a flavorful way to limit casting

[limejuicepowder]

The more dnd I play, the more I realize how outrageous spellcasters are, and I will occasionally try to think of way to "level the playing field." One night while lying in bed, I thought of the manga Hunter x hunter: it's one of my favorite, and I realized that the Nen chart matches up quite well to the schools of magic. It is not a new idea to limit the schools available, but I feel this would do it in a interesting and flavorful way.

I won't get in to the details of Nen from hunter x hunter, but the basic idea is different people have different types of energy, called nen. A person is born with an affinity for a certain type, and can only learn so much of other types of nen. The types are arranged in a "wheel," with the two types of energy on either side of a person's main type being the most easy to them to learn, after the main one. Types that are farther away are even harder to learn.

If we just replace the nen types with the schools of magic, we get something like this:

..........................Evocation.............Ab juration


................Illusion.......................... .....Transmutation



...............Enchantment........................ .....Divination



.....................Necromancy................... .Conjuration

Edit: my chart wasn't spacing correctly, please just ignore the period lines and imagine it as a circle.

When a spell caster is created, they would pick a primary school of magic. Progression in that school would progress as normal for the class in question. For the schools on either side of the main, progression would be slowed by 3 spell levels: thus, a wizard who choose conjuration would only be able to cast conjuration spells until level 7. At level 7, when he can cast level 4 spells, level 1 divination and necromancy spells would be available. They would count at level 4 spells for the wizard. In the long run, he would only be able to cast necromancy and divination spells of up to level 6, using 9th level slots. Similar rules would apply to the next two further schools, enchantment and transmutation, except the spell level would be increased by 6 (so he couldn't actually cast them until level 13, and only up to 3rd level using 9th level slots). The last two schools that are farthest away would be completely unavailable.

The location of the schools on the wheel might have to be changed, but what do y'all think of the basic idea? And yes, I know this really doesn't even go far enough to actually balance magic and mundane, but at the very least it would force spellcasters to get a bit more creative with their spells, rather then straight facerolling.

[hex0]

I like this a lot. Very flavorful and balancing. But it would drop most full casters down to low tier 2.

How does this work for the focused spontaneous casters (beguiler et al)?

[limejuicepowder]

I like this a lot. Very flavorful and balancing. But it would drop most full casters down to low tier 2.

How does this work for the focused spontaneous casters (beguiler et al)?

I'm not positive about how those classes would be handled. I'm inclined to say the exact same rules should apply; after all, a beguiler would obviously choose illusion or enchantment as a primary, and get the other at level 8. Dread necro would choose necromancy, and get the other schools later (does it even matter for them? what spells do they have besides necromancy?). Really, I don't think it would hurt the focused caster classes very much - what is the player playing that class for if they don't want to specialize?

[Redshirt Army]

Transmutation and Conjuration should be mutually exclusive, and Evocation and Enchantment should be next to them.

My tentative order:

-Evocation-Conjuration-Necromancy-Divination-Abjuration-Transmutation-Enchantment-Illusion-Evocation-

Reasoning:
Conjuration opposite Transmutation: The strongest schools are mutually exclusive.
Evocation opposite Abjuration: Attack vs. Defence
Divination opposite Illusion: Truth vs. Lies

I'm not super happy with where Necromancy and Enchantment are, but I think it works.

[Randomguy]

What about divine casters? Would this apply to them, too?

[limejuicepowder]

What about divine casters? Would this apply to them, too?

In a word, yes. In core only it might be reasonable to make it not quite so punishing, since they have a lot less spell options to begin with. But if all of the other books are added, the divine casters automatically get access to dozens of spells for each spell level. It is arguably even more necessary for them.

[Curmudgeon]

What about divine casters? Would this apply to them, too?
I don't see why not, in general. The only problem is with Clerical domains, which have spells from multiple schools. If you make an exception then Clerics get to be relatively stronger for a few select spells; however, their spell list is generally weaker than the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list, so allowing the domains as normal would be more a balancing issue with arcane spellcasters than anything else.

