Yet another balance thread: taking Tier 1 down a notch

[ILM]

It has been my long-standing crusade to bring a semblance of balance back to the system and to bring most classes back around a place where everyone can play together.

I have a number of fixes here and there already, and I'm thinking on introducing more. At this point of course, it may well be more efficient to just move to another system, but fixing 3.5 has become something of a hobby I guess.

Today, I'm looking at casters.

Certainly, part of the problem is in the spells themselves, and they can be amended as needed. I already have a small ban-list, and the Polymorphs and Binding spells were the first to be completely rewritten. I am satisfied with them at present and they're not the topic of discussion here.

I think however (and a tip of the hat to Tippy, who helped nail down some of these points), that most of the problem comes from the classes themselves.

Problems:

Sheer offensive power: save-or-sucks are one thing, but casters can also layer tons of hp (or ability or level) damage with the proper stacking of metamagic.
Mega-defenses.
Versatility. Duh. Even without tricks to change your selection on the fly, the ability to switch your loadout with 8 hours of rest is powerful enough compared to classes that can change their abilities once in never. Even without that, there are enough always useful spells that you'll rarely find yourself facing a threat you can't do anything about. Spontaneous casters with limited spells known rely on picking useful spells but have increased versatility during any given day considering they don't prepare anything. Plus, runestaves.
Owning the action economy. Between swift spells, Time Stop, Quicken, Persistent and the like, casters have the easiest way of breaking the action economy. Familiars and summons only tend to make it worse.


With the above in mind, I have a few changes in mind I'd like some feedback on:

The end of metamagic reduction stacking. Metamagic feats can only be reduced once, twice exceptionally if the character also has Arcane Thesis. No more Easy MM + Practical MM + Incantatrix + whatever. No spell can be reduced below its original level, and no spell level adjustment can be reduced below +0. Save-or-die spells have been reworked already as part of other changes that are not relevant here. They are no longer as lethal.
A boost to Dispel Magic. First, you can't counterspell a Dispel anymore - in fact, it bypasses all defenses. Spell Immunity, Spell Turning, etc. have no effect on a Dispel. Second, if you're hit by a targeted Dispel, you lose one prepared spell (or slot) of the highest level available to you, à la negative level. I hesitate to allow a save. That should encourage Dispel wars between casters.
Class changes: Sorcerers, Favoured Souls, Archivist and Artificer are gone. Wizards and Clerics now cast spontaneously, using new spells known/ per day tables of a(n old) Sorcerer of their level+1. A feat is added to base spellcasting on Cha if they prefer.
Clerics can pick one (1) domain and gain the power and add the spells to their spells known. Good clerics also add cure spells, while evil clerics add inflict spells to their spells known. Wizards can specialize and add one spell of each level of their specialization school to their spells known. Clerics and Wizards who choose not to do so gain two extra spells per day of each level.
Bonus spells from high abilities are gone.
Druids casting is delayed by two levels.
Spontaneous metamagic no longer increases casting time. Sorcerer and Favored Soul ACFs are opened up to the new Wizards and Clerics.
Quicken Spell, Persistent Spell and Repeating Spell are gone. Called creatures lose the ability to summon more of their kind (but, at this stage, not to summon other creatures if they can).


As you can see, I don't do subtlety very well. Thoughts? I suspect my class changes may have a number of unforeseen consequences and I'd appreciate any that you can think of.

[Acanous]

eliminating sorceror and changing wizard seems a bit much to me.
When I set out to rebalance casters, I only changed the following:

1: You may only apply Eschew Materials to mundane, easilly-accessable items. No Eschew Materials (Ice Assassin) to get yourself a pet God.
2: All spells without "Swift Action" cast time now require a full round action to cast. They happen on your next turn, right before your initiative, like summoning a monster. Quicken Spell changes a spell's casting time to "Standard Action" instead of "Swift".
3: Swift action spells such as Feather Fall, Wings of Cover, Etc. Interrupt any other spell you were casting. You do not lose the spell, but it is not cast and you must start over on your initiative.

That seemed to balance things really well in my group, as spells now require some forethought and casters need to rely on party members to protect them while casting.

