How would you un-bork 3.5 magic? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

aleucard

2014-09-06, 08:51 PM

This is specifically focused on Wizards, but ideas that drag the other T1's into line are also appreciated. Most T2 classes are either using distinct systems that would need their own threads or would probably be dragged along for the ride due to their parallels to T1 classes.

I'm mainly looking for specific ideas to both maintain a certain degree of uniqueness while also reinforcing the notion that Power has Costs. Anything that can lower a Wizard's tier without just taking black marker to spell lists would be appreciated. Here's my series of ideas.

First, and most important, the various schools need to be augmented and reconfigured so that they are all on the same tier, more or less. Ones which focus on versatility should have difficulties bringing raw power to the table (and the reverse being also true in most scenarios), and no school should have automatic failure become possible outside of VERY specific circumstance (offensive Enchantment should be able to affect everything with an Int score, for instance, and Illusions shouldn't be rendered wastes of casting slots by a single spell). The various classes of spell should also be paid attention to, and modified depending on their use (Direct Damage should be made a little weaker in trade for much more prolonged use (if using a MP system, this type of spell costs less than a similar-level spell of most other types)), while summoning of almost all types should have more heavy costs (need more spell slots/MP to cast, cause damage/debuffs to caster on summoning, etc.)) be modified to account for their power. Spell Level may or may not exist per se, but a stand-in to determine how easy the spell is to control should be made (spells with higher SL than the user can normally cast may be learnt, but have larger costs than normal and have a chance of backlash; maybe make SL go from 1-20 pre-epic, with CL needing to be equal for standard casting?).

Second, the way that classes interact with their spell lists should be modified. Wizards for instance should be forced to choose 2 schools to ban at all times, even when selecting Generalist. In trade, the wizard gets certain benefits based off of how many schools they banned in their specialty (with Generalist having more unfocused benefits, but weaker than Focused examples). Learning the most powerful spells in a given school should require banning even more schools to account for the increased focus. The Wizard could also choose to take a significant amount of levels in a PrC devoted specifically to a given school, but this stagnates advancement in all others (CL, Spell Level, etc.). Either effort should be taken to ensure that the individual school benefits are distinct from those provided by already-existent fixed-list casters or the benefits should use their respective caster classes as templates and those classes are banned.

Third and final, The way that the spells themselves act in the game should be augmented. The notion of save-or-die should not exist unless the power difference between the spell and the target is absolutely massive, being 6 levels or higher. Instead, the main Save stats should serve as a form of quasi-DR that reduces the effectiveness of a spell proportional to how much gets through (though attack rolls should be made at all times unless if the caster is touching the target, though willing targets can forego Dex and certain types of Armor). SR should serve as both a buff to general resistances and an AC against spells, with the added bonus of negating all effects unwanted by the defender if a complete block is made. Each attack on a specific save reduces the amount of DR the target has until they can recover (excepting if SR is involved in the case of fully-blocked attacks), with greater success for the attacker resulting in larger reductions. To build upon something said earlier, the amount of 'damage' dealt to a target and the results depending on how much makes its way past the target's resistance should be calibrated so automatically ending a target's ability to contribute to the fight shouldn't be possible without more than a 6-level difference or multiple successful attacks.

What are your ideas?

malonkey1

2014-09-06, 08:59 PM

Ban all spells above 6th level, give full-9 classes Bard/Duskblade-like progression.
Summarily re-write polymorph into something more like Pathfinder's version.
Wizards can now only cast spells from their school without penalty, they must specialize, and all other spells require 2 slots each to prepare.
Sorcerers are removed, as the Bard can now do anything the Sorcerer could have. Bard list is merged into Sor/Wiz.
Druids have their Wildshape nerfed to be put in line with the newly rewritten Polymorph spells, as per Pathfinder
All spells deal non-lethal damage equal to the level of the spell.
Magic Items cost 150% their original cost to make.
Epic Magic (hell, all of the Epic Rules) is abolished.
Offer non-mages a wider variety of options (deflecting/reflecting spells with a shield, muting/blinding/deafening with an attack, etc.) to both give them more versatility and offer them weapons to disable or render irrelevant spellcasters in a limited set of circumstances.
Make all magical bonuses a single type, in order to reduce magically pumping your stats as easily.
More could go on this list, this is just what I was able to come up with on the spot.

Emperor Tippy

2014-09-06, 09:07 PM

Go through and rewrite a number of spells.

There is no other real way to drop a Wizard down to Tier 3.

Extra Anchovies

2014-09-06, 09:49 PM

Trunamer

2014-09-06, 09:52 PM

Go through and rewrite a number of spells.

There is no other real way to drop a Wizard down to Tier 3.
I'm going to have to agree with the Tippy One. It's as simple (and as mind-bogglingly complicated) as that.

OldTrees1

2014-09-06, 09:52 PM

Go through and rewrite a number of spells.

There is no other real way to drop a Wizard down to Tier 3.

Fixing the rules would be a herculean task. However in practice it could be done as needed. I mean the only thing you need to remove is the campaign-breakers. After removing the strategic power, it is merely a quantitative difference rather than a qualitative difference.

Extra Anchovies

2014-09-06, 09:53 PM

Fixing the rules would be a herculean task. However in practice it could be done as needed. I mean the only thing you need to remove is the campaign-breakers. After removing the strategic power, it is merely a quantitative difference rather than a qualitative difference.

An easy easy way to do this is to require DM approval before a wizard adds a certain spell to their spellbook.

aleucard

2014-09-06, 10:21 PM

I was more thinking about specifics, or at least other things besides mentioning the rewriting of several spells. Examples of how you'd rewrite them if that's your only suggestion would be nice.

Emperor Tippy

2014-09-06, 11:43 PM

I was more thinking about specifics, or at least other things besides mentioning the rewriting of several spells. Examples of how you'd rewrite them if that's your only suggestion would be nice.

You can't do it, period, without rewriting the entire Planar Binding line, the entire Polymorph/Shapechange line, Simulacrum, Ice Assassin, Astral Projection, and Wish.

To make a real go at it you really should also rewrite or remove Time Stop, Celerity, Iron Guard, Foresight, Mind Blank, Superior Invisibility, Genesis, Planar Bubble, Mindrape, Hypnotism, and another few dozen spells that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head.

Then you also have to totally guy and redo the entire metamagic system along with at least minimally rewriting the Wealth By Level system (if not fully gutting and rewriting it along with a large number of magic items).

That is enough to kick the Wizard out of Tier 1 and probably Tier 2 but it doesn't really do anything to prevent the Wizard from dominating Tier 3. For that you need to remove or rewrite a number of prestige classes and either rewrite the Wizard base class or rewrite a number of other spells.

---
Seeing as just finding all of the spells that you need to rip out to kick a Wizard out of Tier 1/2 is a very time consuming process, it should be obvious why no one with the skill and knowledge to do it has put in the time to do a real rewrite to make Wizard into a viable but not overpowered Tier 3 class. Most everyone with the skill and knowledge to do it has no real reason to do so as we either don't care, game with people who will play to the expected power level of a given campaign, or can and will just houserule on the fly as things become relevant.

Those who are generally willing to invest the time and effort into a large scale rewrite of the spell list have shown a general lack of in-depth understanding of the game and how to recognize and fix the problems; making those same rewrites less than useful.

Fax Celestis

2014-09-07, 12:04 AM

Obligatory wizard rewrite link. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?309205-d20r-Class-The-Wizard

You will notice how it isn't really a wizard and is in fact more like a warmage or Beguiler.

Eldan

2014-09-07, 04:41 AM

I'll just link my own fix here as well: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?233664-Arcane-Magic-Base-Class-and-System-Overhaul-WIP-PEACH

I'm rather proud of it. It's not finished, as such (I doubt it ever will be, it's a sort of endless project), but it should be playable. The homebrew tier thread put it at high tier 3.

The short version is:

Things that make magic harder:
Magic is harder to cast and easier to interrupt.
Various conditions from stun to shaken make magic harder and it is possible to lose control over ongoing spells.
A lot of utility effects are no longer spells, but rituals, which take a long time to cast and have failure conditions, sometimes brutal ones.
Spells are organized in lores, similar to ToBs disciplines, to learn a higher level spell, one first has to learn lower level spells of the same lore. Forces some specialization
Wizards can only learn a limited number of spells. More than sorcerers, but still limited.
Some few spell rewrites, but mostly, some spells just no longer exist (often because I didn't get there yet).

Spells that make magic perhaps easier but probably simpler, too:
Spell slots are no longer per day but can instead be refreshed with a long break at any time.
Many buff spells can be maintained indefinitely
Certain effects can be cast at will with a power level dependent on how many spells the caster has prepared, similar to reserve feats

facelessminion

2014-09-07, 05:21 AM

I've generally found that the best way to un-bork magic is to ask my fellow players not to be colossal chodes. Unlike other potential revisions, this one has had a 100% success rate.

Extra Anchovies

2014-09-07, 06:31 AM

I've generally found that the best way to un-bork magic is to ask my fellow players not to be colossal chodes. Unlike other potential revisions, this one has had a 100% success rate.

True. Plus, this method leaves everyone happier. Setting a hard limit on what someone can do makes them less happy than making a couple of suggestions and letting them limit themselves.

Threadnaught

2014-09-07, 06:45 AM

Either.

1: Do nothing, I'd only make the bad parts worse if I messed around.
Or.
2: Rewrite everything. Which I'm too lazy to do.

amalcon

2014-09-07, 06:57 AM

The first step is to just not play at high levels (I define high levels as 11+). This is mainly because playing at low to mid levels makes the remaining steps much easier, though it is also a bit of a nerf in itself. You can take this even further, as in E6, but the rest should be an approachable task.