[Flickerdart]

The way that Conjuration and Transmutation are arranged here makes sense more than Redshirt's chart. This way, if you want a decent progression in both Conjuration and Transmutation, Divination must be your focus school, which severely limits your offensive options and requires you to be a really hardcore team player.

If you apply the same principle to divine casters, their chart ought to be different, because Evocation is way better on the divine side.

[FMArthur]

The side school reduction basically makes them useless at the time you get them and actually decent by late levels because the spell level gap is a fixed number. A Divination specialist has little to work with for a very long time, and wouldn't be fun to play for around half a wizard's career. Later on, 6th level spells in the two strongest schools on a prepared caster is still pretty far from bad in a Tier 3ish game. It would just play like a more versatile Tier 3 at that point.

And you'd still get all the usual problems from specialists of certain schools regardless of it all.

This is one of the more nonintrusive alterations, but in the end I still prefer the idea of limiting spell progressions to just scaling up to 6ths on the T1 casters and 7ths for T2 and not messing with actual casting systems overmuch. It makes playing those classes over others a trade of power for versatility. The real specialists in Warmage et al. can play nicely alongside their superior cousins this way and actually be the masters of their fields. It also doesn't harm all the wonderful book support and ACFs the classes have gotten that makes them so fun in 3.5.

[Coidzor]

Conjuration and Transmutation, for balance, would probably need to be opposite one another.

[Curmudgeon]

If you apply the same principle to divine casters, their chart ought to be different, because Evocation is way better on the divine side.
You sure about that? Conjuration will be unavailable if you select any Evocation option, meaning the whole divine healing thing (spontaneous or otherwise) is just eliminated. I think that's a pretty big drawback, so having Evocation opposite Conjuration is a good choice. Redshirt Army's chart would make for a much stronger divine spellcaster, obviously.

[Venger]

I think this is pretty interesting and a much better idea than most of the caster nerfs I've seen. I would want to play this.

[Acanous]

Divination-Abjuration-Transmutation

^Right there is probably the strongest possible choice for a Wizard.
6th level Divinations and Transmutations, and 9th level Abjurations, Focused Master Specialist (Abjuration) into Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil.

You're missing out on Conjuration. That's pretty much the only weakness of that build.

Any way you arrange the wheel is going to have at least one exploitable power peak, though. Since some schools are just plain weaker than others (Necromancy, Enchantment, Evocation) and there's a "Big three", not a "Big four" or "Big Two" (Transmutation, Conjuration, Abjuration) Illusion and Divination get the "Middle of the Road", and should be mutually exclusive.

The best way I can fit the wheel would be;

Divination-Enchantment-Conjuration-Evocation-Illusion-Abjuration-Necromancy-Transmutation-Divination.

So nobody can pull a "Scry and Die" 'til the very late game, and every school has options for any fight.

I'd preffer to put Illusion next to necromancy and removed from Conjuration and Evocation for synergy reasons, but then I'd have to put Conjuration and Abjuration next to Divination and BOTH of those things are flat out unfair.

Actually, reworking the wheel like that...

Abjuration-Divination-Conjuration-Evocation-Transmutation-Necromancy-Illusion-Enchantment-Abjuration

Could also work. Conjuration, Divination and Abjuration work together in cases like Planar Binding, and Necromancy, Illusion, and Enchantment share all Fear effects, a good deal of all Mind Affecting, and seem a bit "Darker". Tossing Transmutation in between Evocation and Necromancy sits kinda funny with me, but like a Transmuter needs any other school, anyhow.
Conj and Evo share direct damage. Transmutation and Necromancy both inflict ability damage. So does Illusion, so Necro specialists get all three.

[gomipile]

Certain Divination spells would have to be moved to the Universal school for the same reason that Divination cannot be banned as a specialist wizard. Detect Magic and Read Magic, in particular, need to be available to every wizard starting at level 1, no exceptions.

[Curmudgeon]

Detect Magic and Read Magic, in particular, need to be available to every wizard starting at level 1, no exceptions.
And why is that? Wizards can always prepare Read Magic from memory, but that's not strictly necessary; they start with their initial spells in their spellbook, automatically gain 2 additional spells each level, and can learn more with a couple Spellcraft checks each, without using Read Magic. And Detect Magic is something that's useful, but casting spells and detecting other casters' spells are different things; there's no requirement for Detect Magic.