[DefKab]

It has been my long-standing crusade to bring a semblance of balance back to the system and to bring most classes back around a place where everyone can play together.

I have a number of fixes here and there already, and I'm thinking on introducing more. At this point of course, it may well be more efficient to just move to another system, but fixing 3.5 has become something of a hobby I guess.

Today, I'm looking at casters.

Certainly, part of the problem is in the spells themselves, and they can be amended as needed. I already have a small ban-list, and the Polymorphs and Binding spells were the first to be completely rewritten. I am satisfied with them at present and they're not the topic of discussion here.

I think however (and a tip of the hat to Tippy, who helped nail down some of these points), that most of the problem comes from the classes themselves.

Problems:

Sheer offensive power: save-or-sucks are one thing, but casters can also layer tons of hp (or ability or level) damage with the proper stacking of metamagic.
Mega-defenses.
Versatility. Duh. Even without tricks to change your selection on the fly, the ability to switch your loadout with 8 hours of rest is powerful enough compared to classes that can change their abilities once in never. Even without that, there are enough always useful spells that you'll rarely find yourself facing a threat you can't do anything about. Spontaneous casters with limited spells known rely on picking useful spells but have increased versatility during any given day considering they don't prepare anything. Plus, runestaves.
Owning the action economy. Between swift spells, Time Stop, Quicken, Persistent and the like, casters have the easiest way of breaking the action economy. Familiars and summons only tend to make it worse.


With the above in mind, I have a few changes in mind I'd like some feedback on:

The end of metamagic reduction stacking. Metamagic feats can only be reduced once, twice exceptionally if the character also has Arcane Thesis. No more Easy MM + Practical MM + Incantatrix + whatever. No spell can be reduced below its original level, and no spell level adjustment can be reduced below +0. Save-or-die spells have been reworked already as part of other changes that are not relevant here. They are no longer as lethal.
A boost to Dispel Magic. First, you can't counterspell a Dispel anymore - in fact, it bypasses all defenses. Spell Immunity, Spell Turning, etc. have no effect on a Dispel. Second, if you're hit by a targeted Dispel, you lose one prepared spell (or slot) of the highest level available to you, à la negative level. I hesitate to allow a save. That should encourage Dispel wars between casters.
Class changes: Sorcerers, Favoured Souls, Archivist and Artificer are gone. Wizards and Clerics now cast spontaneously, using new spells known/ per day tables of a(n old) Sorcerer of their level+1. A feat is added to base spellcasting on Cha if they prefer.
Clerics can pick one (1) domain and gain the power and add the spells to their spells known. Good clerics also add cure spells, while evil clerics add inflict spells to their spells known. Wizards can specialize and add one spell of each level of their specialization school to their spells known. Clerics and Wizards who choose not to do so gain two extra spells per day of each level.
Bonus spells from high abilities are gone.
Druids casting is delayed by two levels.
Spontaneous metamagic no longer increases casting time. Sorcerer and Favored Soul ACFs are opened up to the new Wizards and Clerics.
Quicken Spell, Persistent Spell and Repeating Spell are gone. Called creatures lose the ability to summon more of their kind (but, at this stage, not to summon other creatures if they can).


As you can see, I don't do subtlety very well. Thoughts? I suspect my class changes may have a number of unforeseen consequences and I'd appreciate any that you can think of.

I had a thought once you mentioned versatility. Fighters biggest (and only?) asset are their feats, which, as they mentioned, can be changed never. What if they could? What if a fighter could change their preset feats at will? Like a stance? They could go from a two weapon fighting chain to an archer change in much the same way as the Tome of Battle classes. Would that help at all to alleviate their lack of versatility?

[INoKnowNames]

I don't remember who, but I did see someone who noted that transformation spells allow casters to basically dump all of their physical stats and being still super powerful in melee while having access to spells, and that taking those away and forcing the character to learn an individual form spell by spell reduces a lot of their power. Although Druids would still have Wildshape...

