No Big Casters?

[torrasque666]

I was wondering, how much more balanced would it be if the only primary casting class available to a party was the Sorcerer or the Healer? The other types of magic(psionics, truenaming, shadowcasting, binding[actually, i might allow binding], arcane and divine magic) casting classes just outright do not exist. Maybe allow for what seems to be the Divine answer to Sorcerer, the Dragonlance Mystic class(gets all of one class feature. the domain at level 1) for divine casters instead of the Healer. Or make Healer an NPC class.

This is for my Dwarf Fortress themed campaign (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?358743-Dorf-Centric-Campaign) which I would prefer to be as low magic as I could reasonably get it. Any other advice for balancing a low-magic campaign? I know I'd have to rework a bunch of CR stuff, given that they assume certain magicks to be available.

It would be a world where Masterwork items are surprisingly common, enough to drop the MW price by half. However, +N items would be on the level of Artifacts in terms of rarity.

[Eldaran]

Well, any Sorcerer in a party of mundanes who can't even get magic items would be massively overpowering, it would be extremely difficult to balance encounters. If the party is a bunch of mundanes without a sorc, then you can balance it towards that but there's still a world of difference between a Samurai and a Warblade for example.

I think you'd be better off just sticking with a tier 3 party if you want balance without powerful casters.

[Gavinfoxx]

If you want low magic, ban tier 1 & tier 2 classes. Absolutely NO Sorcerer!

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Healer? Bleh.

Isn't favored soul the Divine answer to the sorcerer?

Also, you realize that there are lower tier casters than sorcerers, right? Dread Necromancer, in particular, would be very dwarf-fortress-fitting. Sorcerer just gets talked down a lot because people are always comparing it to the wizard, and yeah, it does suffer in that comparison. But, Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, etc, don't even get compared.

And no healer. If you need your players to have healing and are willing to muck with the rules, just give them all fast healing 1, or use the vitality points variant, or something.

Oh, my personal opinion, Psion is both better-written and easier to keep in check than sorcerer - just make sure he's obeying the rules, nix the infinite recharge tricks, and if he starts going nova all the time, make the adventuring day longer until he learns better.

Actually... depending on the level you start at... Artificer might be both thematic AND easy to control. Yes, yes, they're T1, and high T1 at that - but, they're also the class the DM can restrict the most easily. And you could make up some sort of Strange Mood mechanic. :P

[torrasque666]

Even if I were to limit max spell level to something like 4 or 5 and drag the progression out like that? If the max was 4 I'd have it so every 5 levels its a new spell level, 5 would probably be something like every 4.

I'd also be implementing the feat ideas from the Chopping Down the Christmas Tree (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?357810-Chopping-Down-the-Christmas-Tree-Low-Magic-Item-Rules) thread.



Healer? Bleh.
It was mostly so I didn't get "But no magic, how will they heal?" stuff.


Isn't favored soul the Divine answer to the sorcerer?

Nah, it gets actual class features.


Also, you realize that there are lower tier casters than sorcerers, right? Dread Necromancer, in particular, would be very dwarf-fortress-fitting. Sorcerer just gets talked down a lot because people are always comparing it to the wizard, and yeah, it does suffer in that comparison. But, Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, etc, don't even get compared.

If there was a fixed list caster for each school I'd go with it. But as it is, I only know of Dread Necromancer(Nercomancy, doi), Beguiler(Illusion), Warmage(Evocation) and Healer(Conjuration[Healing])




And no healer. If you need your players to have healing and are willing to muck with the rules, just give them all fast healing 1, or use the vitality points variant, or something.

Like I said, I'd probably make it an NPC class. Seems to fit there better anyway.



Oh, my personal opinion, Psion is both better-written and easier to keep in check than sorcerer - just make sure he's obeying the rules, nix the infinite recharge tricks, and if he starts going nova all the time, make the adventuring day longer until he learns better.

Psions(and psionics in general) just don't mesh with the setting I have in my head.



Actually... depending on the level you start at... Artificer might be both thematic AND easy to control. Yes, yes, they're T1, and high T1 at that - but, they're also the class the DM can restrict the most easily. And you could make up some sort of Strange Mood mechanic. :P
I..... could see that working. How exactly would I restrict it though?

