Re doing spells

[maniacalmojo]

I am creating my own role play D20 system and using 3.5 as a reference of sorts.

So i was wondering about spells. What spells would you keep vs ban in order to make spell casters around tier 3?

(any mechanical changes would be nice to know as well regarding spellusers)

[Kazudo]

Cut out metamagic and cut the spell levels off at 6th. That'll usually do it.

[Falcon X]

Kazudo's idea is pretty good. Bard does this, and there was a Dragon Magazine (366) ranger variant called Mystic Ranger that was a 6-spell level progression too.
- For my Homebrewed Druid, I took the Druid base, required Shapeshifting ACF, and spontaneously casted from the Mystic Ranger's Spell list (like a bard does from his). I also strongly recommended the Druidic Avenger ACF too. Functionally, it was like an awesome barbarian.

I tossed around a lot of ideas on how to do Cleric. I'm still working with it, but my basic ideas were:
- When you create a cleric, you choose 4-6 domains. You ONLY have access to those domain spells. There may be a way to expand from there, but domain-based cleric is the starting point.

I did this a while back, and created a set of Tier 3 classes and limited my players to those. They were ones that were all self-sustaining (didn't require prestige classes or feats to be good), and were fun from Levels 1-20. Here's what I came up with for the system. You can take an idea or two if you see something you like:
Fighter Classes:
- Duskblade
- Warblade
- Crusader
Rogue Classes
- Factotum
- Master (Dragonlance)
- Swordsage
Mage Classes
- Warmage
- Beguiler
- Warlock
Cleric Classes
- Dread Necromancer
- Druid (Required Druidic Avenger and Shapeshifter ACFs, 6-level spell progression)
- Cleric (use Cleric for stat progression and flavor. Use Healer for ability progression and spell usage. Give Sanctified spells from BOED. Give two domains and their spells, like a Cleric.)
Optional Additional Class:
- Binder
- Archivist (Heavily modified to cover the role of the Wizard as a Spell researcher. Still working this one out to Tier 3)

There are no Feats or Prestige Classes. Every 4 Levels, the character takes a new specialization that is the equivalent of a prestige class or a progression of feats.
They represent major differences that set this character apart from other characters of it's type. They are effectively minor Prestige Classes.
Ex.
- Factotum - Factotum can take Bardic Ability as a specialization to cover for there being no Bard. It allows him to play and sustain music to extend his inspiration usage to other people.
He could also specialize in Assassination, amplifying his Sneak Attack ability.
- Warmage could take Blood Magic (Blood Magus abilities), or Crafting (3-feats worth of Craft magic items).
- Swordsage could take Spring Attack, or Scout abilities, or Hunter abilities.
- Beguiler could take Telepathy, or Shadow Weave Magic, or Spellthief abilities
- Etc.

Multiclassing is handled at the same time. Instead of a "specialization", a character can multiclass. They can take 2 levels of another class for every 4 of their primary. They are treated as gestalt for their 3rd and 4th levels.
Ex. Barry the swordsage just reached level 4. He originally was working towards Spring attack, but has instead decided to multiclass into Wizard.
He is now Level 2 Swordsage and Gestalt (Level 3,4 Swordsage and Level 1,2 Wizard combined).
If Barry decides to multiclass like this every 4 levels, he will end up, effectively, as a Swordsage20/Wizard10 when he has gained enough experience for level 20.

[Dread_Head]

Arbitrary cut off points don't solve the biggest problems with spells which is there are some at all levels that are very powerful and invalidate combat styles. Likewise most of the best spells work just fine without metamagic.

The better way to make casting more balanced would be to take out any spells that completely invalidate other roles / classes or provide complete immunity to some form of combat style. Also remove the spells that have obscene versatility.

