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Dausuul
2007-01-22, 11:55 PM
YES! It's another "casters versus non-casters class imbalance issues" thread! Yay!

This one starts by taking the following premises as given. If you aren't willing to accept these premises, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't bring that up in this thread; there are many other threads where you can argue that.

Premise A: Casters are way too powerful compared to non-casters at high levels.
Premise B: Something ought to be done about that.

The idea of this thread is to ponder where the main sources of trouble lie, and then how those sources might be addressed. I see the following problems:

#1. Clerics and druids get a lot of self-only buffs that let them buff themselves up until they can outperform fighters in melee, while remaining potent casters as well.
#2. Wizards control the combat with save-or-die and save-or-suck spells, which operate far faster than a fighter can possibly whittle down a monster's hit points.
#3. Melee combatants lack the means to close with fast-flying ranged-attacking enemies, which describes most of the opposition at high levels (dragons, powerful demons and devils).
#4. Non-casters can't defend themselves against the overwhelming array of supernatural and physical attacks that high-level monsters bring to the fight.
#5. Skill-monkeys are irrelevant at high levels because spells can do anything they can do, better.

Here are my proposals to address these:

#1. Divine Power and Righteous Might should be made into touch spells instead of personal ones. (Also change the Divine Power BAB buff into "your BAB increases by 1 per 3 caster levels," so the spell doesn't lose its potency when applied to a fighter.) Natural Spell should be abolished.
#2. This is a tough one. Perhaps increase the Spell Resistance of all high-level monsters by 5 or so?
#3-4. Plan a series of feats which provide benefits like regeneration, high-powered energy resistance and damage reduction, spell resistance, and superhuman mobility (e.g., leaping attacks that cover hundreds of feet) or battlefield control (e.g., a crippling ranged strike that brings down a flying foe). These feats should have high BAB prerequisites and be oriented around attack rolls and weapon use, making them ideal for fighters and other BAB-primary classes.
#5. Similar to #3-4, but instead of BAB prereqs have skill rank prereqs, and instead of basing them off attack rolls base them off skill checks.

Obviously, these are not "quick fixes," but neither do they require a total rewrite of the game. I'm looking to find some kind of middle ground, such that if a few creative people worked on it for a while, they could create a set of additional material that could be imported into existing games with a minimum of disruption and would solve the problem tolerably well.

What do y'all think?

Shazzbaa
2007-01-23, 12:53 AM
Now, I'm not experienced enough to comment on mechanical balance, but here are some suggestions I've heard else where on the forum that I like the flavour of.

-- Clerics don't automatically get Divine Power and Righteous Might. Instead, Paladins get them. While I understand the fighting side of a cleric, Paladins seem to me to much more fit the "mighty warrior for my god" idea. The person who said this worded it very well, too; I'll dig up a quote at some point.

--Wizards truly become "glass cannons." As I've said in the other balance threads, I've always liked the concept of fighters not getting magic, but being tough, while wizards have mad powaz but can't take a hit to save their lives. Unfortunately, this one would not be easy to implement.

--Increase casting time for powerful spells. Save-or-die/Save-or-suck spells seem to be the real issue... and I really liked one suggestion that such spells should take a long time to get off properly. Then it would be less of "the wizard casts the spell of win and awesome and saves the day!" and more of "the fighter holds the enemy back to protect the wizard while the wizard chants for a few rounds to get off the spell of win and awesome that will save the day!"
It strikes me that this would also be useful for fighting enemies -- instead of everyone starting their turn by failing will saves, they would have a few rounds to try to take down the chanting wizard in the back. ALSO, wizards of all sorts are less likely to constantly use spells that will make them the automatic "primary target" for several rounds, so it seems that really good spells will be reserved for when they're really needed.

I don't know how mechanically viable these suggestions are... they're just thoughts that I've heard elsewhere on the forum that I really like the feel of, that made sense to me, and it would be really cool to me if fixes pushed themselves in this direction.

Draz74
2007-01-23, 12:58 AM
Yeah, I really like the idea of making a number of the better spells have a casting time of a full-round, or two full-rounds, or even a bit more.

Heck, some that shouldn't really be used in battle anyway (Teleport?) can have a casting time of 2 minutes or something.

Bosh
2007-01-23, 01:15 AM
double post

Bosh
2007-01-23, 01:16 AM
I personally think going the "nerf the casters" route works better than the "buff the non-casters" route.

Perhaps increase casting times of higher level spells or replace all full-casting classes with the following class:

Magic User:
BaB: medium
HPs: d6
Saves: two good and one bad
Skills: 6+Int
Skill selection: lots and lots
Spell casting:

One level of magic user = one caster level
Is affected by arcane spell failure if wears non-light armor

Spells/day = as bard of the same level + 1 (so you can cast 6th level spells at 15th level) but extend the spell chart so that Magic Users can cast 7th level spells at 18th level).

Spells known: As bard of the same level + 1 PLUS an additional number of spells known per each level you can cast equal to your Int bonus.

What spells can be known? Anything on Druid, Cleric or Wizard spell lists.

Magic Users can either spontaneously cast one of the spells that they know or memorize any of the spells in their spell book at the beginning of the day (so for example if a character can cast two 3rd level spells he can either cast both of them spontaneously or replace either or both of those two spontaneous spell slots with a spell memorized from his spellbook or a scroll).

Int: determines additional spells known.
Wis: determines bonus spells/day.
Cha: determines saving throw DC.

There you go, a caster with a lot of flexibility but a lot of the oomph taken out of them at higher levels. Probably pretty weak if compared to ToB etc. classes but should be balanced just fine if they're the only casters in a Core-only game.

Gnifle
2007-01-23, 05:27 AM
The main problem with class imbalance, as I see it, is the fact that most D&D campaign worlds are High Magic worlds - magic items are everywhere, they can either be bought or you find them when you defeat a kobold. Yes I know this is exaggerated, but I hope it will help me make my point.
If you would like to find a way to balance the classes, you have to do some thing about the general consensus of every campaign world, magic isn't something an every day peasant sees much of. Magic should be something that is marvelled at, feared and mistrusted.

clericwithnogod
2007-01-23, 05:34 AM
#1. Divine Power and Righteous Might should be made into touch spells instead of personal ones. (Also change the Divine Power BAB buff into "your BAB increases by 1 per 3 caster levels," so the spell doesn't lose its potency when applied to a fighter.) Natural Spell should be abolished.

Divine Power and Righteous Might are needed to make the cleric the equal or near equal of the fighter on the rounds in which he is fighting rather than buffing or healing. If you aren't fighting well, there is no use or fun in fighting. The cleric already has to spend some of his actions either buffing himself, healing others (when someone takes a bad crit or two, makes a poorly thought out decision or a nasty surprise pops up), or removing adverse conditions from others. Expecting them to spend yet another of their actions to make themselves irrelevant in combat (if the melee challenge is scaled to the now additionally buffed fighter, attacks that are less able are meaningless - see monks and bards) is just sadistic.

Divine Power for a fighter is redundant - it's supposed to make a cleric as useful in melee as a fighter, giving them the fighter's BAB and HP as well as an enhancement bonus to strength, which wouldn't stack with the enhancement bonus to strength that any properly equipped wealth-by-level fighter is supposed to have. The only place where there is any hint that this is overpowered is at the first few levels a cleric has it when the fighter won't have as good of an enhancement bonus to strength from equipment, but by that point, the fighter should be gaining the benefit of his points from levels invested in strength as well as the feat chains that he should be well into around this time, leaving him at least slightly ahead - and getting more opportunities to use his more powerful situational feats as he has them "always prepared" and doesn't need to worry about doing anything other than fighting.