[Gavinfoxx]

Classes like these would be about equal and okay for a low power setting

Fighter, Healer, Ninja, Magewright (low power)

-OR-

Barbarian, Adept, Rogue, Warmage (somewhat low power)

-OR-

Warblade, Shugenja, Beguiler, Bard (normal power)

[Eldaran]

If there was a fixed list caster for each school I'd go with it. But as it is, I only know of Dread Necromancer(Nercomancy, doi), Beguiler(Illusion), Warmage(Evocation) and Healer(Conjuration[Healing])

There's a fair bit of homebrew towards making similar classes, you could implement some of those. From my experience, some of them stray into tier 2 range, but still pretty balanced if the rest of the party is tier 3.

[Gavinfoxx]

Familiarize yourself with this:

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11714

And the classes at your chosen power level, and then target a particular power level which is appropriate to your setting.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I..... could see that working. How exactly would I restrict it though?

So, big thing is just access to time and cost reducers. If you don't give them uninterrupted months of crafting, they don't become gods. Just don't limit their crafting time *too* much, or they won't have any fun. If they do become gods... well, magic items can be stolen or broken.

Also, depending on how much work you feel like doing, you might be able to work with them on items as they intend to craft them, and require certain materials, rather than just the abstract cost. I wouldn't do that in a normal game, but it might be neat for Dwarf Fortress. So, maybe higher-level scrolls can only be written on unicorn skin, and really OP items would have a strange-mood-esque laundry list to them.

See what sort of artificer they want to be. A wand-spamming blastificer might not work that well, but if they just want to play an obsessive smith who churns out weapons and armor for the party, plus the occasional odd wondrous item, could be great.

Actually, that's another thing with Artificers. They cover a wider range of power, based on the optimization people put into them. (Contrast with, say, druid, who are still OP even if the player doesn't really try.) So, you get a player who agrees not to optimize too much, he could easily wander down to T3ish.

[heavyfuel]

If you want low magic, ban tier 1 & tier 2 classes. Absolutely NO Sorcerer!

Completely agree. That's what I do in any campaign and it works just fine. They can still pick Warmage, Beguiler, Dread Necro, Bard, Mystic Ranger and Healer, but no one's playing Druid or Wizard or even Sorcerer.

[torrasque666]

Optimization shouldn't be an issue really. I'm running this with 3 players(will probably toss in a DMPC of some awful class. Maybe the above-mentioned healer.) One of whom built a Half-Orc Bard, one thought THAC0 was still a thing, and the other has only played one other game, which was a solo-variant of "We Be Goblins Too!" due to a lack of players with me as DM.

[Gildedragon]

You can (instead of nixing the casters, if figuring out fixed list casting) eliminate all spells above 6th (or lower)
The spell slots still are gotten, but they are for metamagic, breaking down to have more lower slots... Higher level spells (rez, planar travel, etc) are done through incantations (which gives you a lot more control over them and allows ALL players to access them)

[torrasque666]

Sounds a bit more reasonable. Especially as the only arcane casting class I'd consider is the sorcerer, given the innate nature of its magic.(and the fact that for whatever reason I have a vendetta against Wizards. and Clerics too kinda. I think its the infinite versatility of them that gets me. The only way they don't step on anyone's toes is by consciously deciding not to. I prefer a classes roles to be a bit more well defined than "God".) But enough of that. I made this thread for help isolating non-borked casting classes for a low-magic campaign.

[Psyren]

Putting the low-magic campaign aside, are you actually having problems with the casters in your game? If not, then there's no problem; if so, the far easier expedient rather than banning and rebalancing CRs is simply to talk to them about it.

For the low-magic campaign specifically I recommend you stick to T3/T4 classes.

[eggynack]

Healer? Bleh.

My opinion on healers really turned around when I considered sanctified spells. It really changes the class, offering some actual spell power of an often offensive nature, and probably actually pushes them up to tier four or so. Stuff like luminous armor, animate with the spirit, hammer of righteousness, inquisition, and vision of punishment is awesome.

