Ideas for balancing Classes (serious thread)

[Fawsto]

I believe that this matter was discussed lots of times before, so, I am sure this isn't an original thread at all. I made a quick search for threads concearning this matter and I found some vague rebalancing ideas for isolated classes. If there is any other thread that talks about the balance of all the classes at once, pls forgive me, close this one and tell me where the thread is. Thx.

Anything goes here. You can rewrite an entire class if you desire or simply giving pieces of advice. URLs are all right as far they concearn the topic, obviously.

I know it is a hard task, but since we are all players I think that it is up to us to make the game more fun and fair. Thank you all for the ideas and the time spent here.

Pls, this topic is MOSTLY (not totaly) directed for the players who believe that the classes should be revised. I as to the ones who believe that the game is all right to not post things like "bahh, there is no need for rebalancing the game" or "Leave it, it is perfect as it is". But obviously, feel free to read all pieces of information found here.

Again, thanks to all.

[JaronK]

Fighter:

4 Skill Points per level. Add Spot, Listen, and Sense Motive to class skills. All good saves. At level 1, gain the Warblade ability to switch Weapon Focus and the like to other weapons.

At level 5, gain a floating feat, similar to the Chameleon feat.

At level 7, gain evasion in light armour

At level 9, gain mettle

At level 10, he can have two floating feats, one of which may use the other as a prerequisit.

At level 11, gain evasion in medium armour

At level 13, gain uncanny dodge

At level 15, he can have three floating feats, which may use each other as prerequisits.

At level 17, gain evasion in heavy armour

At level 20 he can have four floating feats, which may use each other as prerequisits.

[Roderick_BR]

Fighter: I agree with JaronK on more skill points. Don't need Sense Motive. A fighter acts, don't try to pick meanings bewteen sentences. Make the weapon adaptability a class ability. Don't need more class abilities, only more and better high level fighter feats.

Rogue: It's good as it is. I heard no complains.

Bard: Make him cast 1st level spells from 1st level, not second. Get a couple more song abilities to fill some dead levels.

Wizard: It's good as it is. I just think that high level spells should take full actions instead of standard actions.

Sorcerer: It's also good. Just need to gain a few more learned. spells.

Cleric and Druid: I heard they are too powerful, but I don't know how to adjust them.

Ranger and Monk: People say they are underpowered, I'm not sure how to fix them either.

Barbarian: Like the rogue, they don't need fixing.

Paladin: Just get him better other abilities instead of additional uses of Remove Disease. Maybe a cap ability.

[Dhavaer]

Cleric and Paladin: Divide them. Make one a low HD, low BAB full caster, and the other a medium BAB, high HD partial caster. I wrote up classes to this effect, but I don't know where they are now. I might be able to find and link to them.

[Ikkitosen]

Yeah, make all clerics cloistered and change Divine Power to +1 Attack Bonus per 2 levels (Not BAB).

[PnP Fan]

Higher level abilities that would be useful for a pure fighter (all could be feat based, to give fighters the ability to customize their abilities)

1. Damage that scales with level via a weapon mastery ability (improvements in die type, static bonuses to dmg, bonuses to hit with specific weapon types, etc. . ).
2. The ability to pin down those pesky high mobility enemys with flight/high speed (perhaps sacrificing an attack to do so?)
3. Improvements on Expertise feat tree that makes a trick fighter a little more viable against inhuman opponents (particularly those with high strength).
4. Wizards have the ability to magically reduce SR (Assay Spell Resistance I think is the spell), why don't fighters have a similar ability? If wizards can break the rules of the game with one spell slot, I see no reason that fighters couldn't either.
5. Feats that allow special effects based off of a skill/attack combination (in the way Sneak Attack damage requires some sort of stealth situation to exist before you get your extra damage).

Additionally, by building these into the existing feat structure, that would allow Barbarians/Rangers/Paladins to benefit from these abilities, though at a slower rate than Fighters. Certainly Clerics/Wizards/Rogues could benefit as well, but if you attach Minimum BAB requirements to these abilities, then they would gain the benefits much slower than the fighter types, and their feats would be much better spent on other things.

Hope this helps!

[Woot Spitum]

For the Monk, how about:

1.High BAB.

2.Allow them to multiclass normally.

3.Relax the "must be lawful" restriction.

[Deepblue706]

Barbarian: More smashing inanimate stuff. Like, absolutely destroying doors and such.

Bard: More spells

Cleric: Cloistered! And, no instantaneous healing/inflicting.

Druid: Shapeshiping Variant

Fighter: Better feats. Also, more incentive for people not to base their concept around tripping/disarming, because I really find it lame. Also, why do Spiked Chains exist as weapons? They should cost like...two exotic weapon proficiencies.

Monk: More neat unarmed attacks, less Ki Blast.

Paladin: More holy auras with magical effects, or something?

Ranger: Casting ability acquired sooner - very slow progression. Also, more trapping/ambushing abilities?

Rogue: Add in wounding ability damage at higher levels.

Sorcerer: Drawback to using most powerful spells

Wizard: Drawback to using most powerful spells

[Bears With Lasers]

Cleric: Cloistered! And, no instantaneous healing/inflicting.

No, taking away spontaneous healing would reduce them to Heal-Bitch status again--the reason no one wanted to play them and they were buffed up in the first place.



Fighter: Better feats. Also, more incentive for people not to base their concept around tripping/disarming, because I really find it lame. Also, why do Spiked Chains exist as weapons? They should cost like...two exotic weapon proficiencies.
Better feats, yes. What's wrong with tripping?
And why would spiked chains cost two proficiencies? They're not even worth one.


And, sorry, but the thread title reminds me of this:
http://cache.bordom.net/images/cb38cb5004473ea6ba5e8f8c2f602940.jpg

[ZekeArgo]

Barbarian: More smashing inanimate stuff. Like, absolutely destroying doors and such.

Feats already cover this


Bard: More spells

Ehhh, not really


Cleric: Cloistered! And, no instantaneous healing/inflicting.

Agreed on the Cloistered, but the *reason* they can spontaneously heal/inflict is way back in 2e all they could prepare were healing spells in case the party needed them. The change is a good thing.


Druid: Shapeshiping Variant

Still pretty powerful


Fighter: Better feats. Also, more incentive for people not to base their concept around tripping/disarming, because I really find it lame. Also, why do Spiked Chains exist as weapons? They should cost like...two exotic weapon proficiencies.

Its a weapon, at least it isn't a boring longsword clone.


Monk: More neat unarmed attacks, less Ki Blast.

Ki Blast? Very little of that in the base class, but really the monk needs the same thing the fighter does: a way to actually *be* effective at something at mid to high levels


Paladin: More holy auras with magical effects, or something?

Diablo 2 much?


Ranger: Casting ability acquired sooner - very slow progression. Also, more trapping/ambushing abilities?

The scout is really what the ranger should be, as the ranger is just a weird, toned down druid.


Rogue: Add in wounding ability damage at higher levels.

Already done, and in the PHB no less


Sorcerer: Drawback to using most powerful spells

Agreed, but it would also be nice to give them some class features other than "you cast a very narrow group of spells"


Wizard: Drawback to using most powerful spells
Again agreed, but otherwise not bad

[Ramza00]

Anything that is done to sorcerers, should make sure to do a "retrieved" spell instead of a "spell known" similar to the Spirit Shaman. Still allowing alot of power, still making it spontaneous, but adding some flexibility, but not too much flexibility.

[Saph]

No, taking away spontaneous healing would reduce them to Heal-Bitch status again--the reason no one wanted to play them and they were buffed up in the first place.

Just remove all the self-boosting spells, then, and nerf their Fort saves and HP as well. Clerics/Druids are the most overpowered classes in the game, IMO.


And, sorry, but the thread title reminds me of this:[/img]

?

. . . I don't get it.

- Saph

[Telonius]

Sorcerer: add feats as Wizard, allow spontaneous metamagics.

Ranger: Keep it as is, but add two additional levels of Favored Enemy (and ditch the "add +2 to any favored enemy" as is currently). Gain new Favored Enemies at levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20.
1: Favored Enemy, as is.
2. Vigilant Foe. Prereq: Favored enemy of the same type/subtype. Benefit: Additional +2 to melee or ranged attacks against the designated favored enemy. Any weapon you wield now counts as a Magic weapon for purposes of overcoming Damage Reduction against the designated foe. +1 natural AC (stacks with all other Natural Armor) versus attacks made by the favored enemy. Add an additional 1d6+2 damage to designated favored enemy. +2 to skill bumps from Favored Enemy.
3. Enemy's Bane. Prereq: Vigilant Foe of the same type/subtype. Benefit: Additional +2 to melee or ranged attacks against the designated favored enemy. An additional +1 natural AC (stacks with previous boost and all other Nat. Armor) versus attacks made by the favored enemy. Add an additional 1d6+2 (total: 2d6+6) damage against the designated foe. Another +2 to skill bumps from Favored Enemy. Add +2 to your caster level for any offensive spells cast on creatures of this type. Your attacks against this type of enemy overcomes all Damage Reduction the base creature would normally have. This does not overcome Damage Reduction gained by classes (such as Barbarian), magic (such as a Stoneskin spell), or magic items.