Righteous Might is a little better than an Enlarge spell (+2 STR, +2 CON, variable DR - 15 at the highest level), which the fighter has access to as a cheap potion or spell cast by the wizard/sorceror. And, the additional benefits are offset a little by the focus the fighter has been able to place on his fighting ablilities and equipment. If it's not worthwhile for the fighter to drink a potion of Enlarge or the sorceror/wizard to burn an action on it - particularly as a 4th level mass spell granting the size bonus to everyone in the party that might benefit from it, why is it overpowering for the cleric burning an entire round (or his limited feats to Divine Metamagic/Quicken or Divine Metamagic/Extend Spell/Persistent Spell and corresponding uses of Turn Undead - requiring Charisma) in order to gain bonuses to strength and size that he likely had to burn all of his feats to make use of effectively (and in the Divine Metamagic case, likely won't have the all the feats necessary to make full use of).

As for Natural Spell, without Divine Metamagic to pump up the quickening of spells, it's a non-issue. As the player of many fighting and skill monkey characters, I've never really cared if the guy casting high-level spells looked like rhinoceros the round he did it, or if he cast a low-level or at high levels a mid-level spell before or after making his attack as a rhinoceros. It doesn't steal any thunder from my Combat-Brute-fueled, full Power Attack or my Tumble-Sneak Attack, Sneak Attack-Tumble, with maybe a full Sneak Attack in there if I can get away with it.

#2. This is a tough one. Perhaps increase the Spell Resistance of all high-level monsters by 5 or so?

Assay Spell Resistance in the spell compendium heightens casters ability to defeat spell resistance (as a swift action with a +10 bonus) and exists for a reason. Spell resistance completely negates an ability resulting in a wasted turn, which isn't fun. And, at current levels can make a simple encounter a TPA with one or two bad rolls. This is one of those things that directly aids monsters almost completely to the detriment of the players. The notable exception being the monk, which really doesn't need more survivability as much as it needs the ability to do something useful offensively. It also negates iconic, direct-damage area-effect spells, almost all of which are SR affected making what is already supposed to be sub-optimal completely useless (though, a "sub-optimal" direct damage spell such as Fireball, combined with a "useless" feat like Great Cleave works, often spectacularly well, in practice - and highlights both the Wizard's and Fighter's capabilities).

#3-4. Plan a series of feats which provide benefits like regeneration, high-powered energy resistance and damage reduction, spell resistance, and superhuman mobility (e.g., leaping attacks that cover hundreds of feet) or battlefield control (e.g., a crippling ranged strike that brings down a flying foe). These feats should have high BAB prerequisites and be oriented around attack rolls and weapon use, making them ideal for fighters and other BAB-primary classes.

Or, simply provide characters with equipment appropriate to their level. In the majority of cases where magic and magical attacks are overwhelming characters in my experience, it arises from poor treasure disbursal by the DM, a failure on the DMs part to adequately understand the effect of his own house rules or changes to rolls to "heighten the drama" and/or failure of the casters in the group to uphold their responsibilities in having protective and debuff skills available and used. If your cleric or wizard is able to defeat encounters without the other party members by only taking care of himself, your encounters or your tactics are sub-par.

#5. Similar to #3-4, but instead of BAB prereqs have skill rank prereqs, and instead of basing them off attack rolls base them off skill checks.

This already exists in the form of Skill Mastery and the high skill ranks reqired for checks to be effective at higher level (note that Find Traps works at 1/2 the effectiveness of a trapfinding Rogue's probable skill level and doesn't disable traps). Some feats that allow different maneuvers have skill requirements. The new skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel address this as well. Another thing to look at is your encounter maps, and how they affect different classes. If you consistently clutter them with terrain and obstacles that prevent the Rogue from being able to tumble effectively making teleportation or flight the only effective means of movement around the map, it's not a mechanics problem, it's a DM issue.

Just how many Knock spells are Wizards memorizing at a time and how many Sorcerors are learning this as one of their spells known? In play, I can't remember seeing this used except in cases where we rested for the night and the Wizard memmed it to specifically overcome an obstacle. I could see having one available to get past a surprise magic obstacle or make up for a poor roll by the Rogue, but Wizard spell slots even at high level have so many things they can be used for and so few slots that it seems counter-intuitive that there are Wizards memming a half-dozen of these at a time in a party that already has a Rogue with adequate lock skills. And, if you don't have a Rogue, or you have a Rogue that focused more on interpersonal skills or acrobatics than pure trap/lock stuff, what is the big deal if you have a Wizard that casts this a lot?


--Wizards truly become "glass cannons." As I've said in the other balance threads, I've always liked the concept of fighters not getting magic, but being tough, while wizards have mad powaz but can't take a hit to save their lives. Unfortunately, this one would not be easy to implement.

Glass cannons are a poor game idea. The simple fact is that characters are, sooner-or-later going to take hits. Glass cannons take hits and die, often. Sentencing a character to frequent, experience-draining, time-out-of-game deaths is poor design. As is limiting characters to only being able to do one thing, particularly when that one thing is buffing or healing another character, which then gets to do the heroic stuff. Every character should have the opportunity to do something enjoyable and meaningful on their turn. There is a certain amount of satisfaction in stringing together a string of buffs to overcome a specific encounter occasionally as there is to making a tumble check to get in position to cast the healing spell that saves someone's life, but being relegated to buffer, condition fixer and healer too often gets boring. In a game of heroic fantasy, all of the characters need their chance to be the hero.

The premise of this supposedly was that high-level casters are overpowered, but high-level casting isn't addressed... What about Greater Celerity, Time Stop, Gate, Antilife Shell and similar chains of casting that are what make Wizards "the winners" of DND? The things that are addressed aren't high-level or high-powered, they mostly deal with reducing the versatility of divine casters. Spells "win" DND and not spells that make you a good fighter...spells that change the laws of physics so profoundly that no non-magic, or even other magic can counter them once they are triggered.

Spellcasters are overpowered when the encounter is won by the first arcane caster to say "I cast Celerity/Greater Celerity." Unless the second caster says, "My Contingency spell triggers." Unless the first caster then says, "My Elminster's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Whatever triggers."

Fighters and Rogues (and Monks) shine most during chaos - times when preparations break down, the party is surprised, you have to function reactively, you need to take immediate advantage of opportunities and/or time is of the essence. They are dealing damage, coming to the rescue and working at full efficiency while the Cleric is stuck trying to undo what was done or make himself into what he needs to be and the Wizard is trying to find a way to keep something from being done to him if it hasn't been already or come up with ways to use the spells he has left that were prepared for another situation. When those situations never occur or rarely occur, spellcasters have become overpowered - at almost any level. When these situations never occur or rarely occur, you also have a dull story.

Marius
2007-01-23, 06:43 AM
The main problem with class imbalance, as I see it, is the fact that most D&D campaign worlds are High Magic worlds - magic items are everywhere, they can either be bought or you find them when you defeat a kobold. Yes I know this is exaggerated, but I hope it will help me make my point.
If you would like to find a way to balance the classes, you have to do some thing about the general consensus of every campaign world, magic isn't something an every day peasant sees much of. Magic should be something that is marvelled at, feared and mistrusted.

No, no, no. It has nothing to do with magic items. Magic items in fact help non-casters a lot more than they help casters. Just imagine a fighter without items at high levels and then a druid or a wizard without items (and don't forget that casters can make their own magic items!).