[Psyren]

My opinion on healers really turned around when I considered sanctified spells. It really changes the class, offering some actual spell power of an often offensive nature, and probably actually pushes them up to tier four or so. Stuff like luminous armor, animate with the spirit, hammer of righteousness, inquisition, and vision of punishment is awesome.

I would honestly say T3 once you also factor in the mount.

[eggynack]

I would honestly say T3 once you also factor in the mount.
It's somewhat plausible, though it makes for a pretty big shift. Might be worth a thread of some kind.

[torrasque666]

Putting the low-magic campaign aside, are you actually having problems with the casters in your game? If not, then there's no problem; if so, the far easier expedient rather than banning and rebalancing CRs is simply to talk to them about it.

For the low-magic campaign specifically I recommend you stick to T3/T4 classes.

As noted, I don't like the versatility provided by magic that allows a caster to do whatever they want while non-casters have to rely on their feats and their skills aka themselves. The only reason I was even considering Sorcerer was because I don't see any sort of "studied" magic being viable due to the age of the world, and so that if someone wanted to be a caster they still kinda could, and they wouldn't have to worry about giving me what was prepared that day.

[JusticeZero]

Sorcerer is high magic. If you have high magic running around, the only way for the others to keep up is by being a Christmas tree of magic themselves. If the party has no magic items, a Ranger might as well be Merlin. Allowing the Bard will in time load the world with magic items.

[torrasque666]

Like I said, I'd probably cap the max level spells at level 4 and either string the progression out over 20 levels, or do normal progression with empty slots for either metamagicks or breaking them down for more spells.

[Jormengand]

I was wondering, how much more balanced would it be if the only primary casting class available to a party was the Sorcerer or the Healer? The other types of magic(psionics, truenaming, shadowcasting, binding[actually, i might allow binding], arcane and divine magic) casting classes just outright do not exist.

It seems odd to ban some of the weaker classes (Truenamer instantly jumps out - the Giant forums will tell you all about how irredeemably terrible yadda yadda it is) and not sorcerer.

In fact, allowing Truenamers as low-tier healers isn't actually such a bad idea. :smalltongue:

[torrasque666]

Its a combination of flavor and balance, with flavor winning out slightly over balance. I want to bring the sorcerer down out of T2 and put it more on par with T3 for this.

[Gavinfoxx]

Its a combination of flavor and balance, with flavor winning out slightly over balance. I want to bring the sorcerer down out of T2 and put it more on par with T3 for this.

You can not do this with a quick fix. It is impossible. You HAVE to go through all the thousands of spells and choose which spells are at an appropriate power level at a given level. It is much, MUCH better to use one of the existing Tier 3 or Homebrew Tier 3 classes.

See the options at these two links:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?174628-Balanced-List-of-Tier-3-Homebrew-and-Published-Classes

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?245701-Morph-Bark-s-Homebrew-Tier-Compendium

[Psyren]

I'm with Jormengand on this - a fixed Truenamer (like Kyeudo's) makes a fantastic T3 caster/healer.

[Jormengand]

I'm with Jormengand on this - a fixed Truenamer (like Kyeudo's) makes a fantastic T3 caster/healer.

Even the basic truenamer is great if you want everyone in the lower tiers - given that if you ramp up your truespeak checks high enough, you can make a workable low T3/high T4, it's not bad.

Unfixed is a plausible T4, Kyeudo's would probably be best for T3; if for some reason you wanted T2 you could grab mine, and I don't really know about Kellus' but it's not really a truenamer any more by this point so ehh.

[Eldaran]

I don't really know about Kellus' but it's not really a truenamer any more by this point so ehh.

I've used his Truenamer in my game, it's pretty fun. They have a nice mix of buffing, debuffing, and battlefield control, but none of their effects are super powerful and they lack the versatility to handle every situation. I'd say they're a sold tier 3.

[torrasque666]

I'd really prefer to avoid stepping out of the default casting system, as I don't want to overwhelm these new players.

[Gavinfoxx]

Than don't -- but focus on Tier 3 and below for a low magic game. I gave you ways of filling all niches you want to at that point... but hacks to Sorcerer aren't it.