[Orzel]

1) Make magical buffs affect spellcasting. I was toying with the idea that once you are affected by more than 1 magically effect, you must make Concentration checks or Fort Save to not fizzle future castings. Basically never make a caster buff themselves more than twice and make them want to hand out buffs to the mundane classes. Something like DC10 +4 for each spell affecting the caster.

2) Make the +2 skills feats and Skill focus feats stackable in a increasing rate and have them scale too. Very Agile gives +4 to Balance and Escape Artist and and addition +4 for each 5 levels. Greater Skill Focus gives +6 and +6 per 5 levels. (I asked for this in every game for 3 years)

[ZekeArgo]

Just remove all the self-boosting spells, then, and nerf their Fort saves and HP as well. Clerics/Druids are the most overpowered classes in the game, IMO.

True, but thats only because they have unlimited access to all spells not only at the time of their creation, but as more suppliments come out. At least the wizard/sorcerer need to buy/learn anything new.

Honestly... a going back to a sphere/school system wouldn't be a bad idea rather than the domain system which is essentially "your not only amazing, but you get all of this too!"

Being able to cast spells only from a certain number of portfolios could even things out a bit, if handled correctly




?

. . . I don't get it.

- Saph


It's a reference to the thread title, where he said (Serious Thread)

[Deepblue706]

Well, while I understand your first point...really, I don't think Clerics should have as much freedom. Perhaps something else can be limited, but I'm going to attempt to play a cleric through on that basis, and come to my own conclusion.

Also, despite the fact that people need to want to play each class, there should be things that also keep them saying "Gee, they actually have this here drawback, so..."

Well, I don't believe "tripping" was all that big IRL, because it would be exceptionally hard to do, and not worth the effort. Yes, Heroes can do it better. They should therefore, in my opinion, just be that much more effective at stabbing someone in the face, still making it not such a useful maneuver, in comparison.

Spiked Chains are...spikey chains. What if I took a rope and tied a huge metal ball at one end, and swung it around? The idea of it makes me want to vomit.

[ZekeArgo]

1) Make magical buffs affect spellcasting. I was toying with the idea that once you are affected by more than 1 magically effect, you must make Concentration checks or Fort Save to not fizzle future castings. Basically never make a caster buff themselves more than twice and make them want to hand out buffs to the mundane classes. Something like DC10 +4 for each spell affecting the caster.

Ehh, not so much, nevermind that instead of forcing them to hand out buffs, it would just lead them to dominate encounters faster since theyd focus all of their spells on normal save or dies/save or sucks/etc


2) Make the +2 skills feats and Skill focus feats stackable in a increasing rate and have them scale too. Very Agile gives +4 to Balance and Escape Artist and and addition +4 for each 5 levels. Greater Skill Focus gives +6 and +6 per 5 levels. (I asked for this in every game for 3 years)

Makes sense, but really the skill system is very breakable already.

[ZekeArgo]

Spiked Chains are...spikey chains. What if I took a rope and tied a huge metal ball at one end, and swung it around? The idea of it makes me want to vomit.

Nevermind that the weapon you describe is *very* similar to the Kusarigama, which is a weighted chain attatched to a Kama, or normal fighting chains?

Nearly *anything* can be a weapon so long as you put the dedication in to master it (swordchucks withstanding). Really I think the problem people have is with the "example" illustration which is a total pile of garbage.

[Fawsto]

My first Idea for balancing classes was this one... I had it written in anoter thread, but it was closed =(. So I am Getting all the work to write it again, this times with few mistakes, hehe. :smallcool:

First Thing. Let us assume that the problem of the class balance is that the casters are tremenduously powerful inthe higher lvls. So, yeah, lets apply thei idea that spells from lvls 7, 8 and 9 now take a full round action, ok?

But we still know that a mage can desintegrate a person with ease. If they miss, they just need another round to finally finish the job. If they survive the melee attacks they will mostly succeed in theyr concentration checks and cast another deadly spell as soon as they can. So, if there was a check after a spell, to see if the wizard can gather more "magical particles" to the next spell? The DC would be: 10 + lvl of the Magic, and the Spellcaster would use a 1d20 + atrib bonus (cha, wis or int). This brings more "Chaos" to the spellcasting, since no spellcaster will know if they can keep shooting spells forever.

And Still the Casters have what someone called a "I win" Button. Why not Give something like that to the Melee Classes?

I would Give the fighting classes a "Signature Move". Something that they can use as much as they want. This move is generic, and when activated the Combat Class (the ones who receive good BAB; CC from now on) would receive 2 full round actions (as if they receive 2 rounds while everybody has just one) to do whatever he wants. He can Bullrush an enemy and finish the maneuver with a full attack, a Paladin would be able to smite twice in his turn, a High level Ranger would be able to do like 20 attacks with 2 handed fighting feats, etc. It is tremendously powerful, but still cant surpass power word: kill. The CC would be able to use this attack every 1d12 rounds (like a dragon's breath but using a d12 as the dealy dice) in the first lvls, and at lvl 20 a fighter would use it every 1d4 rounds and teh other CCs (Paladin, Ranger and Barbarian) would be able to use it every 1d6 rounds.

I know this can be ridiculous, since doing 20 attacks in 6 seconds is obviously super human, but hey! Casting a single word that can Kill is also super human, isn't it?

Fighter:
1
2
3
4 Signature Move: every 1d12 rounds
5
6
7
8 Siganture Move: every 1d10 rounds
9
10
11
12 Signature Move: every 1d8 rounds
13
14
15
16 Signature Move: every 1d6 rounds
17
18
19
20 Signature Move: every 1d4 rounds

Ranger, Barbarian and Paladin:
1
2
3
4
5 Signature Move: every 1d12 rounds
6
7
8
9
10 Signature Move: every 1d10 rounds
11
12
13
14
15 Signature Move: every 1d8 rounds
16
17
18
19
20 Signature Move: every 1d6 rounds


I will explain more about this if you people wish so, since this post would become to big... :smalltongue:

[Deepblue706]

ZekeArgo, never mention Diablo 2 around me. I HATE Diablo 2. I suppose the ideas are fairly similar, though. Eh, well...they're lacking in something.

[Woot Spitum]

Clerics:

Get rid of Divine Power and Righteous Might. Divine Favor can stay, it's not going to unbalance things too much.

Paladins:

Give them Divine Power and Righteous Might. Consider letting them get these to replace Remove Disease.

[Deepblue706]

Nearly *anything* can be a weapon so long as you put the dedication in to master it (swordchucks withstanding). Really I think the problem people have is with the "example" illustration which is a total pile of garbage.

Yes, I agree with that, but I don't think that 1 feat should really make up the gap in how much more training you'd get done with a more mundane weapon. Feats are valuable, but it just strikes me as silly - and possibly because of the illustration, as you say.

[Ramza00]

For Wizards, this is going to be a reworking on how you think about wizards, but I believe it is necessary. They are still spell book magic users, but they must choose a specialty (not specialize as in a form of magic though.) They have an innate talent to a specific type of spells, associated with a theme or a school. They then pick 20 spells (1 each level) that they can cast normally (but they still require a spellbook). For all other spells they can still cast them, they just have to use a slot that is 1 higher. Want to cast forcecage, and forcecage isn't a favored spell, well then it will require an 8th lvl spell slot and not a 7th lvl spell slot. A wizard with forcecage as his favorite spell, or a sorcerer can still cast forcecage as a 7th lvl spell.

It will allow each individual wizard to have unique flavor, while not locking them into a certain flavor mechanically.

[Deepblue706]

Oh! I think Sorcerers should be able to empower their spells, inherently, somehow in relations to their CON score. However, this would likely wind them, or something. I dunno - I worked on this a while ago, but I had trouble not making it extremely powerful, while at the same time at least somewhat useful.

[Orzel]

Ehh, not so much, nevermind that instead of forcing them to hand out buffs, it would just lead them to dominate encounters faster since theyd focus all of their spells on normal save or dies/save or sucks/etc


I have less problem with that since casters can't buff themselves into immortality and thus die from enemy ambushes and save or lose spells/effects if not aided by an ally.




Makes sense, but really the skill system is very breakable already.
Yeah, but many Skill DCs suck without spell/item usage.