[ILM]

I don't remember who, but I did see someone who noted that transformation spells allow casters to basically dump all of their physical stats and being still super powerful in melee while having access to spells, and that taking those away and forcing the character to learn an individual form spell by spell reduces a lot of their power. Although Druids would still have Wildshape...
Like I said, Polymorph spells have already been taken care of. I haven't really focused on Wildshape yet but I suspect banning Natural Spell might be enough to curb those excesses.

[Sutremaine]

I've been drawing up some house rules for future use. Apart from the brute force option of stopping spells and SLAs of 4th level or over from working (originally this was just a kneecapping, but it's since been worked into the setting), I've allowed more flexibility in character rebuilding. Here's what I wrote for feat and skill retraining:

Feats may be retrained after eight hours' rest plus one day's training for each feat being retrained. Your final feat distribution must be legal, and any feat or PrC requirements must still be met. Feats may not be retrained at the same time as skills, and eight hours of uninterrupted training constitutes one day for the purposes of feat retraining. Feats whose effects are nullified in an AMF may not be retrained using this method.


Skills may be retrained after eight hours' rest plus one hour's meditation, study, or training for every skill point moved, plus one hour per skill being altered. Your final skill distribution must be legal, and any feat or PrC rank requirements must still be met. Skills may not be retrained at the same time as feats, and skill retraining may be done for only eight hours a day.

Other changes:

Feat at every second BAB increase instead of every third level.
Grease requires a +5 Balance modifier to avoid flat-footedness, not 5 ranks in Balance. (Spells like these are the major reason I simply cut off most of them. Too many win buttons.)
No spells messing with the initiative order.
Feat chains are made to scale by handing out the next feat in the series for free as soon as it could be taken normally. There's a lot of text on this one, but that sentence covers the basics.
Using Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue and Paladin fixes on this forum.
A strict book list. Things in the list can be chosen freely, things not in the list have to be approved.


Perhaps oddly, there are no magical fumbles. I did draw some up using a system which I thought worked pretty well, but it was tossed out when I tossed out most spell levels. Results on the table were decided by rolling 1d50 and subtracting your HD, and the fumbles were numbered so that full casters who could reached certain spell levels were no longer subject to the nastier fumbles.

[moritheil]

Problems:

Sheer offensive power: save-or-sucks are one thing, but casters can also layer tons of hp (or ability or level) damage with the proper stacking of metamagic.
Mega-defenses.
Versatility. Duh. Even without tricks to change your selection on the fly, the ability to switch your loadout with 8 hours of rest is powerful enough compared to classes that can change their abilities once in never. Even without that, there are enough always useful spells that you'll rarely find yourself facing a threat you can't do anything about. Spontaneous casters with limited spells known rely on picking useful spells but have increased versatility during any given day considering they don't prepare anything. Plus, runestaves.
Owning the action economy. Between swift spells, Time Stop, Quicken, Persistent and the like, casters have the easiest way of breaking the action economy. Familiars and summons only tend to make it worse.



While you're not wrong, I don't think any of these is the biggest advantage casters have. The advantage casters have is agency - the ability to say "I cast a spell and reshape the world, or at least change the terms of the encounter." Even at low levels, a single Charm Person that lands on the right target at the right time can save 3-4 fights worth of resources in a story and speed up problem solving tremendously. I'm not taking about casting it in the fight; I'm talking about casting it before there is ever a fight, and then just waltzing through with your new buddy the mayor (or bandit king, or whatever.) The problem only gets more severe as levels increase and is in some way analogous to the problem of having a diplomancer and a bunch of fighters in a party: the fighters interact with challenges in terms of hit points, AC, etc. and the caster is both solving problems differently and interacting with NPCs differently (with their Will saves, say, instead of with their hit points and AC.)

Rope Trick is also a notorious paradigm shift for those willing to abuse it (and for DMs unwilling to stop them.) You can now face most combats with a full day's worth of resources, rather than 1/4 of a day's worth of resources. To stop them from doing this requires taking away their agency as players - their control of the world - and many players do not handle that well. With a fighter, they have no pretensions of controlling time and space to begin with, so there's less potential for argument when the DM informs them that conditions are not good.