Gnifle
2007-01-23, 07:05 AM
#Marius

I might not have been clear.
I'm against the concept of high magic worlds. Magic, both in items and in the hands of casters, whether they are divine or arcane shouldn't be something that everybody had acces to. But yes you are right, in a normal campaign world you have to have magic items to even out the score.
I'm currently working on an idea for a low magic campaign world, with the following restrictions on casters.

- Paladins and Rangers can't cast magic. I think I will use the variants from the Complete Warriors/Fighters
- Bards get their spells at a later level, which I’m not set on yet. They will also have a modified spell list.
- Druids get their spells at lvl 3, furthermore their spell list will be modified.
- Clerics, there are none. Gods don't play an active role in the life of the people of my world.
- Wizards, same as with the clerics there are none. There is a general mistrust against magic, and there are no mage towers where young apprentices go to study.
- Sorcerers, yes they exist. By they are restricted. I haven't quite figured out the game mechanics. But you have to have a feat, and the spells you cast have to be scribed and the magic bond on scrolls.
- Magic items are rare.

Saph
2007-01-23, 07:08 AM
I prefer simple fixes in general . . . but I can't think of any really fast and simple fixes that would solve anywhere near all of those.

The three I'd implement would be:

1. Remove the seriously overpowered spells, eg. the polymorph line, the cleric's divine power/righteous might group (give it to the paladin), everything to do with celerity (what were they thinking whey they made that one?), etc.

2. Increase casting times for more powerful spells, as Shazzbaa said.

3. Make clerics and druids less tough - a weak Fort save and a lower Hit Die, say d6. I find these two classes much worse than the wizard or sorcerer because they've got full spellcasting yet are as tough or tougher than a fighter.

But it would take a long time to get a fix that everyone agreed on.

- Saph

clericwithnogod
2007-01-23, 07:47 AM
1. Remove the seriously overpowered spells, eg. the polymorph line, the cleric's divine power/righteous might group (give it to the paladin), everything to do with celerity (what were they thinking whey they made that one?), etc.

If Divine Power/Righteous Might isn't overpowered for the Paladin, why is it overpowered for the cleric. This seems more of a personal preferance change to make the character fit your conceptions than anything having to do with balance.

2. Increase casting times for more powerful spells, as Shazzbaa said.

This creates more turns where characters do nothing, which isn't fun. It also creates more turns in which the party is absorbing attacks, meaning you need to increase damage output by the party to kill monsters faster or increase HP/AC. Increasing damage output works both ways, so you have to increase HP/AC which drags out combats. Also, the more attacks you take without an interval to recover, the better the chance that the party absorbs a series of failed saves, crits or something else that incapacitates too many members of the group and leads to a TPA.

3. Make clerics and druids less tough - a weak Fort save and a lower Hit Die, say d6. I find these two classes much worse than the wizard or sorcerer because they've got full spellcasting yet are as tough or tougher than a fighter.

Then you have a Wizard that casts heal spells instead of fireballs, which is no fun. Also, the person who can best remove adverse conditions becomes much more likely to fall to them. He's less able to survive being near melee combat to provide healing spells, let alone fill his role as a front-line fighter. The cleric has to have the ability to do something other than cast heals, buffs and remove adverse conditions. His full spellcasting is less powerful than that of a wizard, particularly if he's been using his limited feat selection to make himself a better fighter.

Bears With Lasers
2007-01-23, 07:52 AM
Divine Power for a fighter is redundant - it's supposed to make a cleric as useful in melee as a fighter, giving them the fighter's BAB and HP as well as an enhancement bonus to strength, which wouldn't stack with the enhancement bonus to strength that any properly equipped wealth-by-level fighter is supposed to have. The only place where there is any hint that this is overpowered is at the first few levels a cleric has it when the fighter won't have as good of an enhancement bonus to strength from equipment
No, the first hint is where it makes him equal to the fighter even though he isn't one. Poof! I'm a fighter! And still a full caster.


Righteous Might is a little better than an Enlarge spell (+2 STR, +2 CON, variable DR - 15 at the highest level), which the fighter has access to as a cheap potion or spell cast by the wizard/sorceror.Mm-hmm.
Also, did you REALLY just say that DR 15 is "a little better"? I'd say that even DR 5 is pretty significant, and DR 15 is a hell of a lot.

And, of course, there's the +3 hit and damage from (Quickened) Divine Favor.


And, the additional benefits are offset a little by the focus the fighter has been able to place on his fighting ablilities and equipment. If it's not worthwhile for the fighter to drink a potion of Enlarge or the sorceror/wizard to burn an action on it - particularly as a 4th level mass spell granting the size bonus to everyone in the party that might benefit from it, why is it overpowering for the cleric burning an entire round (or his limited feats to Divine Metamagic/Quicken or Divine Metamagic/Extend Spell/Persistent Spell and corresponding uses of Turn Undead - requiring Charisma) in order to gain bonuses to strength and size that he likely had to burn all of his feats to make use of effectively (and in the Divine Metamagic case, likely won't have the all the feats necessary to make full use of).The cleric burns the first round of combat, in which the fighter closes. The cleric is losing a single attack for his buffs. That is NOT much. He takes a feat he would have taken anyway, and can take an important feat chain (such as Imp. Bullrush/Power Attack/Shock Trooper or Power Attack/Expertise/Imp. Trip), and still use other spells as necessary. His +4 AB/+4 or 5 damage (2-handed weapon, it depends on the strength score)advantage over the enlarged fighter (who takes a standard action to chug his potion while the cleric buffs--or who eats up the wizard's standard action, which can do so much more than the fighter's can) or +5 AB, +7 damage over the unenlarged fighter means that his damage output is more significant; his DR from Righteous Might means that he takes less damage; his great will save means that he's not going to be useless for most of the fight after the first spell tossed his way.
All of this is overpowering because not only is the cleric a better fighter (a good Fighter build can cancel this out), but he's a better fighter and an infinitely better spellcaster too.



As for Natural Spell, without Divine Metamagic to pump up the quickening of spells, it's a non-issue. As the player of many fighting and skill monkey characters, I've never really cared if the guy casting high-level spells looked like rhinoceros the round he did it, or if he cast a low-level or at high levels a mid-level spell before or after making his attack as a rhinoceros. It doesn't steal any thunder from my Combat-Brute-fueled, full Power Attack or my Tumble-Sneak Attack, Sneak Attack-Tumble, with maybe a full Sneak Attack in there if I can get away with it....yeah, the Druid with Bite of the Werebeat up who can cast Control Winds and then whomp on people better than you can isn't stealing your thunder at all. Natural Spell is for letting them stay in wild form all day and not needing their physical stats, thus continuously being your match in combat as well as a full caster.


Or, simply provide characters with equipment appropriate to their level. In the majority of cases where magic and magical attacks are overwhelming characters in my experience, it arises from poor treasure disbursal by the DM, a failure on the DMs part to adequately understand the effect of his own house rules or changes to rolls to "heighten the drama" and/or failure of the casters in the group to uphold their responsibilities in having protective and debuff skills available and used. If your cleric or wizard is able to defeat encounters without the other party members by only taking care of himself, your encounters or your tactics are sub-par.He doesn't "take care of himself"--he takes care of his enemies. Who become useless and flop around.
Appropriate amounts of wealth don't balance things out. The gap is a little less dramatic, but it's still there.