[Woot Spitum]

Fighters:

Allow fighters that are devout worshipers of a single deity to take special bonus feats that allow them to gain the benefits of certain divine spells (including, but not limited to: divine favor, divine power, and righteous might) once per day.

Rangers:

For combat styles, reduce the penalties (or remove them altogether) for making multiple attacks in a round, either with bows or two-weapon fighting. Maybe even give them a bonus to hit when using their combat style.

[ken-do-nim]

You've got some very good ideas here. Let me give some comments:


Barbarian: More smashing inanimate stuff. Like, absolutely destroying doors and such.


They smash stuff when raging pretty well as it is though. Actually I find barbarians a great class, so I don't think they need any changes.



Bard: More spells


Amen! Even the beguiler gets to go up to 9.



Cleric: Cloistered! And, no instantaneous healing/inflicting.


No to heavy armor, drop to 6HD, but yes to spontaneous healing as BWL pointed out. Remove divine power & righteous might.



Druid: Shapeshiping Variant


Yup, and probably drop shapechange from their list altogether.



Fighter: Better feats. Also, more incentive for people not to base their concept around tripping/disarming, because I really find it lame. Also, why do Spiked Chains exist as weapons? They should cost like...two exotic weapon proficiencies.


I like spiked chains sniff sniff. But anyway, not necessarily better feats but actual class abilities, which many people on here have homebrewed.



Monk: More neat unarmed attacks, less Ki Blast.


I break into 2 classes. Class #1 is a martial artist, a la Bruce Lee. They have full BAB. They have d10 hit dice. They use weapons. They don't have ki abilities. But boy do they flurry. And flying kick. Class #2 more resembles the current class. I ask you, if they are only d8 hit dice and 3/4 BAB, what are they doing with the rest of their time? Clerics are that way because they pray. Monks meditate. So give them all manners of meditation powers. These powers resemble a spell list, but can't be done during combat. However they can use their meditations to prep for combat.



Paladin: More holy auras with magical effects, or something?


With cleric toned down, paladins are the uncontested divine champion class. Throw in righteous might as a level 4 spell.



Ranger: Casting ability acquired sooner - very slow progression. Also, more trapping/ambushing abilities?


In my experience, nobody likes ranger spell-casting. Remove it entirely for a trapping/ambushing chain of abilities. Setting traps, I think, would be a blast and lots of fun to play. Think Rambo in the First Blood movie.



Rogue: Add in wounding ability damage at higher levels.


Well they do have crippling strike. Another nearly perfect class.



Sorcerer: Drawback to using most powerful spells


Up to 6 HD too.



Wizard: Drawback to using most powerful spells

Yeah. In books, casting powerful spells is always dangerous.

[Matthew]

I don't know why everybody wants to reduce the Armour Proficiency and Hit Dice of Clerics. Mithral Full Plate is going to make the first nerf virtually pointless anyway. Clerics need to have their Spell Casting ability reduced. Cloistered Clerics already fill the non militant clerical role.

I think Paladins should lose Smite Evil as written and get a straight +1 Damage per Level against Evil Creatures.

I would like to see Rangers lose Combat Style and gain Ranger Bonus Feats.

I think Rogues should get +2 Damage per Level via Sneak Attack instead of using Damage Dice.

Just some ideas...

[clericwithnogod]

Rogue: Increase BAB to full. Give weapon/ability selections (Urban Package, Woodland package). Increase HP to d8. More skill points. Bonus skill tricks and Sneak Attack abilities from complete scoundrel.

Cleric: Make spells that do incredible changes to reality take extended periods of time.. Keep a cleric that is say, a cleric of a war god on an equal melee footing with other melee fighters, keep one that is say, a cleric of a magic god on an equal footing with wizards at casting with the corresponding ability dropping to a lower, but still meaningful level. If someone is stuck with the chore of being the healer, they should be fully equal at either fighting or casting, and capable of doing the other at least competently to allow them some flexibility to make up for having to burn their actions on others by design. Dump divine metamagic. Make healing/remove spells swift and ranged. More skill points.

Druid: Lord knows how to fix this mess. Their abilities are so all over the place that everything is either overpowered or nerfed to meaninglessness. Preferably, dump it and create a prestige class or classes to simulate the abilities.

Wizard: Make spells that do incredible changes to reality take extended periods of time or require ceremonies. Increase HP to d6 and BAB to 3/4. More skill points. Allow some boon from ceremonies that has a duration with a limited number of ceremonies allowing to be in effect. Kick anyone who creates a feat to increase the number of ceremonies in effect or decrease the casting time of a ceremony square in the squishy parts.

Sorceror: Make spells that do incredible changes to reality take extended periods of time or require ceremonies. Increase HP to d6 and BAB to 3/4. More skill points. More innate abilities at the cost of the ability to perform ceremonies and such.

Fighter: Replace with Tome of Battle classes. Let the 30-year existence of a one-dimensional class called fighter end. Call Warblades 'Fighters' if you just can't let go.

Barbarian: More skill points. Add Move Silently, Hide and Spot to List. Add a few maneuvers. Get it something like the Barbarian in the Conan RPG.

Monk: Full BAB. More skill points. Some nifty stuff - maybe mix them up a bit with Ninja somehow to get a nice mix of abilities. Mix in some maneuvers. One-stop, Chinpan shopping (to steal a location from the Apropos books).

Bard: NPC class. Take Perform and Knowledge skills as another class if you want to call yourself a bard. All Knowledge skills are class skills for everyone now.

Ranger: Dump it. Make woodland abilities available to Rogues so you have Woodland Rogues and Urban Rogues rather than a seperate class.

Paladin: Dump it. That's what clerics focusing on fighting are for...without all the crap baggage this class brings with it.

[Quietus]

Wow... so basically, Cleric, you just want to pump every single class up, remove the "I can't actually fight 'cause I don't pick up a weapon" attack bonus rating entirely, delete a couple classes because another overpowered class can do something similar if you optimize right, and make everyone able to learn anything they want?

.... I thought we were going for balancing, not breaking further?

[ken-do-nim]

Wow... so basically, Cleric, you just want to pump every single class up, remove the "I can't actually fight 'cause I don't pick up a weapon" attack bonus rating entirely, delete a couple classes because another overpowered class can do something similar if you optimize right, and make everyone able to learn anything they want?

.... I thought we were going for balancing, not breaking further?

Yeah, before dumping classes, I refer you to all the polls about people's favorite classes. Lots of people love bards, paladins, and rangers. I want to play the game with those classes present. The beguiler is very close to what the bard should be, why throw it out when WOTC has almost fixed it? Bard could equal beguiler with trapfinding thrown out and bardic music plugged in.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Deflection Counter
Prereqs: Power Attack, Combat Expertise
Whenever a spell that requires the caster to make a touch attack hits you, you may roll one attack at your highest base attack bonus to deflect it (DC spell level + caster level). If you succeed, the spell is redirected at either the caster or any other target in range of the spell, with an 80% miss chance (improved by 5% for every 2 points of dexterity above 10). You may only perform a deflection counter with a metal weapon, shield, gauntlets, or some other wielded object that produces a significant mirror-like sheen. If the item is covered in a material that might prevent it from shining, the attempt is lessened (in -2 intervals. Splashed with mud is a -2. Caked in dried mud is a -10).
You may only perform one deflection counter per round.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time, you may perform one more deflection counter per round.

This should more or less make it easier for most non-casters to deal with arcane casters. That just leaves those blasted divine casters. Meddlesome CoDzilla!

[clericwithnogod]

Wow... so basically, Cleric, you just want to pump every single class up, remove the "I can't actually fight 'cause I don't pick up a weapon" attack bonus rating entirely, delete a couple classes because another overpowered class can do something similar if you optimize right, and make everyone able to learn anything they want?

.... I thought we were going for balancing, not breaking further?


Making everyone specialized is how this got where it is in the first place.

The game is balanced off four of the iconic characters:
Lidda
Jozan
Tordek
Mialee

One each of Rogue, Cleric, Fighter, Wizard.

They tend to walk in a 10' hallway world. Two need to be in front and need to be able to fight and take damage. Rogue in heavy armor sounds funny as does wizard, so cleric gets heavy armor.

Cleric can't fight well enough to really be contributing anything useful so he's meatshield/fluffer. Divine Favor/Divine Power/Divine metamagic, now he can fight well so the player doesn't think he totally sucks. He still spends turns doing nothing because he can't use a ranged weapon with any effectiveness. Add some ranged weapon ability and hey, he's like the fighter only he can do something else too. Take away ranged weapon and give him some offensive spells, but not as good as a Wizard's. Now he can do things on all of his turns, even if some of them suck. But, he's still better than the fighter.

Problem - Fighter only does one thing and at least one (and really two) other people in the party need to do it well, because Rogue needs to fight well as well to contribute equally in combat) .

