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Roxxy
2012-06-26, 04:49 PM
The initial idea for this system was taken from Sword and Sorcery’s Advanced Player’s Guide, but I modified it a bit for my own use. My version of the system aims to control magical power through the implementation of spell failure chances and making spellcasters somewhat MAD, while increasing arcane versatility and ease of bookkeeping by eliminating spell preparation and spells per day.

This system lacks divine spellcasting. This is due to the campaign setting I built it for, in which the gods do not provide mortals with divine power. The Druid spell list is folded into the Witch and Sorcerer spell lists (Not the Wizard one). Witches cast spells using grimoires, which are spellbooks with great ritual and personal significance and are treated like familiars when it comes to the consequences of losing one. Witches maintain their familiar or can gain a bonded object as a Wizard. The CRB rules for how many spells a Wizard can write down in a book and how this is done is monitored and restricted (many groups don’t actually do this), and these rules apply to the Witch as well.

Clerics, Druids, Inquisitors, Oracles, and Paladins are banned. Rangers must take a spell-less option.

The three main 0-9 level spell casters are the Wizard, Witch, and Sorcerer. Wizards gain their magic via studying and experimentation (heavy on experimentation, as Wizardry is a new art in this campaign setting), Witches through manipulation of spirits (superficially similar to Japanese Kami, but they lack sentience), and Sorcerers through their bloodlines. The Patron ability of the Witch comes from their favored type of spirit to manipulate.

Sorcerers learn spells as normal. Witches and Wizards write down spells as per the rules for Wizards in the CRB, but they cannot ever have more than their level times their Intelligence modifier. In order for a Witch or Wizard to write down a spell, they must be of a high enough level to gain that spell under the spell per day system (determining if you can write down a spell is the only thing the spell per day system is used for in this system). If the spell is not written down, you may not cast it. You do not need to prepare spells, you must simply have them written down. There are no wands or scrolls available.

When it comes to ability scores, spellcasters require a variety. Wisdom determines DC for non-mind effecting spells and Charisma the DC for mind effecting spells, Intelligence determines bonus spells, and Constitution modifies spellcasting checks.

Metamagic feats do not increase the casting time of a spell for anybody of any class.

To cast a spell, a caster makes a class level check. This check measures the ability to physically force magic to bend to one’s will. In order to attempt to cast a spell, one must know the spell or have it written down. The caster adds their class level, their Constitution modifier, and 1d20. The DCs are based off of spell level:

0: 10
1: 13
2: 15
3: 17
4: 19
5: 21
6: 23
7: 25
8: 27
9: 30

If the check fails, the spell is not cast. If it fails by 5 or more, the caster takes non-lethal damage equal to the spell level. If it fails by 10 or more, this damage is equal to twice the spell level. The DCs to cast spells increase by 1 for every 10 spell levels casted (not counting failed spells unless they did damage) in a day.

Since this system kills every advantage the Sorcerer has, Sorcerers get a ¾ BAB, medium defense bonus (An AC bonus that goes up with level. My system uses guns, not armor, so people get defense bonuses to make up. Defense bonuses are tied to BAB, just like HD.) and 8 sided HD. Sorcerers may lack the versatility of Witches and Wizards, but the magical blood coursing through their veins toughens them a bit, and the fact that they spend less time learning to use magic means they can spend more time learning how to fight.

Do the DCs and the way they increase look right, or need tweaking? Is a better BAB, more HP, a better AC, and access to both the Wizard and Druid spell lists a good trade for the loss of the Sorcerer's main advantage?

NeoSeraphi
2012-06-26, 05:06 PM
The sorcerer has access to the druid spell list? I didn't see that anywhere until the last sentence of your post. :smallconfused: Reread the entire thing, found it.

What "spell-less" option are you referring to for rangers? I don't remember there being that many in PF, in fact, I think only one Archetype in PF actually removes spellcasting for rangers.

The main problem here is that now you've lost ALL AoE-based healing, which was one of the best ideas PF had for handling power levels of encounters. Without the Channel Energy ability (which is only available to paladins, oracles and clerics), you will have a really hard time keeping everyone up and in prime condition all day. Now the group will rely on a bard, a sorcerer, or a witch for healing, and none of them get level-appropriate healing after 1st level, since the druid's cure spell list is delayed. Not having access to the heal spell until 13th level, period, is a bad deal. It's going to really hurt the way PCs deal with battles.

And what about death? Before, PCs had some options for dealing with death, but now, the only spellcaster who gets a way around death is the witch. If the party doesn't have a witch, they are completely screwed, because they can't just go to a temple when someone dies, no, they have to actually find an NPC witch who is not 9th level, but at least 11th level. With the tendency for witches to be more Neutral- and Evil- aligned in lore, I'd question how effective this is going to be in your world (though obviously for all I know you have every witch running around as a Lawful Good tender of wounds).

Then, of course, there is the matter of the true resurrection spell. PCs hate losing levels. But now they can't get around it, since the only method of bringing someone back without negative levels is forever lost to them.

