Is this ridiculous?

[Crake]

Ok so for an upcoming game that I will be running, full arcane casters are going to have it pretty hard. I've merged sorcerer and wizard into a single class, and I'm using the pathfinder words of power (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/ultimateMagicWordsOfPower.html) variant from ultimate magic (the game itself is 3.5 though).

They have it quite hard in that normally casters will get words of power for free as they level up, however I'm making it so that, aside from the starting words you can ONLY find more words of power by exploration. I'm thinking 0-2 words of power will be found in expeditions specifically in the pursuit of words of power, and a very small (like 1-2%) chance of finding a word of power while not specifically looking for one.

This means that it's more than likely that casters will gain words of power at quite a crawl unless they employ other players to find words of power for them. In addition, I've made casting dual ability score focused. Int for highest level spells you can cast/bonus spells and cha for save DC.

Add into that a highly competitive hidden magic scene who's focus the players will need to evade while trying to consolidate power, it's all quite an ordeal.

In exchange for this incredibly steep entry curve (that many might not make it past) I've given them the ability to learn as many words as they can find, and cast them spontaneously. Is that too much?

Edit: Here is a link (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkG6ui7s8xb9dFZMb1pkVW9qMkxmZzRIaklWODVLe lE&usp=drive_web#gid=0) to the class as it currently stands.

For those interested in a bigger picture before critiquing, I have a thread about the game that this is going to be run in that can be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=316720).

[Renen]

How id break it:
1) find all servitor words.
2) standard action summon monster is now mine
3) ???
4) profit

[Crake]

How id break it:
1) find all servitor words.
2) standard action summon monster is now mine
3) ???
4) profit

considering that summons summoned as a standard action only get a single standard action of their own in the first round (I can't actually remember where I read this rule?), is this such a big deal?

Edit: So it looks like the rule is from UA, from the rapid summoning conjurer ACF. I'd probably apply that rule to this if it's not already a universal rule.

[HalfQuart]

Can you clarify why you are making these changes? Is it for flavor reasons, to try to create some sort of class balance, or maybe because you don't want players playing full caster characters?

[Crake]

Can you clarify why you are making these changes? Is it for flavor reasons, to try to create some sort of class balance, or maybe because you don't want players playing full caster characters?

It's mostly flavour, the game world has recently gone through a large magical purge, and magic is only now slowly returning to social acceptedness, so only ancient words of power are available to learn from. Full casters are still available in the form of clerics, druids also use the words of power (although for them it's just a normal version of the pathfinder variant, no homebrew class) because mother nature went through a similar problem. That said, psionics is available as is, so that's another option for people who want to go down the full caster route.

[Epsilon Rose]

Honestly, that sounds horrible, especially for everyone who isn't the caster.

Questing for power is all well and good, but you shouldn't have to go on a quest to enable your class's core competency, just like how a fighter shouldn't have to go on a quest for his +1 flaming sword. This is exacerbated by the fact that most of the rest of the party won't be getting much out of these quests, which kinda bites. Going on a quest where you're just a bit player is not fun.

This would be OK, if they were questing for some extra bit of awesomeness that they don't actually need and it was woven into the story. However, as it stands, words are their ONLY class feature (wich wasn't a particularly great decision on the core casters either), so not letting them advance makes the class really, really boring. Everyone else gets new toys on level up, but you're stuck doing the same-old same-old until you can convince everyone else to go on a quest for your benefit. That is not a great mechanic.

If you really want to have them questing for words. I'd recommend giving them warlock invocations/eldritch blast or spellshaping or only make them quest for extra special words that no one else has that do fun new things, or old things in new ways, but aren't necessary.

Edit: Actually, after further thought, I came up with one other way of solving this that might also be fun for your players. It's a bit unorthodox, but I think it should give the flavor you're looking for, without being overly onerous for the players.

Basically, it goes like this: Your wordcaster doesn't actually have any class features or anything to define it as a class on it's own, so why not make it not a class? Make it so everyone can access magic to some degree, based on how much effort they put into it. This simultaneously ensures most of the party can benefit, at least a little, from quests for words (assuming you give out either really generic words or a selection of words), helps even the gap between mages and mundane classes, fits very well with the fluff of piecing magic back together, and allows for more interesting builds.

Of course, this also necessitates some changes to the way casting works. Personally, I favor tieing it to a skill or series of skills. This would mean player's would have to sacrifice some resources to get in on the game, but basic entry only requires a minimal sacrifice and it uses a resource they're already familiar with. This system can also be fine tuned really easily, which is nice.