Fighters and Rogues (and Monks) shine most during chaos - times when preparations break down, the party is surprised, you have to function reactively, you need to take immediate advantage of opportunities and/or time is of the essence. They are dealing damage, coming to the rescue and working at full efficiency while the Cleric is stuck trying to undo what was done or make himself into what he needs to be and the Wizard is trying to find a way to keep something from being done to him if it hasn't been already or come up with ways to use the spells he has left that were prepared for another situation. When those situations never occur or rarely occur, spellcasters have become overpowered - at almost any level. When these situations never occur or rarely occur, you also have a dull story.Clerics and druids, who can be ready to go in a round or less, and wizards, whose spell diversity lets them deal with the chaos as well as anyone

dead_but_dreaming
2007-01-23, 08:59 AM
I think that the simplest solution is removing the most overpowered spells from the game, or modifying them. I currently run a low-magic campaign, and after much thinking and long discussions with my players I've come to the following conclusion: I remove the spells that bother me most, such as teleportation and most raise dead-type spells (they don't fit the feel of my world) and I will strongly consider removing overpowered spells whenever they become an issue.

I haven't had much experience with high level play and my players have yet not abused any save-or-die/suck spells, so I can't really adress this issue. In addition, the druid in the party is at this point (lvl 3) quite useless in combat and I've only played sucky-but-cool multiclass druid builds at higher levels (fochlucan lyrist and that wizard/druid PrC from RotW) and we have never had any clerics but still: remove righteous might or nerf it and there you go. Or am I wrong?

Finally, the only time we had to deal with an overpowered character was when there was a fighter/dervish in the group. He totally owned all battles. What about that?

Raum
2007-01-23, 09:11 AM
I see the following problems:

#1. Clerics and druids get a lot of self-only buffs that let them buff themselves up until they can outperform fighters in melee, while remaining potent casters as well.
#2. Wizards control the combat with save-or-die and save-or-suck spells, which operate far faster than a fighter can possibly whittle down a monster's hit points.I think I'd just combine these and say full casters' spells tend towards the overpowering. But part of my reasoning is that I don't want to try and balance individual spells, there are too many and more keep being published.


#3. Melee combatants lack the means to close with fast-flying ranged-attacking enemies, which describes most of the opposition at high levels (dragons, powerful demons and devils).While I agree this can be an issue for melee types, I'm not sure it should be "fixed" as part of the class. I like the idea of basic fighters being fundamentally mundane. Besides, if a fighter is able to close with and hit a caster, the caster is probably going to die.


#4. Non-casters can't defend themselves against the overwhelming array of supernatural and physical attacks that high-level monsters bring to the fight.I'd change that to "can't actively defend themselves", they do have passive defenses to one degree or another.


#5. Skill-monkeys are irrelevant at high levels because spells can do anything they can do, better.Agreed.


Here are my proposals to address these: <snip>As I mentioned earlier, I don't really want to go through individual spells for balance issues. I do agree paladins should have access to DP and RM, but that's more because it fits paladin flavor than anything else. A flat SR isn't a very effective method of nerfing spells, particularly with Assay Resistance and similar spells available. As for the feats, they'd probably work...but at the expense of any mundaine flavor.

Here is what I'd suggest:
1. All spells normally taking a standard action to cast take a number of time segments equal to their spell level. Exceptions: Power word spells continue to take a standard action.
2. Quicken Spell is changed to cast spells one "action type" faster. So full round spells now take time segments equal to level, spells taking time segments (most spells) now take a standard action, and only spells taking a standard action are quickened to swift actions.
3. Divine metacheese is removed.
4. Natural spell is removed.

The effect is spells which are easier to interrupt (or counter without readying and action) and fewer spells at high levels. My intent is to keep changes simple and easily implemented while maintaining existing class flavor. There are probably a few class specific things I'd add, but the above are the most sweeping.

clericwithnogod
2007-01-23, 01:52 PM
No, the first hint is where it makes him equal to the fighter even though he isn't one. Poof! I'm a fighter! And still a full caster.

This is by design. The cleric has to sacrifice his actions to take care of other party members, the fighter almost never needs to do that. In return the cleric, on those turns in which he isn't being nursemaid to the other members of the party, actually can fight competently or cast spells competently on his turn, making it more likely he can do something fun and interesting on his turn. The alternative is a character that exists only to buff and heal the other party members. In-game, the ability of the cleric to do multiple things balances out with no problems unless the fighter makes a pathetic build or the cleric repeatedly and consistently places his personal enjoyment above that of the other party members. If you've built yourself to fight as well as a fighter all the time, you're less effective than a caster that focused his feats or feats and domains on casting well. Your save DCs are going to be lower as you've had to MAD out some stats and you aren't going to have feats or abilities that boost your ability to get by SR. You'll also not have access to as many of your spells as an arcane caster as you have to burn some to remove conditions and heal.
---
Mm-hmm.
Also, did you REALLY just say that DR 15 is "a little better"? I'd say that even DR 5 is pretty significant, and DR 15 is a hell of a lot.

Sorry about that, it's DR9 at 15th level. And, at high levels, even 15 isn't that much. Particularly when it's DR 9/evil or DR9/good, meaning it doesn't work against many of the most dangerous things you'll fight. 9 points of physical damage per attack is a pittance in high-level, heavy melee.

---
And, of course, there's the +3 hit and damage from (Quickened) Divine Favor.

So you've triggered or had prepared three spells before starting...in the first round. And nothing, in a high level encounter, would have made other spells necessary or more suited? Did you divine metamagic persist something which chewed up three feats, plus one more feat for quicken, and your remaining feats are one feat chain with one floater, probably Extra Turning (unless you had a lot of stat points available to build your CHA, went with Undeath as a domain or got Extend Spell as a freebie from Planning, but then you're passing up better domains). To still qualify for feat prereqs Get a decent WIS and significant STR and CON, you're probably suffering from serious MAD. Honestly, if you played that build, I'd say you more than earned the right to have some power. If something is broken in all this, it's Divine Metamagic, not Divine Power, Righteous Might or Divine Favor.
---

The cleric burns the first round of combat, in which the fighter closes.

...and takes multiple full attacks himself, leaving him in need of healing or he'll die with a lucky roll by the mobs next round. Or, an opposing caster casts some sort of battlefield control spell blocking your way, after the Wizard has gone this turn and you're stuck behind it along with other party members - at least the Rogue in a four man group and maybe the Monk and Ranger as well in a larger group. Or the Fighter is hit with a save or suck spell that makes him ineffective...or makes him attack the party. All of which require you to do something other than fight that round. And, most likely as the fighter has continued to take damage while you deal with any of this, you're probably going to be healing him again at some point. Unless he drops and stabilizes and you decide to let him spend some time rethinking his tactics...

And if there's a surprise round, good luck in taking a round to buff yourself into fighting shape at high levels , because if you aren't doing something to the enemy or yourself more effective than getting ready to swing a weapon at high levels, and with the high probablity that your dump stat was DEX and no feats to improve your initiative, you're sucking up a full three rounds of enemy actions before swinging that weapon.
---

The cleric is losing a single attack for his buffs. That is NOT much.

If your best action on the first round of combat is a single attack as a cleric, you're really shorting yourself. You gave up a Combat Brute fueled charge (maybe with some swift spell to boost the charge a bit) to set up your next power attack - which probably won't be possible later after everything moves and casts, casting Haste (to buff both yourself and the fighter and any other melee types you have around) to let the Wizard which focused on casting well cast his better combat spells right away, casting Holy or Unholy Blight, or really almost anything else you could do that is a better alternative.
---
All of this is overpowering because not only is the cleric a better fighter (a good Fighter build can cancel this out), but he's a better fighter and an infinitely better spellcaster too.

