ALL the splatbooks.

[Yitzi]

That does seem to be the root of the problem. Does that mean that an 'easy' fix is almost entirely in the hands of the group instead of the rules? I'm at a loss as to how to go about this without rewriting 3rd ed spellcasting, which does not sound appealing.:smallfrown:

Fixing the individual problem spells could work too...but there's no real "easy" fix that will do the job. (It can mitigate it, though, as in the case of bloodtide's fixes. They won't help make Shapechange or Gate less broken, but definitely help many other things.)


I'd say the best way is honestly to eliminate prepared casting. It makes more conceptual sense than spontaneous casting from slots, but it's slow, clumsy, and opens up too many problems in terms of batman casting. Pretty much everyone I've every played with agrees that spontaneous casting is more fun. The challenge is doing so in a manner that lets casters like the wizard maintain the flavor of versatility. I've tried to address the problem in my own class homebrew, but...

So a wizard that's more versatile than a sorcerer, but casts spontaneously, and doesn't have the batman casting phenomenon.

Perhaps the right approach is to go back to the idea of memorizing spells, but make it real memorization. So memorizing a spell isn't a matter of minutes, but more like 8 hours per spell level. But once you have a spell memorized, you can cast it spontaneously and don't expend the memorization. (You then have a limit on spells memorized separate from spells/day.)

Of course, you still run into the "fight one battle, run away to prepare for the next one" issue even if that slows things down even more than it otherwise would, but that's a problem that needs fixing anyway (likely through bloodtide's fix #2).

Another idea that might help increase versatility is to copy the psionics system for manifesting from powerstones (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#manifestAnUnknownPowerFr omAnothersPowersKnown), and let wizards cast from scrolls using their own spells/day.


No, the DM can always make rules for the group. The 'easy' fix, the one I use, is that the DM, not the players, is in control of the game. Very simple.

Easy fixes:

1.Drop the whole 'one roll to know everything about everything in the multiverse'. Make such things limited, so a person can't just 'remember' absolutely everything about absolutely everything.

2.Add a bit of common sense to the world. If magic was around, people would notice and act accordingly. For example, doors with three locks.

3.Add more fantasy. While a 'dirt poor harsh reality' is for some reason appealing to most DM's, adding more fantasy is an easy way to counter magic. For example the back door is guarded by archer bushes.


That's what I was trying to get at earlier. "Easy" and "Wizard fix" cannot be uttered in the same sentence. The problem with the magic system is so fundamental and widespread amongst casters (clerics and druids are in the same boat as wizards) that there can be no easy fix. You either have to rewrite the magic system or go through and alter or ban problematic spells individually, through any splatbook you use. And if you want to publish it online and actually have it be useful to other groups, you'd have to go through ALL the splatbooks.

[Deepbluediver]

What exactly is the fluff for not allowing the full grimoire to be carried in the field with the wizard? If it's weight, then why can't the wizard simply stuff it into a bag of holding? If it's a magical object that (for some reason) you can't put in extra dimensional space, why not just build a golem to carry it around for you?

I get what you are going for here, that giving a wizard a day (to prepare other spells) or a few weeks (to research a new one) makes for a very different theoretical scenario than what any one wizard will have prepared at a given moment.

Unfortunately, magic is so complex and so interconnected in D&D that there is no fix that is both simple and effective (at least I haven't seen one yet).

Limiting the variety of spells a wizard can prepare in a given day but not the number he can prepare overall just means any min-maxing wizard will only prepare the most game-breaking combos. This is because it's not wizards (or clerics, or druids, etc) that are broken, but the system of magic and certain individual spells.

[Grod_The_Giant]

So a wizard that's more versatile than a sorcerer, but casts spontaneously, and doesn't have the batman casting phenomenon.
Pretty much. He gets 2 spells/level spontaneously, a bunch of special "spell trick" feats (or possibly class features, if I can come up with enough) that let him alter, say, energy type on the fly, and an invented ritual mechanic, where he can cast spells from his spellbook whenever he wants, but doing so takes 10 minutes per spell level.


Perhaps the right approach is to go back to the idea of memorizing spells, but make it real memorization. So memorizing a spell isn't a matter of minutes, but more like 8 hours per spell level. But once you have a spell memorized, you can cast it spontaneously and don't expend the memorization. (You then have a limit on spells memorized separate from spells/day.)
Eh... it sounds a lot like the Spirit Shaman's casting mechanic, which I like, but time-consuming to the point where it almost requires cheese to be feasible in-game.

[NinjaStylerobot]

"Hey guy. Look, the it doesn't make much sense for you to know every spell since your focused on ________ could you mostly avoid taking other ____ spells?"

"Sure"

:smallbiggrin:

[bloodtide]

Fixing the individual problem spells could work too...but there's no real "easy" fix that will do the job. (It can mitigate it, though, as in the case of bloodtide's fixes. They won't help make Shapechange or Gate less broken, but definitely help many other things.)



So a wizard that's more versatile than a sorcerer, but casts spontaneously, and doesn't have the batman casting phenomenon.

Perhaps the right approach is to go back to the idea of memorizing spells, but make it real memorization. So memorizing a spell isn't a matter of minutes, but more like 8 hours per spell level. But once you have a spell memorized, you can cast it spontaneously and don't expend the memorization. (You then have a limit on spells memorized separate from spells/day.)

Of course, you still run into the "fight one battle, run away to prepare for the next one" issue even if that slows things down even more than it otherwise would, but that's a problem that needs fixing anyway (likely through bloodtide's fix #2).

Another idea that might help increase versatility is to copy the psionics system for manifesting from powerstones (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#manifestAnUnknownPowerFr omAnothersPowersKnown), and let wizards cast from scrolls using their own spells/day.