[Curmudgeon]

Class changes: Sorcerers, Favoured Souls, Archivist and Artificer are gone. Wizards and Clerics now cast spontaneously, using ...
I don't see the point. This reminds me quite a lot of many Pathfinder changes, which seem to be intended to change things to satisfy arbitrary personal quirks rather than to fix anything.

Either you dump all Tier 1 and Tier 2 classes (a viable option), or you leave them and address the spell power issue directly. Banning a weaker class like Favored Soul (2 casting stats) and tweaking Cleric to be different doesn't directly address the problem. You're apparently equating spells known with spellcaster power, but that's only part of the problem; you're just going to increase the value of spells with multiple options (like Summon Monster, Alter Self, & c.). You're also partially addressing metamagic cost reduction shenanigans. Why not just insist that all metamagic cost reductions are gone, and the minimum cost of each metamagic effect is +1 spell level?

Here are some ways of reining in spellcaster power:

Costs of scrolls are 10x higher than standard. That also includes a 10x increase in the time to scribe your own scrolls.
Scrolls rarely appear in treasure.
Wizards fight to the death, or destroy their spellbooks, to keep you from copying their spells.
Rocks fall on Wizard PCs who know about spells the DM hasn't apprised them of in-game.
Gods/Nature frequently say "no" when PCs pray for spells.
Casting a spell causes the spellcaster 1 point of damage per spell level, +1 point per CL above the minimum. This damage can't be magically reduced/negated, converted to nonlethal damage, or healed by fast healing. Changing form always leaves this spellcasting damage intact. Furthermore, no spellcaster can heal their own spellcasting damage.

[Snowbluff]

Sigh... :smallsigh:

Okay. T1 are broke because they have a variety of options unmatched by any other tier. How to fix this? Limit these options. Make Wizards only be able to cast out of 2-3 schools. Make Clerics cast primarily out of their Domains known, and then give them a set list of spells in addition to fill out their lists a little. Simple fixes like this bring them down closer to T2, and even to T3 in some cases.

[Sutremaine]

Rope Trick is also a notorious paradigm shift for those willing to abuse it (and for DMs unwilling to stop them.) You can now face most combats with a full day's worth of resources, rather than 1/4 of a day's worth of resources. To stop them from doing this requires taking away their agency as players - their control of the world - and many players do not handle that well. With a fighter, they have no pretensions of controlling time and space to begin with, so there's less potential for argument when the DM informs them that conditions are not good.
That's also part of the problem. Players assume that the privileged position the Wizard occupies in the game rules is the correct one and there's nothing unbalanced about it, therefore there's no problem, and not having this power is what is considered a problem.

Rope Trick as often as possible is the only sensible response to the existence of the spell, but countering Rope Trick is the only sensible counter-response. If somebody knows that their opponent would like to take eight hours off between battles, deprive them of either their time (by moving quickly) or their safety (by finding the Rope Trick's entrance and setting an ambush).

You'd think that somewhere in the history of magic someone would have developed a spell that detects dimensional interfaces of the sort that Rope Trick uses.

[Morph Bark]

A boost to Dispel Magic. First, you can't counterspell a Dispel anymore - in fact, it bypasses all defenses. Spell Immunity, Spell Turning, etc. have no effect on a Dispel. Second, if you're hit by a targeted Dispel, you lose one prepared spell (or slot) of the highest level available to you, à la negative level. I hesitate to allow a save. That should encourage Dispel wars between casters.

The problem with this is that if it bypasses all defenses, noncasters will also not be able to get any defense against it and suddenly find themselves without the use of their magic items. The second part as an addition seems like an idea though, since that only targets casters.

You could always have it allow a Ref save. :smalltongue:


Class changes: Sorcerers, Favoured Souls, Archivist and Artificer are gone. Wizards and Clerics now cast spontaneously, using new spells known/ per day tables of a(n old) Sorcerer of their level+1. A feat is added to base spellcasting on Cha if they prefer.
Clerics can pick one (1) domain and gain the power and add the spells to their spells known. Good clerics also add cure spells, while evil clerics add inflict spells to their spells known. Wizards can specialize and add one spell of each level of their specialization school to their spells known. Clerics and Wizards who choose not to do so gain two extra spells per day of each level.
Bonus spells from high abilities are gone.
Druids casting is delayed by two levels.
Spontaneous metamagic no longer increases casting time. Sorcerer and Favored Soul ACFs are opened up to the new Wizards and Clerics.