A Paladin, Ranger, Bard, or heck even a gnome commoner with a 10 CHA is an infinitely better spellcaster too. Why should the fighter care? If the fighter, who wanted to be a fighter and enjoys it gets to fight effectively and meaningfully on all of his actions, what's unbalancing about the character that heals him, and likely really wanted to be something else, on some turns getting to fight effectively or cast a spell on other turns. Balance doesn't become an issue until casting makes fighting irrelevant. At that point, the fighter can't have fun, because what he's doing on his turn doesn't matter.
---
...yeah, the Druid with Bite of the Werebeat up who can cast Control Winds and then whomp on people better than you can isn't stealing your thunder at all. Natural Spell is for letting them stay in wild form all day and not needing their physical stats, thus continuously being your match in combat as well as a full caster.

To an extent, I'll go along with this - at least as far as barring errata I haven't seen, it appears that Bite of spells and Wild Shape stack, making Natural Spell and a Bite of spell unquestionably overpower pretty much any other melee character. From a straight power of this spell and comparable other melee builds, the Druid gets the buffs from Bite of the Werebear one level before a Bear Warrior, with less MAD, would get his. The Bite is an enhancement bonus, so it doesn't stack with other items from which the Bear Warrior would be benefitting (assuming he has equipment usable in bear form). At a minimum, Bite of spells should probably be changed to not stack with the altered form bonus, and changing the altered form stat bonuses to an enhancement bonus might be a way to manage power on Wild Shaping Druids.

Being able to cast Control Winds before whomping on stuff doesn't really matter as much as the comparative ability to whomp on stuff when both characters are. If the other character is whomping better, then it's a balance issue. If the other character is doing something else, and that something else makes anything the fighter does meaningless, it's a balance issue. If that something else is comparatively effective, or more effective in some situations and less in others, good for him. If it's a something else that the fighting character doesn't want to do, like healing or casting buff spells, then more power to the guy qho is already taking one for the team.

The Druid issue is a lot less important than the cleric issue. We haven't had to spend the past quarter century listening to: "Who's going to play the druid?" "I don't want to play the druid." "Somebody has to play the druid." They aren't as central to the game as a cleric. But, they have to be able to do what they do effectively, if they can't cast as well as a Wizard all the time, they need to be able to do it really close to as well and the same for fighting. What they do has to have as much impact as any other character. Otherwise, you get a character that is as important to the game as a red feather.

-----
He doesn't "take care of himself"--he takes care of his enemies. Who become useless and flop around.

Unless he's clearing the entire encounter in the first round, things are happening around him to the rest of the party (and him). And, the spells that are letting him disable the entire opposing force on his own despite the fact that his party is dying around him (or before they can) are what need to be addressed regarding power - not the ability of divine casters to both fight and cast.

The fact some some people don't like a character being able to do two things well isn't a balance issue, it's a flavor issue. The fact that one of those things, casting, makes the other, fighting, and characters that can only fight irrelevant at high levels, is a balance issue.
---
Clerics and druids, who can be ready to go in a round or less, and wizards, whose spell diversity lets them deal with the chaos as well as anyone

When you're in bad situations, you're going to be addressing something other than your buffs. While the fighter always gets to swing away, you're going to be dispelling, removing or curing something. Curing in combat isn't a great battle tactic, but there are times when you have to perform a sub-optimal tactic (healing or revivifying in combat) to prevent a strategic loss (a level and experience draining death). And, if you knew about everything you were facing in a way that let the wizard tailor his spells, you wouldn't be in a bad situation, pretty much ever. Which is the balance issue.

Shazzbaa
2007-01-23, 02:42 PM
If Divine Power/Righteous Might isn't overpowered for the Paladin, why is it overpowered for the cleric. This seems more of a personal preferance change to make the character fit your conceptions than anything having to do with balance.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Though basic idea with the change, as I understand it, is that many people would like to change the flavour of the cleric so that he's not playing several different roles at the same time and playing them ALL well. Divine Power/Righteous Might is giving the target ("You") great fighting prowess. Give it to a paladin, and you're giving him more power to do what he's already doing. Give it to a cleric, and you're giving him the ability to do yet another thing well.

One concept that I think is an ideal to shoot for with D&D, is that if someone is the best at something, they should be great at that and sort of lacking in everything else; and if someone is good at lots of things, they can't be the best at any of them. This is the problem with the cleric; he's a full caster AND he can fight just as well as the fighter. I think it's not unfair to say that he should be either the best at one, or okay at both... not the best at both.

So, yes, it is partially a flavour change, but it also has to do with party role and how many roles the cleric should be able to fill well.

Whereas if your game doesn't have problems with the cleric stealing the fighter's thunder, then obviously, leave them alone. But for many the cleric IS blatantly overpowered.


Why should the fighter care? If the fighter, who wanted to be a fighter and enjoys it gets to fight effectively and meaningfully on all of his actions, what's unbalancing about the character that heals him, and likely really wanted to be something else, on some turns getting to fight effectively or cast a spell on other turns.

...Are you saying that the people who play clerics need to be compensated for making the sacrifice of playing a cleric by being able to fight well, too? ... You know, some people actually like playing clerics.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I dislike this idea that somebody has to play the cleric. Honest question here: if nobody wants to be a cleric, aren't there other alternatives?


2. Increase casting times for more powerful spells, as Shazzbaa said.

This creates more turns where characters do nothing, which isn't fun.
Well, honestly... that's sort of the point. You don't HAVE to cast those spells all the time. And if it's a pain to do so, you won't, not unless you really need to.

If you want to have the amazing power of a wizard, you can't just snap your fingers and "poof!" it happens. Your fighter friend may have thought that's how it worked, because he saw a wizard cast fireball once and that was really fast, but if you want to do something really, honestly powerful; it's not going to happen in an instant.

I would say it should be entirely possible to have a wizard do something every turn -- but to do so he would not be using the most powerful (most arguably "game-breaking") spells. If it's more fun for you to act every turn, then just prepare and cast quicker spells. If that's the way you want to play your wizard, go for it. It will be less over-powered, because it won't ever use the most powerful spells.
If you want the power, you gotta do something extra for it.

krossbow
2007-01-23, 03:26 PM
anyone looked at channeled pyroburst? thats a good starting point i believe. allow casters to sling spells quickly, but if not charged long enough, they have lesser effects (dominate person would merely stun, ect.)

elliott20
2007-01-23, 03:30 PM
I actually a slightly different approach towards the spellcaster problem. Instead of making spell casting take longer, or nerfing individual spells, or doing all sorts of stuff, how about making spell recovery a bit more arduous of a task? So instead of 8 hours of rest + 1 hour of studying/praying/sitting around to get your all mighty "kill everybody" spell back, you might have to actually spend additional time preparing for it.

On the flip side of that, low level spells like a magic missile could be recovered in a much shorter time.

This way, spellcasters can still flick their fingers and watch a city disappear. But they have to REALLY pay for that spell if they want to do it again.

Now, this is all just a rough concept here, but what if you were tack on an XP cost (much much less than creating magical items) to simply memorize a spell? or maybe make it so that higher level spells require more time to prepare and all spells must be prepared on an individual basis. So just throwing this out there, say, prep time in minutes = spell level^2 * 10, so a single level 9 spell will require 810 minutes of preparation, or roughly 13 hours of prep time. In that case, you'll be sure to not use your mega-awesome-spell unless you REALLY NEED TO. And spontaneous casters like Sorcerors would instead require, I don't know, "energy" gathering time or some such.