Bigger problem - Fighter doesn't do it well, and to add to it, archery sucks so badly that you can't do it effectively without devoting your whole build to it and getting to being effective at melee requires so many of his feats that he has no versatility in combat.

Problem 2 - Wizards are glass cannons, then become invulnerable. Breaking down their most powerful abilities into things they do out of combat and things they can use once every three rounds leaves them doing nothing one some turns - so have them casting lesser spells and/or engaging in combat. Sometimes spells don't work, so Wizard now can fight a little (as well as a Bard actually, which is still crappy).

Problem 3 - Rogue gets the shaft. He gets low HPs, bad armor, and a sneak attack ability that works best when he's flanking on the other side of fighter and cleric and thus away from cleric. He had feint, but that got nerfed (because being able to fight was the only thing fighter could do and we couldn't step on that). He can try 2-weapon fighting, but in combination with his 3/4 BAB he still can't fight worth crap. Boost his BAB and HP and Rogue is effective in combat.

Problem 4 - They step out of their 10' hallway world sometimes meaning they can get attacked from all angles. Since Wizard can't insta-kill, he needs to be more durable. So he gets some more HPs.

[clericwithnogod]

Yeah, before dumping classes, I refer you to all the polls about people's favorite classes. Lots of people love bards, paladins, and rangers. I want to play the game with those classes present. The beguiler is very close to what the bard should be, why throw it out when WOTC has almost fixed it? Bard could equal beguiler with trapfinding thrown out and bardic music plugged in.

Which is a Beguiler with bardic music, which still dumps the mechanically inferior class of Bard.

Call the Wilderness Rogue a Ranger, pick a Weapon Package and Ability Package to match and you have pretty much the same thing.

Call your fighting cleric a Paladin, take a couple of hard to live with Vows from Exalted deeds and there you go.

[Quietus]

Okay, so what happens when you want to make that tricky, heavy-armor character? Oh, just make a cleric? Not enough feats. Maybe I LIKE being able to make someone with an exotic weapon/power attack/cleave/expertise/improved trip/two weapon fighting sets? To make the changes you suggest, would require A) Pumping up enemy's difficulty (since you've turned up everyone's attack bonuses and hit points), and B) dumping of tricky fighter-types. Plus, there'd be no easy starting point for a low level character - when I start someone new to the game, I always suggest a low-skill-rank, melee type, because it's easy to get into. Pick a few straightforward feats, and go to town. No muddling around with spell levels and saving throws, no limited use per day crap, no having to keep track of a dozen different spells. Once they've learnt the ropes, they can go ahead and do anything they'd like, but I ALWAYS recommend an "easy" class to start with - all of which you've removed, with the exception of barbarian. And what new player wants you to tell them "You're only awesome when you get angry, and you can't read."?

[clericwithnogod]

Okay, so what happens when you want to make that tricky, heavy-armor character? Oh, just make a cleric? Not enough feats. Maybe I LIKE being able to make someone with an exotic weapon/power attack/cleave/expertise/improved trip/two weapon fighting sets?

Thing is, earlier in this thread, someone wanted to remove the need for those kinds of things. But, if you want to get to something that specific...prestige class.



To make the changes you suggest, would require A) Pumping up enemy's difficulty (since you've turned up everyone's attack bonuses and hit points), and

I've also toned down the high end of casting. If casting is the most powerful thing in the game and so overshadows fighters now, toning down casting is going to require an increase somewhere else. Balances out.



B) dumping of tricky fighter-types.

Warblades et al don't have enough tricks? Move some feat stuff into maneuvers, create a PrC, dump maneuvers or stances for access to feats or something.



Plus, there'd be no easy starting point for a low level character - when I start someone new to the game, I always suggest a low-skill-rank, melee type, because it's easy to get into. Pick a few straightforward feats, and go to town. No muddling around with spell levels and saving throws, no limited use per day crap, no having to keep track of a dozen different spells. Once they've learnt the ropes, they can go ahead and do anything they'd like, but I ALWAYS recommend an "easy" class to start with - all of which you've removed, with the exception of barbarian. And what new player wants you to tell them "You're only awesome when you get angry, and you can't read."?

So we're supposed to balance off the new guy who picks things at almost random because he doesn't know anything and keep the classes balanced for experienced players and those who try to stretch the bounds? Come on, just ask him what he wants to be, walk him through creation suggesting some simple abilities and feats, and let him go. If he has maneuvers, have him pick one tree and use them all he wants that day or something. It's not that big a handicap.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I'm in the grand process of removing nearly every instance of regular melee classes in my game in favor of ToB stuff, myself. Swordsage is the non-caster man's CoDzilla.

[Logos7]

I had preety good sucess with just making the normal feat progression being every other level, fighters get a feat every level with a bonus one at 2, but its seems more useful to the lesser classes than the higher ( fighters and srocs vs wizards and clerics).

Logos

[Kadasbrass]

Before you can balance the classes you must first decide what is balanced. For if the general agreement is the most powerful classes are too powerful in general then aiming for them as the goal of balance is a flawed constep since everything would end up overpowered.

There are three methods of balancing the classes of the game:

1) The actual mechanics of the classes. Best used for raising the power of the low powered classes. Since its an common element in balancing already it doesn't need to be covered in length

2) Regulate what a class is allowed to do or have. This is best for balancing the classes that are generally agreed to be too powerful. Take out feats or spells that just allow classes to do more than should otherwise be allowed. (A good example would be not allowing druids access to natural spell feat). Also common in some balancing aspects already, thus not needing to be covered in length.

3) The monsters and encounters side. The actual balance of the classes ultimately depend on the types of encounters they face. Encounters should be designed so that one character type does not excel at ever encounter or the entire encounter. Since this is something alot of people overlook I shall cover this in length

If more then 75% of the monsters in a campaign fly then a ranged base character will do better then normal compared to a melee designed character. If the campaign has lots of monsters that have good defenses against magic (good saves, immunities, SR, other stuff) then non-magic characters will do better then normal relative to magical characters. In the end the campaign and its monsters can have a impact on the balance of the classes.

Monsters should have learned to adept to a world with magic since monsters that survive will pass on the knowledge of survival with them. This means an army of goblins should march in such a spread out pattern that a wizard flying by should count themselves lucky to hit 3 or 4 goblins with a single fireball out of an army of thousands. In close range (semi-)intelligent creatures should not cluster together so that a single close range spell takes them out. Monsters should also use tactics, divide into groups and assult different parts of the normal adventuring group, retreat into areas with more monsters or retreat over traps.

Monsters should also use elements in their environment to their advantage. Kobolds or goblins charging it or firing from afar might be annoying, and even score a good shot now and then, but are just minor nuisances at most. But kobolds firing crossbows behind tables turned on their sides become more dangerous. Goblins lurking in the shadows, hiding in furniture, or waiting behind a secret door, of what appears to be an empty room may catch players off guard after the rogue goes off to scout another room, or manage to swarm key members of a group while their divided searching a room for treasure.

[JaronK]

One thing that always annoys me is how casters can beat skill monkeys at their own game. No matter how good your open lock, you still can't get through Arcane Lock... but also, no matter how impressive the lock, Knock beats it. Hide is pretty much trumped by invisibility. You get the idea. I think at high levels skill monkeys should have quasi-magical level skills... similar to epic skill useages, but earlier. After all, most of the non casters are already a bit magical... monks can run faster than horses, rogues can dodge fireballs in a 10'X10' room, etc. So, let's just take that idea further. What I'm aiming for here is that wizards have the option of using almost anything, but only a few times per day, while skilled rogues, bards, etc can only do what they're skilled in, but they can do it unlimited times per day.

First, you'd have to go through and edit every spell that does something related to a skill, and which auto-succeeds. Knock, for example, would make up to two open lock checks at +20 to your open lock skill, plus your caster level, no tools required. Arcane Lock creates a lock that can be picked with a DC of 30+Caster Level. Invisibility grants a +20 to hide and gives hide in plain sight. Charm lets you make a diplomacy check at +20 +CL, but the effects of that check end at the end of the spell. Etc.

Then, make high DC uses for skills that are along the lines of what magic can do, similar to the way Diplomacy can work like charm currently. Escape Artist to break out of an enchantment. Disguise to actually take on some of the abilities of a creature, like Alter Self. That sort of thing, but make the DCs nice and high.

Next, all classes that give 8+Int skill points per level add their class level to their skill ranks when making a check with that skill, to a maximum of the number of ranks in that skill. For example, a 4th level rogue with 7 ranks of move silently and 3 ranks of disguise gets a total of +11 to move silently and a +6 to disguise. Classes that give 6+Int skill points per level add half their class level to their skill ranks when making a check with that skill, to a maximum of half the number of ranks in that skill, rounding down. Thus, a bard 4 with the same skills would have +9 to move silently and a +4 to disguise.