This sounds rather limiting to me and disables a lot of fun builds that depend on the classes you remove. There is already a spontaneous Cleric variant if you weren't aware of that. A spontaneous Wizard? Lolwut, you just banned the Sorcerer, which is exactly that, but with a different casting stat, except you now have bonus feats and can get more spells and power by specializing, making your problem worse. A well-done spontaneous Wizard, IMO, would require their spellbook to cast every single spell and would possibly be required to specialize, thus limiting his spell access. Aside from that, you could just nerf problematic spells and call it a day.

The big problem with casters after all isn't the way they work, it's their spells. If you nerf them on both accounts, they drop so far that they'll even look up to Beguilers and Dread Necromancers, because at least they have class abilities.


Quicken Spell, Persistent Spell and Repeating Spell are gone. Called creatures lose the ability to summon more of their kind (but, at this stage, not to summon other creatures if they can).

Repeating Spell (and Twin perhaps) I can agree on you with. Persistent Spell is okay as long as its spell level adjustment isn't lowered incredibly through metamagic reducers, which you've already largely adressed. Quicken I'd say you perhaps just should need to increase the level adjustment of to prevent use on problematic spells, but otherwise it's fine enough if you've nerfed the overpowered spells.

[Ashtagon]

Curiously, in 2e, the rope trick spell had a duration of 20 minutes per level (not one hour), making it impossible to use for the popular 3.x era trick.

1e also limited it to 6 people, instead of 8 in 2e/3e.

[Roguenewb]

You could try something like what I use for low-magic campaigns, I call it:

Casting Is Hard

To cast a spell successfully, the caster must succeed on a Spellcraft Check DC (15+Spell Level+Caster Level). Caster level may be voluntarily reduced to the minimum level required to cast the spell. In addition, Spellcraft skill is now based off of your casting stat (stays INT if not a caster). If a caster fails the check, and has a move action remaining this turn, they may all the time until the beginning of their next turn attempting to salvage the spell. If they do, they may make a second check at the beginning of their next turn, with a DC of 3 less. Salvaging a spell always provokes attacks of opportunity. A caster salvaging may not take AoOs or move through any means.

Secondly, Spellcraft DCs for spell casting are also increased by the resistance of the Universe to constant tampering. The DC increases by 1 for each previous spell a caster has cast since last resting. Wish or Miracle may be used to reset this strain for the day, but doing so always costs 5,000 XP. Also, the universe resists long term tampering, and manipulating the dweomer weaves is more complicated the more you are currently holding, the casting DC increases by 2 for each ongoing spell effect you have. Spells with a duration of permanent do not apply for this. Applying a metamagic feat causes the DC to go up (as the spell level is now higher), and imposes an additional +5 to the spellcraft DC because of the complexity of modifying spells.

Finally, classes with a single spell list that they know all of and cast spontaneously (beguillers, warmages, and dread necros) recieve a competence bonus on their spellcraft checks to cast spells equal to their caster level, and receive no penalty for previously cast spells.

[moritheil]

That's also part of the problem. Players assume that the privileged position the Wizard occupies in the game rules is the correct one and there's nothing unbalanced about it, therefore there's no problem, and not having this power is what is considered a problem.

Yes. Actually, I think my phrasing of the situation suggests a way to handle it. The problem with casters isn't just that they have options outside of combat that the rest of the party can't compete with. It's that they have those options outside of combat, and are still king of the hill in combat. (Maybe not at the very start - but at level 5+, an enemy caster is the scariest person to most parties, because he can easily cause a TPK if everyone fails their save.)

