How much does increasing casting time change the game?

[OverdrivePrime]

Any experience with this? I doubt I'm the first to toy with the idea.

I was thinking of increasing casting time for almost all magic in order to make melee a more attractive option for longer into a campaign.
I think a side effect would be to force mages into a more battlefield control/occasional blaster role who find it extremely helpful to hide behind a meat shield when casting.

Due to the power available a high level mage would still be much more dangerous than an equivalent level warrior, but might make a mage have to do a bit more tactical planning to ensure that some oaf doesn't waltz up, hit her with a stick while she's in the middle of casting Time Stop and ruin her spell.

I'm giving Summons a bit of a boost because I always thought they were pretty weak in comparison with what you got for the casting time, and I really like the flavor of summons.

Here's what I was thinking:

Immediate and Swift spells: Increase spell level by 1 (example: Wings of Cover is now a 3rd level sorcerer spell)
Standard action casting time spells: Increase casting time to one full round
Full round casting time spells: Increase casting time to two full rounds
1 minute casting time: Increase to ten minute casting time

Quicken Spell Feat: A quickened spell uses a spell slot six levels higher than the actual spell.
Summoning spells: Increase by duration one step (1 round/level becomes 1 min/level, 10 min/level becomes 1


Will this do any good?

EDIT: I'm a dolt. I meant to ask about changing spells to a 1 full round, so casting fireball on initiative 15 will see it's affect on initiative 15 of the next round. I've made the edits in text.

[Jeraa]

Due to the power available a high level mage would still be much more dangerous than an equivalent level warrior, but might make a mage have to do a bit more tactical planning to ensure that some oaf doesn't waltz up, hit her with a stick while she's in the middle of casting Time Stop and ruin her spell.

Your changes don't actually do that, however. Casting most spells is still just a full round action, and so happen entirely on the casters turn. Had you made the casting times a minimum of 1 round (not a full round action - there is a difference), then the wizard could start casting, and everyone else gets their turn, and then the wizard finishes casting. That allows the enemies a chance of disrupting his spell. Currently, with both the normal rules and your changes, the only real way to disrupt the spell is during the Attack of Opportunity casting causes (which is easily enough removed anyway with Casting Defensively).

As it is, there is still nothing stopping a wizard from just taking a 5-foot step and casting his spells without fear of them being disrupted. Making spells have a 1-round casting time at least gives others more of a chance to disrupt a spell. And its still a full-round action for the caster.

[Mnemnosyne]

I think it might be best to try just increasing casting time to 1 round first, instead of extending it across two full round actions. Casting time of one round means that everyone gets a turn before the spellcaster finishes casting, which means everyone has a chance to force the spellcaster to make a concentration check or lose their spell.

I kind of wonder what would happen if spellcasters in 3.5 had all the limitations they once had in 2nd edition. In 2e, all actions were declared at the beginning of the round, then initiative was determined (for each round individually). The spellcaster could not move during the round he cast a spell, and because he was casting, he always lost his dexterity bonus to armor class. If an enemy got higher initiative than him that round, and the enemy had declared an attack on him, if the spellcaster was hit, he automatically lost the spell.

In 3.5, to somewhat mimic this, I would make the following changes:
All spells that have a casting time of 1 standard action or 1 full round action are increased to require 1 round casting time.
Any character engaged in the casting of a spell with a 1 round casting time or higher loses their dexterity bonus to armor class.

This means that for most spells, an enemy has a chance to prevent the spellcaster from finishing them. The caster is now much more dependent on both protections and their allies to prevent their spells from being interrupted. And since they lose their dex to AC, they're easier to hit. If I wanted to get really tough on them I'd increase the concentration check for losing spells to 10 + 2x damage taken instead of 10 + damage, but I don't think that's necessarily required, given the other limitations.

[Asgardian]

As it is, there is still nothing stopping a wizard from just taking a 5-foot step and casting his spells without fear of them being disrupted. Making spells have a 1-round casting time at least gives others more of a chance to disrupt a spell. And its still a full-round action for the caster.

Your group must play VERY differently than mine.

When a enemy caster is on the field, its pretty much standard procedure for one of out melee characters to hold an action so they can either charge or use a range weapon to attempt to disrupt the spell

[Ziegander]

I have been seriously considering ye olde, "spells require 1 round per spell level to cast," mantra. Magic is rare, difficult, and time-consuming in just about all literature we read (other than Harry Potter), yet in D&D it's the easiest thing in the game. Hmm. Now, even with such a draconian and punishing rule, I would incorporate mitigating factors such as Concentration checks to "quicken" spells, maybe burning higher level spells slots, maybe forcibly fatiguing/exhausting the caster and/or inflicting direct damage to the caster.

Movement would be impossible without either a Concentration check or some feat or such (Combat Casting?). Also, I like that automatically flat-footed bit as well. Obviously, this is pretty harsh stuff, especially on the low-level caster, so just directly porting it into D&D 3.5 might be overly punishing, but using guidelines like these for another game entirely might not be a bad way to go.

[Eldariel]

Your group must play VERY differently than mine.

When a enemy caster is on the field, its pretty much standard procedure for one of out melee characters to hold an action so they can either charge or use a range weapon to attempt to disrupt the spell

It's impossible to normally ready a charge to disrupt casting and the spell finishes by the time you could act after delayed initiative so a single ranged attack is generally all you can try. That's mostly a "bug" in the rules, however.

But yeah, 1 round casting times make combat much more interesting and spellcasting more hazardous, while still efficient.

[Deophaun]

I have been seriously considering ye olde, "spells require 1 round per spell level to cast," mantra.
The problem with this is that a player starts casting a level 3 spell, then he leaves to go get a sandwich. You're better off just banning spellcasters at that point, as you are telling them that they won't be allowed to play for most of an encounter anyway.

[Amnestic]

Casting Defensively


Why not remove that as well? :smalltongue:

[Ziegander]

The problem with this is that a player starts casting a level 3 spell, then he leaves to go get a sandwich. You're better off just banning spellcasters at that point, as you are telling them that they won't be allowed to play for most of an encounter anyway.

Well, as I said, it wouldn't work in D&D as designed, too much would have to be radically altered, but remember, that's also the player's choice. The player could choose to cast only cantrips and 1st level spells in combat. This would be especially effective in a game where those spells were a bit more useful in combat, scaled a bit better with level, and yet didn't overshadow the non-caster's actions. With specialization, the player could also mitigate the casting time of higher level spells in order to pop them off in combat as long as he or she was willing to also pay the higher personal cost for doing so.

[Eslin]

It would still mean you'd have to go out of your way to avoid spending the entire fight bored as hell doing nothing. The primary objective of D&D is fun, making the players have to put huge amounts of effort and thought into not being bored as hell is not good game design.

[danzibr]

ye olde, "spells require 1 round per spell level to cast,"
Strangely I'd never heard this but it seems like it could be really good. Well, but then we have casters being extremely bored, sitting around doing nothing. Maybe level/2 round up is appropriate.

[Eldariel]

Strangely I'd never heard this but it seems like it could be really good. Well, but then we have casters being extremely bored, sitting around doing nothing. Maybe level/2 round up is appropriate.

Doing nothing? They still get to cast a spell per round. That's quite a bit by...really any measurement. About as much as before, actually, except with the requirement of somehow being protected while casting.

[Ziegander]

It would still mean you'd have to go out of your way to avoid spending the entire fight bored as hell doing nothing. The primary objective of D&D is fun, making the players have to put huge amounts of effort and thought into not being bored as hell is not good game design.


Strangely I'd never heard this but it seems like it could be really good. Well, but then we have casters being extremely bored, sitting around doing nothing. Maybe level/2 round up is appropriate.

What is it you think non-casters get to do in combat that is so exciting? "I hit it," is all non-casters do in any combat from 1st level to 20th, yet suggesting that casters have to put up with a drastically reduced number of in-combat options without paying for it, options that are still far and above more flexible than what the non-casters get to do, is suddenly not good game design?

This is precisely why casters stomp all over non-casters. Players want their magic to do anything and they want it to come at no cost and they want more and more and more power, but the non-casters don't get any of that. The non-casters get one or two things they can do to varying degrees of success and that's it.

Trust me, being a non-caster can be extremely boring in combat as well. I think I could still be very entertained as a caster if the only spells I could cast in combat were Entangle, Ray of Frost, and Sleep. Then out of combat I've still got my Control Weathers and Teleports. Meanwhile the non-casters have... Climb and Move Silently. Yeah, I think the casters are still plenty awesome.

[Amnestic]

Doing nothing? They still get to cast a spell per round. That's quite a bit by...really any measurement. About as much as before, actually, except with the requirement of somehow being protected while casting.


I have been seriously considering ye olde, "spells require 1 round per spell level to cast," mantra.

Assuming they're casting 1st level spells, yes. I hope you never planned on using Disintegrate in combat again, because it's going to take you six rounds to do it!

Under that rule, you may as well get rid of every damage/debuff spell above 2nd level, because it's highly unlikely they'd ever see use again. Assuming I still wanted to go spellcaster, I'd probably just go some sort of Force Missile Mage build with a buttload of metamagic mitigation and use higher level spell slots for utility/out of combat buffs.

Edit:

What is it you think non-casters get to do in combat that is so exciting? "I hit it," is all non-casters do in any combat from 1st level to 20th, yet suggesting that casters have to put up with a drastically reduced number of in-combat options without paying for it, options that are still far and above more flexible than what the non-casters get to do, is suddenly not good game design?

To the bolded point, I would say "no". When you have two sets of classes (roughly split into "mundanes" and "magic users") and one is fun while one is not, the good game design solution is not to make the one which is fun LESS fun. The good game design solution is to make the not-fun-one MORE fun. Give mundanes more options, don't take options away from magic users.

S'my view on it anyway.

[Ziegander]

To the bolded point, I would say "no". When you have two sets of classes (roughly split into "mundanes" and "magic users") and one is fun while one is not, the good game design solution is not to make the one which is fun LESS fun. The good game design solution is to make the not-fun-one MORE fun. Give mundanes more options, don't take options away from magic users.

S'my view on it anyway.

Remember though, I'm not talking about taking any options away from the magic users. I'm simply talking about making the incredibly powerful options that the magic users have incredibly costly to match. The basic, default rule would be to make casting time one round per spell level. Everyone is ignoring that my first post in this topic then went on to say:


I would incorporate mitigating factors such as Concentration checks to "quicken" spells, maybe burning higher level spells slots, maybe forcibly fatiguing/exhausting the caster and/or inflicting direct damage to the caster.

So while by default you would need a lot of time to cast big gun spells (too much time to reasonably see use in any normal combat situation), that time could be mitigated by a number of factors even before taking build options into account.