One thing I've noticed is that there is no power class that has 6+Int or more skill points, except the Cloistered Cleric (but I don't think better skills would really change things too much for these guys, and they're more balanced than regular Clerics anyway.

Anyway, it's a thought.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Invisibility might trump hide, but how often can a wizard do that compared to how often a rogue can just regular hide? Skill monkeys serve their purpose by simply being capable of taking care of every skill-necessary dungeon technique without taking up spell slots.

Seriously, why in the world would you deck out your whole casting grid with knock and invisibility? Wizards have way more useful stuff to mix in.

[Beren One-Hand]

There is another aspect that needs to be considered as well. As someone else said in another thread (I'm to lazy to go and find it so I'll paraphrase it): There should be a compelling reason for each base class to go all the way to level 20.

In looking at the 11 core classes, I find that only a very few actually make me think twice about multi-classing/taking a prestige class.
In order of hardest decesion to easiest to branch are: Monk, Druid, Bard, Rogue, Barbarian, Fighter (if you have scaled feats for the higher levels), Ranger.
Clerics, Sorcerers and Wizards all have no reason to keep gaining class levels if you have a thematically apropriate full caster prestige class, and Paladins have little reason to keep gaining levels past 5th.

Compare this with the Ninja, Warlock, Scout, Marshal, Hexblade, Swashbuckler, Spellthief, Samurai, Favored Soul, etc. etc.
Practically all (if not every) non-core base classes give at least a pause before turning aside and taking prestige classes.

[Dhavaer]

Would Shadowcasters be balanced if mysteries were /encounter instead of /day?

[JaronK]

Invisibility might trump hide, but how often can a wizard do that compared to how often a rogue can just regular hide? Skill monkeys serve their purpose by simply being capable of taking care of every skill-necessary dungeon technique without taking up spell slots.

Seriously, why in the world would you deck out your whole casting grid with knock and invisibility? Wizards have way more useful stuff to mix in.

But a Wizard can get a Wand of Knock, or an Eternal Wand of Knock, quite cheaply, and then they've got open lock covered. It makes the skill quite useless.

Meanwhile, no matter how good your hiding ability is, you're still screwed against a bunch of detection spells... no spot needed.

JaronK

[Leush]

Because a detection spell wouldn't go off because of that horrible mash of auras that the wizard presents with his invisibility and wand of knock and kazillion scrolls.

Even with nondetection will fail if you have enough sensors, especially at lower levels....

[Renegade Paladin]

Cleric and Paladin: Divide them. Make one a low HD, low BAB full caster, and the other a medium BAB, high HD partial caster. I wrote up classes to this effect, but I don't know where they are now. I might be able to find and link to them.
Medium BAB? What did paladins ever do to you? :smallconfused:

For paladin rebalancing, click here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=761045). That's by far the best attempt I've seen, though playtesting shows it still doesn't quite measure up to the Tome of Battle Crusader, at least at low levels.

Clerics:

Get rid of Divine Power and Righteous Might. Divine Favor can stay, it's not going to unbalance things too much.

Paladins:

Give them Divine Power and Righteous Might. Consider letting them get these to replace Remove Disease.
What's the point of giving paladins divine power to replace remove disease? The primary benefit, that of making your BAB equal to your character level, is made completely irrelevant by the fact that the paladin's BAB is already equal to his class level. It's only really useful if he multiclasses into something that doesn't have full BAB, so using it to replace a class ability would be kind of pointless.

It should be on the paladin's spell list for multiclass paladins, but not a class feature.

[Dhavaer]

Medium BAB? What did paladins ever do to you? :smallconfused:

They also got 6th level spells and possibly some good class features, IIRC.

Edit: No, no really good class features.

Divine Crusader (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10361)
Divine Agent (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10367)

[Saph]

For paladin rebalancing, click here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=761045).

Looks very nice. Haven't seen that one before.

Yeah, 'balancing' should not mean 'making every character as powerful as an optimised full caster'. If you do that you'll have to buff up every monster in D&D, too, in which case you might as well just go ahead and write a new game. Nerfing casters makes much more sense, since it's their overpoweredness that causes the problems in the first place.

- Saph

[Ikkitosen]

How about getting rid of the Cast Defensively option from the concentration skill? What's with casters being able to cast in melee anyway?

[Matthew]

That's true for imbalance, but I dn't know how CR and Full Casters compare at higher levels. One problem with reducing the power of Spell Casters is that the party may not be powerful enough later on. I think a happy medium is what is needed, reducing the power of Spell Casters and increasing the power of Non Spell Casters (but to a lesser degree).

[Ikkitosen]

No defensive casting/full round spells and include ToB classes. Might be getting there.

Tbh much of the cheesy caster power comes from metamagic, so rule that you can't get it for free, you can never reduce the level adjustment by more than one and it can never be +0. A start?

[Matthew]

Indeed. Limiting Spell Casting times to Full Round Actions and Standard Actions with no exceptions would be very helpful.

Meta Magic needs to be evaluated.

[Morty]

I really don't think introducing ToB classes instead of meleers is the best solution, even if its's simplest. From what I've seen, their flavour is much different from standard fighters/rangers etc.

[Fawsto]

Yeah, I don't want to play a Cleric instead of a Paladin. It doesn't make any sense for me...

[Matthew]

I really don't think introducing ToB classes instead of meleers is the best solution, even if its's simplest. From what I've seen, their flavour is much different from standard fighters/rangers etc.

I would tend to agree, but Non Casters still need to be powered up at later levels.

[Morty]

I would tend to agree, but Non Casters still need to be powered up at later levels.

Well, then pump up existing non-casters, many people have already done that.

[Matthew]

I know, but aren't we looking here for suggestions for doing so?

[Orzel]

I think the best way to balance the noncasters is to give them a niche that magic can't enter. AKA The MMORPG method.

The real problem is that there really isn't a part of D&D that can't be duplicated with magic that really matters at higher levels.

I once thought of toying with AoOs and making them happen more often. Ranged AoOs, Creating AoOs and no Defensive casting and the like. It shortly became "hide behind the fighter or no casting" style combat.

[Quietus]

Hiding behind the fighter or no casting? See, I like that, personally; It means that the fighter/paladin/barbarian now has a PURPOSE. You ARE the meat sheild that makes sure your wizard gets his spells off.

[marjan]

For fighter I think you should add Immunity to fear or Battle Hardened or maybe Indomitable Soul from Races of Stone in place of one of their bonus feats. How the things work right now it is easier to incapacitate fighter than kill him. It's not much but it allways made sense to me that fighter should be much harder to intimidate than bard for example.
PHBII has interesting things for fighters such as Elusive Target (which works great if you play meat shield for spellcasters) and Weapon Supremacy.
The problem with weapon supremacy is that it can be obtained on 18th lvl but you have nothing in between it and Weapon Specialization worth of taking levels of fighter (aside from bonus feats), everything else could be obtained with 12 lvls of fighter.
Maybe add less speed reduction in heavy or medium armor, or improve max dexterity bonus with those armors (something like Champion of Corellon Laretian from Races of Wild).
Add some Intelligence based damage to attacks. Fighters are not geniuses but if they are smarter they should be more effective in combat.
Maybe change Combat Form feats to be fighter only and let them activate at he begining of encounter instead of when dealing damage.

[Matthew]

Actually, one thing I think would help out no end is if all Saving Throws scaled 1:1 by Level. That way a Fighter 20 has a Base Saving Throw of +20, which would render them much less prone to Magical Compulsion and Save or Die Spells.

[Hzurr]

Some quick thoughts:

Barbarian:
Good, fun class. Does what it's ment to do, and does it well. Pretty balanced all the way through.

Bard:
Overall, not too bad. Again, does what it's ment to do, but possibly give a larger spell list, or find something to fill out all those dead levels.

Cleric:
One of the more powerful classes. A full caster with good HD and full armour prof? I'd say max of medium armour and/or d6 HD?

Druid:
Holy crap, these guys are crazy. I've heard a lot of people mention the shapechanging varient, and from what I've read, it will help, but I don't have enough experience to say for certain.

Fighter:
Again, all the suggestions that have come up throughout the post. Better stuff at higher levels, bonuses against being intimidated, etc. Make fighter a class that people want to stay in, rather than "I'll dip in for two levels to get the feats so I can meet the pre-req for this PrC."

Monk:
One of the most fun classes to play that feels so underpowered the whole way through. They try to be hardcore martial artists, but they will never hit as well as, or as hard as a fighter or barbarian. At early levels they suck, and at higher levels, they have to spend a fortune on magic items to be able to functions. Honestly, the monk needs a full BAB. For balance, you'd have to take away a few of his other abilities, but in order for it to function like the crazy martial artist it was ment to be, it needs a full BAB.