A sorcerer at least has to decide between having Charm type effects in their known spells and having combat effects, which is a little better, though metamagic lets them get around this somewhat (heighten spell to make Charm Person a higher level spell with a higher save DC, etc.) A wizard or cleric laughs and simply prepares an entirely different spell set: heavy utility one day, teleportation the next, heavy combat the third day. To top it off, they get divinations which tell them which set they are likely to need.

So, logically . . . a few solutions suggest themselves.

Give the other character types the ability to compete at modifying the world outside of combat (which AFAIK is only possible with high skill classes like the rogue and bard, and doesn't scale very well like spells do)
Make wizard-types useless in combat, or at least, make casting spells useless in combat (which Exalted does - your focused sorcerer may have all kinds of options, but few of them are useable in the time frame of actual combat)
Remove the options for heavily modifying the world outside of combat (which 4e does, leading to complaints that it's limited to dungeon crawls instead of world simulation)
Remove all ways of foreknowledge from any class that has prepared spells as a part of its balance (a Reverse Skip Williams approach - instead of nobody banning divinations, everyone effectively is barred from divinations, at least those about the future)
Remove metamagic or modify it to be infeasible in combat, as it mitigates the problem of very limited spells known as well as mitigating the problem of action economy caps on damage or general spell output (the We Hate Sorcerers approach that WOTC took, only more severe and applied to all casters)
Only allow classes with one power per spell level, like the Wilder and the Divine Crusader.


Rope Trick as often as possible is the only sensible response to the existence of the spell, but countering Rope Trick is the only sensible counter-response. If somebody knows that their opponent would like to take eight hours off between battles, deprive them of either their time (by moving quickly) or their safety (by finding the Rope Trick's entrance and setting an ambush.

This kind of DM/PC escalation is why some groups have tacit agreements to not exploit Rope Trick, and pretend it doesn't exist. Other things I have seen include the campaign when people aren't careful around the interdimensional boundary ("You walk in?! You were carrying your bag of holding!" "Okay, good campaign guys.") but I don't think that's a model for game balance.

[ILM]

Removing Sorcs and making Wizards spontaneous was actually a way to merge them. The intention was more to remove Wizards and have Sorcs take their place. Personally, I prefer the spontaneous casters: it's just easier bookkeeping, and you aren't at risk of them gaining millions of spells known. Unfortunately, WotC hates them: they have a fraction of the ACFs and other character building options that prepared casters have. I like specialist wizards, why can't I have a spontaneous Sorc? And so on.

But in the end you guys are right. The change is too big to fit in 3.5e without requiring a bunch of changes to feats and abilities and PrC prerequs, and achieves too little in terms of balance. So I'm ditching it.

I'm keeping the removal of bonus spells, the obligation for Wizards to specialize and the delayed Druid casting though. Now if I found something for Clerics...

[Curmudgeon]

I'm keeping the removal of bonus spells, the obligation for Wizards to specialize and the delayed Druid casting though. Now if I found something for Clerics...

All Clerics are Cloistered Clerics.
Gods don't grant Divine Power when you pray for daily spells.
There are no metamagic cost reducers (my default for any game which seeks to temper spellcasting power), so no Divine Metamagic.
That keeps the Cleric at low BAB and removes all but light armor proficiency. Melee combat becomes pretty risky, and Clerics have a much weaker portfolio of non-melee offensive spells than arcane casters. Buffing and healing aren't where most of the problems lie.

[Waker]

Here are a few of my houserules.
I like to limit the power of teleport spells. I increase the casting time (usually 1 or 10 minutes) and the spells can only take one to one of several specific locations (usually at a nexus of leylines). This allows you to limit if not outright prevent Scry and Die tactics, while also limiting the ability to use it as a viable escape tactic. I usually leave Dimension Door alone, but that's it.
Rope Trick is banned outright.
Casting defensively is 10 + Spell Level + BAB of the Threatening Opponent. If you are hit while casting a spell, you lose it, period.


Casting a spell causes the spellcaster 1 point of damage per spell level, +1 point per CL above the minimum. This damage can't be magically reduced/negated, converted to nonlethal damage, or healed by fast healing. Changing form always leaves this spellcasting damage intact. Furthermore, no spellcaster can heal their own spellcasting damage.
I like the idea. Would really make the player think twice about going crazy with the spells.