For example, let's say that in order to cast any spell you must make a Concentration check each round, but you can Take 10 on it as long as you aren't doing anything fancy and as long as you aren't attacked or otherwise distracted. So, Hedgrid the Wizard casts a 3rd level spell and must Concentrate for three rounds. Let's say he's not attacked or distracted, and he Takes 10 on each check. At the end of the third round he casts his spell. Hooray! Now then, let's say he wanted to cast it faster. Well now, because he's attempting some fancy magic, he can't Take 10 on his Concentration check, even if he isn't being attacked, but he can knock off a round of casting time by increasing the check DC by, let's call it +5, per round. He wants to cast in 1 round? DC +10. Maybe he wants to cast it immediately. The minimum would be 1 standard action, but he could do that, keep his Dex to AC, move if he wanted, and completely avoid being interrupted (except by Opportunity Attacks, if any) to boot, for DC +15. Not a bad deal and he hasn't even needed to take Combat Casting or Skill Focus or Quicken Spell.

[Eldariel]

Assuming they're casting 1st level spells, yes. I hope you never planned on using Disintegrate in combat again, because it's going to take you six rounds to do it!

Ah, I read it as one round. Yeah, no, spending a minute chanting on a spell in a combat that's probably over in 30 seconds anyways doesn't seem very smart. Would force a lot of trickery to even get basic stuff done with magic.

[Amnestic]

Remember though, I'm not talking about taking any options away from the magic users. I'm simply talking about making the incredibly powerful options that the magic users have incredibly costly to match.

Making combat magic outside of 1st-3rd (at most) level spells completely nonviable isn't "taking away options"? It's effectively a soft-ban: Make them so undesireable that they won't be picked.



For example, let's say that in order to cast any spell you must make a Concentration check each round, [stuff]

Assuming you allow Concentration checks to 'quicken' spells, all it will do is make Optimised Casters as effective as they ever were (because they know the tricks around getting stupid high Concentration modifiers) and punish those who are worse at optimising.

They'll find a way to mitigate the fatigue (likely by becoming immune entirely). They'll find a way to deal with burning spell slots. They'll find a way to deal with damage. And they'll find a way to deal with Concentration checks.

The end result? Optimised casters will still dominate, non-optimised casters will be punished severely and the mundanes will still be left with nothing outside of "I attack".

Make Fighters, Monks, Paladins, Rangers et al. more viable by giving them stuff to make them more interesting. Don't ruin casters for those who don't have the optimising chops to make them work.

[Humble Master]

If you are trying to balance the mundane vs magical you should buff the mundane rather than nerf the magical. There are a lot of 'fighter fix' thread on this forum you could look into. You could also get Tome of Battle. If gives the mundane people a lot more options in combat. I would highly recomend it.

[DeltaEmil]

Buffing mundanes and nerfing magicians in all the aspects where they're overpowered is a valid and good idea.

[Big Fau]

Buffing mundanes and nerfing magicians in all the aspects where they're overpowered is a valid and good idea.

But rendering magic unplayable and doing absolutely nothing to improve the noncasters is not.

[DeltaEmil]

But rendering magic unplayable and doing absolutely nothing to improve the noncasters is not.I didn't say making magic unplayable would be balanced.
But not every nerf makes magic unplayable.

[Curmudgeon]

But rendering magic unplayable and doing absolutely nothing to improve the noncasters is not.
This isn't "rendering magic unplayable" by any means. It instead makes magic require careful forethought rather than being an instant "I WIN" button. With the standard rules, Tier 1 and Tier 2 characters (the full spellcasters) dominate games because they can serve out, every round, something that fundamentally changes what's going on in a substantial way. A martial character can (at best) take some enemies out of the battle in a round; decisive changes when facing multiple opponents will always take multiple rounds. This increase in spellcasting time makes fundamental changes to a scenario take multiple rounds for spellcasters, too.

[OverdrivePrime]

This isn't "rendering magic unplayable" by any means. It instead makes magic require careful forethought rather than being an instant "I WIN" button. With the standard rules, Tier 1 and Tier 2 characters (the full spellcasters) dominate games because they can serve out, every round, something that fundamentally changes what's going on in a substantial way. A martial character can (at best) take some enemies out of the battle in a round; decisive changes when facing multiple opponents will always take multiple rounds. This increase in spellcasting time makes fundamental changes to a scenario take multiple rounds for spellcasters, too.

This is pretty much exactly my intention. I feel like the game has a tendency to get a bit silly past 12th level or so, when we're fully entrenched in a game of magical rocket tag, with the mundane characters just watching. That's not a whole lot of fun for me to RP, and I tend to play gishes. For the players who really like playing mundanes, the answer shouldn't be, "sorry, you have to be content with being useless. Play a wizard next time."

[Big Fau]

I didn't say making magic unplayable would be balanced.
But not every nerf makes magic unplayable.

I'm referring to Ziegander's nerf of "Spells have casting time of 1 full round action per spell level".

[Grod_The_Giant]

@Ziegander-- I've played a caster in a system where it takes multiple rounds to cast spells (Exalted). It sucks. It sucks hardcore. You're basically telling the player "do you want to use your primary schtick? Well, you're more powerful, so you only get half as many turns as everyone else." It might work in some systems, but not something as slow as D&D tends to be.

Making magic less of an instant-win button is useful, sure. But making it an "I win" button that requires me to spend an hour of real time sitting and doing nothing while everyone else fights is not the way to do it. Don't make magic as boring as pure mundane classes in order to balance things; find a way to boost mundanes instead.

@OP: It might work, as you can still do something each round. Personally, I'd like to see something like "standard action to start casting, and the spell goes off at the beginning of your next turn." But I'd also like to see full attacks die in fires, to make fights more dynamic.

[OverdrivePrime]

@OP: It might work, as you can still do something each round. Personally, I'd like to see something like "standard action to start casting, and the spell goes off at the beginning of your next turn." But I'd also like to see full attacks die in fires, to make fights more dynamic.

Groovy. I'm going to run it past my group and see what they think.

I'm guessing that longer casting times will be welcomed, since the first people to share characters with me have rolled up a rogue, a monk and an inquisitor/monk. I think we've got a barbarian/druid on the way, but then I think we've got a full cleric and full sorcerer incoming as well.

[Deophaun]

Making magic less of an instant-win button is useful, sure. But making it an "I win" button that requires me to spend an hour of real time sitting and doing nothing while everyone else fights is not the way to do it.
This is why I said just banning them would be preferable. If tier 1 and 2 classes are the problem, get rid of tier 1 and 2 classes. Leave the beguiler, warmage, duskblade, and other tier 3-4 casters alone, instead of punishing them for the sins of the wizard.

[ericgrau]

So it's still usually 1 spell per round, but now it's more disruptable. At first it doesn't seem that bad, but then I think ranged will start to lockdown casters which will heavily annoy all but the most highly optimized players.

Those who optimize heavily abrupt jaunt or contingency or some such and are almost entirely unaffected.

[Oscredwin]

If you're going to do something like increase the casting time by a lot, have it only apply to the character's highest level spells. This means that a 7th level wizard can't drop a solid fog on the enemies before they can react but he can two levels later. It pushes back the power of those awesome spells, but still lets casters do something every round.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This is why I said just banning them would be preferable. If tier 1 and 2 classes are the problem, get rid of tier 1 and 2 classes. Leave the beguiler, warmage, duskblade, and other tier 3-4 casters alone, instead of punishing them for the sins of the wizard.
Agreed. Or, you know, take the same amount of effort you'd spend rewriting the spell lists to make them more relevant to a casting system like that and spend it on banning/fixing the worst offenders.

[Eslin]

What is it you think non-casters get to do in combat that is so exciting? "I hit it," is all non-casters do in any combat from 1st level to 20th, yet suggesting that casters have to put up with a drastically reduced number of in-combat options without paying for it, options that are still far and above more flexible than what the non-casters get to do, is suddenly not good game design?

This is precisely why casters stomp all over non-casters. Players want their magic to do anything and they want it to come at no cost and they want more and more and more power, but the non-casters don't get any of that. The non-casters get one or two things they can do to varying degrees of success and that's it.

Trust me, being a non-caster can be extremely boring in combat as well. I think I could still be very entertained as a caster if the only spells I could cast in combat were Entangle, Ray of Frost, and Sleep. Then out of combat I've still got my Control Weathers and Teleports. Meanwhile the non-casters have... Climb and Move Silently. Yeah, I think the casters are still plenty awesome.

Yeah, it's absolutely horrible game design. You're right, especially in core mundanes are far more boring to play in combat than casters are.

That anyone could think the logical answer is making casters equally as boring is astounding - the logical answer is to make mundanes more interesting.

Also, you're ignoring the problem with blanket changes to how spellcasting works - shapechange is overpowered, meteor swarm is not. If you make all spells harder to cast, you make the ones that aren't overpowered incredibly useless. The ONLY solution that would balance tier 1 classes is one that worked only on a spell by spell basis, and that's far too much work to be doable.

[Mnemnosyne]

Those who optimize heavily abrupt jaunt or contingency or some such and are almost entirely unaffected.
Abrupt jaunt is an immediate action, which as far as I understand, taking one of those during a 1-round casting time means losing the spell you're casting. Only contingency would be able to stop any potential interrupts. That would be once per combat, and using a considerable chunk of resources.b at that point you might be better off just quickening as many spells as possible instead.

[8wGremlin]

I've actually use the following in games I've run and played

== flaws ==
In our game worlds we wanted magic to appear as more ritualistic, and not as a flashy as harry potter.

I get all casters get the flaws
* [http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featbox.pl?feat=Methodical_Magical_Methods Methodical Magical Methods], Which makes them flat footed and -5ac when they cast a spell
* [http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featbox.pl?feat=Ponderous_Spellcaster Ponderous Spellcaster], which ups the casting time of their Standard action spells, and free action spells (std = full round, free = std)

Both these effects seriously curtail spell casting, but they do get free feats to compensate.

[Black Jester]

A part of the reason why mundane characters can be so un-fun to play is the fact that they will be almost constantly overshadowed by their spellcasting peers at higher levels. In this regard, nerfing spellcasters does address a part of the problem (I would personally suggest a dual approach of both boosting the capabilities of mundane characters and introduce a few more limits for casters, so that the two can meet somewhere in the middle, but that's another topic for another thread).
Increasing casting time is one way to go in this regard, especially if one bans spells which would make the casters untouchable, making them more dependent on actual bodyguards and protectors, thus increasing the mutual dependency within a group and increase the cohesion between characters. However, I would suggest that this should be an option, not obligatory, allowing casters to choose between quick (and unreliable) and slow (but guaranteed successful) spells. You could, for instance, introduce an automatic spell failure chance for all spells equal to their spell levelx5 in percent (which, of course, stacks with any other chance of spell failure). For each additional standard action used to prepare the spell, this spell failure chance is reduced by 10%, for each additional full-round action it is reduced by 20%. That way, you introduce another layer of tactics, leave the choice of approach to the caster players and at least partially mitigate the gap between mundanes and spellcasters.