Looking at in core stripping out or modifying stuff like
1st.
2nd. Knock, Alter Self, Rope Trick, Find Traps
3rd. Wind Wall
4th. Polymorph, Freedom of Movement, Divination, Divine Power
5th. Contact other Plane, Lesser Planar Binding, Commune
6th. Contingency, True Seeing, Planar Binding
7th. Limited Wish, Simulacrum,
8th. Mindblank, Polymorph any Object, Greater Planar Binding
9th. Shapechange, Gate, Astral Projection, Wish, Miracle

And changing either scrying or teleport spells to prevent or impede Scry & Die. Some of the other spells should be moved to higher levels (Solid Fog, Glitterdust, Grease, Black Tentacles) and other might need tweaking but if you strip out the hyper versatile spells (polymorph, planar binding), the ones that invalidate certain types of combat (wind wall, freedom of movement) and the ones that replace other roles (find traps, divine power) casters become less game breaking.

[Kazudo]

Arbitrarily removing spells from the list doesn't ensure the same thing. Prestidigitation can be absolutely useful in the wrong places.

The thing is that you're not just cutting out spells, you're stretching progression along 20 levels. Which means that primary casters will get their spells later and later and when they get them they'll be less and less useful. Cutting out metamagic entirely removes a lot of the power behind most primary casters.

Another concern would be to actually bring up the mundane classes rather than just bringing down the magical ones. Figure out a "meet in the middle" situation.

[Dread_Head]

Arbitrarily removing spells from the list doesn't ensure the same thing. Prestidigitation can be absolutely useful in the wrong places.

The thing is that you're not just cutting out spells, you're stretching progression along 20 levels. Which means that primary casters will get their spells later and later and when they get them they'll be less and less useful. Cutting out metamagic entirely removes a lot of the power behind most primary casters.

Another concern would be to actually bring up the mundane classes rather than just bringing down the magical ones. Figure out a "meet in the middle" situation.

It's not arbitrary though, it targets the most broken spells. Removing all spells higher than 6th level removes a bunch of spells that function perfectly well whilst not doing anything about the broken lower levelled spells. And add Prestidigitation to the list of spells to ban / modify then. Reducing the massive list of things it can be used for and splitting some of them into separate spells whilst making it clear that some ridiculous uses don't work (creating antimatter comes to mind).

The characters are still going to be broken if they can cast polymorph, even if they get it three levels later.

Agree that the martial classes mostly need a buff as well. My usual suggestion is just to gestalt them with a similar class. Such as Scout & Ranger, Rogue & Swashbuckler, Knight & Martial (& possibly Paladin), Barbarian & Scout (with modifications) etc. And to add a bunch of Fighter specific feats that are way more useful than the ones it currently gets.

[Afgncaap5]

You might also take the Conan approach by weakening magic preparation. I mean, casting Wish'll be overpowered no matter how you do it, but if you can only cast Wish over the course of a month by killing a virgin male dwarf of noble birth on an altar of obsidian at a different location every midnight for thirty midnights in a row might lower its usefulness a bit.

This is sort of how Conan was always able to take out his super-charged wizard enemies. The magic there was so ritualistic and precise that it was easy enough for Conan to disrupt magic in process. Taking a cue from that, you might also consider taking away the Concentration skill so that casters who take (for example) more than their Con modifier in damage automatically fail any spell that they're in the middle of casting.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The better way to make casting more balanced would be to take out any spells that completely invalidate other roles / classes or provide complete immunity to some form of combat style. Also remove the spells that have obscene versatility.
This is the big thing to keep in mind, I think. That, and spell access-- something like a Dread Necromancer is a lot more balanced than a wizard because it has such a (comparatively) limited access to spells. So, you know, the three steps of "balancing" 3.5 are:

Remove or limit spells that invalidate things (skills, classes, encounters, storylines*, etc)
Prevent any one caster from having access to too many spells.
Buff the heck out of "mundane" classes.


Though if you're starting from scratch, you've got way more options for how to handle the mundane-magic balancing act. A key thing to avoid, I should think, is the way 3.5 does it, where casters select multiple abilities every level from an enormous list, while mundanes get one new ability per level (if they're lucky). Whether that means granting mundanes something like maneuvers, or turning spellcasters into something more like a Warlock... that's up to you. But whatever you do to the individual spells, you'll never have good balance if casters have five times as many options as mundanes.


*Within tolerance, of course. I've not no problem with teleport ending travel-quests at 9th level, but some people do. It's a personal preference thing.