[Feralventas]

For Clerics, my usual nerf is that they get to keep their spell-list, but that their normal 'casting progression is switched with the Bard's spells per day set. They keep their normal access to their domain spell slot, so they do have some of their normal full 'casting, but it's a precious thing to them now once they start moving up past 5th level. It doesn't shoot them in the foot, and it doesn't prevent them from doing their job (healing, fighting, 'casting, w/e) but it slows their progression and makes them very careful about how they use their one big spell for the day.

Wizards I reduce to a single school of magic; gaining access to another school requires multi-classing as a wizard of the additional school.

Druids aren't allowed to have metal gear of any sort after 5th level, no magical gear after 10th, no artificial gear at all after 15th. They still have tons of options, but they'll have low DC's and few bonus spells.

Sorcerers are down to the Wizard's spells per day set, though still spontaneous.

Archivists are down to the Bard's spells per day set, as per Cleric.

Not sure what to do about Erudite or Artificer, though considering the latter's dependancy on prep-time, I've found it's not as troublesome as it's toted to be.


As for the Rope Trick, by the time your players have it, their foes should have a Bag of Holding. Look up the BoH+Portable Hole trick for an example of what happens when you put an extra-dimensional space in an extra-dimensional space. Then either have the folks inside the Rope Trick re-roll, or if they use it several times, prepare for a jaunt to the Astral Plane and have the Githyanki teach 'em a lesson.

[Roguenewb]

You could try for something like stealing Mage's Paradox system, but that would be...well...a huge goddamn overhaul of D&D. You could make it work with something like

Cast a spell: Will Save DC (Number of People who can see it+1/3 damage dealt+5 per creature who died+....

And so on, and so on, and maybe every point of Paradox reduces caster level by 1? Goddamn though, it would require your players to really, *really* trust you.

[Grod_The_Giant]

While I completely agree about the dominance of spellcasters in 3.5, it's important to remember that D&D is a game, in which players want to have fun. Nerfs are all well and good, and in some cases are needed, but they need to affect only the power of the class, not the fun.

For an example of what I'd call a bad fix... moritheil mentioned Exalted casting. I'm currently playing a Twilight sorcerer, and it's really, really obnoxious. First-circle spells take, effectively, two rounds to cast. Regardless of balance, that's incredibly frustrating, because it means that literally half of my turns in combat are "I start casting." Putting something like that in D&D would be a tremendously potent, simple nerf, but it wouldn't be fun. On a similar note, reducing spells per day is a semi-effective but highly frustrating fix, and one that only worsens the 15 minute workday problem.

Banning the most broken spells is good. Banning metamagic reducers is good. Ban action-economy breaking spells (celerity, I'm looking at you). Make casting defensively an opposed check. Limit the number of ongoing buff spells a single character can have active. Make all spells SR: Yes. Replace prepared casters with spontaneous ones-- a lot of people I've played with prefer the later for pure simplicity. [My classic-cleric fix limits them to casting off 5 domains; my wizard fix combines spontaneous casting and 10-minute-per-spell-level rituals].

But honestly? The best "fix" for magic is twofold: have everyone play an effective T4+ class, and have caster-players agree to limit themselves.

[Chronos]

My personal preferred approach to metamagic reducers is to say that you can't use them at all, unless you have spell slots high enough to cast the unmodified spell. Thus, for instance, a level 13 cleric (who can cast level 7 spells) could use DMM Persist on a 1st-level spell using a 1st-level slot, but he couldn't do it before level 13, since an unmodified Persist on a 1st-level spell would take a level 7 slot.

[TuggyNE]

That's also part of the problem. Players assume that the privileged position the Wizard occupies in the game rules is the correct one and there's nothing unbalanced about it, therefore there's no problem, and not having this power is what is considered a problem.

The only solution I can think of for this problem is to simply abandon all classes named Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, the entire existing arcane and divine spell lists, and use alternate casting subsystems designed from scratch (adjusted and expanded Truenamer?) -- these should only be replacements in the vaguest sense, and should not be expected to serve the same roles or be capable of the same things.