The next step is to rewrite or delete spells pretty mercilessly, or hamper them with RP constraints. Many of the really bad ones are eliminated or weakened by the low-level play (all level 9s are gone, Contingency is gone, Teleport is basically a capstone, PAO and Shapechange are gone, etc). The spells you need to watch out for are the ones that can disable an entire group (Slow, Web, etc) and the ones that give access to abilities you wouldn't otherwise have (Polymorph, anything that summons or calls a creature, the undead-using spells, charm/compulsion enchantments, etc). Action economy breakers (Celerity, et al) are also on the chopping block.

The next step is to boost the non-magic-users in out of combat situations. After having done the above, you don't need to go as far with this. Giving those classes a lot of extra skill points and class skills should get pretty close, though the "pure martials" (Fighter, Barb, Monk) probably need a class feature or two.

Aquillion

2014-09-07, 07:01 AM

It is important to remember that many people play the game (especially 3.5e) entirely because they like the game's magic as it is. Dramatically altering it is not going to make them enjoy the game.

Rather than trying to rewrite the entire system, you're better off considering how it's affecting your game and what the simplest way to solve it would be.

The most important thing, before anything else, is to figure out who at your table is unhappy.

If nobody is unhappy, do nothing. It is silly to tinker with the mechanics based around an abstract notion of balance-theorycrafting when everyone is enjoying themselves.

If one player isn't enjoying themselves, but everyone else is happy, consider a fix targeted at that player (buffing what they have if they're playing a weaker class than everyone else, or convincing them to play a different class, or just making suggestions about their build if they're not experienced.) This is not always feasible when your group is looking for games with fundamentally different powerlevels, and they're not likely to have more fun if they feel you're meddling so much that you're playing their character for them, but it's worth considering. If you're totally unable to fix this, your issue might be a player issue (people wanting different things out of the game).

If one person seems to be causing problems (and one or more people are upset), consider just taking them aside and asking them to play differently. If they don't listen, again -- you have a player issue, not a mechanics issue.

(I think that one major mistake a lot of DMs make is trying to solve player issues by addressing mechanics. That never ever works. If a player is showboating and dominating the game, it is usually because they want to showboat and dominate the game, and you need to focus on that at the source.)

But the final and most common problem is that you, as the DM, are dissatisfied. In many ways, the power of magic causes more issues for the DM than anyone else -- it makes their job harder, because they have to deal with players suddenly whipping out plans (or even just single spells) that completely go off the map the DM had planned. Encounters you'd intended to spend all day on resolved instantly; entire plots resolved with a clever spell; the players saying "let's Plane Shift to another dimension!" out of the blue, etc.

This is a real problem, since the DM has to have fun if they're going to continue running the game... but in that case, you need to stop, take a long step back, and consider whether there's any way to make it enjoyable for yourself as it stands. I think that DMs tend to fall back on this idea of "it's clearly broken!" to justify changes to things that are not causing problems for anyone but them. And while it's fine to change things that are making it too hard or too unfun for you to run the game, it's important to be honest with yourself about your motivations for making those changes, so you can consider whether there's another way to handle it and so you can be upfront with your players about what you want out of the game.

If it's really only a minor annoyance to you, and the players are all having fun, it's probably not worth it; and some of the practical issues can be solved by planning with your players (taking some time between games to talk to them about their goals and what they want out of the story, so you're not blindsided by the way they use their powers.)

Anyway, that was a bit long-winded, but my point is that just saying "how do I fix magic?" is too vague. What are you trying to fix about it and why? Clearly there's a lot of issues, but some of the problems are too embedded in the game to fix without, basically, turning it into a different game; and others are partially going to be a matter of what you want to shoot for (eg. there's nothing wrong with wanting to run a T1 game, or play in a T1 game; there's nothing particularly wrong with characters being T1 -- well, the game isn't really made to stand up to them, and it can be hard on DMs; but you could fix these issues by rebalancing the game to support them better and encouraging social structures to make it easier to run games with that level of power. Conversely, you could just ban everything but T3, force players to use T3 versions of casters, and that would work fine, too -- it's just a matter of what kind of game you're trying to produce.)

sideswipe

2014-09-07, 07:06 AM

not play 3.5

Frozen_Feet

2014-09-07, 07:11 AM

Listen to Tippy, Tippy knows what he's talking about.

I once had the bright idea of looking over and tweaking every Feat in the SRD to make them viable class features for the Fighter. I then extended that project to fix all the Salient Divine Abilities into something you could actually use in a game.

At one point, someone told me "this is great! Why don't you do the same for spells?"

And I looked at the amount of spells and said "no".

Just the first three spell levels on the Sorc/Wiz contain more abilities to read through than the entire basic feat lists. If we were to include all the splats for 3.x., I'm fairly sure we'd find that the amount of spells is larger than the amount of Feats and Salient Divine Abilities combined by an order of magnitude. All my rewriting projects are on indefinite hold for now because I realized it'd be easier to make a whole new game system and cash it for money, than it'd be to proof-read all the crap dozens of other writers spewed out in span of a decade.

You can still see many of my ideas for bringing higher tier characters back in line in my class fix. One big thing it has that no-one else seems to have mentioned in this thread is: all Divine casters should have a limited number of spells known, or their spell lists should be considerably shorter and more restricted.

Forrestfire

2014-09-07, 02:55 PM

In my opinion, the best way to un-bork 3.5 magic is to not. Just play we it a gentleman's agreement, and everyone on the same page regarding optimization level. Part of why I enjoy 3.5 is the sheee amount of rules and options, and limiting that with bans (instead of not being a jerk) takes that away. If I'm gonna do that, it's less work to just find a system that isn't as horribly designed.

Telok

2014-09-07, 04:50 PM

torrasque666

2014-09-07, 04:56 PM

My personal favorites:

3) No Concentration skill. You'll need a fix for the ToB guys (I suggest Iaijutsu Focus) and you can still allow the Concentration checks, but there is no skill to put ranks in or otherwise boost.

I don't know about Iaijutsu Focus, mostly because if I think I'm right its from Oriental Adventures, and I personally have yet to run into a group allowing it, or even knowing of it. Granted, I tend to run with lower OP groups, but I like these kinds of fixes. Perhaps instead of Concentration change the skill to Martial Lore? Gives it a use in campaigns that aren't using Martial Adepts against the party.

VoxRationis

2014-09-07, 05:07 PM

My personal favorites:

1) Remove all stat bonuses from spells. High Int no longer gives wizards bonus spells or higher DCs. All spell DCs are now 10 + level of spell.

2) No metamagic reducers. None, no, nada, nyet, nil.

3) No Concentration skill. You'll need a fix for the ToB guys (I suggest Iaijutsu Focus) and you can still allow the Concentration checks, but there is no skill to put ranks in or otherwise boost.

Optional changes that go a bit further but take more work:

4) Give spells and effects back to the old schools. All life and death magic goes back to necromancy, get's the healing spells out of Conjuration. Give the [teleport] spells back to Transmutation because they change your location, they are not summoning/calling spells. Give the elemental damage spells back to Evocation, if you want something from an elemental plane to hurt someone with summon an elemental. Just make it so that Conjuration isn't the school with everything.

5) Choose some (few) spells to revert to AD&D rules. In AD&D the Gate spell did not give you control over the creature you called. The expensive focus of the Shapeshift spell could be broken and would end the spell early. This is the longest and hardest of these modifications because you go through each spell individually. Of course if a spell didn't exist in AD&D then it gets reverted to no existing.

I like 2, 3, and 5. 3 is especially good if you rework the initiative a little so that it works like in AD&D, where your turn is where you end your action, which you started at the beginning of the round like everyone else; it means that a rogue or archer with a good Initiative can shut down a wizard but hard. I'm not sure about 1; I kind of like that at least one stat actually does something for wizards. Removing Intelligence as a factor reduces them from SAD to NAD (or AI: ability-independent). 4 is good generally, but I'd disagree about the teleportation thing. Summoning is clearly akin to teleportation; both involve the movement of some material thing from one place to another.
I'd also bring wizards back to their Vancian roots by: a) eliminating reserve feats, so they have to carefully think of how to spend each and every spell; and b) eliminating dismissible spells. If an effect becomes inconvenient, too bad; you should have accounted for its full duration in your tactics.
DMs also have a duty to have intelligent opponents with a degree of proactivity. Reasonable people are not going to sit around and wait for a wizard to scry on them and then attack once a day, using all of his available spells for one perfect encounter, before resting and preparing for the next attack. Make your wizards guess a little, and make them have to carefully weigh whether casting a spell is worth not having it after the encounter's over.

Calimehter

2014-09-07, 08:55 PM

Not the answer that most might be looking for, but my favorite was to use E6 with the "as intended" unavailability of 4th level or higher spells hardwired in.

Telok

2014-09-08, 12:27 PM

I'm not sure about 1; I kind of like that at least one stat actually does something for wizards. Removing Intelligence as a factor reduces them from SAD to NAD (or AI: ability-independent). 4 is good generally, but I'd disagree about the teleportation thing. Summoning is clearly akin to teleportation; both involve the movement of some material thing from one place to another.

Actually Wizards still need Intelligence to cast higher level spells, there's just no massive magic return for super high stats. What removing the stat bonuses does is two things.

First it stops spell DC overscaling. No longer do the 15th level casters have casting stats around 30 and first level spell DCs of 20+. This means that you don't need immunity to stuff at higher levels you can just get away with having good saves, because save bonuses can't keep pace with spell DC increases in RAW 3.5.