Paladin:
Paladins are a lot of fun. I've never really had experience with Paladins at higher levels, so I don't really have much room to judge. I've heard several suggestions (such as something to replace "remove disease" at higher levels), and they sound pretty good.

Ranger:
A good class. I feel that the ranger is pretty balanced all the way through. I've heard several people say that the ranger should be taken out and replaced with the scout, but I don't really think that this is the forum for that discussion. In pure "balancing" terms, I think the Ranger is pretty good.

Rogue:
An amazing class. One that is balanced, but still gets unique and amazing abilities.

Sorcerer:
Fix metamagic, give a few bonus feats, and give d6 HD. The idea behind sorcerers is that their magic comes while they're out traversing and experienceing the world, not cooped up in a study. d4 doesn't make any sense, and it gives the sorcerers that "I have experience in the real world" edge over wizards that they need to make up for slower spellcasting progression.

Wizard:
Toned down a bit at higher levels, possibly full-round actions for the more powerful spells?

[Morty]

I don't think Barbarians couldn't use fixing. I don't know if they're weaker or stronger than Fighters, but they have too little options. Barbarian just gets betters on bashing stuff, he should have more than that. I was thinking about different types of rage, let's say one strenght-focused, one speed-focused, one endurance-focused, etc.
Also, I think the best solution for Wizards is cutting down their spells, as several people suggested already. For me, the simplest way is to give particulary nast save-or-die/lose easier saves. And either deleting all no-save spells or making them saveable. In addition, all direct-effect spells should allow SR and no spell should work in AMF.

[Quietus]

I don't understand why people think that a Monk should have full base attack. Yes, it'd be helpful, and yes, I would LOVE the extra oomph it would put behind my Monks. However, I just don't think that it's necessary. A Monk isn't meant to stand in the front lines with the fighters and get beaten on; He's meant to use his mobility and trickyness to AVOID getting beaten on. Get in, strike, get out. That's why they have a better selection of mobility skills like Balance and Tumble, and why they get 4 skills per level. I see no problem with them whatsoever, when they're played as a light, mobile character, who strikes from unexpected angles and uses their skills to get into places.

[Woot Spitum]

What's the point of giving paladins divine power to replace remove disease? The primary benefit, that of making your BAB equal to your character level, is made completely irrelevant by the fact that the paladin's BAB is already equal to his class level. It's only really useful if he multiclasses into something that doesn't have full BAB, so using it to replace a class ability would be kind of pointless.

It should be on the paladin's spell list for multiclass paladins, but not a class feature.

Just rule that divine power scales up your attack bonus by one step. For those that already have full base attack bonus, create a higher one (+1, +1, +2, +1, +1, +2 etc.)

[Renegade Paladin]

I don't understand why people think that a Monk should have full base attack. Yes, it'd be helpful, and yes, I would LOVE the extra oomph it would put behind my Monks. However, I just don't think that it's necessary. A Monk isn't meant to stand in the front lines with the fighters and get beaten on; He's meant to use his mobility and trickyness to AVOID getting beaten on. Get in, strike, get out. That's why they have a better selection of mobility skills like Balance and Tumble, and why they get 4 skills per level. I see no problem with them whatsoever, when they're played as a light, mobile character, who strikes from unexpected angles and uses their skills to get into places.
Because when he gets in, strikes, and gets out, he would generally want to hit the thing he strikes, yes?

[Dhavaer]

How about make Wizard spells similar to mysteries? Your three highest spell levels take a round to cast. The next three take a full round action to cast. The last three take a standard action to cast. Cantrips are always a standard action.

[Ikkitosen]

Sounds awesome - mysteries are from ToM I assume? Never read it :(

[MandoFTR]

I've only played PnP once, with a lvl 1 cleric of Sune that only lasted her till 2nd lvl.
I do play both of the Neverwinter Nights games, though, so I think I understand the basics.

The big power of mages are the save-or-die spells like Finger of Death, or ones that incapacitate enough to leave you wide open.
The power fighters have: Feats.

So maybe instead of giving the class more bonus', you COULD give them feats that grant resistance or immunity to those effects. A Fighter with WIS 16+ could grab a feat that allows them immunity to mind effecting spells of a certain potency.

[Dhavaer]

Sounds awesome - mysteries are from ToM I assume? Never read it :(

Yes, the Shadowcaster.

[clericwithnogod]

Hiding behind the fighter or no casting? See, I like that, personally; It means that the fighter/paladin/barbarian now has a PURPOSE. You ARE the meat sheild that makes sure your wizard gets his spells off.


Ahh, the heroic stander-in-fronter... What a crappy role for anyone, that's as bad as reducing the cleric to battery.

That's not adventuring, that's being a cog in a machine. Who want's to roleplay working on an assembly line for fun?

[Viscount Einstrauss]

About a wizard making lots of wands and scrolls to do things like knock indefinitely- you know, rogues have a habit of five-fingering a lot more money then wizards, and they have Use Magic Device. They could easily equal a wizard's cheap wand and scroll usage even without the metamagic feats :P

[Bears With Lasers]

I don't understand why people think that a Monk should have full base attack. Yes, it'd be helpful, and yes, I would LOVE the extra oomph it would put behind my Monks. However, I just don't think that it's necessary. A Monk isn't meant to stand in the front lines with the fighters and get beaten on; He's meant to use his mobility and trickyness to AVOID getting beaten on. Get in, strike, get out. That's why they have a better selection of mobility skills like Balance and Tumble, and why they get 4 skills per level. I see no problem with them whatsoever, when they're played as a light, mobile character, who strikes from unexpected angles and uses their skills to get into places.

Yeah, that's why they have the Flurry of Blows class feature, which requires them to stand and deliver full.

[clericwithnogod]

Some quick thoughts:
Cleric:
One of the more powerful classes. A full caster with good HD and full armour prof? I'd say max of medium armour and/or d6 HD?

Wizard:
Toned down a bit at higher levels, possibly full-round actions for the more powerful spells?

Heavy to Medium armor is meaningless - if you're using all of the rules in the game for movement and situations, there are enough advantages to having a mithral breastplate (which is light armor) over full plate armor to make that irrelevant. Unless you introduce the new 250 gp crystal of twinkiness and other stuff to make all the hindrances of heavier armor disappear...

Full caster applied to Cleric is inaccurate - having nine levels of cleric spells isn't the same as having nine levels of wizard spells, having 5 bonus metamagic feats and being able to focus on casting for power.

You need to burn spells on cures (spontaneous or not) and removes (whether slots you use after the fact after resting or have ready taking up slots) and the other spells you need to use to fight effectively leaving you with not much left in the tank. Combined with feats you need to be able to get your buffs up (if you go that route) and feats to make you an effective fighter, you don't have a whole lot left in the tank as "caster."

So, nerfing the cleric makes him an ineffective fighter as well as a second-rate caster. Making him as powerful as the wizard, still leaves him overpowered. Nerfing casting and nerfing his ability to fight makes him a fragile battery for the fighter, which sucks.

On the wizard/casting side, Full-round action does more or less nothing. If it's something powerful, institute a cooling off period after casting and a build up period before.

You could use something like this. Require entering Spelltrance to cast certain powerful spells, while lesser magics could be cast outside of Spelltrance. Entering Spelltrance is a swift action, maintaining Spelltrance is also a swift action. Require x number of rounds of Spelltrance before casting a certain power level of spell, with a similar number of rounds in Spelltrance required before casting that power level of spell again. Depending on how the balance worked, different power levels could have different charge-up times and and some could have recovery times after casting to indicate they are particularly taxing or whatever.

EDIT: Spells that could be cast outside of Spelltrance wouldn't count against charge up or recovery.

EDIT 2: Other things... Replace Quicken Spell with swift spells that are balanced for the shorter casting time and Persistent Spells with spells that last until dispelled and are specifically balanced in consideration of being "always on" and a limit of the number of such spells that can be in effect on a single individual at any given tiime.

EDIT 3: Power level of something requiring Spelltrance isn't spell level. There would be spells that require Spelltrance and spells that don't require Spelltrance of every spell level.

[Matthew]

Yeah, that's why they have the Flurry of Blows class feature, which requires them to stand and deliver full.

Poor buggers. Flurry should operate like Two Weapon Fighting... wait, damn. Flurry should operate like Two Weapon Fighting should operate... oh well...

My suggestion for Monks - Full Base Attack Bonus, Flurry grants an extra iterative attack every five levels, but retains the -2 penalty so that a Flurrying Two Weapon Fighting Monk 20 would get:

Primary Attack: 16 / 11 / 6 / 1
Flurry Attack: 16 / 11 / 6 / 1
Off Hand Attack: 16 / 11 / 6 /1

[pyrefiend]

This is an odd idea, but I'll just throw it out there. Has anyone considered allowing the monk to take psionic feats? A lot of them wouldn't make sense, certainly, but some feats such as Up the Walls and Mental Leap fit the martial artist type quite nicely. I think the flavor fits fairly well too, seeing as these feats are used through extreme focus, something the monk strives for. Even becoming psionicly focused as a monk makes some sense, just take away all the psionic references. Oh, and the monk should have full BaB. Monks seem like they should be really fun to play, but as written it’s really not that great.