[Eslin]

That has the same problem as before - it affects casting as a whole, it doesn't distinguish between game breakers and spells that are already sub par.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the only way to reduce the power of tier ones is to either restrict their access to spells or fix things on a spell by spell basis.

[OverdrivePrime]

I get all casters get the flaws
* [http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featbox.pl?feat=Methodical_Magical_Methods Methodical Magical Methods], Which makes them flat footed and -5ac when they cast a spell
* [http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featbox.pl?feat=Ponderous_Spellcaster Ponderous Spellcaster], which ups the casting time of their Standard action spells, and free action spells (std = full round, free = std)

Both these effects seriously curtail spell casting, but they do get free feats to compensate.

Wow, it's good to know that this already exists in print. Thanks, Gremlin!

[Bartimaeus5]

What about making extremly powerfull spells draining on the caster ?

It's really hard for me to give out numbers as I don't play D&D but the basic idea is that after using a spell, your spellcaster can't use spells for the several next rounds. A level 1 wizard casting Sleep cannot cast spells other then cantrips for the next 2 rounds. A level 5 Wizard casting Fireball can't cast another fireball for 3 rounds, but he can cast Magic Missle the next round. Do you get my drift ?

The would be incorprated the best if you rank each spell and spell instead of using spell levels so Meteor Storm would be a high level spell that requires less energy from your wizard then say, Shapeshift. That way weaker, higher level spells are still viable.[This resolves the issue Eslin raised]

This needs a lot of work and balance with the numbers but I think the basis is a good idea.

EDIT: Meteor storm would require LESS energy then Shapeshift, not more.

[Eslin]

The basis is good, though meteor swarm (not storm) requiring a lot more energy than shapeshift is the opposite to the correct way around.

Again, one of the main problems is a lot of spells are flat out better than what any tier 3 or below can do - scrying, teleportation, genesis, clone, contingency, polymorph and mind blank stay awesome pretty much no matter what you do to them.

[Amnestic]

That has the same problem as before - it affects casting as a whole, it doesn't distinguish between game breakers and spells that are already sub par.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the only way to reduce the power of tier ones is to either restrict their access to spells or fix things on a spell by spell basis.

Concurred. Such blanket changes nerf Tier 3 casters (Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necro, Duskblade) and below (Warmage, arguably Warlock/DFA, Ranger, Healer (OH NOES), Paladin) as well as PrCs which grant casting (such as Assassin).

If you want to do that from a fluff perspective then...whatever, if your players are okay with it then knock yourself out.

If you're looking for balance then you're going about it the wrong way. Prune the most powerful spells which break stuff and give the mundanes something more interesting to do than "I attack" (like Tome of Battle, or a different system to do so).

Though the flaws from 8wGremlin aren't as bad as the "one spell level=1 round of cooldown" rule, they still hit classes which don't need nerfing. Sounds like it's done for fluff reasons though.

[Bartimaeus5]

The basis is good, though meteor swarm (not storm) requiring a lot more energy than shapeshift is the opposite to the correct way around.

Again, one of the main problems is a lot of spells are flat out better than what any tier 3 or below can do - scrying, teleportation, genesis, clone, contingency, polymorph and mind blank stay awesome pretty much no matter what you do to them.

The entire point behind spellcasters is doing magnificant things. It's impossible to compare the things a spellcaster can do to the things that fighters can. However by putting a limitation on the stronger spells your spellcaster retains his ability to do amazing magics but they come with a cost of being able to cast only basic spells as his magical energies run out. Experience and gold costs can be used for the out of combat spells game breakers. However those spells should still be worth casting, not nerfed beyond use.

Raising the lower teir classes is not the way to go.

EDIT: If the tier 3 spellcasters don't require any change, don't change them. Just use this system for the tier 1 and 2 casters.

[Flickerdart]

It's impossible to compare the things a spellcaster can do to the things that fighters can.
This is precisely the attitude that resulted in 3.5 melee getting no nice things. The character classes are intended to be used together, to be equal. If you want spellcasters that are vastly more powerful than fighters in your world, make all the spellcasters higher level, but PC classes should always be balanced regardless of fluff justification.

[8wGremlin]

I remember in one campaign we had all wizards specialized.
Then as they got higher level they had to beat a higher level same specialist wizard to advance to casting that spell level, similar to the Druid class of that edition.

For example, Tim, our evoker school wizard to advance to casting level 2 spells had to fight Zardos the magnificent, another evoker school wizard who had 2 level spells.

So Tim was 2nd level and Zardos was 3rd, it made for an interesting battle.

Oh and the schools of magic didn't get on, and often fought, very similar to the old Kung fu schools in China

[Black Jester]

I am not entirely convinced that balancing between classes is actually a design objective one could possibly achieve (and all experiences indicate that it is actually a futile endeavor), but it's a good intention.

I am also not convinced that casters of all kinds aren't pretty inferior characters (in the same way athletes who use massive doping are inferior sportsmen) to mundanes by default, and thus I think it is only fair if I assume that I am biased in this argument and my opinion is certainly not some generally applicable wisdom.

That said, I really don't think that adjusting problematic spells one by one is anything but getting lost in details; the problem is not this spell or that spell, the problem is pretty much the whole complex and the attitude that spellcastingshould be superior by default.
I really don't think that any of the suggestions that effect casting as whole are by any means unreasonable; in the very worst case, you would recreate the same level of imbalance as the default RAW rules, just tilted to the other side (and no suggestion made here is nearly extreme enough to achieve such a feat).

There is not a single class with spellcasting capabilities which would become utterly pointless (or, in the case of the Healer, more pointless) with a somewhat strict limitation on spellcasting. To the contrary, prolonged casting time are an overall good thing because it increases the feeling of mutual dependency - when the warriors protect the casters, so that the casters in return can weaken or defeat the opponents in turn, everybody has contributed to the victory and is grateful for the contribution of the others. And for a cooperative group game, this cohesion is much important and worthwhile than any individual contributions or the hurt feelings of greatness of an ambitious mage player.

So, it is not about nerfing spellcasters - a task I think is pretty much mandatory for a fulfilling gameplay by now anyway - it's about finding solutions for this problem which have a positive effect on the way the game is played.

[Grod_The_Giant]

There is not a single class with spellcasting capabilities which would become utterly pointless (or, in the case of the Healer, more pointless) with a somewhat strict limitation on spellcasting. To the contrary, prolonged casting time are an overall good thing because it increases the feeling of mutual dependency - when the warriors protect the casters, so that the casters in return can weaken or defeat the opponents in turn, everybody has contributed to the victory and is grateful for the contribution of the others. And for a cooperative group game, this cohesion is much important and worthwhile than any individual contributions or the hurt feelings of greatness of an ambitious mage player.
If the caster is an NPC? Sure, protecting him so he can get his uberspell off is cool. But if I'm playing a caster, I don't want to spend four turns doing nothing. Yes, yes, teamwork, but I'm here to play the game. I want to do things every round. If the game has me saying "OK, I start casting disintegrate. Now while the rest of you fight, I'm off for pizza, anyone else want some?" that's not a very good game.

Balance is all well and good, verisimilitude is all well and good, but as a game, fun is the single most important consideration. Things that take away the player's actions aren't fun.

[Eldariel]

That has the same problem as before - it affects casting as a whole, it doesn't distinguish between game breakers and spells that are already sub par.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the only way to reduce the power of tier ones is to either restrict their access to spells or fix things on a spell by spell basis.

No, casting is definitely too safe. In classic fiction, the main drawback of magic vs. sword is that, y'know, magic is slower so a guy next to you with a sword makes getting spells edgewise impossible without preparation.

In classic D&D, this was how it worked too; unless your defenses allowed you to avoid those attacks having somebody in your face made it impossible to cast. 3.5 made Concentration to make it a roll, which is fine (tho PF got the check DCs better).


It, however, also made most spells impossible to interrupt without readied actions (if cast defensively) and made readied actions terrible (since if you're using a readied attack, you're not full attacking which means you're losing a massive amount of output), and gave casters multiple easy tools to avoid melee threat to casting (5' step vs. non-reach weapons, Tumble, defensive casting) in addition to enabling shaking off damage to cast (which is fine).

This whole paragraph is full of problems that make casting too safe against melee enemies, especially humanoids who are armed sensibly for combating humans (with melee weapons instead of polearms):
- 5' step
- Tumble
- Defensive Casting

Simple "Move Action to escape melee eating up the AoO" is also, ridiculously, actually functional but that's easy to change by making any damage taken during that turn require Concentration.

Now, yes, I know there are ways to remove all those obstacles as a melee warrior but there should be no need for that. Being able to make casting spells hard if you do get into melee with a mage (which is not easy in the first place) is the only advantage for a melee in a melee warrior vs. mage combat, so it should not require extra effort to unlock (threatening is also the balancing act in melee vs. archer and melee vs. polearm none of which is functioning properly mostly due to Tumble and 5' steps).


But yeah, fix Tumble (simple adjustment of DC á la PF works though you also need to get rid of some things that make boosting skills too easy in 3.5), Defensive Casting (again, adjust DC) and 5' steps (more complex matter, personally I tie them to full attack action and only allow them towards the enemy you're attacking to prevent polearm-users/archers from using them to escape a swordsman in melee with them), and casting becomes much more "fair" (though that does nothing about spell power, but it does create a duality in fight where a caster could be threatened without being cornered in a 5' room; you'd need to of course fix spells separately either way).

If you combine all that with 1 round cast times as default (outside close combat spells like Shocking Grasp, Harm, etc. - they need to be standard action for them to remain useful without Arcane Reach/Divine Reach/Reach Spell) you get something quite workable.

[Bartimaeus5]

You misunderstood. I did not mean that fighters and wizards should not be equal. The wizard's role is to cast spells with epic consequences, changing that will kill the class. If you limit the amount of epicness he can pull out of his sleeve in quick succession then he should be more balanced with the warriors.

[Flickerdart]

You misunderstood. I did not mean that fighters and wizards should not be equal. The wizard's role is to cast spells with epic consequences, changing that will kill the class. If you limit the amount of epicness he can pull out of his sleeve in quick succession then he should be more balanced with the warriors.
Consequences have nothing to do with the actions that lead to them. A humble dagger stab could cause epic consequences if you stab a king in the neck. The world's most powerful attack spell could have absolutely no consequences if you use it to cut firewood.

"Accomplishing things" is not a class feature.