Sulecrist
2007-01-23, 03:52 PM
Add in Tzeentch's Curse.

That'd fix 'em, good and proper.

EDIT: And a casting roll. Have saves be static and not rolled, like Armor Class. Better yet, make AC, resistances, and saves all function like Damage Reduction. But then you'd just have Warhammer with gods instead of renegades.

Morty
2007-01-23, 04:07 PM
Add in Tzeentch's Curse.

That'd fix 'em, good and proper.

EDIT: And a casting roll. Have saves be static and not rolled, like Armor Class. Better yet, make AC, resistances, and saves all function like Damage Reduction. But then you'd just have Warhammer with gods instead of renegades.

Hmmm... making wizard have to break victim's defences instead of forcing the victim to make a save is ceratinly good idea- even if it doesn't balance things, it's interesting *shamelessly steals it into homebrewed system*.
I've actually made and anti-caster houserule, the one in my sig. It's basically aimed against wizards making themselves invunerable.
Also, good idea may be that wizard can't cast two powerful spells one by one- say, he casts [I]Disintegrate[I], but can't cast another 6th level spell next round, and instead he has to cast some lower-level spell.

Indon
2007-01-23, 04:10 PM
I think that a relatively simple solution exists for Arcane spells.

-Remove the ability of the Wizard to obtain spells they have no access to or knowledge of when they gain levels. Spell creation is supposed to be long and arduous for wizards (or divine casters, for that matter), and Sorcerors have limited spell selection... I don't believe anyone complains sorcerors are overpowered to be able to pick their spells.

-This leads into this: Many spells don't exist in a low-magic world, but in a high-magic world, powerful spells would be regulated, controlled. Say there were a spell that generated the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in the game. Now imagine how hideously well-protected that spell would be, how hard it would be for any wizard to access. Now extrapolate that to all the in-game powerhouse spells.

And if your wizard wants to create, say, the Polymorph spell himself, well, he can very well follow the spell creation rules in the PHB. But he shouldn't be surprised if he gets someone's attention if he just goes around throwing the spell about.

Jorkens
2007-01-23, 04:22 PM
Erm, this has probably been suggested before, but what about having a fairly simple way of magicproofing things? For instance, suppose you had a (rare and expensive) metal which can be alloyed with iron to produce a material which completely dissipates magic. Stuff in a box or cage made of it can't be affected by magic from outside at all, creatures wearing armour made of it are highly resistant to magic (good saves, reduced effects) (although you might need a cheesy way of allowing enchanted armour made out of it), items made out of it can't be affected by magic or detected by magical means and so on.

Precisely how rare and expensive you make it depends on how cheesy your casters are and the precise details can be fiddled to taste, but you can now basically apply it to anything that you want them to have to figure out the old-fashioned way.

It'd also stop BBEG's nuking your feeble minded fighters with seventeen sorts of magic, because if they have any sense they'll be wearing it.

There are probably other ways of doing this too, but the basic idea seems to be a nobrainer - if your casters use magic to deal with every problem that comes the party's way, just throw them a problem that isn't susceptible to magic.

Edit - the neat thing being that you don't have to fiddle with core rules and anyone can use the same basic idea / description / rules but vary how liberally they sprinkle around whatever sort of antimagic you've got depending on how overpowered the casters they're dealing with are.

MrNexx
2007-01-23, 04:22 PM
Hmmm... making wizard have to break victim's defences instead of forcing the victim to make a save is ceratinly good idea- even if it doesn't balance things, it's interesting *shamelessly steals it into homebrewed system*.

I heard of one system... wasn't aimed at balance, but rather at a sense of being able to influence one's own fate.

Basically, the PCs used non-static ACs and spell DCs... that is, when they were attacked, they rolled a d20 and added a modifier equal to their AC-10. When they cast a spell, they rolled a d20 and added the spell level and their casting attribute. The monsters did not use this rule.

In fact, the monsters didn't roll dice at all. The monsters took 10 on everything. A monster with a AB of +13 would ALWAYS have a 23 to attack... but they threaten a critical if the player rolls a 1. Those with a +4 on the will save always make a 14... but they fail if the player rolls a 20.

It's a really cool system, IMO, because it makes the players masters of their fate.

Morty
2007-01-23, 04:31 PM
Erm, this has probably been suggested before, but what about having a fairly simple way of magicproofing things? For instance, suppose you had a (rare and expensive) metal which can be alloyed with iron to produce a material which completely dissipates magic. Stuff in a box or cage made of it can't be affected by magic from outside at all, creatures wearing armour made of it are highly resistant to magic (good saves, reduced effects) (although you might need a cheesy way of allowing enchanted armour made out of it), items made out of it can't be affected by magic or detected by magical means and so on.

Precisely how rare and expensive you make it depends on how cheesy your casters are and the precise details can be fiddled to taste, but you can now basically apply it to anything that you want them to have to figure out the old-fashioned way.

It'd also stop BBEG's nuking your feeble minded fighters with seventeen sorts of magic, because if they have any sense they'll be wearing it.

There are probably other ways of doing this too, but the basic idea seems to be a nobrainer - if your casters use magic to deal with every problem that comes the party's way, just throw them a problem that isn't susceptible to magic.

Edit - the neat thing being that you don't have to fiddle with core rules and anyone can use the same basic idea / description / rules but vary how liberally they sprinkle around whatever sort of antimagic you've got depending on how overpowered the casters they're dealing with are.

Heh, I've been thinking about anti-magic materials myself. And it actually appeared in some books(Discworld, for example). It's good because it can counter magic without being magical itself.

I heard of one system... wasn't aimed at balance, but rather at a sense of being able to influence one's own fate.

Basically, the PCs used non-static ACs and spell DCs... that is, when they were attacked, they rolled a d20 and added a modifier equal to their AC-10. When they cast a spell, they rolled a d20 and added the spell level and their casting attribute. The monsters did not use this rule.

In fact, the monsters didn't roll dice at all. The monsters took 10 on everything. A monster with a AB of +13 would ALWAYS have a 23 to attack... but they threaten a critical if the player rolls a 1. Those with a +4 on the will save always make a 14... but they fail if the player rolls a 20.

It's a really cool system, IMO, because it makes the players masters of their fate.

Is that some published system or homebrewed one?
BTW, I've also been thinking about making saves vs. spells opposed rolls- again, maybe not balancing but interesting. However, that'd allow horrible abuse of MoP.

MrNexx
2007-01-23, 04:48 PM
It was homebrewed, so far as I know, but it's just an adaptation of the d20 system.

Golthur
2007-01-23, 04:51 PM
It sounds like an official SRD variant, Players Roll All The Dice (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm).

MrNexx
2007-01-23, 05:00 PM
So it does. Never seen that one. Groovy.

Piccamo
2007-01-23, 05:55 PM
Personally, I've always been a fan of the Damage Save presented by Green Ronin The person being attacked rolls a save versus 15 + the enemy's damage modifier. It goes as follows:

{table=head]Save Result|Lethal Damage| Nonlethal Damage

Success|
Nothing|
Nothing

Failure|
Bruised+Injured|
Bruised

Fail by 5 or more|
Stunned + Bruised + Injured|
Stunned + Bruised

Fail by 10 or More|
Staggered + Disabled + Stunned|
Staggered + Stunned

Fail by 15 or More|
Unconscious + Dying|
Unconscious[/table]

Every Bruised condition adds a cumulative -1 penalty to all future damage saves versus nonlethal damage and ever Injured condition adds a cumulative -1 penalty to all future damage saves. A confirmed critical hit increases the save DC by a flat 5. Also, the stun effect lasts for 1 round and the staggered effect lasts until healed.

