Deadly Magic

[Ruethgar]

So I have been making E6 character left and right, no base class spellcasters but almost every one of them has magic from feats or pseudo casters. When I got to the necromancer, I of course looked in Libris Mortis. I saw the juicy three feat chain to prevent negative levels and jumped at the opportunity to get animate dead at level one by making it a Whispering Way Sanctum Animate Dead taken with Divine Heritage, because third level spells at level in an E6 game isn't broken at all. >.>

So now I have a necromancer who takes a negative level whenever he casts one of his three spells but delays the effects for Con minutes and is able to make a will save as a standard action to avoid death. When I explained this character to my brother the DM, instead of scolding the acquisition of third level spells at level one in a world without a single spellcaster, he actually thought about making the negative level a part of every spellcasting, potentially even forcing you to take the three feat tax to prevent it and making undead spellcasters a much more prevalent thing(and probably giving a bad connotation to anyone practicing).

I suggested that it would only punish blasters and that buffers would still be beasts of extreme power. But what does the playground think about incorporating negative levels on every spell cast?

[Zanos]

Like most "fixes" that seek to fix spellcasting with penalties, it makes casters unfun to play and penalizes archetypes that are already bad significantly more than it punishes archetypes that are problematic. A BFC wizard can still be fairly effective if he only casts one spell in an encounter, which is usually not the case for a blaster(baring blasters that can kill everything printed in one action). Moreover, it isn't really necessary in E6 because casters, while strong, do not possess the world-changing power of higher level spells.

[Ruethgar]

No base casting classes allowed and I still have an E6 with 7th level spells(he's able to get 9th but that is a bit unwieldy feat wise).

[Gullintanni]

No base casting classes allowed and I still have an E6 with 7th level spells(he's able to get 9th but that is a bit unwieldy feat wise).

One of the author's suggestions is that spellcasting beyond 3rd level entails knowledge of magic beyond mortal means. The assumption being made here is that 4th level spells are inaccessible to PCs regardless of feats or class progression, and that only creatures like Angels, or the oldest of dragons have access to that sort of power. It goes a long way toward balancing out E6 IMHO.

[Ruethgar]

The PC able to obtain those spells is an ancient dragon though, a venerable cheese wrought kobold dragonspawn abimination of lore.