[Spuddles]

What about 1 round/Level, but metamagic didn't count towards that level? So you would end up with casters that
1) become better and better at casting their low level spells in combat
2) tend to pick utility spells for their high level spells
3) use the really big, flashy high level spells in ambushes or in large scale battles
4) tend towards buffs and gishing

I would give all metamagics a -1 adjustment from what they usually are (minimum 0) and make it so arcane thesis doesnt actually give your metamagics -1 adjustments.


So it's still usually 1 spell per round, but now it's more disruptable. At first it doesn't seem that bad, but then I think ranged will start to lockdown casters which will heavily annoy all but the most highly optimized players.

Those who optimize heavily abrupt jaunt or contingency or some such and are almost entirely unaffected.

So mirror image, blur, and prot from arrows are all highly optimized now?


Consequences have nothing to do with the actions that lead to them. A humble dagger stab could cause epic consequences if you stab a king in the neck. The world's most powerful attack spell could have absolutely no consequences if you use it to cut firewood.

"Accomplishing things" is not a class feature.

It kinda is in 3.5
:/

[Za'hynie Laya]

In previous editions of D&D, the combat round was longer than 6 seconds. It was one minute. You could do only so much in a one-minute round, like in 3.5. But this round was divided into ten segments. Movement cost you so many segments of your round. Weapons were assigned speed factors: Attacking with natural or light weapon cost very few segments and ensured you would complete your declared actions before other PCs (thus finishing your round of combat.) Using two-handed weapons cost nearly all ten segments and ensured most of the rest of your party (& enemies) would take their actions before you.

Casting spells under this system would cost you a segment per spell level. In a nutshell: Spells of 6th level or higher (IIRC) would ensure you had too few segments left for any movement that round. This also meant other combatants might complete their actions/round before you could get your nine-segment 9th level spell out. More time to disrupt that costly magic you're so dependent on.

Additionally, initiatives were handled and rolled differently: using d6 in 1st edition and a d10 in 2e. This system of AD&D combat was nicely emulated in the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale PC games back in 1998 and 2000 respectively.

A few years after 4e came out, I read an interview by Mike Mearls about RPG design. He mentioned one factor of balance felt in earlier additions of D&D that was never brought forward was the weapon speed/spell speed system described in the above paragraphs. Mike commented that 3e would have been a different game with it included.

Personally, this system is a little too complicated for my 3.5 game. But I might house rule something like this: All spells/powers/infusions of 6th or higher with a casting time of one standard action have a modified casting time of one round. 9th level & higher spells/powers take effect right before you begin your next turn.

[Flickerdart]

All spells/powers/infusions of 6th or higher with a casting time of one standard action have a modified casting time of one round. 9th level & higher spells/powers take effect right before you begin your next turn.
This also solves nothing. By making it more difficult/slower to cast spells, all you're doing is encouraging people to use the most broken ones. When it takes forever to charge up your mojo, or you have to use a low-level spell to affect the situation in time, you're not going to use it on this one random spell you dug up in the SpC, because that's a quick one-way ticket to a wooden box six feet under. And once people start using those spells? Your fix does nothing, because "I win at the start of my next turn" is almost nearly as good as "I win now", and is still only beatable by rocket tag.

Quick fixes don't work. You need to actually look at individual spells and re-level/edit/ban them. Eliminating the middle ground between "useless sack of bones with a pointy hat" and "godly ruler of all things" is the exact opposite of what needs to be done.

[Eslin]

But I might house rule something like this: All spells/powers/infusions of 6th or higher with a casting time of one standard action have a modified casting time of one round. 9th level & higher spells/powers take effect right before you begin your next turn.

That still doesn't distinguish between game breaking spells and spells that are barely worth a standard action as it is.


No, casting is definitely too safe. In classic fiction, the main drawback of magic vs. sword is that, y'know, magic is slower so a guy next to you with a sword makes getting spells edgewise impossible without preparation.

Wheel of time, inheritance cycle, tortall universe, sword of truth, the old kingdom - plenty of fantasy has spellcasting being quick enough to use in combat while fighting for your life.


That said, I really don't think that adjusting problematic spells one by one is anything but getting lost in details; the problem is not this spell or that spell, the problem is pretty much the whole complex and the attitude that spellcastingshould be superior by default.
I really don't think that any of the suggestions that effect casting as whole are by any means unreasonable; in the very worst case, you would recreate the same level of imbalance as the default RAW rules, just tilted to the other side (and no suggestion made here is nearly extreme enough to achieve such a feat).

All of the multiple turn cast time suggestions are unreasonable, they'll make the game dull. And going through problematic spells one by one is the only real way to make wizards playable without overshadowing lower tiers - meteor swarm is completely balanced as a level 9 spell, shapechange is not. Any blanket spell change that makes shapechange weak enough for fighters to feel useful will make meteor swarm too weak to ever use.


There is not a single class with spellcasting capabilities which would become utterly pointless (or, in the case of the Healer, more pointless) with a somewhat strict limitation on spellcasting. To the contrary, prolonged casting time are an overall good thing

They really, really aren't. You make spells take multiple turns, you bore the hell out of spellcasters. The primary object of the game is fun, and doing nothing is not fun.

[Flickerdart]

] Any blanket spell change that makes shapechange weak enough for fighters to feel useful will make meteor swarm too weak to ever use.
Meteor Swarm is already too weak to use. 24d6 damage is rubbish - 94 on average.

The structure of spellcasting, fundamentally, is fine. You have your move action to move, your standard action to, well, perform an action that is standard for you, and your swift action to do something minor very quickly. You have a potentially large library of effects, but cannot bring it to bear all at once at any given time. As you expend more of your power, your options diminish, and eventually you may be forced to retreat and regroup even though you are not physically wounded. Winning the battle and winning the war are different things. When you look at the encounter system, with many unique monsters having certain strengths and specific weaknesses, and healing actual HP damage taking much longer than recovering magic, this fits like a glove.

And then two things happen. One, a bunch of spells and effects allow you to ignore these limitations, either by being inordinately useful against pretty much everything or altering the dynamic. Cast a spell once and it's gone? Why not try a refreshing DMM Persist or Arcane Fusion Sanctum Lucubration? have to decide what to prepare? Why not Glitterdust, which is great against pretty much everything?

The other thing is that mundane options are rubbish. You get one trick, or two tricks, and then can't do anything but spam them, because you don't have the resources to continue making "creative" options viable once the numbers start ticking upward. There's no strategy. Once you secure a source of out of combat healing, combats are "use my trick until enemy died" or "my trick doesn't work, I can't do anything useful".

The fundamental spellcasting system (and various spinoffs like psionic powers, martial maneuvers, incarnum soulmelds, binder vestiges) is fine, and if you stay away from the ridiculous spells, it works great (see: Beguilers, a very good example of a balanced T3 class that uses the standard 9-level spell scheme). Any fix crude enough to negatively affect the Beguiler without meaningfully reducing the Wizard's power is unacceptable, and saying "oh well only apply this to T1 and T2 casters" is also pointless because guess what? Those casters are where they are not because of their casting methods, but because of their lists. The lists are the problem. Fix the lists.

[Black Jester]

Balance is all well and good, verisimilitude is all well and good, but as a game, fun is the single most important consideration. Things that take away the player's actions aren't fun.

Differentiating between balance, verisimilitude and fun is not much of an argument, I fear. More often than not, verisimilitude and balance are not opposed to anything fun, they are the very foundations of a fun game. More You can't get rid of the prerequisites for a good game and then expect a decent outcome. And whose fun are we talking about here anyway? I do not want to impute you anything, but by the way of the argument you propose, it seems as if you assume that the existing privileges of spellcaster players are more important than those of players who prefer mundane classes. The status quo of D&D as it is is basically that spellcasters have fun on the cost of their mundane peers. If "a fun game" is the one guiding principle, shouldn't then the fun of everyone and not just a selected few be the main concern?

Yes, it might get used to a slowed casting in combat approach, and it might change the way of approaching combat situations. Because you are not familiar with a system like that doesn't make it any worse (not allowing one spell per action is, after all, a very common occurrence in many, many other fantasy games which often work quite beautiful), it is just something you get used to.

Remember that combat is not the only thing to do in an RPG (or at least shouldn't be the only thing to do), and any changes leading to prolonged casting times in combat do not affect out of combat casting at all - and usually, that is where the true strength of most casters lies anyway, allowing them things to do mundane characters simply can't. As such, a step like this even defines the boundaries of character niches more clearly, letting the guys who are supposed to fight actually do the heavy lifting in combat, and let the guys who can do all kinds of other wondrous things do that. For anything resembling a balanced game, it is mandatory that every player has the opportunity to shine and to contribute to the game (not equally, which is pretty much impossible if you are not playing with a troupe of clones of equal wits and cleverness, but I disgress). This is much more likely with more clearly defined boundaries (for spellcasters; the boundaries for mundane characters in D&D are very well defined and often more likely to be too restrictive). Thus, nerfing spellcasters - all spellcasters- in combat situations (maybe with the exception of the warmage, but that is a single case which can be solved rather easily) is by no means problematic or has any negative effect on the game; yes it does away with a few privileges and that is a fundamentally good thing.

And yes, if you are a caster, you really, really shouldn't be able to do as much in a combat as a guy who has dedicated his whole life to this one purpose. Complaining about it is about as much of a serious problem as a warblade complaining about being unable to pick a lock, a barbarian who feels out of place at a royal audience and fails to impress the king with his wits and courtly manners or a rogue who can't beat an ogre in a wrestling match. It is a silly notion that any character should be useful in any given situation.

It is much more sensible (and just plain fair) to let everybody's character dominate in his chosen sphere; thus making spellcasters about as useful in combat as dedicated warriors is nothing but a failure in game design. Which is why the claim that nerfing spellcasters in combat situations -and we haven't talked about any other occurrences here -makes the game dull is false and misguiding. It makes the game more fun for those who should matter a lot more in combat situations, allowing them to take responsibility and fulfill their purpose.

(Now I actually want to post the houserules we use concerning magic and character building. If you think that a minor delay of spellcasting/increased spell failure chance is going too far, I'd like to see the reactions to that.)

[Eslin]

Except tier ones are useful in any given situation, and you're unlikely to change that. Blanket magic rule changes just mean the tier ones have to be trickier about how they get spells off and it screws over everyone else.

Under those kinds of changes the warmage, duskblade and healer get screwed over beyond belief and the beguiler, dread necromancer and bard get a heavy nerf that they frankly don't deserve.

[NichG]

The problem with 'come back in an hour' is with not communicating the point of the change. Namely, that you cannot use >1st level spells in combat. Casters become out of combat utility characters with such a change, with a few small combat tricks to protect themselves. Its a fundamentally different role than what they had before.

Edit: Reserve feats give casters back some combat ability in this system.

