need opinions on caster please!

[blelliot]

I'm still working on an idea for a new world, I've figured out which non caster base classes to allow. Now I'm wondering which caster classes to allow.the world will be low magic. I'm just looking for opinions on sorcerers vs wizards, favored souls vs clerics, and druids vs spirit shamans. Also the binder seems to cry out as a rogue magic user. Any opinions? Would appreciate any opinions:-)

[Juntao112]

Beguilers, Dread Necromancers, and Warmages are well balanced. (Warmage is a tad weak, though.)

Sorcerers, Favored Souls, and Spirit Shamans are weaker than their tier 1 cousins, but make no mistake about it; these are tier 2 classes and if played well will be very much unbalanced.

[ArcturusV]

Yeah, basically the difference you're looking at with Sorcerers versus Wizards? A wizard can break a game countless ways. A sorcerer will be breaking a game slightly fewer ways due to limited Spells Known.

I'd gear down further. Say Shugenja, Beguiler, Bard, Warmage.

[blelliot]

I'd gear down further. Say Shugenja, Beguiler, Bard, Warmage.

I'm using the prestige variant for the bard, paladin and ranger. Also, would the classes I mentioned work well in a combined sense? Ie the sorcerer needing intelligence as well as charisma for spells and the favored soul gaining the turn undead and domain feature?
Also I'm looking to only have one representative for the arcane base classes, one for the divine class, and one for the nature. I'm working toward a world where magic is not science and is regimented by an order of magi for the arcane, the priestly orders for the divine, and a druids circle for the nature

[ArcturusV]

Well, the sorcerer thing is clunky. The Favored soul thing is buffing them up so they can do most of the things that make Clerics the power houses that they are. And I haven't had experience running the Spirit Shamans to say about it.

If you want to stick to just one class of the various roles, and want it to be a Low Magic world?

I'd go Warlock for Arcane. Warlock in particular fits more in the magic as mysticism rather than magic as science feel. It's also not going to overshadow anyone and still feel plenty "arcane" for people.

Favored Soul with no changes at all might stand in for your Divine, and work somewhat well. I'd also maybe consider using the Shaman (Not spirit, just Shaman) as a Nature Caster, and Shugenja as the "Divine" caster. Again, this will keep in the spirit of being low magic, and not having classes that would really upstage the others you're using.

Note that the flavoring of both the Shaman and the Shugenja can switch places as the "Divine" and the "Nature" caster. The shaman gets powers from spirits of the dead, nature, or animals. The Shugenja gets powers from appealing to the elemental fortunes and such. It's a blurred line.

[blelliot]

Well the idea is that the different spells have different levels of ability to be learned. My first idea was wiz, clr, and drd. The warlock in this world would give off the "forbidden" style of magic. With the idea being that much magic is highly regimented, with the more powerful spells needing almost an approval process to learn. The binder and the warlock would seem to almost fit a different role in this world idea. Maybe just change the cleric and druid to have a "spellbook" of sorts?

[ArcturusV]

Or just play up the relation they are supposed to have with their spell granting Power, and make it something more than the usual 1 way street it is. Most Cleric/God relations feels more like the God doesn't care unless you do something arbitrary like Alignment changes "I'm still devout and working towards your goals!" "Pssh, you're Chaotic Good now. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" or similarly silly things, "Well... I didn't care when you went around killing every other druid in the world and burning down all the wild lands... but you taught a Dryad the Druidic Language?! HOW DARE YOU!"

Having them jump through a few hoops might be a nice change.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

When I run "Low-Magic" campaigns, I just ban 9th level spellcasters. All Wizards, Clerics, Druids, whatever. Gone. The Bard is the master of the Arcane. The Ranger is the "Nature guy", and the Paladin is the Priest in Armor.

Works beautifully.

[Waker]

If you want lower powered casters I also second the beguiler, dread necromancer, and warmage. You could also use the healer class, though it isn't very impressive. Warlock is a nice, neat little arcanist, as is the dragonfire adept. Binders can fill in quite well as mages, you could refluff the vestiges as spirits or lesser gods if it suits you. Incarnates and totemists bind souls to themselves to grant themselves powers.
If you need any elaboration on any of the classes, just ask.

[ericgrau]

Be sure to squeeze in magic items somehow, or you'll be ruining non-casters much more. Or else stick to low level. Or switch systems. Really, D&D revolves around magic and it won't work right without a wide array of magic items at minimum. It's a total mess.

As for which casters it all depends how low you want to go. Full casters are automatically out. But do you bring it all the way down to ranger/paladin, or do you go a bit higher and allow all but full casters?

You might want to add in adepts, at least as NPCs if not PCs too.