As it is, yes, players (and DMs) tend to accept the natural flow of the fluff and the perspective that has accumulated over time, and 3.5's overpowered spellcasting seems no more than natural and right to them. Trying to trim it down will fail, because the trimming seems wrong and unnatural; simply abandon the subsystem wholesale and use others.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I don't remember who, but I did see someone who noted that transformation spells allow casters to basically dump all of their physical stats and being still super powerful in melee while having access to spells, and that taking those away and forcing the character to learn an individual form spell by spell reduces a lot of their power. Although Druids would still have Wildshape...

PHB2 Shapeshift ACF. Grant bonuses to stats, and you cannot cast spells while shapeshifted (it even specifically calls out Natural Spell).

[Togo]

I find that fixing polymorph, and banning the most problematic spells feats and p-classes, generally solves the problem. You end up with a big list, but it's still easier than trying to change the whole system.

I generally ban persisit metamagic, almost all effects that reduce metamagic cost, enhance wildshape, solid fog, rope trick, glitterdust, evard's black tentacles, shapechange, etc. Divine spellcasting is usually more the problem, because I don't let a wizard spell that's not in the PHB enter the game unless I clear it.

The spells that get the banhammer are ones that either disable multiple enemies with a failed save at very low level, duplicate other players abilities, or are so potent that they become 'automatic' choices.

Then you need to make sure the game you run isn't slanted towards spellcasters. Make sure you have adventures where the party can't rest whenever they feel like it, typically by giving a time limit. Make sure you have at least one adventuring day with eight or more encounters. Don't let wizards pick up every spell in every book, and don't give divine casters access to all supplement books everywhere. Gaining access to new spells can be an event, a reward to be worked towards, just as gaining access to a new item, p-class or special mount is.

Fighters do well with large numbers of weaker encounters, where their statistical superiority can really be brought to bare. Rogue-types do well where the party needs to remain undetected but still present and able to act, either literally, or socially. Spellcasters tend to do well with small numbers of individual challenges with no time limit and the ability to withdraw.

Do this, and most of the problems disappear. Problems with high Tier characters are often tied up with characters that have access to more different books, and higher stats, than the system originally intended. Any character that gets additional abilities whenever a player buys a new book can't help but end up overpowered.

That won't remove all the problems, but if you do that you'll get a much clearer picture of the problems that remain, and many of them will be specific to the way you run your particular game or campaign, and the specific nature of the players and characters in it.

[danzibr]

eliminating sorceror and changing wizard seems a bit much to me.
When I set out to rebalance casters, I only changed the following:

1: You may only apply Eschew Materials to mundane, easilly-accessable items. No Eschew Materials (Ice Assassin) to get yourself a pet God.
2: All spells without "Swift Action" cast time now require a full round action to cast. They happen on your next turn, right before your initiative, like summoning a monster. Quicken Spell changes a spell's casting time to "Standard Action" instead of "Swift".
3: Swift action spells such as Feather Fall, Wings of Cover, Etc. Interrupt any other spell you were casting. You do not lose the spell, but it is not cast and you must start over on your initiative.

That seemed to balance things really well in my group, as spells now require some forethought and casters need to rely on party members to protect them while casting.
Oh that's a pretty big nerf (at least it seems to me). Interesting.

[Suddo]

Oh that's a pretty big nerf (at least it seems to me). Interesting.

The main thing it stops is the Wizard being able to solo. It forces the Wizard to have a Fighter backing him up so no one hits him while he is casting. If you want to get more brutal you can add in that you can concetrate through being attacked and/or you can't dodge while casting (and are flat-flooted). I'd personally reduce the amount of level up that quicken gives to maybe a 2. Though I don't allow for easy meta-magic or the silly feats like that.
This is actually kind of how mages where in early editions. It technically doesn't reduce the power too much as grease, charms and glitterdust still pretty much end an encounter but it stops the wizard's mobility and requires them to think more.
I'd also suggest homebrewing a Sorc class that basically doesn't have anything but blast spells so that people that want to do that still can.