Now, you can regain some of that by changing how combat works. Make ranges super-long, and force people to approach slowly, so the caster throws some big 9th level thing during the approach phase, then the melee crashes together and they have to go back to 1st level stuff. But in such a system you couldn't use 'rounds' - you'd want a system that can abstractly model a changing timescale well (e.g. the first 10 rounds of combat is one circle of the table; the next 5 is another circle; then you're round by round).

If actions and rounds become disconnected this way, then there can be a new level of strategy involved in timing and delaying actions.

At this stage we're talking about a new system though.

[Eldariel]

Wheel of time, inheritance cycle, tortall universe, sword of truth, the old kingdom - plenty of fantasy has spellcasting being quick enough to use in combat while fighting for your life.

Sure, but it's still generally slower than sword. Well, it has to be slower than sword for the system to be able to maintain any degree of balance; otherwise spell is going to always be the superior option.

The very reason for spellsword hybrids in the first place is that if you're in melee, sword is still an option superior to magic for both, defense and offense (perhaps sword augmented with magic but still superior to actual combat magic) and it has to be this way if you want your system to have an incentive to learn melee combat too.

[Threadnaught]

What is it you think non-casters get to do in combat that is so exciting? "I hit it," is all non-casters do in any combat from 1st level to 20th, yet suggesting that casters have to put up with a drastically reduced number of in-combat options without paying for it, options that are still far and above more flexible than what the non-casters get to do, is suddenly not good game design?

Okay, your idea, 1 full round action per spell level.
Spells which already have a full round casting time or longer, have their casting time multiplied by the spell's level.
Metamagic increases the casting time of the spells as if they were higher levels. Yes, even Quicken, especially Quicken, which boosts a spell's level by 6.
Caster takes HP damage equal to 10 + Spell level per spell cast.
Caster must succeed on Concentration check of 10 x Spell level + Damage taken each round or lose the spell.
A spell may have it's level/casting time reduced by one round increasing it's Concentration check by +5 per level, this bonus may be added multiple times, the DC increase stacks. (495 to cast a 9th level spell as a standard action, 540 to cast a quickened 3rd level spell as a swift action)
If caster fails Concentration check by 10 or more, they are subject to all the effects of any offensive spells they attempted to use/enemies receive all the benefits of any buffs they attempted to use... Okay, every spell works like Wish being used for more powerful effects, but obviously with no beneficial effects.


This is really good game design. There is no way severely limiting casters and making them pay dearly for it would be bad game design... In fact, with these rules they're not paying for anything... How about we charge them 1000gp per spell level per spell they cast?
Permanent Constitution loss every time they learn a spell?

[Eslin]

Sure, but it's still generally slower than sword. Well, it has to be slower than sword for the system to be able to maintain any degree of balance; otherwise spell is going to always be the superior option.

The very reason for spellsword hybrids in the first place is that if you're in melee, sword is still an option superior to magic for both, defense and offense (perhaps sword augmented with magic but still superior to actual combat magic) and it has to be this way if you want your system to have an incentive to learn melee combat too.

Out of those examples - Wheel of Time it outstrips the sword by so much that most channellers ignore the swords they were ordered to train with as well, Inheritance cycle they tend to fight with swords while mentally duelling with magic - against a non magician, magicians just blow everyone up.
Tortall wise there are a few mage knights kicking around, while most mages stay well back and toss fire around. Old kingdom wise, magic's generally more useful than the sword for those who can do it, with a few characters also swinging a sword.

Sword of truth I have no idea about because I haven't read it =P

Spellcasting's usually as fast as a sword is, and far more useful.

In general the problem is spellcasting is in the above examples, far more powerful than melee combat - so much so that it usually requires very special circumstances for a non caster to keep up with a caster, same as 3.5.

Beguilers and dread necromancers have proved that full spellcasters can still make fun, interesting characters without resorting to making them take the entire combat to cast a spell - the issue is, as I've said countless times before, the spell list.

[Eldariel]

Out of those examples - Wheel of Time it outstrips the sword by so much that most channellers ignore the swords they were ordered to train with as well, Inheritance cycle they tend to fight with swords while mentally duelling with magic - against a non magician, magicians just blow everyone up.
Tortall wise there are a few mage knights kicking around, while most mages stay well back and toss fire around. Old kingdom wise, magic's generally more useful than the sword for those who can do it, with a few characters also swinging a sword.

Sword of truth I have no idea about because I haven't read it =P

Spellcasting's usually as fast as a sword is, and far more useful.

In general the problem is spellcasting is in the above examples, far more powerful than melee combat - so much so that it usually requires very special circumstances for a non caster to keep up with a caster, same as 3.5.

None of those is a good basis for a system that tries to keep non-casters and casters viable. Spellcasting is fast in those examples but it doesn't have to be and if you want to create some semblance of relevance for melee combat, you should start at making it the fastest combat tool.


Beguilers and dread necromancers have proved that full spellcasters can still make fun, interesting characters without resorting to making them take the entire combat to cast a spell - the issue is, as I've said countless times before, the spell list.

That doesn't excuse Tumble, 5' steps or defensive casting. Frankly, Beguilers, Bards and Dread Necros are fine even if you change those mechanics. A bit less safe but unless you're adventuring solo, you'll have people to protect you. And melee combat spells would still function the same.

If all spells took 1 round outside touch spells, it'd simply enable melee characters to actually interact with casters if they do manage to get next to one. It's not easy, but it could be done and casters would actually benefit of learning melee combat too since, y'know, they'd have something they can do in case someone does engage them in melee.

[Karnith]

If all spells took 1 round outside touch spells, it'd simply enable melee characters to actually interact with casters if they do manage to get next to one. It's not easy, but it could be done and casters would actually benefit of learning melee combat too since, y'know, they'd have something they can do in case someone does engage them in melee.
I believe that Eslin is addressing (as he has consistently been doing) the suggestion that spells should take one full round per spell level, as Ziegander proposed, which is a bit different from the system that you are describing.

And by "a bit different from," I mean "vastly worse than."

[Black Jester]

I believe that Eslin is addressing (as he has consistently been doing) the suggestion that spells should take one full round per spell level, as Ziegander and Black Jester seem to be in favor of, which is a bit different from the system that you are proposing.

And by "a bit different from," I mean "vastly worse than."

Erm no, my version (which is a similar and simplified version of the one I use in games since 2011 or so) uses two versions of spellcasting, quick and risky or slow and reliable:



However, I would suggest that this [prolonged casting time] should be an option, not obligatory, allowing casters to choose between quick (and unreliable) and slow (but guaranteed successful) spells. You could, for instance, introduce an automatic spell failure chance for all spells equal to their spell levelx5 in percent (which, of course, stacks with any other chance of spell failure). For each additional standard action used to prepare the spell, this spell failure chance is reduced by 10%, for each additional full-round action it is reduced by 20%. That way, you introduce another layer of tactics, leave the choice of approach to the caster players and at least partially mitigate the gap between mundanes and spellcasters.

As we have a few other factors which increase Spell Failure Chance (like being attacked or injured while casting spells; even with a successful concentration check your spell failure chance increase by 1% for each point of damage and 2% per spell level), this actually means that a few spells actually fail from time to time (yes, I know, D&D spellcasters are entitled to always working spells. That's what make spellcasting so predictable and boring at times) and failure can lad to actual magical mishaps (which are mostly harmless and meant to amuse the group/gently make fun of the caster, not killing characters).

[Flickerdart]

yes, I know, D&D spellcasters are entitled to always working spells. That's what make spellcasting so predictable and boring at times
Spells fail when their targets succeed on a saving throw, much in the same way that attacks fail when they fail to hit AC. This is not the problem.

[Eslin]

None of those is a good basis for a system that tries to keep non-casters and casters viable. Spellcasting is fast in those examples but it doesn't have to be and if you want to create some semblance of relevance for melee combat, you should start at making it the fastest combat tool.



That doesn't excuse Tumble, 5' steps or defensive casting. Frankly, Beguilers, Bards and Dread Necros are fine even if you change those mechanics. A bit less safe but unless you're adventuring solo, you'll have people to protect you. And melee combat spells would still function the same.

If all spells took 1 round outside touch spells, it'd simply enable melee characters to actually interact with casters if they do manage to get next to one. It's not easy, but it could be done and casters would actually benefit of learning melee combat too since, y'know, they'd have something they can do in case someone does engage them in melee.

That thing should be spellcasting - no-one is suggesting fighters should learn magic in case someone engages them with spells.

Direct combat wise, I've fought a player whose character was a dread necromancer with my crusader - I barely won after managing to get past all the undead and tentacles grappling me but it was a pretty even fight and her magic using standard actions didn't seem to be a great part of her strength.

It's anecdotal, I'm aware, but from what I can see it makes sense - I would expect a fairly even fight between a warlock and a ranger, a duskblade and a swordsage, a scout and a warmage. The problem is and will always be the ridiculous amount of options available to tier 1/2s.


I believe that Eslin is addressing (as he has consistently been doing) the suggestion that spells should take one full round per spell level, as Ziegander and Black Jester seem to be in favor of doing, which is a bit different from the system that you are proposing.

And by "a bit different from," I mean "vastly worse than."

Cheers =)

[Black Jester]

Spells fail when their targets succeed on a saving throw, much in the same way that attacks fail when they fail to hit AC. This is not the problem.

Yes, because all spells always allow for a saving throw and a successful saving throw always negate any effects of a spell. I mean, there are basically no spells which circumvent saving throws or which have any significant effect when the save succeeds.



Direct combat wise, I've fought a player whose character was a dread necromancer with my crusader - I barely won after managing to get past all the undead and tentacles grappling me but it was a pretty even fight and her magic using standard actions didn't seem to be a great part of her strength.


So your strictly combat-oriented character can 'barely' defeat a caster in combat - okay. But is he able to offer a similar level of input and ideas of options out of combat? If not (which I dare to presume), I guess that the dreadful necromancer might be overall a bit more useful.

[Karnith]

Yes, because all spells always allow for a saving throw and a successful saving throw always negate any effects of a spell. I mean, there are basically no spells which circumvent saving throws or which have any significant effect when the save succeeds.
Isn't the solution then to fix the spells that are stupid, rather than just make it more difficult for casters to actually get their spells off? Because the latter penalizes everyone who casts spells, no matter what they're doing or how fair/unfair it is, while the former specifically targets the things that are borked.

[OverdrivePrime]

TL;DR - I feel exhausted just thinking about putting for the effort to fix everything across the board. :smallsigh:

Okay, there are some really good points back and forth here.
Thematically, I prefer that spellcasting feel like a big deal, and I feel like it should take a little while and leave the caster vulnerable. Or at least more inconvenienced than having to make a fairly easy concentration check to cast defensively.

But that's not the game 3.5 or Pathfinder is. There are many, many moving pieces that would be affected by an across-the-board casting time increase.