Healing magic heals 1 bruised, injured, staggered, or dying condition per level of the spell. Also, dying means that you must make a DC 10 Fortitude Save versus death every hour. If the save is a success by 10 or more the character becomes stabilized.

I have found that a good way to convert other d20 systems’ items into the Damage Save system is to use 3.5 as a base and take the average damage of the weapon/spell/whatever and divide into that. For example, a greatsword does 2d6 damage; take the average damage of the dice (7) and divide that into 3.5 to get 2. The greatsword is a weapon that does +2 damage. To increase the weapon’s output you add your strength modifier, strength and a half for 2-handed weapons. So a level 1 human fighter with 16 strength would get a +4 from strength, meaning an opponent would have to roll a 21 or better to succeed against an attack from him.

When determining HP, use 6.5 as the base and multiply by HD to determine your damage save. Then add your constitution modifier. For example, a human barbarian with 16 constitution would have a toughness save of +4; on average he will only succeed against the greatsword 25% of the time, but most of the time the damage will not be by 5 or more until further into the battle.

Jamin
2007-01-23, 06:21 PM
clericwithnogod about wealth by level
you keep using that word I don't think it means what you think it means

Wealth by level assumes that EVERYONE has the wealth not just the fighter. Therefor the cleric and fighter should have about the same weapon and armors about. This is especially true of a cleric with the war domain.
I see nothing wrong with making the self buffs touch in fact I suggested the same thing in another thread. Also I like the idea of increasing the spell casting time. This helps everyone feel useful. Also I think there should some way to drain spell slots. But that is just me.


Also listen to Bears with Lasers as he is most likely the wisest person on these matters and unlike many (myself semi-included) does something about it like his great fighter rewrite.

Daracaex
2007-01-23, 11:17 PM
If some of the spells you mention are so overpowered, why aren't they in the next-highest spell level?

Mike_G
2007-01-24, 12:43 AM
I home-brewed a magic system with a DC to cast the spell, and you could modify the DC by taking longer to cast it, or using a higher level slot, etc.

It's based on the Iron Heroes Skill Challenge system, using standard D&D spells, with a DC per level to cast. If you want more effect or to quciken the spell, you raise the DC, if you want to lower the DC, you take longer or reduce the effect. Saves become opposed rolls.

Obtree
2007-01-24, 03:15 AM
Hey, I just wanted to say that making the casting time longer reminds me of Dragonball Z where they took several episodes to charge up their attacks. But I just read Mike G's idea about a spell DC, and lowering it by taking longer to cast. I think It could be workable, but unless there were other bigger changes, casters would be falling asleep from boredom durring a long fight as clericwithnogod was saying.

Whamme
2007-01-24, 05:17 AM
The main problem with class imbalance, as I see it, is the fact that most D&D campaign worlds are High Magic worlds - magic items are everywhere, they can either be bought or you find them when you defeat a kobold. Yes I know this is exaggerated, but I hope it will help me make my point.
If you would like to find a way to balance the classes, you have to do some thing about the general consensus of every campaign world, magic isn't something an every day peasant sees much of. Magic should be something that is marvelled at, feared and mistrusted.

Your dislike of that is fine. But that doesn't mean that it is realistic to blame every flaw in the game on that one detail.

Maxymiuk
2007-01-24, 10:06 AM
I agree with what's been said that in some cases the imbalance is a GM issue rather than a balance issue.

What strikes me as odd however is that no one brought up spell resistance yet. Party runs into a group of ogres? The wizard lays them out with save-or-suck and high damage spells. But they run into a a group of drow? Most of those spells suddenly go "fizz" and it's the fighters and barbarians who now have to save the day, with the casters limited to buffs and non-direct support spells.

Complete Warrior suggests restricting access to caster classes until level 5 or so if you want a low magic campaign, but this strikes me as a bandaid slapped over a problem that requires a torniquet. At this point I don't think that there's an easy solution - what we'd need is a fundamental restructuring of the magic system in order to limit the casters. For example:
- Any spell past 4th or 5th level requires a plethora of specialized, expensive, heavy equipment in order to be cast. A wizard can still fire off a Time Stop... but only in his tower.
- Spell failure is no longer caused only by armor or getting hit in a fight. Casters require a "competence" roll when casting to reflect the difficulty of making a complex pattern of hand motions and spoken sounds, especially when there's a horde of howling orcs descending upon them.
- Introduce a Channeling Limit factor. After the first spell you cast you gain a cumulative 5-10% chance of spell failure for each subsequent round that you cast a spell to represent the difficulty of channeling so much power in such a short time. An "empty" round reduces the chance by 5-10%. On a botch, your hands explode.
Note that my suggestions strike at the basic assumption of the D&D magic system - that magic is easy and consequence free (easy in the sense that the player didn't spend the past decade learning how to make the laws of reality sit down and shut up). Each one is designed to make the player really think ("Is this a do-or-die situation?") before having his character to cast a spell.

Another idea is to rip out D&D's heart by changing it into a system without a level based progression and turning magic into a set of abilities rather than a core feature for a character. You could default 90% of the starting characters to noncasters, making arcane talents or training something they could strive for through the game. This would naturally favor gish builds - a competent fighters with spellcasting thrown in on top of that. But then, there are already systems out there which do this much better. :smallsmile:

elliott20
2007-01-24, 10:18 AM
Complete Warrior suggests restricting access to caster classes until level 5 or so if you want a low magic campaign, but this strikes me as a bandaid slapped over a problem that requires a torniquet. At this point I don't think that there's an easy solution - what we'd need is a fundamental restructuring of the magic system in order to limit the casters. For example:
- Any spell past 4th or 5th level requires a plethora of specialized, expensive, heavy equipment in order to be cast. A wizard can still fire off a Time Stop... but only in his tower.
- Spell failure is no longer caused only by armor or getting hit in a fight. Casters require a "competence" roll when casting to reflect the difficulty of making a complex pattern of hand motions and spoken sounds, especially when there's a horde of howling orcs descending upon them.
- Introduce a Channeling Limit factor. After the first spell you cast you gain a cumulative 5-10% chance of spell failure for each subsequent round that you cast a spell to represent the difficulty of channeling so much power in such a short time. An "empty" round reduces the chance by 5-10%. On a botch, your hands explode.
Note that my suggestions strike at the basic assumption of the D&D magic system - that magic is easy and consequence free (easy in the sense that the player didn't spend the past decade learning how to make the laws of reality sit down and shut up). Each one is designed to make the player really think ("Is this a do-or-die situation?") before having his character to cast a spell.

This is actually what I was suggesting. If they want to curb the power of the casters, they need to mechanically place in factors that make it so that casters are not going to carelessly throw out time stops just for their personal amusement. As V said, all his spells comes with a price. Manipulating the very fabric of time itself should come with a price or a risk of some sort. When you make magic so easy and cheap to come by, it's like giving a math student a calculator to do his arithmatic. Sure, he can just do the arithmatic the old fashion way. But why bother? He has a calculator right there.

Iron_Mouse
2007-01-24, 11:51 AM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm#castingSpells
Anyone ever used that? Could it work?