Secondly it makes the casters run out of spells faster. The balancing point of magic vs mundane was supposed to be that magic was limited to it's big reality benders only a few times a day while the non-casters could keep being effective. The massive numbers of spells per day a super-stat caster can throw is one of the unbalancing bits in campaigns. It's not usually an issue in theory craft because that isn't concerned with the longer time scale of a campaign, but it does make a noticeable difference.

The summoning/teleport thing... In AD&D the teleport spells were in Alteration (which became Transmutation in 3rd) because they changed where you were. The summoning/calling spells were in Conjuration because they called things from other planes or created something from nothing. In 3.5 teleport spells still change where you are but they're Conjuration, which is already an overloaded school of magic. Teleports don't create something from nothing and they don't transport stuff across planes, they just change where you are. It's a change that I've never really understood and just wasn't needed.

Extra Anchovies

2014-09-08, 01:05 PM

The summoning/teleport thing... In AD&D the teleport spells were in Alteration (which became Transmutation in 3rd) because they changed where you were. The summoning/calling spells were in Conjuration because they called things from other planes or created something from nothing. In 3.5 teleport spells still change where you are but they're Conjuration, which is already an overloaded school of magic. Teleports don't create something from nothing and they don't transport stuff across planes, they just change where you are. It's a change that I've never really understood and just wasn't needed.

I actually think that the teleportation spells should be Evocation. After all, they don't change you, they change the world (by moving you from one point in the world to another point in the world). That sort of direct alteration of the world is what evocation is and does. When you cast Orb of Fire, you conjure the fire from an elemental plane. Fireball, on the other hand, actually creates new fire out of raw magical energy. Besides, Evocation needs some nice things.

StoneCipher

2014-09-08, 01:07 PM

I think the easiest way is to have the DM select spells beforehand (a certain amount for each level from each school) and then that's all you get. The veteran DM can easily choose useful spells vs broken vs useless and filter out nothing but goodness.

Also, allow only ONE ACF. This allows you to have options to optimize, but doesn't give you full reign over combining things to make something broken.

Or you can be that DM and just say no to anything you don't like. Even if it's in the moment.

malonkey1

2014-09-08, 02:16 PM

Also, allow only ONE ACF. This allows you to have options to optimize, but doesn't give you full reign over combining things to make something broken.

Addendum: Make prestige classes available, but make sure that the only caster PrCs are highly specialized and thematic. Basically, a single-class caster remains a relative generalist, while prestiging out makes them better at a specific thing at the cost of everything else.

Alent

2014-09-08, 03:15 PM

Addendum: Make prestige classes available, but make sure that the only caster PrCs are highly specialized and thematic. Basically, a single-class caster remains a relative generalist, while prestiging out makes them better at a specific thing at the cost of everything else.

This and a few of your other fixes like the dropped levels (6ths instead of 9ths, etc) are something I'm doing in my setting project at the moment to help de-escalate magic. I'm also splitting the spellbooks by factional lines to help restrict the magic classes, and simply don't allow the summon and wish lines. I don't think these actions are necessarily "unborking" as much as "damage control", tho'.

At the moment I'm really impressed by the eloquence of 5th's Concentration mechanic and how it puts a vise on caster action economy. A large number of spells in 5th are "duration: Concentration up to ## turns/minutes/hour", especially the buffs and summons. Even when the power bloat gives them items/feats that let them maintain additional concentration spells, just getting two spells + instants at once is still limiting. I think there's got to be more ways to control the caster action economy than just Duration: concentration, but that by itself is an amazing start.

Even with that, you still have to rewrite the worst spells, but you can't just rock an army of ice assassins when ice assassin is "duration: concentration up to 1 hour".

Segev

2014-09-08, 03:23 PM

Introduce a new duration: "Commitment." A spell with this duration has the slot from which it was cast occupied and un-recoverable until the spell is ended. A number of day/level spells and even some permanent spells can be given this duration. It will help considerably with the Planar Binding line; while it won't resolve all problems, it would mean that there is a limit to how many Planetars you can have bound at a time, and that you're actively down spell slots while you have them.

Malroth

2014-09-08, 03:43 PM

OldTrees1

2014-09-08, 03:48 PM

ban tier 4,5 and 6 and strongly discourage tier 3, have every major villian be a tier 2 working towards a different broken potentially world altering combo and simply expect tier 1 shenannagans as the normal operating procedure.

So unbork 3.5 magic by embracing the broken magic and banning/"discouraging" the rest?
That does not seem in line with the OP's request.

StoneCipher

2014-09-08, 03:55 PM

It is perfectly in line. If you just raise the bar and eviscerate anything below the bar, then you have a new bottom rung, and it's casters!

Malroth

2014-09-08, 04:01 PM

Pretty much, You can't have a fun and active magic system balanced around what the Bottom tiers are capable of, so just regulate those classes to Mooks and have the PC's either be fighting through hordes of them to get to the enemy high tier Madman attempting to destroy existance or have them be the madmen attempting to destroy existance with low tier heroes attempting to stop them, there's no real reason to play as someone Mediocre just because the designers wrote Monks and Samurai the way they did.

torrasque666

2014-09-08, 04:03 PM

Malroth

2014-09-08, 04:04 PM

by fighting other pimped out wizards in a game of contigency chess of course.

StoneCipher

2014-09-08, 05:01 PM

by fighting other pimped out wizards in a game of contigency chess of course.

Combine that with long living races and you could be in combat for decades.

The Insaniac

2014-09-08, 05:35 PM

Combine that with long living races and you could be in combat for decades.

Without ever being on the same plane. Remember, these are high level wizards using astral projection, simulacrum, planar binding and easily duped adventurers to attack each other off and on while executing schemes to conquer or destroy the multiverse.

Aaand suddenly I have a game I want to run...

malonkey1

2014-09-08, 05:39 PM

I would strongly considering ganking Mystra and disintegrating all magic just to save everybody the headaches.

EDIT: Assuming FR, of course.

StoneCipher

2014-09-08, 05:40 PM

Is there a way to unravel magic in Greyhawk?

Jack_Simth

2014-09-08, 05:41 PM

How would I un-bork 3.5 magic?

One of two ways:

1) Unsuccessfully
2) Restrict it to the point where it's effectively useless.

Anything else would require a mind-boggling amount of work to do it right, and I'm not really interested in spending that much effort (and I'd still probably default to 1, at that).

Svata

2014-09-08, 05:45 PM

Save bonuses can't keep pace with spell DC increases in RAW 3.5

Eh, not so much, in my experience. Sure, each class has a weak save, but monsters have such huge HD bloat that they make their saves often enough even on poor rolls with the current system. Doing what you propose would make them only fail on a one.

Aquillion

2014-09-08, 06:39 PM

By that logic you should never play as anything less than a fully pimped out Wizard. Which would get boring fast. When nothing's a challenge, how the hell do you get experience?Not necessarily true. "Bottom tiers" doesn't have to mean "everyone but wizards" -- assuming the T1s aren't actively trying to wreck things for them, well-played T3s can definitely contribute a lot. It's mostly with things like fighters and monks that the system breaks down (even then, you can totally play mixed games with them with the right group or houserules or whatever; it's just that it's easier to fall apart, especially if the wizard is actively using their more powerful options.)

But in terms of challenge, it's just a matter of what the party wants to focus on. Unless they're deliberately played in a boring way (hiding in an extradimensional fortress all the time using Astral Projections and Ice Assassins, etc -- stuff that is usually pretty obvious and easy to tell people to knock off), Wizard are far from omnipotent, especially at lower levels.

JoshuaZ

2014-09-08, 06:53 PM

I've generally found that the best way to un-bork magic is to ask my fellow players not to be colossal chodes. Unlike other potential revisions, this one has had a 100% success rate.

Unfortunately what you label asking players not to be "colossal chodes" essentially amounts to asking players to not roleplay intelligently. An Int 18 wizard with a decent wisdom score will in general realize just what they can do with magic and use it for that. Sure you can come up with specific issues they have (e.g. fear of heights so doesn't fly, fear of teleportation from a bad experience, religious beliefs prevent messing with time) but that severely hampers characters.

VoxRationis

2014-09-08, 07:01 PM

Again, I must ask why some people believe that godlike power is their right in a roleplaying setting.

JoshuaZ

2014-09-08, 07:04 PM

Again, I must ask why some people believe that godlike power is their right in a roleplaying setting.

What do you mean by this? Can you clarify to which comment you are responding to?

VoxRationis

2014-09-08, 07:08 PM

The suggestion by Malroth that instead of taking what works as intended and running with that, the system be balanced by eliminating all of the above and instead reveling in that which is abusable.

Fax Celestis

2014-09-08, 07:58 PM

Calimehter

2014-09-08, 09:03 PM

Ah, Dionysian gaming practices.

Well, now wait a minute . . . gaming with lots of alcohol (of which I highly approve) doesn't seem like the same thing as gaming with lots of high op Tier 1 rules dictating the show.

Malroth

2014-09-08, 09:58 PM

The main defining point about fantasy roleplaying is to pretend to be someone Great because most of us aren't. The heroes of Myth from which most of our fantasy Archetypes arise actually WERE godlike, Achelles wounding Aries, Siegfried Breaks Wotan's spear. Its simply a sad fact of how the rules of 3.5 are written that if you want to be better than an ordinary office worker at anything you have to use Magic. Thus the Heroes who seek to save the world and the Villians who seek to change it to their own image need to have Magic in some form. You can play as a grizzled combat veteran who dedicated his life to studying the sword but from a gameplay standpoint He is only hitting for about 10% more damage than the lv 2 rookie guard who first picked up a sword a month ago.