And so, I feel like Flickerdart and other are right - that the only way to fix the game is to take the time to look at things piece by piece and decide to keep each piece as is, mess with it, or throw it out entirely.

Just looking at my campaign setting, which is run in Pathfinder, I was trying to figure out what the worst that would go wrong if I made the minor casting time increase (swift & immediate spells are 1 spell level higher, standard action spells become 1 round casting time, 1 round casting time spells take 2 rounds, quicken spell increases spell level by 5, etc) and I was about to figure, 'yeah, this will work' and write it into the setting officially.

Then I looked at the Magus class. Which would get all messed up by this change. Same goes for the Duskblade in 3.5. And I actually like both classes and want to encourage people to play them. So then I'd have to rejigger those classes from the ground up.

And then what about the Pathfinder Rogue or the Pathfinder Quigong Monk and their spell-like abilities? Are spell like abilities affected by this? I had better say no, unless I want to go and rebalance every single monster with a spell like ability. So then I have to decide, if I am cool with the Arch Mage PrC getting to pop off high level spells as spell-like abilities? Maybe?

It seems like a ton of work, and definitely still won't solve all of the problems of high level magic. That definitely requires a team effort of combing through the entire spell list, and through new spells as new published material comes out.

Has anyone made a serious attempt at looking through the 3.5 or Pathfinder spell lists and fixing or throwing out the gamebreaking stuff? I mean, beyond the obvious offenders like Gate, Polymorph Any, True Seeing, Fabricate and friends. I feel like Grood the Giant was putting together a list somewhere. :smallconfused:

[Threadnaught]

Nobody wants to look over my totally serious suggestions that totally should be applied to casters? These changes are totally balanced and totally require very little effort to implement, you can totally have fun with them. :smallfrown:

Yeah, sometimes, when I'm being sarcastic. I say "totally" a lot, but I'm totally not being sarcastic this time, I totally mean it. :smallamused:



I'm not a big fan of 1 round per spell level. A limiting factor I've always thought could work is Epic Level style Spellcraft checks at every casting. Please don't hurt me.

[Karnith]

Has anyone made a serious attempt at looking through the 3.5 or Pathfinder spell lists and fixing or throwing out the gamebreaking stuff?
Rogue Shadows made a pretty impressive effort here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=243835), though I haven't used his fixes and can't speak for how well they work in practice.

I'm not a big fan of 1 round per spell level. A limiting factor I've always thought could work is Epic Level style Spellcraft checks at every casting. Please don't hurt me.
That has the problem of penalizing people who aren't heavily optimizing while leaving the worst offenders fine and dandy (because it isn't that hard to jack up skill check bonuses if you know what you're doing). Unless you meant individual Spellcraft DCs for each spell, but that'd be a loooot of work to make happen.

[Eslin]

Yes, because all spells always allow for a saving throw and a successful saving throw always negate any effects of a spell. I mean, there are basically no spells which circumvent saving throws or which have any significant effect when the save succeeds.



So your strictly combat-oriented character can 'barely' defeat a caster in combat - okay. But is he able to offer a similar level of input and ideas of options out of combat? If not (which I dare to presume), I guess that the dreadful necromancer might be overall a bit more useful.

Except he also provided a lot of utility the dread necromancer didn't.
In a direct one vs one confrontation, they were evenly matched - but in group combat the crusader was much, much better. He was able to heal, buff and improve allies attacks considerably, and was able to efficiently redirect major attackers towards himself.

Out of combat, the dread necromancer could spread devastation far more efficiently, the large amount of minions provided manual labour and scouts and there were quite a few chunks of utility from the few non combat spells she had like geas, gentle repose and death ward, compared to the crusader's lesser advantages of healing, diplomacy and object destruction.

I'd call it even.

[Eldariel]

That thing should be spellcasting - no-one is suggesting fighters should learn magic in case someone engages them with spells.

Because magic isn't predominantly a combat tool. You learn to swing a sword to kill people, you learn magic to reshape reality. Magic does everything so it makes sense to learn for anyone with the aptitude even if it's not that strong in melee combat.

Warrior can learn magic to increase their capability when they're not in the frontline or when they need to, y'know, enter another plane of existence or travel 1000 miles in a second or such. That's already a part of the system and thus not a problem; there's every incentive to learn magic.

But why would you learn swordfighting if magic is better at it? There needs to be something swords are better at than magic for that to make sense and the only thing swords are good at is melee combat (indeed, historically swords have been an excellent weapon for melee combat and thus widely used in many times). So for swordfighting to make sense as something the PCs learn (part of the world for those who can't learn magic is one thing, but if the system is to enable mundane PCs or to make learning or not learning melee combat a trade-off for magical PCs, there needs to be a real advantage swords have over magic), it needs to be better in melee combat than magic.

Which is pretty naturally accomplished by making magic dangerous or difficult when under attack by somebody waving a sword; quite sensible since accurate handmotions and speaking words of power and such is much harder if somebody is placing a sword somewhere between your lungs and colon. Suddenly, it's perfectly fine for a spellcaster to not learn armed combat but they'll be at a disadvantage if somebody manages to actually get in a melee with them. Or you can have a Gish who can do both but is not as good in either as dedicated practicioners. And melee has something to try while fighting a mage; get in melee and make casting spells difficult to limit their reality-shattering capabilities in that very moment. This way things are balanced on a conceptual level; rest comes down to minutiae.

[OverdrivePrime]

Rogue Shadows made a pretty impressive effort here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=243835), though I haven't used his fixes and can't speak for how well they work in practice.

Wow. That is a colossal effort... and on first read, seems pretty good. Hats off to Rogue Shadows! I can't say I agree with getting rid of 8th and 9th level spells entirely, but I think I see what he was going for. It changes the game for sure, but maybe not the feel of the game, which is important, and makes the 'mundane' classes considerably more attractive for much longer.

That's definitely worth considering. Thanks for the link, Karnith!

[Threadnaught]

That has the problem of penalizing people who aren't heavily optimizing while leaving the worst offenders fine and dandy (because it isn't that hard to jack up skill check bonuses if you know what you're doing). Unless you meant individual Spellcraft DCs for each spell, but that'd be a loooot of work to make happen.

How about a flat DC based on the Spell level?

Here's a simple one: 10 + (Spell level x 3).

Or one that's easier on lower level spells, but harsher on the higher level stuff: Spell level x 5.

[Oscredwin]

How about a flat DC based on the Spell level?

Here's a simple one: 10 + (Spell level x 3).

Or one that's easier on lower level spells, but harsher on the higher level stuff: Spell level x 5.

My brother's sorcerer who wants to spam meteor swarm will have trouble, but my incantrix/archmage with an item familier will autopass on his persisted timestop. I'll join my voice to the chorus, skill checks for casting don't work.

[Kesnit]

Isn't the solution then to fix the spells that are stupid, rather than just make it more difficult for casters to actually get their spells off? Because the latter penalizes everyone who casts spells, no matter what they're doing or how fair/unfair it is, while the former specifically targets the things that are borked.

Tier 1/2 casters have their own spell lists. "If you cast this spell as a (insert class name here), this rule pertains to you. Because that is how (class name)'s spells work."

As for casters having to sit around... (1) it's the choice you make to cast that high-level spell, (2) other game systems have powers that take multiple rounds to activate, and even then, there is no guarantee the power will work at the end of casting time (I'm thinking of nWoD, though I'm sure there are others.)

If rounds take forever, perhaps you need to talk to the other players and the DM to make sure everyone stays engaged. If players are prepared when their turn comes around, turns go relatively quickly. If you keep having to kick people to get them to turn off YouTube, then brief them on what happened while they were ignoring game, turns take a lot longer.

[killem2]

I have been seriously considering ye olde, "spells require 1 round per spell level to cast," mantra.

Minus 1 round for every 2 point of core stat modifer to a minimum of 1 round.

:D

[Eslin]

How about a flat DC based on the Spell level?

Here's a simple one: 10 + (Spell level x 3).

Or one that's easier on lower level spells, but harsher on the higher level stuff: Spell level x 5.

As many have earlier stated - that just encourages powergaming. The newbies get screwed over, the optimisers end up taking a feat and a couple of magic items that remove the need to care about the skill check and call it a day.


Because magic isn't predominantly a combat tool. You learn to swing a sword to kill people, you learn magic to reshape reality. Magic does everything so it makes sense to learn for anyone with the aptitude even if it's not that strong in melee combat.

Warrior can learn magic to increase their capability when they're not in the frontline or when they need to, y'know, enter another plane of existence or travel 1000 miles in a second or such. That's already a part of the system and thus not a problem; there's every incentive to learn magic.

But why would you learn swordfighting if magic is better at it? There needs to be something swords are better at than magic for that to make sense and the only thing swords are good at is melee combat (indeed, historically swords have been an excellent weapon for melee combat and thus widely used in many times). So for swordfighting to make sense as something the PCs learn (part of the world for those who can't learn magic is one thing, but if the system is to enable mundane PCs or to make learning or not learning melee combat a trade-off for magical PCs, there needs to be a real advantage swords have over magic), it needs to be better in melee combat than magic.

Which is pretty naturally accomplished by making magic dangerous or difficult when under attack by somebody waving a sword; quite sensible since accurate handmotions and speaking words of power and such is much harder if somebody is placing a sword somewhere between your lungs and colon. Suddenly, it's perfectly fine for a spellcaster to not learn armed combat but they'll be at a disadvantage if somebody manages to actually get in a melee with them. Or you can have a Gish who can do both but is not as good in either as dedicated practicioners. And melee has something to try while fighting a mage; get in melee and make casting spells difficult to limit their reality-shattering capabilities in that very moment. This way things are balanced on a conceptual level; rest comes down to minutiae.

Except that it makes perfect sense for a spellcaster to focus on their spellcasting and work out ways to use it when someone's swinging a sword at them - deliberately forfitting your own game in order to play on someone else's terms isn't a good idea, especially when the new game is one the other person is likely to be better at.

[Eldariel]

Except that it makes perfect sense for a spellcaster to focus on their spellcasting and work out ways to use it when someone's swinging a sword at them - deliberately forfitting your own game in order to play on someone else's terms isn't a good idea, especially when the new game is one the other person is likely to be better at.

Perhaps so but if it's just not feasible or as efficient by the rules of magic, you reach an equilibrium within the system. That's the tradition in D&D; in AD&D 2e for example, fighter/mage specifically had the advantage of being competent in melee if engaged there compared to a straight mage. Both were perfectly viable but mages were at a severe disadvantage if engaged in a melee compared to mage/fighter multiclass and thus they used more resources on avoidance and sat in the back of the party while the fighter/mage could be more free even if the mage-side was more about shooting fireballs than self-buffing (no doubt he could do both).