Well, take my three simple fixes for gate and shapechange.

1.A character can't 'just lazy roll and know about every single creature in all of existence. So that cuts down on the creatures you can gate or change into.

2.One of my favorite stories is "A Stone's Throw Away" by Roger E. Moore. And the story has a simple idea, that things like demon lords don't have intelligences of like 1. The story is simple enough: Demoraggon is often summoned by an evil wizard to do everything. But old Demo has though ahead that this might happen and has set up several escape routes and aids and such. Again, this is simple common sense.

3.More fantasy always helps vs powerful spells. You can counter anything they change into and or summon counter creatures.


But for things like Gate, I did just rewrite the spell, mostly making it the 2E version(the gated target gets a save, and you don't get automatic control over it)

[Yitzi]

Pretty much. He gets 2 spells/level spontaneously, a bunch of special "spell trick" feats (or possibly class features, if I can come up with enough) that let him alter, say, energy type on the fly, and an invented ritual mechanic, where he can cast spells from his spellbook whenever he wants, but doing so takes 10 minutes per spell level.

Interesting idea.


Eh... it sounds a lot like the Spirit Shaman's casting mechanic, which I like, but time-consuming to the point where it almost requires cheese to be feasible in-game.

The idea is similar to Spirit Shaman or Erudite (whose mechanic is similar to Spirit Shaman), but makes it a lot harder to switch stuff than those and therefore is both less subject to the Batman phenomenon and requires less OOC time (and what time it does require will usually be between adventures.)


Well, take my three simple fixes for gate and shapechange.

1.A character can't 'just lazy roll and know about every single creature in all of existence. So that cuts down on the creatures you can gate or change into.

It definitely helps with the versatility issue, but the point about those two spells is that they're broken in terms of power as well.


2.One of my favorite stories is "A Stone's Throw Away" by Roger E. Moore. And the story has a simple idea, that things like demon lords don't have intelligences of like 1. The story is simple enough: Demoraggon is often summoned by an evil wizard to do everything. But old Demo has though ahead that this might happen and has set up several escape routes and aids and such. Again, this is simple common sense.

Definitely a good idea for Gate, though not much use for Shapechange. It also doesn't help for the case where you call an allied creature.


3.More fantasy always helps vs powerful spells. You can counter anything they change into and or summon counter creatures.

And where does that leave the fighter?


But for things like Gate, I did just rewrite the spell, mostly making it the 2E version(the gated target gets a save, and you don't get automatic control over it)

Still makes gating in a Solar or epic equivalent an easy way to win encounters well above your level. More is needed.

And because I realized I quoted but forgot to respond to two earlier ones:


1.Drop the whole 'one roll to know everything about everything in the multiverse'. Make such things limited, so a person can't just 'remember' absolutely everything about absolutely everything.

Definitely a good idea. Won't always help, but needed.


2.Add a bit of common sense to the world. If magic was around, people would notice and act accordingly. For example, doors with three locks.

This is perhaps the most important point of all, as even when it can't be used directly it might inspire ideas of homebrew fixes.


3.Add more fantasy. While a 'dirt poor harsh reality' is for some reason appealing to most DM's, adding more fantasy is an easy way to counter magic. For example the back door is guarded by archer bushes.

How's that help?


That's what I was trying to get at earlier. "Easy" and "Wizard fix" cannot be uttered in the same sentence. The problem with the magic system is so fundamental and widespread amongst casters (clerics and druids are in the same boat as wizards) that there can be no easy fix. You either have to rewrite the magic system or go through and alter or ban problematic spells individually, through any splatbook you use. And if you want to publish it online and actually have it be useful to other groups, you'd have to go through ALL the splatbooks.

Or just a collection of commonly used ones.

[bloodtide]

Still makes gating in a Solar or epic equivalent an easy way to win encounters well above your level. More is needed.

A save and no control work as great fixes. I've play tested them for years and they work just fine. The save DC for gate will be 25-30, so a Solar with a +20 has a good chance of making it. And an atropal with a +43, don't bother. And even if the solar does come, remember that the caster gets no control over it. They have to ask for help or take control of the gated creature.

[Kane0]

Hmm, what about changing the spellbook into a reference book that the wizard needs to reference every week or so, then change his prepared spellcasting into spontaneous?

To summarize:
- Spell book becomes reference book
- Only need to use reference book once every few days to change spells or to maintain spells as memorized.
- Spellcasting becomes spontaneous
- Spells known as sorc
- Spells per day as Wizard (less than sorc)
- Can change 'spells known' by looking it up in his book. It takes half an hour per spell to change spells known
- Writing spells into book as normal

This way the sorc would still be better on a daily basis as he can cast more often but the sorc can change spells with a little time to prepare, lending him the edge in versatility. Sound good?

[Grod_The_Giant]

As long as the wizard has unrestricted access to combat-effective spells, it remains "broken" to a greater or lesser degree.

[Yitzi]

A save and no control work as great fixes.

Only if the called creature actually minds coming or helping you out. When a level cleric of Pelor calls on a Solar, the Solar might be willing to help even without any control.


Hmm, what about changing the spellbook into a reference book that the wizard needs to reference every week or so, then change his prepared spellcasting into spontaneous?

To summarize:
- Spell book becomes reference book
- Only need to use reference book once every few days to change spells or to maintain spells as memorized.
- Spellcasting becomes spontaneous
- Spells known as sorc
- Spells per day as Wizard (less than sorc)
- Can change 'spells known' by looking it up in his book. It takes half an hour per spell to change spells known
- Writing spells into book as normal

This way the sorc would still be better on a daily basis as he can cast more often but the sorc can change spells with a little time to prepare, lending him the edge in versatility. Sound good?

Sounds good.

[Kane0]

Sounds good.

OK, ill update my original post to this then.