VoxRationis

2014-09-08, 10:32 PM

Malroth, you're exaggerating. A high-level fighter, for example, can cut his way through dozens of lower-level counterparts, particularly with Great Cleave. Slaughtering one's way through a battalion of orcs is not something an office worker can do, and a 3.5 fighter or barbarian can do both without magic.
Also, wounding a god or breaking his spear is not proof of higher-powered heroes in legend, just indication of a less dramatic divine-mortal gap. That said, it is true that many heroes from Greek myth were more beyond the pale of reality than heroes from say, Lord of the Rings. Not all of them were so, however. Odysseus was skilled with a bow, and impressively strong. But beyond the level reality allows? I am unsure. Perseus used divine artifacts to do most of his feats of legend.

Raven777

2014-09-08, 10:38 PM

Again, I must ask why some people believe that godlike power is their right in a roleplaying setting.

Because if my character is reasonably intelligent she'll realize that godlike power is, in fact, within grasping distance?

Aetis

2014-09-08, 10:56 PM

I ban cheeses (planar binding/polymorph/etc), allow only Core + Complete series + Artificers, and don't play above lv 12ish.

Never had a problem with "T1" characters side-by-side with "T3" characters.

Fighters pretty much remain viable in every level of the game on my table.

EDIT: I meant Core Plus. (Ph 2, MM3 allowed)

VoxRationis

2014-09-08, 10:59 PM

Fax Celestis

2014-09-08, 11:02 PM

This is escapist fantasy. If you want entertaining mundanity, go play the Sims.

VoxRationis

2014-09-08, 11:17 PM

I also object to the mentality that "fantasy" automatically equals "tossing everything that seems remotely inconvenient about the real world out the window," or "a scenario having no connection whatsoever to reality." (There's a great quote in the thread "Why do we still have Warriors" where someone tears this latter apart, talking about how since it's fantasy, hitting your opponent obviously does damage to you rather than to him. People tend to cry "fantasy" when realism is inconvenient for them and forget about this same principle when it comes time to the logical consequence of beheading your enemy.) Sam and Frodo worried about such mundane things as food and water. Odysseus' main enemy was bad weather (sent by the gods, yes, but still a mundane and realistic concern for sailors throughout history).

Suggesting that there is nothing in the realm of fantasy between "a screaming match about how godlike THIS character is vs THAT character" and "an ordinary day in suburbia" is fallacious.

Fax Celestis

2014-09-08, 11:41 PM

That has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. This is escapist fantasy, and people want to be awesome in their escapism, not boring.

Raven777

2014-09-08, 11:43 PM

That's not what I'm talking about at all, Raven, and you know it; you're attacking my argument with a misplaced context in order to sound witty. I'm discussing, and this thread is discussing, how changes might be made to address imbalance in the current magic system. That godlike power is within the grasp of any character is not therefore a given, because those changes might hinder or prevent the acquisition of such power. What I therefore am lamenting in that quote is the mentality that demands such power as a basic right, to which all characters are to be raised, rather than a return to a saner, more toned-down style of play for both magical and non-magical characters.

I do not sound witty. I am witty. Nevertheless, to address your concern, streamlining and cutting through the magic system would remove much of the intricacies that the current statu quo allows and which we happen to enjoy. You see, the entire magic system behaves like a game within the game, one some of us happen to flock to. Our motto in these threads, me and like minded players, has always been that changing 3.F is not the way to go when most people's grievances are addressed by other systems, including more recent versions of D&D. So, to answer properly, I feel entitled to godlike power because these are the actual rules of the game I came to play. Subverting how the game functions ruffles my feathers, in a "tell the DM I'll pass on that campaign" manner. I understand that the divide between classes is a design failure of the system, balance wise. I am aware of the problem. But, in all honesty, I came to the conclusion that I like the problem.

Now, it doesn't mean that attempts to house rule magic back to reality aren't a worthy endeavor. I do think it is a complicated one, with many synergies to take into consideration, that transforms the paradigm that by now many players expect a 3.F campaign to follow. So I guess in definitive, the answer to your question just boils down to "because they're not your target audience".

StreamOfTheSky

2014-09-09, 12:01 AM

I agree the best route is to just go through all the spells and nerf many of them. You'd also want to remove some so there isn't an answer for everything, and then severely cut back on slots per day at all but the lowest levels.

But hey, if you want even more complicated, I put out a basic idea I had here a few years ago (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319803-Ideas-and-musings-on-my-ideal-magic-rules-system) to completely overhaul the entire magic system. I think...it was one of the few times every poster in an ENWorld thread was in unanimous agreement -- in this case, that they hated my idea.
Try to solve the whole "optimal party is casters x4" by making them fill up a rage meter to get to the good spells each combat, share said meter to make it a burden to have too many people pulling from it, and let the martials be better at filling it back up so they have purpose and teamwork and all that, and...man, did it not go over well.

Talakeal

2014-09-09, 01:43 AM

I've generally found that the best way to un-bork magic is to ask my fellow players not to be colossal chodes. Unlike other potential revisions, this one has had a 100% success rate.

I dont have quit the same success rate. Even if the players are all on the same level, you tend to get a BMX bandit scenario where the casters have to go out of their way to let the non casters contribute, which is both lame and extremely patronizing.

Eldan

2014-09-09, 02:53 AM

The suggestion by Malroth that instead of taking what works as intended and running with that, the system be balanced by eliminating all of the above and instead reveling in that which is abusable.

D&D's strength, for me, is its versatility. That I can use the same system to play Stabby Redshirt, local town guard or Arcanos Worldbender, wizard-god. The problem comes when you try to mix both in the same party. It's not that I think I deserve that power. It's that I think the party should agree on a power level. So you either restrict, ban or cripple the casters, or you restrict or ban the mundanes.

Remember, it's not absuse if everyone involved wants it like that.

ILM

2014-09-09, 03:47 AM

- Wizards must all be specialists
- Selective fixes to the most problematic spells (I've banned a bunch and neutered others - usual suspects are unrestricted divinations, Simulacrum and the like, the entire Polymorph line, and so on)
- Kindly ask players not to be douchebags
- Be better at op-fu than them, or at least be able to keep up
- Fudge when fudge is required

Doesn't really un-bork magic but gets me part of the way.

Belial_the_Leveler

2014-09-09, 05:14 AM

Fixing 3.5 magic is easy:

The Rule of Resistance
Using multiple powerful effects in quick succession causes a supernatural disturbance that makes it harder and harder to use others. In any ten-minute period, a character may use a number of such effects no higher than their highest ability modifier before modification by such effects. Any magical effect with a specific level except for constant or at-will effects from the character's own race, template and class levels counts against this limit. Ongoing effects count as in use.
Reminder: [su] abilities have a level of 1/2 the hd of the creature. Objects don't have ability modifiers at all.

The Rule of Permanence
Lasting power draws attention from the forces of magic and even more abstract entities and there is only so much one can gather before Bad ThingsTM start happening. Mechanically speaking, any instantaneous or permanent effect or magic item has a given or equivalent price somewhere and a character shouldn't amass more of them than their WBL. Get an inherent bonus to ability scores and it counts against WBL as if from a tome. Create something valuable with a spell and it counts against WBL normally. Get a magic item without buying it and it counts as if you bought it. And so on and so forth.

The Rule of Knowledge
Your character only knows things he is familiar with, as evident from their Knowledge skills. Specifically for creatures, the DC for information is 10+hd +5 for each piece of info before the first. The DM is well within his rights to disallow you from using creature resources your character doesn't know about. For example, you couldn't shapechange into a Zodar to use its invulnerability and supernatural Wish before you made a DC 60 knowledge check first; 30 for the base DC, 20 for several fluff info the DM decided you should have first and the final 10 for the juicy stuff. Similarly for calling Solars or Titans and starting a chain-gate scheme (except the DC is higher - they got loads of info the DM could throw at you before the juicy pieces)

The Rule of Origin
The origin of power is irrelevant in the above rules. Regardless of the way you try to gain use of magical effects, wealth or knowledge, the rules apply to the end result. I.e. you can't sidestep the above rules by outsourcing things.

ace rooster

2014-09-09, 06:52 AM

Non casters (or tomb of battle classes) get 2hd for every level. A wizard is still powerful, but there is no way to stop them being squishy in comparison. Maybe only after 6th level.

Segev

2014-09-09, 07:01 AM

One of the most fun characters I have played was an epic level hyper-optimized (for survivability) sorcerer who could drop 4 spheres of ultimate destruction in one round if he was of a mind to. (Not the most optimal use of 2 9th level spell slots, but it did the job.) Most of the time, he was a very lazy caster. This actually wasn't because he was "letting the mundanes have their fun," but because when he nova'd, he NOVA'd, and thus would burn through enough spell slots that he couldn't maintain his rate of win for more than a round or two. (As this was an epic level game, anything short of nova-ing was of only moderate assistance.)

VoxRationis

2014-09-09, 09:26 AM

I do not sound witty. I am witty. Nevertheless, to address your concern, streamlining and cutting through the magic system would remove much of the intricacies that the current statu quo allows and which we happen to enjoy. You see, the entire magic system behaves like a game within the game, one some of us happen to flock to. Our motto in these threads, me and like minded players, has always been that changing 3.F is not the way to go when most people's grievances are addressed by other systems, including more recent versions of D&D. So, to answer properly, I feel entitled to godlike power because these are the actual rules of the game I came to play. Subverting how the game functions ruffles my feathers, in a "tell the DM I'll pass on that campaign" manner. I understand that the divide between classes is a design failure of the system, balance wise. I am aware of the problem. But, in all honesty, I came to the conclusion that I like the problem.