Fighter/Mage may not be as good as a full-on Fighter without his magic but he don't need to be the best for the ability to be useful; you can still probably beat the guards in a prison escape without the spellbook, or hold his own against a demon or whatever even when said enemy has slipped past your spells and engaged you. Doesn't matter that someone is better than you, just that you're better than the opponent you are fighting right now.

[Karnith]

Tier 1/2 casters have their own spell lists. "If you cast this spell as a (insert class name here), this rule pertains to you. Because that is how (class name)'s spells work."But, again, this penalizes people who are playing the classes fairly. Everyone who wants to use said class would suffer, regardless of what they're doing. If your fix neuters the guy casting fireballs as much as the one who is throwing around invisible energy-substituted split twinned empowered maximized fell-drained searing orbs, then it's not a very good fix. Playing a tier 1 class doesn't mean that you're suddenly breaking the game.

Plus, increasing the casting time doesn't do anything to mitigate long-duration spells, many of which are extremely abusable.

As for casters having to sit around... (1) it's the choice you make to cast that high-level spell,The thing is, that choice is basically "do I want to contribute?" for anyone at a lowish op-level. Which is not a choice at all. At higher op-levels, it's not likely to stop anyone from doing stupid things (grease is embarrassingly effective for a long time in the game, there are a lot of good metamagic seed spells that are low-level, etc.).

Again, this kind of mechanic punishes people who are trying to play the game fairly while not doing that much to deal with actual problems. Not to mention why you would even bother to give out options in the first place if they're useless.

(2) other game systems have powers that take multiple rounds to activate, and even then, there is no guarantee the power will work at the end of casting time (I'm thinking of nWoD, though I'm sure there are others.)It's not really very fun in other systems, either. I've never heard anything good about it in Exalted, for example.

If rounds take forever, perhaps you need to talk to the other players and the DM to make sure everyone stays engaged. If players are prepared when their turn comes around, turns go relatively quickly. If you keep having to kick people to get them to turn off YouTube, then brief them on what happened while they were ignoring game, turns take a lot longer.
Even if the rounds are going pretty quickly, having spells that take 1 round per spell level to cast means that you will be out for multiple rounds (obviously enough), which in any group I've ever played in is a long time. Additionally, combat in 3.5 is so fast that past a certain level it's unlikely that a fight will even be long enough for you to pop off a higher-level spell.

[Amnestic]

Tier 1/2 casters have their own spell lists. "If you cast this spell as a (insert class name here), this rule pertains to you. Because that is how (class name)'s spells work."

I'm awful at writing mechanical stuff and even I can see how clunky that sounds.



As for casters having to sit around... (1) it's the choice you make to cast that high-level spell,

Yes, we should punish players with out of game boredom for wanting to use the class features that they gain at higher levels. That's good game design.



(2) other game systems have powers that take multiple rounds to activate, and even then, there is no guarantee the power will work at the end of casting time (I'm thinking of nWoD, though I'm sure there are others.)

Okay. Is it fun? I kinda doubt it. Just because other games systems did it doesn't mean it's a good idea.

[Kesnit]

Yes, we should punish players with out of game boredom for wanting to use the class features that they gain at higher levels. That's good game design.

Except the player has the option to use a lower-level spell. I know there are low-level spells that are powerful, which, I admit, is a big point against this idea. However, the caster has the option - use the more powerful spell that takes longer to cast, or the less powerful one that is faster.


Okay. Is it fun? I kinda doubt it. Just because other games systems did it doesn't mean it's a good idea.

For me it is. It requires me to think and plan out what I want to do and when I want to do it.

[Amnestic]

Except the player has the option to use a lower-level spell. I know there are low-level spells that are powerful, which, I admit, is a big point against this idea. However, the caster has the option - use the more powerful spell that takes longer to cast, or the less powerful one that is faster.


"Use the higher level spell that takes longer to cast.", I think you mean. It's blatantly obvious to anyone with even a cursory glance at the SRD that Not All Spells Are Created Equal at each level.

And even then, you're still punishing them out of game for using their higher level class features. Yes, in-game mechanical nerfs (fatigue, HP or ability damage) are easier to get around, but they don't bore the player.

As soon as you accept that some lower level spells are drastically more powerful/useful/desirable than higher level spells (and some spells of equal level drastically more powerful than their same-level counterparts) then the concept of blanket nerfing spell levels falls apart, because you're hitting spells that don't need to be hit.

Cone of Cold and Interposing Hand are clearly not equal in battlefield importance, so why, if we're aiming for balance, should they cause the same multi-round cooldown?

Karnith also brings up this point which I think bears repetition:

Additionally, combat in 3.5 is so fast that past a certain level it's unlikely that a fight will even be long enough for you to pop off a higher-level spell.

Depending on the encounter in question, combat could last anywhere from 1 round to 20+. Multi-round casts (especially with higher level spells) could have the spellcaster do nothing for the entire fight.

Last time I checked, a major bugbear of the Playground populace was invalidating characters and making their players feel useless. Yes, it's still their choice, but generally I find that players like to use the tools they are granted at higher levels as part of the reward for leveling up. Players should be enthused at reaching a new spell level, not see it and go "oh look, another set of spells I'm never going to be able to cast".

[Komatik]

Ineffective or bored out of my skull. Unless I try to break the system. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. But hey, melees are boring, so casters ought to be boring too.

Or, you know, "****'s broken, ban it". Suddenly, the mages can do stuff on their turn, do wondrous stuff and, uh, not break the game in half? While the swordswingers do the smart thing, read the ToB and suddenly everyone has fun again. You can even allow thematic Sorcerers. And after a couple problem exploits have been banhammered, Druids, too. And you'd probably be pretty OK, though those two characters will probably be served alongside an extra dose of Scary. And everyone will feel very different and quite useful. Strange.

[Flickerdart]

Yes, because all spells always allow for a saving throw and a successful saving throw always negate any effects of a spell. I mean, there are basically no spells which circumvent saving throws or which have any significant effect when the save succeeds.
What part of "fix the problem spells" is unclear?

Another issue with making spells take a long time to cast and easy to interrupt is that all casters will just start buffing/minionmancing, and then either charging into battle themselves or sending in their minions, outshining mundane melee either way.

[Kesnit]

"Use the higher level spell that takes longer to cast.", I think you mean.

What I was thinking of was 2 spells with similar results, but one does more than another and is a higher level. I was away from my books, so didn't have any specific spells in mind. But I didn't say that, so the misunderstanding is obvious. :smallredface:

[Eslin]

So, have we reached a consensus? Blanket changes to spell casting times make already weak spells useless, skill check based casting times screw over newbies but leave power gamers fine and in general a spell by spell overhaul would be necessary to stop wizards and druids being flat out better than dread necromancers and totemists.

[TuggyNE]

So, have we reached a consensus? Blanket changes to spell casting times make already weak spells useless, skill check based casting times screw over newbies but leave power gamers fine and in general a spell by spell overhaul would be necessary to stop wizards and druids being flat out better than dread necromancers and totemists.

The more I read of these fix attempts, and the more I try to think of new ones even, the more I think that blanket changes to anything is not the way to fix spellcaster superiority.

Not in 3.x, anyway.

There really is nothing that will work except a detailed overhaul, because, fundamentally, the subtleties spell mechanics depend mostly on spells for their mechanics! That's what it all comes down to.

[Eric Tolle]

The real fix that needs to be done isn't so much to casting times as it is to saving throws. Make saving throws work more like second edition, and you solve quite a bit of the problem with casters.

That said, a short delay in casting might help; I would recommend a spell going off 2 initiative ticks later for each spell level. So a fifth level spell cast by a wizard at initiative point 17, would go off at initiative point 7.

Oh yeah, and fix the whole thing about free spells per level, limit the number of spells a magic-user can commit to memory, and remove the "wizard as magic device factory" rules.

Ah hell with it; just go back to 2nd. edition rules regarding magic, and you fix everything.

[NichG]

Work/reward is tricky with a complete overhaul. Given just how much material is out there to vet, its probably actually easier at this point to scrap all spells and make a new set of about the same length as the PHB...

But even if you do that, not all spells will be equal. And thats really okay for an option-heavy subsystem like magic. Especially one where it just costs gold or time to expand your options, and not character build resources.

[Eslin]

The real fix that needs to be done isn't so much to casting times as it is to saving throws. Make saving throws work more like second edition, and you solve quite a bit of the problem with casters.

That said, a short delay in casting might help; I would recommend a spell going off 2 initiative ticks later for each spell level. So a fifth level spell cast by a wizard at initiative point 17, would go off at initiative point 7.

Oh yeah, and fix the whole thing about free spells per level, limit the number of spells a magic-user can commit to memory, and remove the "wizard as magic device factory" rules.

Ah hell with it; just go back to 2nd. edition rules regarding magic, and you fix everything.

That was sarcastic, right?

[Black Jester]

What part of "fix the problem spells" is unclear?

Another issue with making spells take a long time to cast and easy to interrupt is that all casters will just start buffing/minionmancing, and then either charging into battle themselves or sending in their minions, outshining mundane melee either way.

As long as even an NPC-class adept can out-perfom a monk in a battle (and that is the sad, sad truth), I am pretty sure that fixing a few spells is just nor sufficient. Mostly because there aren't enough unproblematic spells. It's much more sensible to nerf all spellcasters and then search for the few spells which are then inappropriately weak (actually, is there anything except blasting which deserve to be elevated that way?)
It's actually very simple: As long as any spellcaster can compete with a straight warblade/crusader/swordsage of about equal optimisation degree, level and equipment in a battle, that class is too powerful and needs to be nerfed. The trinity of warblade/crusader/swordsage is a pretty decent point of orientation for PC combat capabilities. Everything exceeding those is practically unacceptable.
That doesn't mean that a few of the worst offenders both among the classes and spells do not require their own, extra set of thumbscrews to go beyond the more superficial overall solutions.

[Karnith]

It's actually very simple: As long as any spellcaster can compete with a straight warblade/crusader/swordsage of about equal optimisation degree, level and equipment in a battle, that class is too powerful and needs to be nerfed.
First, this is silly, because there are combat-based casters. Saying that they shouldn't be competitive in their niche is just being unfair to them.

Second, melee/ToB guys and casters rarely contribute to combat in the same way, so I'm not sure what the problem is if they both contribute the same amount to combat.

Third, this does not address any of our criticisms of blanket-nerfs. Your changes hit everyone, regardless of what they're doing. People who are playing low-op casters (and who weren't problems!) get hit hard with the nerf-bat into near-uselessness in combat, while those playing higher-op characters can still do all kinds of stupid things. In fact, limiting the number of spells that a character can cast in-combat (through longer casting times, random spell failure, etc.) encourages the use of broken, encounter-ending spells so that casters can stay relevant. Moreover, if you've still got most of the problem spells that need to be separately fixed after you've hit casters with the risky/slow casting nerfbat, maybe it wasn't such good a good fix to start with. Blanket nerfs like this are really just not a good way to balance the classes. They may work in your games because of your player's playstyles/op-levels, but the proposed fix doesn't get rid of the system's worst problems and it hits the characters who aren't problematic much harder than those who are.