Since the entire point here is to limit casting, limiting casting of these two spells is also perfectly fine.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I had actually had an idea somewhere along the lines, but it went basically like this:

Instead of wizards "banning" schools to specialize, they instead chose a school to specialize in--and only cast spells from that school. Every two spell levels, they can select new schools, and cast and prepare spells from that school as if they were a caster of four levels lower; this is represented as a wizard broadening their knowledge as they advance in the arcane arts. Thus, you get a second school at spellcaster level 5; a third school at spellcaster level 9; a fourth at spellcaster level 13; and a fifth at spellcaster level 17. You don't get your sixth school and onward until epic levels. At level 17, when you take your fifth school of spells, you can cast up to 9th level spells from your first school, 7th level spells from your second school, 5th level spells from your third school, 3rd level spells from your fourth school, and 1st level spells from your fifth school (but you cast them at the level available; so a 4th-level spell from the third school is still cast in a 4th-level spell slot).

For "high-power" games, start with two spell schools.

I like the spell wheel, though, as you can balance it a lot more easily (with transmutation and conjuration being mutually exclusive, for example).

[Redshirt Army]

Divination-Abjuration-Transmutation
Since some schools are just plain weaker than others (Necromancy, Enchantment, Evocation) and there's a "Big three", not a "Big four" or "Big Two" (Transmutation, Conjuration, Abjuration) Illusion and Divination get the "Middle of the Road", and should be mutually exclusive.



I was under the impression that Illusion was the third best school, not Abjuration.

[Shadowknight12]

I was under the impression that Illusion was the third best school, not Abjuration.

Depends on the DM. If you have a DM that lets you get away with imaginative uses of illusions, Illusion is third best. If you have a DM that basically turns your illusions to wastes of spell slots, Abjuration becomes third best. In a middle-of-the-road DM, Abjuration wins by a small margin because Dispel Magic really is that good.

[hex0]

Abjuration has two of the best prcs focused on a school: Initiate of the Seven Fold Veil and Abjurant Champion.

Though Divination gets Unseen Seer...And Conjurers get Malconvoker.

Others get meh prcs: Master Transmorgrifist and Argent Savant.

[FMArthur]

Enchantment Fear-based Necromancy drags itself out of the gutter with Dread Witch, though!

EDIT: Ugh, I always forget that fear effects come from the school of Pure Nonsense instead of Enchantment.

[Dr_S]

What about classes that aren't full caster?

Bards,
Rangers,
Paladins,
Artificers,
etc.

What about 0-level spells?

Would a bard only be able to cast 0-level spells from a single school?

[Hiro Protagonest]

Depends on the DM. If you have a DM that lets you get away with imaginative uses of illusions, Illusion is third best. If you have a DM that basically turns your illusions to wastes of spell slots, Abjuration becomes third best. In a middle-of-the-road DM, Abjuration wins by a small margin because Dispel Magic really is that good.

Shadow Evocation, Shadow Conjuration, Greater Shadow Conjuration, Shades. Pump your save DCs with ability score boosts, Spell Focus, and some other stuff that I don't know about (I'm not able to super-op caster save DCs and SR penetration).

[Shadowknight12]

Shadow Evocation, Shadow Conjuration, Greater Shadow Conjuration, Shades. Pump your save DCs with ability score boosts, Spell Focus, and some other stuff that I don't know about (I'm not able to super-op caster save DCs and SR penetration).

Shadow Evocation doesn't let you replicate any of the good Evocation spells (Gust of Wind, Contingency, etc), and if you're replicating bad Evocation spells for a percentage of their actual realism, might as well play an evoker and feel slightly more useful.

Shadow Conjuration. What are you doing with Shadow Conjuration. What do you need Shadow Conjuration for. Oh my. Oh my, you banned Conjuration, didn't you. I don't know what to say. I am simply flabbergasted.