Jorkens
2007-01-24, 12:03 PM
- Any spell past 4th or 5th level requires a plethora of specialized, expensive, heavy equipment in order to be cast. A wizard can still fire off a Time Stop... but only in his tower.
Just introducing looooong casting times would do a lot for combat - sure the wizard can turn into a dragon and blow up everything in sight, but you're going to need the fighters to keep him alive while he spends four rounds waving his hands and mumbling with his eyes shut. Or you could rule that it takes N rounds of standing still and meditating for the wizard to get into the right frame of mind for casting high level spells. If you tweak it right you could reasonably get to the point where everyone has fun in combat since the wizard still auto-wins once he gets his powers 'online', but everyone else needs to hold the fight up until that point.

Mewtarthio
2007-01-24, 12:04 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm#castingSpells
Anyone ever used that? Could it work?

It also kinda adds a dark horror mood to the entire campaign that you may or may not want. I'm not sure how it works if Sanity only applies to casting spells, though (maybe change it to "spell resilience" or "spell reserve" instead of "sanity").

clericwithnogod
2007-01-24, 12:26 PM
Just introducing looooong casting times would do a lot for combat - sure the wizard can turn into a dragon and blow up everything in sight, but you're going to need the fighters to keep him alive while he spends four rounds waving his hands and mumbling with his eyes shut. Or you could rule that it takes N rounds of standing still and meditating for the wizard to get into the right frame of mind for casting high level spells. If you tweak it right you could reasonably get to the point where everyone has fun in combat since the wizard still auto-wins once he gets his powers 'online', but everyone else needs to hold the fight up until that point.

I don't know that anything makes up for 4 rounds of sitting there going, "I keep going ummmmmmm." That's a long time of doing jack nothing. It's supposed to be a game and fun for everyone as much of the time as possible. Imposing four rounds of suffering on people takes away from that a little.

Jorkens
2007-01-24, 12:47 PM
I don't know that anything makes up for 4 rounds of sitting there going, "I keep going ummmmmmm." That's a long time of doing jack nothing. It's supposed to be a game and fun for everyone as much of the time as possible. Imposing four rounds of suffering on people takes away from that a little.
Make it one or two or three rounds, then. The point is that it's tweakable in a fairly simple way to reach a level where everyone is needed and everyone does something in the combat. Having them do their bit more or less sequentially rather than simultaneously isn't ideal, but it's quite an improvement for a very simple fix.

Piccamo
2007-01-24, 12:54 PM
Another fix could be to use an alternate magic system, such as one presented in Tome of Magic (I'm a big fan of pact magic). Its not as powerful and the casters aren't as fragile. Shadow Magic is a bit confusing, but can be fun once understood. Also, using the damage save system I outlined earlier, everyone is forcing others to save or suck / save or die and it eliminates the problem of having to whittle away at hit points.

clericwithnogod
2007-01-24, 01:33 PM
Make it one or two or three rounds, then. The point is that it's tweakable in a fairly simple way to reach a level where everyone is needed and everyone does something in the combat. Having them do their bit more or less sequentially rather than simultaneously isn't ideal, but it's quite an improvement for a very simple fix.

But, doing nothing for one or two or three rounds then auto-winning isn't any more fun for anyone than do nothing for four four rounds then auto-winning.

The problem is auto-winning every encounter regardless of what the other characters do. Making auto-winning less fun by adding a delay doesn't really address that.

Ideally, you'll have situations where everyone gets to shine during the encounter. Sometimes one person or another will shine more brightly, but everyone should feel like their character is a hero in his or her own right.

In all the games I've played, this has been the case for fighters and wizards who always get the chance to do heroic stuff. The current group I play with gets along well enough and is considerate of each other enough that I get to feel that way about my cleric, and in my experience, that's been pretty rare for anyone playing a cleric. Rogue's used to be heroic, and it's funny, because from the time 3.0 came out, all everyone kept talking about is how tumble is broken, feint is broken, sneak attack is broken, etc. Now rogues are worthless and can't do anything.

It seems like some people want to go back to old versions of DND where you stood in one place while the fighter swung his sword pretty much ineffectively, the cleric healed the fighter, the wizard killed everything and the thief did nothing. They've got the thief down to doing nothing, so now they're working on the rest. Tens of base classes, at least a hundred prestige classes and hundreds of feats enabling characters to be and do anything they want and some people want to devolve the game to single-roles of fighter, mage, healer, thief. It just doesn't make much sense sometimes.

Piccamo
2007-01-24, 01:38 PM
Unfortunately the problem with "swinging the sword ineffectually" and the "thief down to doing nothing" is the damage system. With damage being what it is, there's no way to quickly resolve a fight by simply smashing the enemy. If using a way where the fight can be ended in 1 or 2 rounds by anyone, there wouldn't be these balance issues. Also, the game doesn't revolve solely around combat; it may have started as a wargame, but that is not what it is anymore.

Indon
2007-01-24, 01:48 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm#castingSpells
Anyone ever used that? Could it work?

Ah, this is the sanity system in the Call of Cthulhu D20 game, isn't it?

I played a spellcaster in that system; frequent spellcasting was basically an inevitable slide towards irreversible madness and a subsequent character reroll... but it was fun.

Jorkens
2007-01-24, 02:03 PM
But, doing nothing for one or two or three rounds then auto-winning isn't any more fun for anyone than do nothing for four four rounds then auto-winning.

The problem is auto-winning every encounter regardless of what the other characters do. Making auto-winning less fun by adding a delay doesn't really address that.
The idea is that the other characters can't just do nothing - with a balanced encounter they're going to have to do everything they can to stop the enemies getting at the caster and hitting them with something (thereby breaking their concetration) before they've managed to cast anything. Everyone on the team is doing something wothwhile.

You're right that this probably isn't as good a way to run a fight as 'everyone deals roughly the same amount of damage to the bad guys until they die', but it does mean that although high level wizards are still masters of silly amounts of arcane power as you'd expect, but that everyone has to make a contribution in combat.

clericwithnogod
2007-01-24, 02:16 PM
Make it one or two or three rounds, then. The point is that it's tweakable in a fairly simple way to reach a level where everyone is needed and everyone does something in the combat. Having them do their bit more or less sequentially rather than simultaneously isn't ideal, but it's quite an improvement for a very simple fix.

But, doing nothing for one or two or three rounds then auto-winning isn't any more fun for anyone than do nothing for four four rounds then auto-winning.

The problem is auto-winning every encounter regardless of what the other characters do. Making auto-winning less fun by adding a delay doesn't really address that.

Ideally, you'll have situations where everyone gets to shine during the encounter. Sometimes one person or another will shine more brightly, but everyone should feel like their character is a hero in his or her own right.

In all the games I've played, this has been the case for fighters and wizards who always get the chance to do heroic stuff. The current group I play with gets along well enough and is considerate of each other enough that I get to feel that way about my cleric, and in my experience, that's been pretty rare for anyone playing a cleric. Rogue's used to be heroic, and it's funny, because from the time 3.0 came out, all everyone kept talking about is how tumble is broken, feint is broken, sneak attack is broken, etc. Now rogues are worthless and can't do anything.

It seems like some people want to go back to old versions of DND where you stood in one place while the fighter swung his sword pretty much ineffectively, the cleric healed the fighter, the wizard killed everything and the thief did nothing. They've got the thief down to doing nothing, so now their working on the rest. Tens of base classes, at least a hundred prestige classes and hundreds of feats enabling characters to be and do anything they want and some people want to devolve the game to single-roles of fighter, mage, healer, thief. It just doesn't make much sense sometimes.