[Eslin]

As long as even an NPC-class adept can out-perfom a monk in a battle (and that is the sad, sad truth), I am pretty sure that fixing a few spells is just nor sufficient. Mostly because there aren't enough unproblematic spells. It's much more sensible to nerf all spellcasters and then search for the few spells which are then inappropriately weak (actually, is there anything except blasting which deserve to be elevated that way?)
It's actually very simple: As long as any spellcaster can compete with a straight warblade/crusader/swordsage of about equal optimisation degree, level and equipment in a battle, that class is too powerful and needs to be nerfed. The trinity of warblade/crusader/swordsage is a pretty decent point of orientation for PC combat capabilities. Everything exceeding those is practically unacceptable.
That doesn't mean that a few of the worst offenders both among the classes and spells do not require their own, extra set of thumbscrews to go beyond the more superficial overall solutions.

That's, uh, not true. For one thing, tome of battle combat is far too complex to judge easily - as I demonstrated earlier in a direct one vs one fight a dread necromancer and a crusader are about even, but they both have different advantages (boosting/healing allies vs minions) and it's pretty difficult to measure which is better.

For another thing - I've been playing the above crusader for years. If a spellcaster of the t3/t4 variety isn't adding just as much to the battle as I am something's gone wrong, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The classes are primarily based around combat - combat's not all d&d is by a long shot, but almost every feat and class feature relates to it in some way.

If a spellcaster is competing on an even basis with a ToB class, everything's perfect. That spellcaster absolutely does not need to be nerfed.

[Flickerdart]

As long as even an NPC-class adept can out-perfom a monk in a battle (and that is the sad, sad truth), I am pretty sure that fixing a few spells is just nor sufficient. Mostly because there aren't enough unproblematic spells. It's much more sensible to nerf all spellcasters and then search for the few spells which are then inappropriately weak (actually, is there anything except blasting which deserve to be elevated that way?)
So wrong. The fact that monks suck has no bearing on the merits of spellcasting, and there are so many completely reasonable (and even underpowered) spells. Take a read through the Spell Compendium sometime.



It's actually very simple: As long as any spellcaster can compete with a straight warblade/crusader/swordsage of about equal optimisation degree, level and equipment in a battle, that class is too powerful and needs to be nerfed. The trinity of warblade/crusader/swordsage is a pretty decent point of orientation for PC combat capabilities. Everything exceeding those is practically unacceptable.
The spellcaster can't compete with anything - they all have crap BAB, crap HP, and crap skills. It's the specific spells that allow them to compete. Have a problem? Nerf the spells.

[Karnith]

[T]here are so many completely reasonable (and even underpowered) spells. Take a read through the Spell Compendium sometime.
I would venture so far as to say that the majority of spells are underpowered, if not outright craptastic.

[Black Jester]

First, this is silly, because there are combat-based casters. Saying that they shouldn't be competitive in their niche is just being unfair to them.

As i said, the ToB characters aren't just combat-oriented; they are the upper benchmark for their niche. If a spellcaster is able to compete with the very best in that area, the class is very, very likely to overshadow less combative classes, like fighters or monks (okay, I know, if you have access to warblades and swordsages, fighters and monks are sidelined anyway, but that's a complete different issue). Pretty much any caster, even a rather pigeonholed one like the warmage can do a few useful things beside combat. That is the true strength of magic in D&D - its apparent versatility.
As I have mentioned before, balancing requires clear boundaries between character niches and in the given form, the spellcasting classes in D&D 3.5 systematically violate these boundaries. If a spellcaster - any spellcaster - is competitive outside its core niche, can contribute significantly in several niches and at the same time has such a clear niche of distinct core competences, the system is intrinsically unbalanced. If you want a balanced system it is mandatory to keep every class in its core competence supreme; which does not mean that no class should have secondary focuses and abilities, but such a secondary ability should never have the impact or versatility of a class's primary focus.
So if one character's primary focus is combat, and the others is not, it should be perfectly clear that the primary combatant will be superior in his very core competence, or at least as good as the other class in that core competence as well. If you want a game, where everybody can contribute about equally in combat, no matter what they do or can do otherwise, you will almost always automatically have a game with a flawed balance, or no balance at all. If you want that kind of game, that's perfectly fine, it is just as legitimate as any other approach to a game, as long as everybody who is involved in it enjoys it. But it is most certainly not balanced.



Third, this does not address any of our criticisms of blanket-nerfs. Your changes hit everyone, regardless of what they're doing. People who are playing low-op casters (and who weren't problems!) get hit hard with the nerf-bat into near-uselessness in combat, while those playing higher-op characters can still do all kinds of stupid things. In fact, limiting the number of spells that a character can cast in-combat (through longer casting times, random spell failure, etc.) encourages the use of broken, encounter-ending options, because casters will need to maximize the impact of the spells that they actually get to cast. If they don't, then they waste a bunch of time to get no/very little effect. Which is always fun.

There isn't a single spellcasting class (I don't count paladins, rangers and hexblades as spellcasting classes for obvious reasons) from the mighty wizard to the humble adept which should or could not be more limited in its offensive and defensive combat abilities. For none of these classes (with the somewhat exception of the battle-mage) combat is their primary raison d'etre; as such, they have other areas they can excel in, and usually they do.
Secondly, no balancing of game mechanisms will ever answer the inequality of player commitment, interest, capabilities or just optimization ambitions. That is one of the reasons why all attempts at creating a balanced game will always fall short to actually achieve this aim - you cannot balance people and their capabilities by decree. Some players are just more committed than others, or find it easier or more difficult to understand the rules or, in some cases are just just better at finding exploits. It happens. Roleplayers are a heterogeneous group, and there are, by default better and worse optimizers (as well as better and worse method actors, story tellers and the like). As such, different degrees of optimization is one aspect the game rules cannot possibly address. The rules can try but as long as you do not reduce any decisions to a clear-cut white list of straightforward options - and thus remove the very essence of a roleplaying game by cutting out the option to actually make decisions.

I personally find it preferable to respect the intelligence of my fellow players and assume by default that they are capable and willing to determine the abilities and strengths of their characters by their own choice ad that they are mature enough, and understand the mechanisms and procedures well enough to actually take responsibility for their decisions.
As a consequence, varying degrees of optimization and similar player-dependent aspects are utterly irrelevant for the discussion of balance. It is a complete different layer of the game which is barely connected.



Moreover, if you've still got most of the problem spells that need to be separately fixed after you've hit casters with the nerfbat, maybe it wasn't such good a good fix to start with. Blanket nerfs like this are really just not a good way to balance the classes. They may work in your games because of your player's playstyles/op-levels, but the proposed fix doesn't get rid of the system's worst problems and it hits the characters who aren't problematic much harder than those who are.

Yes, there is obviously no such thing as a layered approach of various steps building on each other. What was I thinking...

[Amnestic]

There isn't a single spellcasting class (I don't count paladins, rangers and hexblades as spellcasting classes for obvious reasons)

Why not? They cast spells. Why are they less a legitimate spellcasting class than the skill-and-music focused Bard?

[Flickerdart]

Yes, there is obviously no such thing as a layered approach of various steps building on each other. What was I thinking...
When over 90% of spells are fine or underpowered and under 10% of spells are the bad apples, hitting every spell with massive nerfs is not a layered approach, it's demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of the workings of the system.

[Karnith]

Yes, there is obviously no such thing as a layered approach of various steps building on each other. What was I thinking...
When spells aren't effectively nerfed by your casting time/reliability fix, and you still have to go through and ban/nerf all of the broken spells, what's the point of nerfing casting times and adding in arbitrary spell failure chances? If you've done your job properly on dealing with the broken spells, then your spellcasters shouldn't be doing anything unfair, and there should be no need for applying such a massive nerfbat.

I don't even disagree with all of your balance goals (though I do disagree with some), it's just that your modifications to casting time and random spell failure chances don't do anything good on their own. They actively penalize and discourage people playing fair while barely annoying those who actually know what they're doing.
First, your changes don't really affect low-level play at all. All of the strong first-level spells are barely affected: stuff like Sleep, Color Spray, Grease, Power Word: Pain, and Ray of Enfeeblement are still king. With second-level spells, the spell failure chance is still low enough to ignore, and casters still get to end encounters with spells like Glitterdust, Cloud of Bewilderment, and Web. The spell failure chance doesn't really become significant until later on in the game.

The changes also harm buffing and BFC types (and summoner types, but I won't get into that here). Those are exactly the ones you want in a group, because they don't overshadow other players. Once you get to third- and fourth-level spells, all of the best buffs and debuffs/BFC come online, but suddenly they're all useless because spellcasters won't be able to reliably drop spells on the first round of combat (i.e. the key moment to use those spells; debuffing an enemy isn't very helpful when they've already killed someone, BFC isn't helpful after they've moved into position, and buffing someone when combat is almost over is laughable). The BFC caster can either try to help his friends on the first round and have a good chance of failing, or he can wait and be useless.

Where does this press our caster? Into spells that are relevant at all stages in a combat. What are those? Why, spells that solve encounters by themselves, of course! Either SoDs or super-blasting that will simply drop enemies at the drop of a hat, and because those are the only things that are guaranteed to be effective at any stage in a fight, that's what any competent caster would move toward. Casters can either accept the spell failure chance, and just spam the spells enough times to succeed on the spell failure chance once, or they can wait a while and make it safe for them to cast. In the former case, your casters will vary between completely dominating combat and being useless depending on pure chance, and in the latter case they will vary between completely dominating combat and being useless depending on how long it takes their party-mates to beat the encounter. Either way, casters will either be useless in combat, or dominate it.

And that's not even getting into all-day spells. Minionmancy remains as viable as ever, as do persistomancy shenanigans to buff yourself into the stratosphere. Metamagic reducers put on low-level seed spells, like Lesser Orb of Fire, will mean that mailman-style shenanigans are still viable.

Basically, as I've said before, the spell casting time increases and failure chance encourage game-breaking behavior. The fair strategies and the ones that don't involve stepping on other people's toes in combat become nonviable because they take so long or are likely to fail, and all of the stuff that you don't want, with casters overshadowing non-casters, are still viable options (if slightly less powerful than before). Since you don't want that, you still have to go through and ban or nerf all of the broken spells, which you could have just done in the first place without radically changing the casting system. If you ban all of their spells and keep that casting system, then you have casters who don't meaningfully contribute in combat anymore.