Broadly, you can make entry cheaper by tieing magic to a single skill and/or tieing it to already existing skills. Alternatively, you can make it more expensive by creating new skills that do few things other than their associated magic and by dividing the skills up (with the most extreme version being a new skill per word, ala gurps). Personally, I'd recommend either coming up with a couple of new skills or tieing magic to a skill that works towards the same end (so, hide or slight of hand might control illusions) and seeing how that balances.

Alternatively, you could use feats, but I think that might end up as too restrictive.

That leaves 2 remaining problems: key stats and spell progressions.

Under this system, I think it would be a good idea to do away with the split casting stat. It'll result in a bit too much mad to allow for a lot of interesting builds.
if you're tieing casting to relevant existing skills, then you can just use the key stat for the skill to cast and maybe tie bonus spells to con. Alternatively, you could just let each player pick their key mental state at creation.

Spell progression could be handled on one of three ways, either you create a generic progression that everyone gets, you create several progressions that are based on something universal (perhaps inverted bab or hd) or you base it on a meta-magic skill.
Personally, I favor the first option. Words shouldn't be anyone's main focus and you'll be keeping some degree of control over what words are available, so there should be to much trouble with balance and since everyone will have different base classes and rolls, they shouldn't end up looking generic. The second option also works decently, but it's more work and I suspect it will likely favor the classes that are already more powerful. Finally, the final method just serves as a skill tax (wich might not be a bad thing if skills become valuable because of Magic.

[Crake]

Honestly, that sounds horrible, especially for everyone who isn't the caster.

Questing for power is all well and good, but you shouldn't have to go on a quest to enable your class's core competency, just like how a fighter shouldn't have to go on a quest for his +1 flaming sword. This is exacerbated by the fact that most of the rest of the party won't be getting much out of these quests, which kinda bites. Going on a quest where you're just a bit player is not fun.

This would be OK, if they were questing for some extra bit of awesomeness that they don't actually need and it was woven into the story. However, as it stands, words are their ONLY class feature (wich wasn't a particularly great decision on the core casters either), so not letting them advance makes the class really, really boring. Everyone else gets new toys on level up, but you're stuck doing the same-old same-old until you can convince everyone else to go on a quest for your benefit. That is not a great mechanic.

If you really want to have them questing for words. I'd recommend giving them warlock invocations/eldritch blast or spellshaping or only make them quest for extra special words that no one else has that do fun new things, or old things in new ways, but aren't necessary.

This is for a living campaign, so if the caster wants to get people to come along, he'll need to convince them to do so, either with money (by hiring them), or with sweet words (hey man, there's a sweet cache of treasure here! If you help me find it, I'll give you a cut). Also, that's not to say that any quest for a word of power will result exclusively in just a word of power, the ruins that these words would be found in would be filled with other kinds of ancient treasure that would be attractive to the other players.

The big thing is that I want these players to be rewarded with power if they can manage to get past the entry barrier, as it's going to be incredibly hard for them. As I said, it's quite possible that many who try will die trying. This class is definitely not going to be for many, and its quite possible that none of the players will even take up the gauntlet and give it a try.

[Yuki Akuma]

It is pretty ridiculous. Both in the sense of making people quest for their class abilities, and the fact that you can't seem to spell 'ridiculous'. :smallwink:

Please, don't make people quest for their class abilities. You wouldn't make the Rogue go on an arduous journey to learn Evasion, would you?

[avr]

So casters will suck at first but rule later on? I'm not sure this form of balance was effective in many AD&D campaigns and I doubt it will work well for you here.

If the casters have to bully or sweet talk other PCs into coming along that's unlikely to be a cost. In a thought experiment a rogue/barbarian/whatever may demand assistance in their adventure in exchange for assistance on the word adventure but IME it hasn't worked that way in equivalent situations.

Epsilon had an idea about making the words themselves attractive to other PCs. If you go with that or directly link words to attractive magical loot you'll probably get better results.

[Crake]

So casters will suck at first but rule later on? I'm not sure this form of balance was effective in many AD&D campaigns and I doubt it will work well for you here.

If the casters have to bully or sweet talk other PCs into coming along that's unlikely to be a cost. In a thought experiment a rogue/barbarian/whatever may demand assistance in their adventure in exchange for assistance on the word adventure but IME it hasn't worked that way in equivalent situations.

Epsilon had an idea about making the words themselves attractive to other PCs. If you go with that or directly link words to attractive magical loot you'll probably get better results.

Old caches that have words of power will likely have other powerful ancient magic items.

[Yawgmoth]

So spellcasters don't get to have their class abilities unless they specifically hunt them out and even then will likely not get to pick the ones they want. Sounds like a game of "please kick me in the balls" to me.