[maniacalmojo]

My idea for correcting it would be to

-Give all martial characters access to maneuvers like what are in the Tome of battle
-A lot of the maneuvers would be geared towards mobility or team fighting. Group tactics.
-Remove all spells that replace another ability
-Remove summon "______" spells. Conjuration would be objects that would eventually fade out
-Separate Wizard and sorcerer spell list
-Wizards would need too have a "focus" to cast spells (so without preparing spells and having a focus they cant cast)
-Higher requirement for putting a spell in a spellbook
-Certain mundane classes will have a natural defense vs magic ability along with certain races
-Instead of spell slots using a mana system with progressively harder spells needing different casting times along with increased mana cost
-Sorcerers can use magic as a reaction (such as when an enemy provokes an Aoo)
-Wizard spells will be more about de buffs, conjuration and utility
-Sorcerer will be more focused on short teleports, blasting , AAO and illusion.
-Clerics will be Alignment bound to their diety
-Paladins only have to be lawful (they are free to be good or evil)
__-The thought being is that clerics serve their god while paladins serve the church.
-Divine spells would have a failure chance in armor
-Paladins would be exempt from this
-clerics favored weapon would be the only "Martial" weapon they could use
-Clerics would have a code of conduct based on their diety
-Paladins would just have to serve the church, would lose casting and recognition if they went against.

[maniacalmojo]

Also i was thinking of ways to limit "Dips" Because thematically i hate those. I was thinking of having it where you need to be in a class for x amount of levels to receive the benefits of that class.

[Falcon X]

A few thoughts:

- Give all martial characters access to ToB. I would just say eliminate Fighter/Barbarian/Knight/Monk and only have ToB. Alternatively, you could give the others access to one or two disciplines. Seems kind've redundant though...
- Separate Wizard and Sorcerer spell lists: Problem is that there is no difference between the two. How do you plan to do this? My reco is to eliminate Sorcerer (or Wizard) and fill in the gap with Beguiler, Dread Necro, and Warmage.
- Alternatively, why not just turn wizard into a utility casting version of those three?


Have you considered changing the way spells work so that they act just like ToB maneuvers?

Consider again having multiclassing and/or prestige classes work like I stated above. Essentially, instead of multiclassing, use feat slots to give gestalt levels.
- You don't spend a feat to dip into fighter just to get another feat this way.

[Stella]

So, you know, the three steps of "balancing" 3.5 are:

Remove or limit spells that invalidate things (skills, classes, encounters, storylines*, etc)
Prevent any one caster from having access to too many spells.
Buff the heck out of "mundane" classes.


Though if you're starting from scratch, you've got way more options for how to handle the mundane-magic balancing act. A key thing to avoid, I should think, is the way 3.5 does it, where casters select multiple abilities every level from an enormous list, while mundanes get one new ability per level (if they're lucky).
Board member tricktroller has put together a wizard spell list which I feel accomplishes your goals of "Prevent any one caster from having access to too many spells" and also avoids giving casters multiple abilities every level from an enormous list.

He published it in the thread Bringing the tiers in line (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?307051-Bringing-the-tiers-in-line), and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17180029&postcount=44) is the post where he links to a docx with the spell list.

And if you follow the links in this thread to the brilliantgameologists.com forum you can read a lot of discussion about which spells need to be changed, and how, in order to prevent their abuse.

[Komatik]

One idea I like a lot at least in theory:
You're a wizard.
You know Summon Monster/Polymorph.
You prepare Summon Fiendish Centipede and Polymorph into Cryohydra.

Spontaneous casters can still choose at will.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Board member tricktroller has put together a wizard spell list which I feel accomplishes your goals of "Prevent any one caster from having access to too many spells" and also avoids giving casters multiple abilities every level from an enormous list.
I did something similar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?317861-Fixed-List-Caster-Project-%283-5%29&p=16545265) for the first part, but the second half is impossible to avoid using standard D&D magic systems. Only Warlocks and Dragonfire Adepts manage it.

[Gavinfoxx]

Just play Legend (http://www.ruleofcool.com). They redid all the spells already.