Skill-Based Spellcasting (3.5, PEACH)

[Amechra]

Alright, I was looking at the Heal tweak thread, and I noticed bobthe6th mention making Conjuration(Healing) spells base their Caster level of ranks in Heal.

Which brings me to my idea:

What if you based your caster level for different schools (and even subschools, perhaps) off of skills?

Example:

Your CL for Necromancy spells is equal to your ranks in Heal - 3.
Your CL for Divination spells is equal to your ranks in Search - 3.
Your CL for Conjuration spells is equal to your ranks in Craft (whatever) -3.
Your CL for Illusion spells is equal to your ranks in Sleight of Hand - 3.
Your CL for Enchantment spells is equal to your ranks in Sense Motive - 3.
Your CL for Transmutation spells is equal to your ranks in Concentration - 3.
Your CL for Evocation spells is equal to your ranks in Spellcraft - 3.
Your CL for Abjuration spells is equal to your ranks in Tumble - 3.

In the above case, the following prerequisites would be added to spells:

"To cast this spell, you need ranks in <Associated Skill> equal to twice spell level + 2."

So, therefor, if you want access to all the ninth level spells, cough up the requisite 20 ranks in 8 skills.

Then, there can be feats/class features that alter what you roll to cast defensively (Abjuration lets you tumble out of the way, Enchantment lets you read your opponent's body language, and so on and so forth.), or other skill modification things.

Also, there's a chance for feats and such that let you, for example, use Knowledge (Local) in place of Search for Divination spells.

[sreservoir]

so all casters are int-dependent?

[Amechra]

Yep.

And they also have to grab cross-class skills to get the full benefits.

[Yitzi]

so all casters are int-dependent?

No, only those who want a lot of different schools.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's an interesting idea, but skills would need to be picked very carefully. You might even turn Spellcraft into something like Knowledge, where you'd have ranks in Spellcraft (Evocation), Spellcraft (Illusion), and whatnot. Otherwise, you get weird things where you're like "I'm so good at tumbling that I can dispel magic!"

[sreservoir]

note that the Big Two are assigned to skills which p much every caster is going to have as class skill.

[Felyndiira]

Under this variant, wizards won't even be able to cast level 6-7 spells in most of his schools, simply because they can't get more than 11.5 ranks in many of those associated skills. All clerics would go cloistered cleric and be mostly okay except for divination spells. Druids won't be affected much either, as they can still cast most of their spell list (except divination spells).

-

I'm still having trouble with the fact that this change would deny wizards and sorcerers higher-level spells in a number of schools that they should have access to. Remember that cross-class max ranks is equal to 1/2 of a class skill's max rank, so the best that a wizard can get in, say, tumble is 11.5 ranks.

It's also quite a bit harder on sorcerers than the other casters. A wizard can specialize INT and get up to 6 skill points with no problem, which accounts for the six schools that a specialist has. Clerics can go cloistered cleric and end up with 6-8 skill points per level. Druids get 4+INT, so they easily have enough to invest in the skills they really need to cast evocation, conjuration, and transmutation correctly (their spell list is relatively limited, so they don't have to worry about that many schools). A sorcerer has 2+INT skills and has to focus on CHA, so he's going to have a much harder time getting the skills he needs to gain a relatively flexible set of skills, especially in cross-class schools like Illusion (Shadow Conjuration).

Greater dispel magic and higher level abjurations is also off the table for anyone that can't somehow get tumble on their skill list; divination are also off the table as well since no caster classes get search on their skill list.

You'll also have to balance the T3/T4 casters against this.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

It mostly just seems like a big nerf for casters, and some of the justifications are rather flimsy - particularly abjuration. I kind of like it for healing spells, but past that... if your goal is to nerf casters, there are more elegant ways.

[Amechra]

Those are suggested skills anyway; it would be possible that, as Grod said, that all of these are a subtype of Spellcraft, and then, Sorcerer-wise, the sorcerer would probably get a class feature that lets your caster level for your sorcerer spells be pooled, so they can grab, say, Knowledge (Arcana) as a replacement for Spellcraft (Evocation) and Spellcraft (Necromancy).

Because the associations are flimsy; everything below Illusions on that list kinda doesn't have a skill that fills that kind of niche that they could be tied to.