[Aasimar]

the biggest problem with making players work for their power is that then they will work for their power.

if you are content with a good portion of game time being spent on this, thats one thing. But I've found that GMs dont like players to be solely focused on stu# like that.

I.e. you cant do both this and introduce any sort of interesting non-magic-gathering (distinct from Magic: The Gathering) plot and expect them to stick with it.

Are you ok with this being the main focus? Because if you tell them they must work for their magic, then dont give them time to work for their magic, or resent when they do at the expense of other potential quests, you're kinda being an ass

[BWR]

Sounds like it could be fun to me. just make sure the players know how things work at character creation. Be explicit and detailed so there are no misunderstandings.

So long as you make adventures that aren't always "go to X so our damn caster can find another stupid word". You might want to consider allowing some words, especially meta- or target words, to be learned automatically at certain intervals, e.g. every 3 or 4 levels. Personal practise and whatnot.
Also, you might want to consider allowing people to research their own words. By all means, make it a laughably high DC (yet one PCs can overcome with a little effort) and make it take a long time, but don't render it entirely impossible.

There are a few things you need to consider.
What would the general feeling on casters exchanging words be? If information is freely shared, most of the words would be easy to get hold of.
If people don't, why not? Is there some metaphysical situation that prevents people from sharing?
Is this 'hidden magic scene' so powerful it can regulate the spread of words? Sort of like the Order of Dragonlance?

[Crake]

the biggest problem with making players work for their power is that then they will work for their power.

if you are content with a good portion of game time being spent on this, thats one thing. But I've found that GMs dont like players to be solely focused on stu# like that.

I.e. you cant do both this and introduce any sort of interesting non-magic-gathering (distinct from Magic: The Gathering) plot and expect them to stick with it.

Are you ok with this being the main focus? Because if you tell them they must work for their magic, then dont give them time to work for their magic, or resent when they do at the expense of other potential quests, you're kinda being an ass

The game that this is going to be run in is an entirely sandbox-y living city game, the players literally do whatever it is they please (with consequences obviously). So I'm 100% fine with those that take up this class spending all their time looking to gather power, in fact, I'd welcome it. I think running it in a living city game will help out those that want to take up this class, as they can hire different people, so they don't need to wear out the same players all the time, and it gives others the chance to pursue their own goals.


Sounds like it could be fun to me. just make sure the players know how things work at character creation. Be explicit and detailed so there are no misunderstandings.

So long as you make adventures that aren't always "go to X so our damn caster can find another stupid word". You might want to consider allowing some words, especially meta- or target words, to be learned automatically at certain intervals, e.g. every 3 or 4 levels. Personal practise and whatnot.
Also, you might want to consider allowing people to research their own words. By all means, make it a laughably high DC (yet one PCs can overcome with a little effort) and make it take a long time, but don't render it entirely impossible.

There are a few things you need to consider.
What would the general feeling on casters exchanging words be? If information is freely shared, most of the words would be easy to get hold of.
If people don't, why not? Is there some metaphysical situation that prevents people from sharing?
Is this 'hidden magic scene' so powerful it can regulate the spread of words? Sort of like the Order of Dragonlance?

I might consider allowing them to reverse engineer words, although I think there would be a chance of backfire if the process fails by too much (backfire effects TBD at a later date).
Casters are few and far between, new faces to the scene are generally not welcome either. Each individual hoards in secret their knowledge of the words of power, and many don't even reveal themselves as wordcasters, instead disguising themselves as wealthy nobles and the like.
Those familiar with Dragons of the Great Game from monster manual V (at least that's where I personally learned about it), the scene is much like a mortal version of that. The powerful wordcasters rarely go after each other directly, although newcomers who make themselves known too obviously may get crushed really early.

Edit: I should also note, that I'm going to be incredibly transparent about how things are going to work with those who enter the game as wordcasters, or with some kind of background in wordcasting, however those who become wordcasters after character creation without any background in it will be entering blind.

[Zubrowka74]

So spellcasters don't get to have their class abilities unless they specifically hunt them out and even then will likely not get to pick the ones they want. Sounds like a game of "please kick me in the balls" to me.

But it's ok that for once, it's the tier 1 class that gets the kick in the balls. They want nicer class abilities ? Well, they have to earn them.

It will need some tweeking though. Perhaps giving them an extra word here and there if they suck too much. Anyhow, players have access to unhindered psionics. As long as everyone is OK with this at the begining of the campain, it's a good experiment to have. Just learn to adjust if the fun level drops.