[Matthew]

There's a Psionic Monk over in the Home Brew Forum.

[endersdouble]

Here's a few ideas I'm tossing out there--no real order or structure, but whatever.

Double save modifiers (For example, a 20th level fighter with 20 CON and a +5 cloak has a +44 Fort save), but scale them by % of current HP (so if he's at 50/200 HP, it becomes a +11.) The exact scaling would need to be balanced some (maybe triple saves, maybe 150%...it'd take some work)...but it'd go a long way to fixing melee damage (and damage spells!). The idea here is that you still finish off enemies with a Baleful Polymorph/Dominate/whatever, but you'll need to burn through a good chunk of his HP with damage before you'll be able to pull it off.

This substantially buffs no-save spells and stuff like Evasion, but that's fixable.

I also need to think of a good way to buff battlefield control--is there a good way for a fighter to be able to physically control a Balor? Not immediately coming.


Bard: Replace with Beguiler--it's not a perfect match, but it's damn close, and damn good.

Barbarian: Drop the damn class, there's no need. Fix fighters however you're going to do it, then play a fighter tuned towards mindless rage.

Cleric: Fine, for now.
Druid: Not sure if it needs a nerf, but, frankly, probably does. One possibility: at 5th level, choose either shapeshifting or casting. If you choose shapeshifting, you basically get the effects of MoMF 10/Warshaper 5 over the rest of your levels; if you choose casting, you...well, can anyone guess? Needs thought.
Fighter: Needs the most thought. I'll get back to this. Definitely d12 HD, 4 skill points with a few mroe class skills, and 3 good saves.

Monk: Replace with Swordsage. There, fixed. Fits the flavor as well or better in just about every way, and assuming we've fixed things so melee characters don't suck, it's excellently powered.
Paladin: Repalce with Crusader. See Monk.
Ranger: Scout with animal companion as Druid is my first thought.
Sorceror: Eschew Materials ( yeah, it's minor, but flavor is fun), bonus metamagic as Wizard, d6 HD, casting in light armor.

Wizard: Fine.

[Whamme]

Okay. First of all, kill Forcecage. Or at least make it go down to dispel magic and AMF. It's just stupid as is.

Second. Class roles need to be as follows:

Cleric : Is useful for fighting, casts healing from a DIFFERENT set of reserves from everything else they do, does not need to own all with magic.

Fighter: Is good at fighting, is secondary skill guy (honestly, it is a TRAVESTY that they don't get to TAKE physical skills, animal skills, etc. even though they make perfect sense).

Rogue: Is Rogue. Rogue is good. Rogue is what we balance /to/.

Wizard: Being the big guns is fine. Invisibility, Invulnerablity, and Flying? That's a Superhero, not a Wizard (Dr's Fate and Strange aside). Nerfbat to battlefield control, to utility, to everything except evocation (which can be strengthened).

Essentially, there is something wrong with the Wizard being the go-to guy for out of combat. Magic should be something you pull out for emergencies when you don't have a mundane option.

Oh, by the way, I think spells should not be per day, but per encounter. Why? Because being able to refresh your mana pool/read more spells/call upon the Gods once more is relevant.

This means spells which last longer than a portion of a combat need to have other limits on them. Which is part of the nerf hammering.


So. Summary/Aim:

Rogue stays.

Fighter types become partial skill monkeys.

Clerics become INCAPABLE of being a Healbitch. The rules need to simply forbid that from being the case (rather than simply make it 'good play').

Wizards need to be 'break glass in case of emergencies'.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Thought on balancing all the casters-

Say we gave them a lot more uses of spells every day. A lot more. Several times more, in fact. However, in exchange for this, they can't regain spell usage by any natural means besides leveling. There may be expensive magic items and the like that can grant them spells uses, but they have to be careful, for drying their pool out on an encounter makes them effectively worthless. Thus, while they can still truly do some amazing things, they also can't just do them all the time then sleep for a little while before moving on.

[ZekeArgo]

Thought on balancing all the casters-

Say we gave them a lot more uses of spells every day. A lot more. Several times more, in fact. However, in exchange for this, they can't regain spell usage by any natural means besides leveling. There may be expensive magic items and the like that can grant them spells uses, but they have to be careful, for drying their pool out on an encounter makes them effectively worthless. Thus, while they can still truly do some amazing things, they also can't just do them all the time then sleep for a little while before moving on.

Wow... so you go from overpowered to unable to do anything, apprentice adept/red mage like hoarding of spells and effects? Why would a mage even adventure then if it only lead to the *weakening* of his power?

I'm sorry, but this is a horrible idea, no one would ever play a magic using class again and that is not anyones aim.

[Hzurr]

That's not adventuring, that's being a cog in a machine. Who want's to roleplay working on an assembly line for fun?

The type of people who take Skill Focus: Toothpaste cap

Duh!

[Arceliar]

What about this little idea for "fixing" wizards... I've thrown this around for a while now but never implemented it...

Same exact rules for everything wizard with 1 exception: To copy new spells into their spellbook (besides the free ones they get form just leveling up) they have to expend exp. This means wizards can still learn every remotely useful spell in the game, but doing so means they slow their leveling progress. The self correcting nature of the exp system will still keep them from getting terribly far behind, so there'll still be advantages to learning more bread-and-butter spells, but it'll encourage them to think twice before taking a month off to burn half their cash learning new spells.

It shouldn't be a crippling cost, but enough to discourage learning every little thing.. something like 100 exp * spell level, 50 for cantrips.

Just a thought..

[Ikkitosen]

It's not their knowledge of every spell that's a problem IMO. Much of the time they use scrolls of less common spells and just prepare a few killer spells - your way makes the like Sorcs, which isn't needed.

Nerf MM, slow down casting, stop defensive casting. Done.

[endersdouble]

God, why are people obsessed with nerfing casters? Has anyone considered that nerfing classes that are good just leads to a point where no one can do anything cool? I don't--and no one I know does--play D&D so I can kill asthmatic kobolds. I want to do the impossible and the awesome. Buff fighters so they can too, don't nerf casters so the poor useless fighters don't feel left out.

[Arceliar]

It's not their knowledge of every spell that's a problem IMO. Much of the time they use scrolls of less common spells and just prepare a few killer spells - your way makes the like Sorcs, which isn't needed.

Nerf MM, slow down casting, stop defensive casting. Done.

The Mage Slayer feat in Complete Arcane keeps spellcasters you threaten from casting defensively.

I like defensive casting, but I think it should be +2 per spell level instead of 1..since.. max ranks in con go up by 2 for every 1 spell level you get with most classes. A level 20 wizard should be able to reliably fire off a magic missile missile spell without provoking AoO, a greater teleport is a different story.

*Edit: I agree that nerfing casters probably isn't the best way to go. However..the defensive casting thing doesn't make sense at 1 per spell level. It just doesn't. Even if casters were underpowered I'd want it changed. I also think that learning a spell, for a wizard, should involve more than just writing some scribbles in a book. Maybe that's just me..

[Quietus]

I'd say that spending 100 gold/level and a bunch of time certainly counts as "involving more than just writing scribbles in a book". Heh.

However, I do agree that defensive casting should be more difficult. All of the other concentration checks scale as you level (indirectly, mostly, in that damage goes up as level does), and the way things are set up now, even with average con, you CAN'T fail a concentration check to CoD at level 20. That makes things very difficult on the prospective caster.

The problem isn't with wizards and the like; They're balanced well enough, it's just that fighters need a little more oomph. I just skimmed through some of the feats in the PHB2, and they look like they help - I love that they've now got some really high level feats that you can work toward, that's awesome. That should help a great deal, assuming my DM's allow the PHB2 to be used.

[Matthew]

Heh. Well, that is the way Wizards are currently viewing the problem. Full Casters are okay, it's everybody else who sucks... Not my take, but an understandable one. I guess it all depends how the power levels of classes relate to CR and such things.

[Kadasbrass]

If I had to do something to balance spellcasters, I would most likely establish some sort of per encounter limit on spellcasting. Something that goes along with spellcasting being physically draining. Or maybe some sort of waiting period between spells.

I don't want to nerf spellcasters, but making everything as powerful as spellcasters would be alot worse.