I don't know. Cutting divine casters out of the game completely just strikes me as a terrible idea because of how very few ways there are to restore hit points without them. The sorcerer already has so few spells known compared to his options, and now you're going to make him feel like he has to know how to heal too, since there's no cleric or druid or oracle in the group?

I think you should take a long hard think about how the game will change when there are simply no ways to mass heal or resurrect at lower levels before you do this. People play this game pretty recklessly because death is so trivial due to the existence of divine casters. If you take all of that away, but don't change the monsters or the CR system or anything like that, your players will die. And some of them might play smarter to try and avoid this, but my guess is, not all of them will. And those that do, but just plain prefer a more reckless game, won't have as much fun. And then you're not doing your job as the DM, which is to help everyone have fun.

Roxxy
2012-06-26, 05:21 PM
All of this can be fixed by making the Witch as good a healer as a Cleric, I think. This could be done by modifying it's healing spell progression to match the Cleric and providing the full battery of channel energy options. The same could be done for the Sorcerer. Plus, in-combat healing is somewhat over-emphasized, anyway. Useful in many situations, yes, but a healing specialist isn't as essential as it is billed. If you concentrate on causing damage, debuffs, or battlefield control instead of healing it is quite possibile to make it through a fight without using much of it, if any.

As for resurrection, if you die, you stay dead. I'm more lenient as a result, letting a character who should be killed drop into negative HP instead and letting the stabilization rolls for dying characters have a much longer interval between rolls than normal. Raising the dead, however, is beyond mortals unless you want to mess with magic you cannot control. Try it, and you will likely fail altogether. If you succeed, you are more likely to either bring back the wrong soul or severely damage the soul (or both) than to bring back the right soul in perfect condition. I do NOT like the revolving door of death and wide availability of resurrection. I'd rather let the PCs live much more often than the core rules provide for and make resurrection almost impossible.

There is one spell-less archetype for Rangers in core PF, and a third party one. I prefer for all Rangers to have the core PF option (Skirmisher).

The thing about divine magic is that it does not fit the setting. The number of times the gods have interfered in the world can be counted on one's fingers, and all of them majorly altered the course of history. They don't interfere a lot, and creating Clerics, Paladins, and the like would be seen as interfering by them. The godly caster trope just doesn't exist in the setting, and, with the animal-based Sorcerer bloodline I wrote, Witches and Sorcerers can pick up the Druid's role pretty well. Druids exist, but as an organization, not a class. To put it bluntly, I don't like the role of the Druid being restricted to one class.

NeoSeraphi
2012-06-26, 06:08 PM
All of this can be fixed by making the Witch as good a healer as a Cleric, I think. This could be done by modifying it's healing spell progression to match the Cleric and providing the full battery of channel energy options. The same could be done for the Sorcerer. Plus, in-combat healing is somewhat over-emphasized, anyway. Useful in many situations, yes, but a healing specialist isn't as essential as it is billed. If you concentrate on causing damage, debuffs, or battlefield control instead of healing it is quite possibile to make it through a fight without using much of it, if any.

Yes, but there are players who don't like to do that. Hence the existence of the paladin class. A warrior who can heal is great, because then you get to smash face and stay in the game. Same for the oracle of life. You get basic in-combat healing, but you can pick and choose your other spells pretty easily.

There are hundreds of options in PF and many different types of players as well, and so groups can be formed where there is no one who wants to play battlefield control or debuffing. And damage is pretty hard to keep up when you're fighting long battles. So in-combat healing as a specialization should remain a choice, simply because it's a way to make low-optimization games viable. If you don't have healing, then you have to emphasize preventative instead, which may be "better", but it's not something that everyone likes to do. Meanwhile healing, which is reactive rather than proactive, is easily tacked on to characters like paladins and clerics who can then just keep playing as bruisers or warriors and only heal when they need to.

If you give the witch and the sorcerer the Channel Energy class features in addition to their existing class features, I suppose it ends up working out fine.

Roxxy
2012-06-26, 06:31 PM
Yes, but there are players who don't like to do that. Hence the existence of the paladin class. A warrior who can heal is great, because then you get to smash face and stay in the game. Same for the oracle of life. You get basic in-combat healing, but you can pick and choose your other spells pretty easily.The Alchemist can do this. I may extend it to the Magus, as well. For spontaneous casters, there are Bards (who may get a performance book a la Witch and Wizard rather then spells known, making them not spontaneous) and Sorcerers.


There are hundreds of options in PF and many different types of players as well, and so groups can be formed where there is no one who wants to play battlefield control or debuffing. And damage is pretty hard to keep up when you're fighting long battles. So in-combat healing as a specialization should remain a choice, simply because it's a way to make low-optimization games viable. If you don't have healing, then you have to emphasize preventative instead, which may be "better", but it's not something that everyone likes to do. Meanwhile healing, which is reactive rather than proactive, is easily tacked on to characters like paladins and clerics who can then just keep playing as bruisers or warriors and only heal when they need to.With a Sorcerer (I'll probably modify the healing magic progression of Sorcerers and Witches to match a Cleric's, and I may extend the Druid magic and increased healing to the Wizard) or an Alchemist, you could do this. Now that Sorcerers have a 3/4 BAB and matching HD, they can jump into the same fights a Cleric can. They do have to specifically specialize in healing to be healers, though. Alchemists, meanwhile, are excellent in combat, and fight more like a full BAB class than the 3/4 BAB class that they are. If I let the Magus heal, that provides a third excellent option for this.