Now, it doesn't mean that attempts to house rule magic back to reality aren't a worthy endeavor. I do think it is a complicated one, with many synergies to take into consideration, that transforms the paradigm that by now many players expect a 3.F campaign to follow. So I guess in definitive, the answer to your question just boils down to "because they're not your target audience".

If you like the game as is and don't favor changing it, why are you on a thread specifically about changing it?

aleucard

2014-09-12, 09:39 PM

I have an idea that may or may not work, at least for a certain segment of the problem. First, Enchantment and Illusions are merged into a single school (since both are thematically similar, only with the latter screwing with a target's senses and the former skipping them and going for the mind directly). Second, options are introduced where certain limitations of one can be mitigated by using the principles of another, with later-level capacity for bypassing certain types of defense entirely (though some may need other things, like an Enchantment-type spell that affects undead being cross-school with Necromancy). Third, the Shadow [school] spells and their relatives are deleted from the Sorc/Wiz lists, with no means for a non-Shadowcraft Mage to gain them. Fourth, the requirements to get into said PrC are augmented so that the prospective SCM has to forego the more physical schools (Evocation and Conjuration definitely, PROBABLY not Transmutation, but since such a set of rules would probably be put in alongside something to balance the schools, such a thing wouldn't be needed anyway), whether banning them as a Wizard or foregoing the possibility of getting spells from those schools forever (and never having gotten a spell from them without some means of converting it into a non-forbidden school). This would place even more emphasis on an already-insane class than was previous, but I'm a firm believer in Specialization being rewarded, especially if it limits some of the more truly insane options. Few uses of SCM would be of more than tactical or utilitarian use, after all.

Yahzi

2014-09-13, 11:44 PM

In many ways, the power of magic causes more issues for the DM than anyone else
You make some great points, but you overlooked one of the ways strong magic makes the DM's job harder: it becomes hard for the DM to explain why the NPCs haven't already used that clever magic trick to obliterate the PCs.

Scry and Die is a perfect example: after the first time your players use it, they have de facto joined the ranks of VIPs; and consequently, why aren't their enemies doing it to them? And the problem, of course, is that it is very hard to defend against.

Basically D&D magic is designed to allow a handful of underdogs to sack and destroy heavily fortified and defended locations (dungeons). Which means the instant your players have anything worth keeping, no amount of fortification or defenses is good enough. As long as your players are murder-hobos whose only wealth is what they carry on their backs, that's OK; except how does the DM explain why there are any castles left standing when every person of power or talent is a murder-hobo?

The obvious solution - the one the game implicitly embraces - is that no one else in the world can cast those spells, except for one or two BBEGs. For those of us running sand-box simulationist worlds, that's not really helpful.

My solution (for the World of Prime) is to do several things: 1) lower-level play (17th lvl is almost impossible to achieve), 2) horrible monsters that show up in overwhelming force and eat your face when you do make 17th lvl, 3) magic has to be paid for with the souls of the dead, 4) planar binding et al are by CR not hit dice, 5) core-only rule books, 6) and even then I have to ban Teleport.

Segev

2014-09-14, 12:16 AM

The obvious solution - the one the game implicitly embraces - is that no one else in the world can cast those spells, except for one or two BBEGs. For those of us running sand-box simulationist worlds, that's not really helpful.

Well... you actually can have that conceit pretty firmly in place, if you want. Determine at what level the number of NPCs who have that level drops to "can be counted on one hand." Remember then that monsters have CRs that go up much higher, and often have set abilities that are not the world-shaking ones of (N)PCs at the level appropriate to take them on. You can therefore have legitimate challenges for the PCs at those high levels, even when the PCs represent beings far beyond any power that the rest of the world can bring to bear, perhaps aside from 1-8 other NPCs that qualify as Big Bads and Big Goods of the setting.

There can be plenty of high-CR monsters tough enough to challenge the PCs while the world at large remains much lower level. Capped, perhaps, right around 11th and 12th level, with those being perhaps the one-in-a-million superpowers who advise kings, run armies, and shape the world. The 13th level and higher characters (where 7th level spells start appearing) can amount to maybe 24-30 people. Of those, maybe 9-12 are levels 15 or higher, and 1-4 of those are level 17 or higher.

The PCs are in addition to these, once they get up there, but that still makes them part of an extremely exclusive club. It's also a manageable population of beings to keep track of how they interact with the PCs in a realpolitik sense; after all, what keeps people from wrecking each others' stuff on a nation scale in a world of super-offense is Mutually Assured Destruction (or at least the threat thereof). Knowing that an unsuccessful scry-and-die on a fellow level 13+ character can result in perhaps-less-stoppable retaliation might mean a lot is done via diplomacy. Part of getting to the BBEG might just be convincing the other high level characters of the setting that you're not out to get them, that you are strong enough to defend yourself, and maybe to help out with the fight on your side. Even leaving that aside, the BBEG doing a scry-and-die is likely once he knows who his threats are, but he probably will still try reasoning with them just because they might also have access to those tactics. By the same token, the BBEG will have the super-paranoid defenses against said tactics, so it's not trivial to get to him that way.

Aquillion

2014-09-14, 01:38 AM

My interpretation is that the game generally assumes that there are few other "adventurer-style" high-level casters -- that is, D&D is not meant to be like an MMoRPG with thousands of adventurer parties running around behaving just like you.

There are other high-level casters, but they tend to spend their time researching and studying spells, and generally have little interest in risking their life to steal other people's stuff. Most people don't pull adventurer-style exploits because they don't think like adventurers do.

maniacalmojo

2014-09-14, 01:49 AM

I would have spell schools actually follow their school. Evocation should be where all your damage is coming from and any save or die esq abilities, illusion is where all of your mind effecting and altering abilities are coming from, period. There is a lot of spells in different schools that mimic or do similar things to other schools and it should not be that way.

Belial_the_Leveler

2014-09-14, 06:55 AM

My interpretation is that the game generally assumes that there are few other "adventurer-style" high-level casters -- that is, D&D is not meant to be like an MMoRPG with thousands of adventurer parties running around behaving just like you.
Assume a population base similar to the Roman Empire. 50 million people on average. Thus we get;

25 million lvl one.
12,5 million lvl two.
6,25 million lvl three.
3,12 million lvl four.
1,6 million lvl five.
800 thousand lvl six.
400 thousand lvl seven.
200 thousand lvl eight.
100 thousand lvl nine.
50 thousand lvl ten.
25 thousand lvl eleven.
12,5 thousand lvl twelve.
6,25 thousand lvl thirteen.
3,12 thousand lvl fourteen.
1,6 thousand lvl fifteen.
800 lvl sixteen.
400 lvl seventeen.
200 lvl eighteen.
100 lvl nineteen.
50 lvl twenty.
25 of various epic levels.

That's a pretty generous estimate towards high-lvl people.

aleucard

2014-09-14, 09:01 AM

Assume a population base similar to the Roman Empire. 50 million people on average. Thus we get;

25 million lvl one.
12,5 million lvl two.
6,25 million lvl three.
3,12 million lvl four.
1,6 million lvl five.
800 thousand lvl six.
400 thousand lvl seven.
200 thousand lvl eight.
100 thousand lvl nine.
50 thousand lvl ten.
25 thousand lvl eleven.
12,5 thousand lvl twelve.
6,25 thousand lvl thirteen.
3,12 thousand lvl fourteen.
1,6 thousand lvl fifteen.
800 lvl sixteen.
400 lvl seventeen.
200 lvl eighteen.
100 lvl nineteen.
50 lvl twenty.
25 of various epic levels.

That's a pretty generous estimate towards high-lvl people.

You seem to be assuming a much less steep curve than the rest of us. Try that one with something like, say, 1/4 and you might be closer.

EDIT: Was just eyeballing it earlier, this one should be closer.

Dalebert

2014-09-14, 09:46 AM

Snowbluff

2014-09-14, 10:06 AM

Ban all spells above 6th level, give full-9 classes Bard/Duskblade-like progression.

This always has and always will be wrong without giving the full ninth level spell slot progressions, but altering the spells known/available to fit that of a 6/9 caster.

DCs, MM, and longevity.

Fax Celestis

2014-09-14, 10:20 AM

Most importantly, it left out level zeros which probably make up the huge vast majority of the population. All those peasants who are farming, making shoes, building things, etc. They're mostly level zeros. The moment you have a few levels under your belts, you're most assuredly not a peasant anymore. So maybe start off with 95% peasant level zeros and then figure out what the remaining 5% is in some manner that fits your particular game world style.

3e in all forms has no concept of 0th level creatures. Closest you get are 1/4HD creatures, and they're still treated as first level for all effects except HD-measured effects (sleep) and HP calculation.

Dalebert

2014-09-14, 10:44 AM

I guess that's a holdover from 2E that's stuck in my head. I supposed ever since then I've pictured peasants as being level 0. That doesn't mean 0 hit die, FWIW. It just means they have no adventurer class levels. They were in the charts for saving throws and such in 2E. I guess in 3.x they are just 1 HD creatures (human, elf, etc.) with no class levels. I think it's comes down to an issue of terminology and 3.x doesn't use that terminology anymore.