EDIT: And on top of that, Dispel Magic is still better.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Shadow Conjuration. What are you doing with Shadow Conjuration. What do you need Shadow Conjuration for. Oh my. Oh my, you banned Conjuration, didn't you. I don't know what to say. I am simply flabbergasted.

In this system, Illusion is nearly opposite of Conjuration. You have no choice if you wish to be an Illusionist. Evoker is also rather good under this system, with access to Abjurations. Sure Conjuration + Divination gives you some good stuff if you get downtime, as well as the best wizard BFC and the best summons, but it's still not much more powerful.

Under this system, the three best builds are
1) Transmuter. Spell Versatility becomes extremely awesome under this system.
2) Illusionist. You have every blast spell in the game at one level higher. This is The Mailman of this system.
3) Abjurer. You get good Evocations and Transmutations, along with Abjuration for the rare gem.

[Shadowknight12]

In this system, Illusion is nearly opposite of Conjuration. You have no choice if you wish to be an Illusionist. Evoker is also rather good under this system. Sure Conjuration + Divination gives you some good stuff if you get downtime, as well as the best wizard BFC and the best summons, but it's still not much more powerful.

Under this system, the two best builds are
1) Transmuter. Spell Versatility becomes extremely awesome under this system.
2) Illusionist. You have every blast spell in the game at one level higher. This is The Mailman of this system.

*shrug* I'd still throw my chips with the Abjurer (though which schools end up next to it would make it more or less powerful than usual), simply because yeah, being The Mailman feels satisfying and all that, but Abjuration has great damaging spells too (Maw of Chaos comes to mind), protections, immunities and will wreck the day of any caster or caster-like monster that comes within range.

Transmuter and Conjurer are still the best, though, no doubt about that.

[Hiro Protagonest]

*shrug* I'd still throw my chips with the Abjurer (though which schools end up next to it would make it more or less powerful than usual), simply because yeah, being The Mailman feels satisfying and all that, but Abjuration has great damaging spells too (Maw of Chaos comes to mind), protections, immunities and will wreck the day of any caster or caster-like monster that comes within range.

Transmuter and Conjurer are still the best, though, no doubt about that.

I added in the Abjurer. I'm not sure the Conjurer is significantly more powerful than the Illusionist in this one.

[Shadowknight12]

I added in the Abjurer. I'm not sure the Conjurer is significantly more powerful than the Illusionist in this one.

Objects automatically succeed their saving throws (and are therefore unaffected) against Shadow Conjuration and its ilk (same goes for Shadow Evocation). The illusionist fools people, not reality itself. Sure, they make for a great Mailman and can substitute for a summoner in a pinch, but affecting anything else is impossible with shadows, which a Conjurer can and will do. Also, disbelieving a Grease or Web spell won't cause the Conjurer to potentially waste a spell slot. Oh, and:


In addition, any effect created by shadow conjuration allows spell resistance, even if the spell it is simulating does not.

The true source of Conjuration(Creation)'s overpoweredness is its usual lack of SR, which Shadow Conjuration handily brings back.

[limejuicepowder]

What about classes that aren't full caster?

Bards,
Rangers,
Paladins,
Artificers,
etc.

What about 0-level spells?

Would a bard only be able to cast 0-level spells from a single school?

I hadn't really though that far, actually. I was just thinking of the full casters, since they are the ones that are overpowered.

I would probably leave those classes untouched. Primarily, they aren't insanely overpowered and don't need a nerf like full casters do. Fluff-wise, I think this is a justifiable position because they aren't full casters; the nature of their magic is more supportive and "jack of all trades," thus they maintain the same progression. Also keep in mind that these classes unchanged progressions would be similar to a full caster's nerfed progression, just because they only get 4 or 6 levels of spells to begin with.

[FMArthur]

Actually... Artificer is one of the most overpowered classes in the game. Erudite and Psion also merit adjustment to be in line with the nerfed casters. Those three are the tier 1s and tier 2s unaffected by your change that might see use alongside the others that got nerfed.

There are also others that are 'full casters' that go up to 9s and aren't in need of a nerf at all. Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Shadowcaster, Warmage and Healer operate just fine in a game without being overpowered. Some of them even need buffs.