If you give the witch and the sorcerer the Channel Energy class features in addition to their existing class features, I suppose it ends up working out fine.Witch, yes. Sorcerer, no.

NeoSeraphi
2012-06-26, 08:14 PM
The Alchemist can do this. I may extend it to the Magus, as well. For spontaneous casters, there are Bards (who may get a performance book a la Witch and Wizard rather then spells known, making them not spontaneous) and Sorcerers.

With a Sorcerer (I'll probably modify the healing magic progression of Sorcerers and Witches to match a Cleric's, and I may extend the Druid magic and increased healing to the Wizard) or an Alchemist, you could do this. Now that Sorcerers have a 3/4 BAB and matching HD, they can jump into the same fights a Cleric can. They do have to specifically specialize in healing to be healers, though. Alchemists, meanwhile, are excellent in combat, and fight more like a full BAB class than the 3/4 BAB class that they are. If I let the Magus heal, that provides a third excellent option for this.

Witch, yes. Sorcerer, no.

An alchemist's infusions do not affect other characters unless he spends a discovery on it. So the alchemist is not exactly the best example of a replacement cleric. The alchemist is closer to an Int-based paladin, I suppose, but with fewer ways to recover status ailments.

If the magus is able to heal, that will certainly open the door a bit more. If you do that, though, I suggest you just try and make up for everything by letting every caster other than wizard and summoner heal. That will allow people to keep their options open while not completely destroying the party. (Since you took away 5 whole classes with the ability to heal, it's definitely left a hole that needs to be filled).

Roxxy
2012-06-26, 08:54 PM
An alchemist's infusions do not affect other characters unless he spends a discovery on it. So the alchemist is not exactly the best example of a replacement cleric. The alchemist is closer to an Int-based paladin, I suppose, but with fewer ways to recover status ailments.A Paladin is what I was making the comparison to. Perhaps not as good a healer, but serviceable.


If the magus is able to heal, that will certainly open the door a bit more. If you do that, though, I suggest you just try and make up for everything by letting every caster other than wizard and summoner heal. That will allow people to keep their options open while not completely destroying the party. (Since you took away 5 whole classes with the ability to heal, it's definitely left a hole that needs to be filled).Let's see. For casters we have:

Bard
Sorcerer
Magus
Wizard
Witch
Alchemist
Summoner

With two capable of 0-9 level healing and three capable of 0-6 level healing, the gap should be covered. There might also be a couple other classes added, which would be modified versions of classes from 3.5 supplements I own, and I may also bring in Dreamscarred Press psionic materiel converted to this spellcasting system. I'm pretty sure there is psionic healing, and some of the new additions may well get healing added to them.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-06-26, 10:56 PM
I'm gonna ignore the "no divine spellcasting" thing: This seems to be primarily a fluff choice and not a mechanical one, so I see no purpose in discussing it.


My main concern with your system is that the DCs are... kinda out of whack. Let's assume we build a 1st-level wizard with 18 CON (quite generous, really): They only have a 50% chance to cast Magic Missile successfully. However, a 20th-level wizard with a CON of 26 (easily doable at that level) has a 90% chance to cast Time Stop.

I also fear this system could have... unintended consequences. The spells weren't designed with failure rates in mind: I'm willing to bet there's at least one weird artifact that'll only be fixable by tweaking individual spells. It seems to make Blasting even more worthless, for instance.

Also, a way easier way to explain your spells known mechanic is to just say "The Spells Per Day tables now refer to how many spells the character knows. INT boosts spells known in this manner." I had to read it like 5 times to figure out that's what you meant.

Roxxy
2012-06-27, 08:38 AM
I'm gonna ignore the "no divine spellcasting" thing: This seems to be primarily a fluff choice and not a mechanical one, so I see no purpose in discussing it.


My main concern with your system is that the DCs are... kinda out of whack. Let's assume we build a 1st-level wizard with 18 CON (quite generous, really): They only have a 50% chance to cast Magic Missile successfully. However, a 20th-level wizard with a CON of 26 (easily doable at that level) has a 90% chance to cast Time Stop.

I also fear this system could have... unintended consequences. The spells weren't designed with failure rates in mind: I'm willing to bet there's at least one weird artifact that'll only be fixable by tweaking individual spells. It seems to make Blasting even more worthless, for instance.

Also, a way easier way to explain your spells known mechanic is to just say "The Spells Per Day tables now refer to how many spells the character knows. INT boosts spells known in this manner." I had to read it like 5 times to figure out that's what you meant.The DCs were my major point of concern, along with the Sorcerer being worthwhile in it's new gish role. I'll lower them at earlier levels and raise them at higher levels to try and compensate.