Emperor Tippy

2014-09-14, 10:54 AM

atomicwaffle

2014-09-14, 11:08 AM

Fax Celestis

2014-09-14, 11:13 AM

ericgrau

2014-09-14, 12:38 PM

Play nice. Job done.

Everyone I play with doesn't spend hours and hours in optimization forums and it works out pretty well regardless of which class they take. Then I make sure not to use any crazy tricks myself even though I still otherwise try to play well.

The thing with sweeping system changes on one of the most popular systems is that there's a 99% chance you're going to make it worse instead of better. Seen it all the time. Maybe if this was some simple hack job system with not much to it you could tweak a few things, but it is both highly developed and highly complicated. Its many flaws often only demonstrate this complication more and how daunting a task it is to mess with it. It would be far easier to play a different gaming system. If you can't find another gaming system that you like better then you should take the failure of thousands and thousands of people as a bit of a hint.

I have nothing against smaller tweaks though.

ace rooster

2014-09-14, 12:57 PM

a few ideas i've had (or heard of) but never implemented.

1. All Arcane spells require a Spellcraft check equal to 10 + Spell Level to succeed.
2. Wizards roll Spellcraft checks to learn the 2 spells they learn at leveling through 'independent research'.
3. Rolling a 1 on a Spellcraft check to learn a spell means you can NEVER learn it.

Magic is fine. If a spellcaster is getting too sure of themselves or becoming a real nuisance, there are numerous ways to deal with them. My favorite is falling down a 30 foot crevice and landing in 10 feet of muddy water and underwater vegetation. Of course there is a Lizardman Sorcerer who casts silence.

Doesn't scale well, as casters can get 2 spellcraft ranks for every time the DC goes up by 1. At level 1 a wizard can easily be rocking a +10 spellcraft modifier anyway (4 ranks, 3 skill focus, 3 from int). It becomes a bit of a feat tax on very low level wizards, but skills checks do not fail on a nat 1 so it actually has no effect on wizards past level 3. It punishes sorcerors far more, as they get fewer skill points and don't tend to have the same int. I like the idea of making magic less reliable, but this method does not work.

Against a caster who does not carry at least one rod of silent spell or a wand of kill things or is not already under the effect of a fly spell then that works. It also works quite well against everybody else, so is not really an anti caster trap.

I might suggest folding sorcerors and wizards into one mage class. They get spells known and slots as a bard, but choose from the sorceror list. They cannot take as spells known any spell with an expensive component, xp component, casting time greater than 1 round, or duration greater than 1 min per level (Extra spell can violate these restrictions). They get a spellbook for other spells. They can use this spellbook to provide spells for crafting. They get scribe scroll as a bonus feat at 1st level. Arcane scrolls are always keyed off int, and the min caster level is the standard wizard caster level.

The idea is to prevent regular abuse by spell casters by making high power magic expensive, while also making them a little bit MAD. For example, at level 5 a mage can create a scroll of fireball, provided he has fireball in his spellbook. At level 7 he can start to cast it on his own. It requires 3 epic feats to get 9th level spell slots at will, but 17th level casters can create scrolls that they can use (of spells that they have been able to find a scroll of, remember it takes 3 epic feats and extra spell for a 9th level spell to get into the setting, so such scrolls would be well guarded, and not for sale). Spellcraft is important, and int is needed to use scrolls, but a mage's own magic is tied to cha.

Worth noting is that currently a wizard can operate a bit like this anyway, using scrolls to get casting only limited by wealth. A wizard would still be very strong if they only had 1 spell slot a day.

Stella

2014-09-17, 03:03 AM

Anything that can lower a Wizard's tier without just taking black marker to spell lists would be appreciated.

That is just about a complete self-contradiction. Wizards are Tier 1 not only because they have powerful spells at their disposal, but because they have a spell for any and every situation.

Not only are there hundreds of spells in the PHB, but every new book published included more spells for the casters, even if they were books dedicated to the martial classes.

The solution is as simple as you outlined: Take a black marker to the spell lists. Here is the list of spells from a 0e clone called Swords and Wizardry (http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/). It's a free download so I think it's ok to post a portion of it here.

Cleric Spells

Level 1
Cure Light Wounds
Detect Evil
Detect Magic
Light
Protection from Evil
Purify Food and Drink

Level 2
Bless
Find Traps
Hold Person
Silence, 15-foot Radius
Snake Charm
Speak with Animals

Level 3
Continual Light
Cure Disease
Locate Object
Prayer
Remove Curse
Speak with Dead

Level 4
Create Water
Cure Serious Wounds
Neutralize Poison
Protection from Evil, 10-ft Radius
Speak with Plants
Sticks to Snakes

Level 5
Commune
Create Food
Dispel Evil
Finger of Death
Insect Plague
Quest
Raise Dead

Level 6
Animate Object
Blade Barrier
Conjuration of Animals
Find the Path
Speak with Monsters
Word of Recall

Level 7
Aerial Servant
Astral Spell
Control Weather
Earthquake
Holy Word
Part Water
Restoration
Resurrection
Symbol
Wind Walk

Magic-User Spells

Level 1
Charm Person
Detect Magic
Hold Portal
Light
Magic Missile
Protection from Evil
Read Languages
Read Magic
Shield
Sleep

Level 2
Continual Light
Darkness, 15-foot Radius
Detect Evil
Detect Invisibility
ESP
Invisibility
Knock
Levitate
Locate Object
Magic Mouth
Mirror Image
Phantasmal Force
Pyrotechnics
Strength
Web
Wizard Lock

Level 3
Clairaudience
Clairvoyance
Darkvision
Dispel Magic
Explosive Runes
Fireball
Fly
Haste
Hold Person
Invisibility, 10-foot Radius
Lightning Bolt
Monster Summoning I
Protection from Evil, 10-foot Radius
Protection from Normal Missiles
Rope Trick
Slow
Suggestion
Water Breathing

Level 4
Charm Monster
Confusion
Dimension Door
Extension I
Fear
Hallucinatory Terrain
Ice Storm
Massmorph
Monster Summoning II
Plant Growth
Polymorph Other
Polymorph Self
Remove Curse
Wall of Fire
Wall of Ice
Wizard Eye

Level 5
Animal Growth
Animate Dead
Cloudkill
Conjuration of Elementals
Contact Other Plane
Extension II
Feeblemind
Hold Monster
Magic Jar
Monster Summoning III
Passwall
Telekinesis
Teleport
Transmute Rock to Mud
Wall of Iron
Wall of Stone

Level 6
Anti-Magic Shell
Control Weather
Death Spell
Disintegrate
Enchant Item
Geas
Invisible Stalker
Legend Lore
Lower Water
Monster Summoning IV
Move Earth
Part Water
Project Image
Reincarnation
Repulsion
Stone to Flesh

Level 7
Charm Plants
Conjuration of Demons
Delayed Blast Fireball
Extension III
Limited Wish
Mass Invisibility
Monster Summoning V
Phase Door
Power Word, Stun
Reverse Gravity
Simulacrum

Level 8
Clone
Mass Charm
Mind Blank
Monster Summoning VI
Permanency
Polymorph Object
Power Word, Blind
Symbol

Level 9
Astral Spell
Maze
Gate
Meteor Swarm
Monster Summoning VII
Power Word, Kill
Prismatic Sphere
Shape Change
Time Stop
Wish

Note that in this system, which is very close to 0e, the Cleric has 6 L1 spells, and the Wizard (Magic-User, in the old and clunky name of the class) has 10 L1 spells. Compare to the 25 L1 Cleric spells and 39 L1 Wizard spells in the D20SRD alone (there are probably fewer if the count was only taken from the PHB, but I'm AFB) and the difference becomes quite plain very quickly.

Options equals power. And this power only escalates as more books are printed with hundreds of new spells in each one. Take away those options and you reduce the tier level of the Wizard, it's that simple.

Is it a large change to the game? Not really. You don't have to do anything other than handing your players the spell list. It doesn't have to be the exact 0e spell list, it just has to result in the same goal: A dramatic reduction in the number of spells a caster has to choose from. And instead of facing the daunting task of proofreading and editing all those thousands of spells, you can take a quick look at the spells you do decide to allow and make sure that they will work as you intend, which may not require any changes at all as long as you're not allowing some of the more broken spells onto your list.

Gemini476

2014-09-17, 05:47 AM

Alright, since 0th-level NPCs came up I might as well post about 3.5's Demographics tables. DMG page 136-139 are the most relevant pages. Page 139 in particular.

I'm not going to do the math because that would be a lot of math, but trust me when I say that PC classes are pretty uncommon (to the tune of less than 10%). There's quite a few high-level Commoners, though. Like, really high level. "Four of level 12+4d4 (max 20) per metropolis" many high-level Commoners. Who knows how they managed to get all that XP.

3E goes roughly 180 degrees contrary to the old pre- and post-3E stance of "non-fighting NPCs don't even have a level, much less a class".

Belial_the_Leveler

2014-09-17, 05:53 AM

Options equals power. And this power only escalates as more books are printed with hundreds of new spells in each one. Take away those options and you reduce the tier level of the Wizard, it's that simple.
Options does not equal power. Only power equals power. You can have all the options in the world - if they aren't strong enough to deal with the challenge, you don't bother with them.

That's why no matter how many new books are printed, the best spells are in the PHB; they're the often strongest at what they do, especially at high levels. Simply ban all spells in the PHB and see all casters drop into tier 3.

Gemini476

2014-09-17, 06:17 AM

Options does not equal power. Only power equals power. You can have all the options in the world - if they aren't strong enough to deal with the challenge, you don't bother with them.