[Bears With Lasers]

Best-in-class, optimized spellcasters like optimized wizards shouldn't be the standard for power, no. But many spellcasters are better than melee types without being uber like wizards or CoDzillas--Favored Souls are quite reasonable, say; Warmages are spellcasters who are actually kinda sucky, not good; Shugenja and Wu Jen are reasonable; et cetera.

[endersdouble]

If I had to do something to balance spellcasters, I would most likely establish some sort of per encounter limit on spellcasting. Something that goes along with spellcasting being physically draining. Or maybe some sort of waiting period between spells.

I don't want to nerf spellcasters, but making everything as powerful as spellcasters would be alot worse.
...why? Having everyone feel useful and powerful--yeah, that's totally a bad thing.</sarcasm>

[endersdouble]

Best-in-class, optimized spellcasters like optimized wizards shouldn't be the standard for power, no. But many spellcasters are better than melee types without being uber like wizards or CoDzillas--Favored Souls are quite reasonable, say; Warmages are spellcasters who are actually kinda sucky, not good; Shugenja and Wu Jen are reasonable; et cetera.

Well, yes. Not everoyne should be at the power of the Killer Gnome/those silly, stupid, rules-broken Arcane Thesis builds/whatever, but hell, I'm willing to live at the level of a decent Wizard--say, the power level of something about Wizard 10/Fatespinner 5/Archmage 5, maybe even a little higher, avoiding ubercheese spells (PaO, etc.) That's reasonable, and, well, I keep using the word but it's appropriate, awesome.

[Kadasbrass]

...why? Having everyone feel useful and powerful--yeah, that's totally a bad thing.</sarcasm>

There is a huge difference between powerful and everyone one shot killing every monster in the game. Power is relative, if everyone was made to be equal to big three spellcasters then people that play those three classes would then demand a power up so they can be above everyone again.

[endersdouble]

There is a huge difference between powerful and everyone one shot killing every monster in the game. Power is relative, if everyone was made to be equal to big three spellcasters then people that play those three classes would then demand a power up so they can be above everyone again.
What? No. I don't play Wizards because I want to be OMG uber kekekekekekek, I play them because I like them. OTOH, I don't play straight fighter (all that often), because I don't like being useless. This isn't frakking WoW--people won't cry that they can't be annoyingly overpowered if you buff someone else.

[Matthew]

It definitely is a matter of relative power level. It should be as possible for four [average] Level 20 Fighters to take down an encounter of appropriate difficulty as for four [average] Level 20 Wizards, and currently the disparity of power between two such parties is huge.

All Classes should be balanced towards using up X amount of resources when facing Y Encounter difficulty.

[endersdouble]

It definitely is a matter of relative power level. It should be as possible for four [average] Level 20 Fighters to take down an encounter of appropriate difficulty as for four [average] Level 20 Wizards, and currently the disparity of power between two such parties is huge.

All Classes should be balanced towards using up X amount of resources when facing Y Encounter difficulty.
Precisely correct. I argue the power level to balance to is 4 reasonable optimized Wizards, because they are able to do quite awesome stuff.

[Kadasbrass]

What? No. I don't play Wizards because I want to be OMG uber kekekekekekek, I play them because I like them. OTOH, I don't play straight fighter (all that often), because I don't like being useless. This isn't frakking WoW--people won't cry that they can't be annoyingly overpowered if you buff someone else.

Actually there are those that would complain if other classes were raised to the top powerlevel.

When the Warlock first came out there were people complained that it was overpowered since it could do a few invocations at will. Now with Tome of Battle out people have complained about warriors being able to impressive stuff. Those same people don't think casters are powerful compared to the other classes and if everything was put on equal level they would complain no matter what since they want to be *Special*. (Understand this is all from my experience on the WotC boards)

When you have people seeking equality in a system there will always be thoses that want to be above the rest in the same system. It has nothing to do with the game, its all human nature.

Making everything equal to the current wizard, cleric, and druid, will throw the whole game out of whack since there would be no such thing as "challenge." I seek to bring eveything to the middle of the current system. Raising the power of the weaker classes while limiting the power of the most powerful.

I do not expect everyone to agree since most choose whats easy instead of whats correct.

[Quietus]

I do not expect everyone to agree since most choose whats easy instead of whats correct.

That's a little holier-than-thou, don't you think? "If you don't agree, you're lazy/stupid/whatever"? Kinda sad that it's come to that.

That said, I do agree that it would be better to slightly limit the top end (a lot of people have suggested a full round action to cast the top spells, and I think that's a good idea), while bringing the lower end up to snuff.

[Whamme]

God, why are people obsessed with nerfing casters? Has anyone considered that nerfing classes that are good just leads to a point where no one can do anything cool? I don't--and no one I know does--play D&D so I can kill asthmatic kobolds. I want to do the impossible and the awesome. Buff fighters so they can too, don't nerf casters so the poor useless fighters don't feel left out.

Forcecage trumps so many melee builds outright. It HAS to go, because it autowins versus ANYTHING that is melee only.

Non-battlefield control wizards and non-/cheese/ self buffing clerics are a reachable standard, though.

Seriously, it needs to be like a DC 30-40, tops, check to walk on clouds, leap across massive canyons, and do all that other wire-fu stuff. THAT might equal Fly (a third level spell, mind).


Oh, and the fact that magic just wins non-combat situations need fixing. Because given a week you can spam so much info finding magic it's just plain WRONG. Out of combat spells need to all have harsh component costs.

Not less power, just at SOME kind of price.

[Kadasbrass]

That's a little holier-than-thou, don't you think? "If you don't agree, you're lazy/stupid/whatever"? Kinda sad that it's come to that.

That said, I do agree that it would be better to slightly limit the top end (a lot of people have suggested a full round action to cast the top spells, and I think that's a good idea), while bringing the lower end up to snuff.

I don't think I'm more rightous then others, more bullheaded, but never better better then others. Just other people around me have always display the desire to do what is eaiser of two choices. Or more recently they stick to the whole "people are more willing to accept a buff then a nerf" which is the same thing as going with whats easier.

I'm not better then everyone else, just the majority have proven their worse is all :smallbiggrin:

Having thought about it I think this is how I would do the system for limiting spellcasting. Spellcaster can only cast a spell greater then half their highest level of spell once per minute, spells before half the level of highest level of spell are unaffect. So a level 7 Wizard can cast only a single level 3 or 4 spell during a minute period but could cast level 1 and 2 spells as normal.

[Quietus]

I think that might be a bit TOO limiting; plus that doesn't really address the area where caster problems come in, at EXTREMELY high levels, when you pick up 9th level spells. You'd still be able to throw around forcecages, horrid wiltings, and the like, at level 18. You'd just only be able to cast one 9th level spell per fight - this would mean that most spellcasters, until they reach 20th level, wouldn't be able to empty their 9th level column without a marathon fight.

... Then again, that isn't such a bad idea.

Maybe I'll put some thought into that; It somehow seems instinctively WRONG to me, but it does have some potential.

[Kadasbrass]

Its merely an idea, I've been tossing them around. But my group for the most part doesn't get many spellcasters so its not a high mark for me at the moment. I'm more interest at the time of not allowing in problem spells instead of major change to the system. I get the weirdest people, they think spell casters are too complex to play. I have seen more fighters then I have seen sorcerers, druids, clerics, and wizards combined.

Another idea I had, but too complex for me to consider it, was having spellcasters make constitution checks for casting too many spells in a single period, failing a con check resulted in nonlethal damage, something that wouldn't kill a spellcaster but might knock them out near end of an encounter (assuming they take damage from the monster too). But getting the details would be too complex and time consuming. Changes should be simple, like the increased casting time of higher level spells.

[Raum]

I still don't like the term "balanced", nor is making all the classes the same power what I'd aim to do. Fighters need to be made useful at accomplishing their role, they don't necessarily need to be as powerful as wizards.

As for caster classes, get rid of two feats (Natural Spell and Divine Metamagic) and the classes are reasonable. Of course the spells still need tweaking...and even nerfing in some cases.

[barawn]

Forcecage trumps so many melee builds outright. It HAS to go, because it autowins versus ANYTHING that is melee only.

I think I agree with the "No Automatic Success/Failure" variant in this case (I wish I could find it again - I didn't agree with a lot in there, but most I did): a large part of the problem with spellcasters is that they just simply shouldn't have autowin spells. It's silly. A +20 on a skill check is fine. A "you win" is not.

Give Force in general a Hardness of 40 (or maybe more, and Adamantium can't cut through it), and, say, 150 hit points in most cases. Functionally it'll be identical. Heck, to make it more interesting, make it a Hardness of 20+caster level, and 50+10*(caster level/2) for Forcecage.

[Woot Spitum]

I think some of the problems may stem from the fact that most monsters seem designed primarily to bring down melee characters. That, and the fact that DM's may be ignoring the areas in certain monster descriptions that state "always attempts to kill spellcasters first."