That's why no matter how many new books are printed, the best spells are in the PHB; they're the often strongest at what they do, especially at high levels. Simply ban all spells in the PHB and see all casters drop into tier 3.

Ha, no. You'll need to ban some other spells as well to make them drop that much - Ice Assassin is still a thing, after all! Also Spirit Binding, and the various Orb of X spells, and so on and so forth.

You'll greatly limit them by banning the PHB spells (although personally I'd just go ban the worst offenders and leave poor Magic Missile alone, and maybe reintroduce summoning/polymorphing spells with a "one form per spell" limiter), but there's still a bunch of nasty spells outside of Core as well.

You'll make them Tier 2 at worst, but Core by no means has exclusive access to nukes. It just has the highest concentration. (Hello, Frostburn and Serpent Kingdoms. Hello, Spell Compendium. Hello, Exemplars of Evil. Hello, creative usage of ACFs and reserve feats. Hello, Web Enhancements with fluffy but broken high-level PLOT spells.)

killem2

2014-09-17, 07:13 AM

Don't rewrite a damn thing.

Players cause the problems not classes.

Amphetryon

2014-09-17, 07:17 AM

We've hit the 3rd page and nobody's said "play Legend" yet? Weird.

Extra Anchovies

2014-09-17, 08:16 AM

Don't rewrite a damn thing.

Players cause the problems not classes.

Seconded; this is really key. All the crazy shenanigans that magic gets up to on these forums only happens because we know there isn't a DM to throw books at us. In actual gameplay magic is a lot less powerful unless the magic-using players are actively trying to break the campaign.

Segev

2014-09-17, 08:20 AM

Seconded; this is really key. All the crazy shenanigans that magic gets up to on these forums only happens because we know there isn't a DM to throw books at us. In actual gameplay magic is a lot less powerful unless the magic-using players are actively trying to break the campaign.

This isn't entirely true. The problem arises when a player reads a magic spell and tries to use it as written...and it just happens to be stronger than somebody else's entire class.

The first time you bind a Planetar and it outshines the fighter, that stinks. You can have a gentlemen's agreement not to bind any more Planetars, but that gets very disappointing very quickly. And makes one wonder WHY such things are not done, from a verisimilitude sense. Is there a Fighter's Guild which strongarmed the wizards of the world into agreeing not to put Fighters out of business that way?

Aharon

2014-09-17, 08:25 AM

Force them to wear (normal) full plate armor and carry a (normal) heavy shield? 50% chance of failing at the one thing your class can do is pretty darn limiting :smalltongue:

Otherwise, intense rewriting/removal of spells as per Tippy's suggestions. It would take a lot of work. Best just to take any wizard players aside and tell them to not go TO on things and trust them.

That just adds some feat taxes to the caster - still spell and the proficiencies. It's annoying, but still leaves 8th level spells available - and 9th level a few times a day using metamagic rods and/or automatic still spell.

Amphetryon

2014-09-17, 08:27 AM

Seconded; this is really key. All the crazy shenanigans that magic gets up to on these forums only happens because we know there isn't a DM to throw books at us. In actual gameplay magic is a lot less powerful unless the magic-using players are actively trying to break the campaign.

What's brokenly powerful in my campaign isn't even going to cause Tippy to roll over in his sleep. In many cases, issues of 'broken spells' arise because people have differing expectations of the default power level, or different readings of what a given spell's RAW actually means. Also, I've seen more than a couple newbie players break the game by accident, just because they saw an ability that looked 'cool,' not because they were trying to be disruptive.

qwertyu63

2014-09-17, 08:30 AM

Scrap the entire spell list. Start over from scratch.

Fax Celestis

2014-09-17, 09:34 AM

Belial_the_Leveler

2014-09-17, 09:49 AM

Ice Assassin is still a thing, after all!
Casting time 8 hours - easily disrupted. Can't be made into an item as crafting the item would require providing the material component and would key the item to a single creature to be duplicated. Eschew Materials doesn't help with crafting, only with casting.
Not to mention that if you remove the component, how do you know which creature to replicate? Name it? Just how many people with the same name exist in a setting? Or false names. Or names you don't know.

Spirit Binding
Works as planar binding, which doesn't exist if you ban the PHB spells. So this also doesn't exist.

Orb of X spells
Fighters deal more damage.

Fax Celestis

2014-09-17, 09:54 AM

Casting time 8 hours - easily disrupted. Can't be made into an item as crafting the item would require providing the material component and would key the item to a single creature to be duplicated. Eschew Materials doesn't help with crafting, only with casting.
Not to mention that if you remove the component, how do you know which creature to replicate? Name it? Just how many people with the same name exist in a setting? Or false names. Or names you don't know.

Works as planar binding, which doesn't exist if you ban the PHB spells. So this also doesn't exist.

Fighters deal more damage.

Congratulations, you've dealt with the issues present with eight spells at your table. What are your plans for the other 2860 (http://www.imarvintpa.com/dndLive/index.php) present in 3.5 material?

aleucard

2014-09-17, 10:43 AM

At the end of the day, I think the best way to do things would be to remove the spells hard-wired as being broken (Ice Assassin springs to mind), modify the ones that can be into less-broken forms (Celerity doesn't daze the caster, it performs an effect that just works exactly the same way without being blockable by daze-immunity, and certain things are just too complicated to do while on the magic-equivalent of Hammy given sugar), and augment how certain types of spell work (blasting is one, summons are another) so that they're worthwhile without being able to obviate the need for entire categories of party member (for instance, various elemental damage types (which martials have limited access to) have certain effects based on how much damage is dealt, and aside from creature-unique abilities like Medusae or Unicorns, the primary use for summons is as throwaway units, not actual PC-replacement, and the ones that aren't throwaway units are different enough that they're practically PC's in their own right, albeit DMPC's). Having the casters own certain fields completely is alright, as long as martials are able to own others to similar degrees.

Now that I think about it, having certain functions of Metamagic be a part of the base class (for instance, upping a damage spell into a siege weapon) with the cost of requiring multiple rounds to cast (thus making them impossible to use when being fired upon) would be nice. Making Control Winds and friends need a minute to build up to 'flatten entire cities' level no matter what metamagic you add to it would help give reason for the rest of the party.

Gemini476

2014-09-17, 11:50 AM

What's brokenly powerful in my campaign isn't even going to cause Tippy to roll over in his sleep. In many cases, issues of 'broken spells' arise because people have differing expectations of the default power level, or different readings of what a given spell's RAW actually means. Also, I've seen more than a couple newbie players break the game by accident, just because they saw an ability that looked 'cool,' not because they were trying to be disruptive.

For example, the Aggressively Hegemonizing Ursine Swarm.

Play as a Druid.
Have a bear as an Animal Companion.
Wildshape into a bear yourself.
Get the Natural Spell feat.
Cast Summon Nature's Ally IV for 1d4+1 Black Bears (or a single Brown Bear, alternatively).
Swarm your opponent.
Repeat steps 5-6 as necessary until the opponent is deceased.
Rejoice.

And this "build" isn't even optimizing or anything - it's just doing something that seems cool. It'll stomp right over the lower-op melee folks, though.

(Not to mention that the instant a party gets long-range Teleport spells is the instant travel time becomes nil and running away to get a rest stops becoming risky and becomes pretty darn safe. And that's not even getting into Scry-and-Die.)

Stella

2014-09-17, 06:40 PM

All the crazy shenanigans that magic gets up to on these forums only happens because we know there isn't a DM to throw books at us. In actual gameplay magic is a lot less powerful unless the magic-using players are actively trying to break the campaign.

There are two problems with this approach. The first problem being that a Wizard is still Tier 1 and a Fighter is still Tier 5. The Wizard doesn't need to be trying to break the game or even optimize in order to be far better at anything the Fighter can do. A player builds a Half-Orc Wizard? They are still better than whatever the best Fighter race build might be, which is probably Human since Fighters are tied to their Feats as their only means to improve their versatility. They are certainly better than a Half-Orc Fighter!

Let me give a really simple example:
You're a 1st level Fighter. Your options in combat = hit something with a weapon for damage or use a maneuver such as Trip or Disarm; perhaps shoot it with a missile weapon before closing to melee range.

You're a 1st level Druid. Your options in combat = hit something with a weapon for damage or use a maneuver such as Trip or Disarm; perhaps shoot it with a missile weapon before closing to melee range. You come with your own built in class feature flanker, so you're getting a +2 to hit. And your built in class feature flanker is also getting a +2 to hit, because anything it flanks for you you are flanking for it. If you selected Wolf it can make a free Trip attack on anything it bites. If you selected any of the mounts you don't even have to try to get the full benefit out of Share Spells (although if you're riding it you will lose the flank). If you selected snake you get to poison things that it bites. Most of these built in class feature flankers have on average more HP than a 1st level Fighter with an 18 Con and maximum HP. You get an extra action courtesy of your built in class feature flanker, so your tactical options are far greater than any player with only 1 action. And you have a sweet array of 20 1st level spells (and 13 Orisons) to choose from (and that's only counting SRD spells) and can probably cast 2 of them per day (plus 3 Orisons).

What did this cost the Druid? 1 HP, heavy armor, and a lot of weapon proficiencies. None of which are terribly important at 1st level, or make any significant difference in combat.

Out of combat the Druid has a class Skill list almost twice as long as the Fighter, and earns twice the skill points per level. And the Druid has spells, Nature Sense, and Wild Empathy.

Does it seem that the Druid might be just a bit more versatile and might be bringing a lot more to the table for her party than the Fighter? If you answered "yes", you're right. And this is at 1st level. The difference in versatility and power only increases from this baseline difference.

The second and most egregious problem is that this approach amounts to a game with a pile of secret house rules. A player picks a spell and is told after the fact or perhaps at the time of casting "Nope, that's too powerful. Pick another spell." Or alternatively "Nope, that's too powerful. I'm nerfing it six ways to Sunday." How many times do you think this kind of middle of the game house ruling can happen before the player who is enjoying all of this DM muddling with their character is feeling thoroughly frustrated and picked on?

Games have rules for a reason, and that reason ultimately boils down to fairness. If you think it's fair to be constantly telling someone that their class features are being changed out from under them with no notice or appeal, you don't understand the concept of fairness, and you're likely to lose good players who aren't even trying to be abusive.

Culling the spell list as I have suggested is fair to everyone, as long as it is known in advance of character creation. It reduces options and therefore power (and yes, options does equal power) and pulls casters down to about a T3+ level. What Tier it will be in any given campaign will depend on the specific spell list that DM settles upon.

Gemini476

2014-09-18, 03:42 AM

Another issue with banning core spells and doing nothing else is that suddenly the only viable casters are the core ones. Or, well, close enough.

After all, they're the ones that get supported in other books. The Beguiler has 19 non-core spells known total (none of which are higher than 6th level), the Dread Necromancer has 13, the Shugenja has 23 (not even enough to fill it's Spells Known!), and the Healer (runt of the full casters as it is) has three.

Some non-core casters are somewhat fine - the Spirit Shaman and Sha'ir share spell lists with core classes, for instance, and the Wu Jen has 117 non-core spells.

The issue is that standard practice was, as far as I can tell, to assume that the only books the customer owned were the current one and the core three. (Or just the Player's Handbook, really.) Most classes relied on core material and just had a few unique spells added on in their own book.

Oh yeah, and going so far as to pretend that those spells don't exist at all (as banning Spirit Binding for working "as Planar Binding" would indicate) means that classes such as the Monk get even worse and monsters get downright laughable.

You're better off just restricting access to spells as the players get access to them - character creation with DM approval, in other words. If you wouldn't let your player take Sleep among their first-level spells, don't let them take Power Word Pain just because it's non-core.

Aquillion

2014-09-18, 04:08 AM

Anyone can fix the balance issues between casters and noncasters by blanket-removing huge numbers of options. (The easiest solutions being either "remove full casters / remove all class above tier 3" or "remove all classes below Tier 3", with gradients down from there.) The problem is that, as I said, many people play casters specifically for the sake of the things you're removing -- they enjoy having huge numbers of options, they like magic that can actually make a difference in the setting, and so on.

Personally I feel that taking a black marker to the spell list and sacrificing options in the name of notational balance is the absolute worst way to design or run a game; one of the big advantages a tabletop game has over a computer game or the like is that it can allow large amounts of freedom for its players by having a DM to adjudicate complicated or unbalanced situations. Stripping out options results in a game that is, yes, more balanced, but also less fun (and less iconically Dungeons and Dragons); every fun or theoretically usable option you remove should be viewed as a defeat, as an admission of fundamental failure -- it amounts to saying "I don't know how to balance this, so I'm going to make the game worse in order to avoid handling it."

Obviously this doesn't mean that everything has to be allowed (some things are not worth the effort it would take to balance them), but making "remove stuff" your go-to answer to balance results in a smaller, hollower, less interesting game. It's also not a useful answer for most people, because the people who want to play full casters probably like them as they are (so, therefore, if you want your suggestions to actually be used in games, you need to strive to minimize the impact they have on options.)

That said, I think that the main solution is to focus on giving more options to martial classes (eg. by replacing them with ToB equivalents) rather than drastically changing the magic system. There is no reasonable way you can balance wizards and fighters or clerics and monks for the same game without drastically changing the fundamental definition of one class or the other; and I suspect there are many fewer people who would object to "give the fighter or monk more options" than there are people who will object to "rip out most of the spell list that made you want to play a wizard or cleric in the first place."

aleucard

2014-09-18, 04:44 AM

Anyone can fix the balance issues between casters and noncasters by blanket-removing huge numbers of options. (The easiest solutions being either "remove full casters / remove all class above tier 3" or "remove all classes below Tier 3", with gradients down from there.) The problem is that, as I said, many people play casters specifically for the sake of the things you're removing -- they enjoy having huge numbers of options, they like magic that can actually make a difference in the setting, and so on.

Personally I feel that taking a black marker to the spell list and sacrificing options in the name of notational balance is the absolute worst way to design or run a game; one of the big advantages a tabletop game has over a computer game or the like is that it can allow large amounts of freedom for its players by having a DM to adjudicate complicated or unbalanced situations. Stripping out options results in a game that is, yes, more balanced, but also less fun (and less iconically Dungeons and Dragons); every fun or theoretically usable option you remove should be viewed as a defeat, as an admission of fundamental failure -- it amounts to saying "I don't know how to balance this, so I'm going to make the game worse in order to avoid handling it."

Obviously this doesn't mean that everything has to be allowed (some things are not worth the effort it would take to balance them), but making "remove stuff" your go-to answer to balance results in a smaller, hollower, less interesting game. It's also not a useful answer for most people, because the people who want to play full casters probably like them as they are (so, therefore, if you want your suggestions to actually be used in games, you need to strive to minimize the impact they have on options.)

*snip*

I suspect there are many fewer people who would object to "give the fighter or monk more options" than there are people who will object to "rip out most of the spell list that made you want to play a wizard or cleric in the first place."

This articulates my point better than I did. To add to it, while options is power, it's not as much power as power itself, which is what the T1's have in abundance. Curtailing and otherwise limiting the true power without reducing the options is at least theoretically possible, and if/when that's not enough we can give the martials options (with preferably little overlap) as needed. Yes, it'd be drastically different from normal 3.5, but as we all know normal 3.5 is completely bork't when it comes to several things including balance, and that's the point of this thread in the first place.

Vhaidara

2014-09-18, 07:52 AM

I've generally found that the best way to un-bork magic is to ask my fellow players not to be colossal chodes. Unlike other potential revisions, this one has had a 100% success rate.

I find it funny how this was answered on page 1. I tell all of my players
Rule 1: Don't break my game, and I won't break your character (without permission).

Segev

2014-09-18, 09:00 AM

Given that people do tend to play the classes some suggest banning to balance the game, and they do so because of the options, my preferred approach is to expand the options (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?371450-Upping-the-Feat-Game) available to everybody in such a way as to at least partially elevate those suffering the most disparity. I also seek to close specific gaps, and to provide answers to specific "you don't even get to participate" problems. It won't make anything T1 (probably not even T2), but it doesn't need to. A T3 that can handle a T1 is perfectly viable, even if not nearly as versatile.

Snowbluff

2014-09-18, 09:51 AM

I find it funny how this was answered on page 1. I tell all of my players
Rule 1: Don't break my game, and I won't break your character (without permission).

Given the games I've played in, I have a better rule.

Don't break my character, and I won't break your game. :smalltongue:

Telonius

2014-09-18, 11:40 AM

Asking players not to be complete jerks is fine, as long as the players have enough system mastery to realize what they're doing is potentially game-breaking. D&D has a pretty steep learning curve, though, and it's easy to break the game without realizing it, just by picking reasonable-sounding things in the PHB. It's that kind of accidental stuff - particularly with newer players or inexperienced DMs who don't know what they're getting into - that needs a different sort of fix.

Vhaidara

2014-09-18, 11:48 AM

Given the games I've played in, I have a better rule.

Don't break my character, and I won't break your game. :smalltongue:

That's the player-side version. My rule is from the GM perspective.

Stella

2014-09-18, 11:33 PM

Personally I feel that taking a black marker to the spell list and sacrificing options in the name of notational balance is the absolute worst way to design or run a game; one of the big advantages a tabletop game has over a computer game or the like is that it can allow large amounts of freedom for its players by having a DM to adjudicate complicated or unbalanced situations. Stripping out options results in a game that is, yes, more balanced, but also less fun (and less iconically Dungeons and Dragons) [...]

A lot of that might have to do with how long any particular person has been playing the game. I've been playing since 0e, and so for me iconic Dungeons and Dragons means a D&D where the classes are fairly balanced and the casters only surpass the non-casters at very high levels (and the casters are rather frail and limited at lower levels as the "balance" on this").

And instead of viewing balancing things as "taking a black marker to the spell list", I see that the imbalance has been introduced by the free-flowing ink of the authors of all those additional spells.

I like plenty of things about D&D 3.5 which I see as an improvement over earlier editions: Better multi-classing rules, more ways to customize your character, more character classes to play, more and more clear rules. Lots and lots of things which earlier editions did not have. Feats for the martial classes, in particular, are an excellent way for one fighter to differentiate themselves from another. Casters don't really need feats to provide interest or customization, they have spells.

0e was essentially a set of booklets which told you what classes and races (which were essentially classes) you could play, gave you a spell list and a combat system, and then said "Go! Have fun with it!" It was very free-form and invited a huge amount of DM interpretation. I played in several games which you might consider "Yea Olde Typical High Fantasy", and in games which had no resemblance at all to either that or to each other.

I don't care for the "suffer now and dominate later" theory of balance for casters vs. martial classes in 0e, but I also do not care for the "without a lot of house rules, T1 classes simply dominate over the martial classes" theory of, well, non-game balance in 3.5.

Any valid fix, for me, must both remove the ability of a T1 caster to break the game (the thread topic is "How would you un-bork 3.5 magic?", is it not?), set their tier at about 3, and also have the martial classes all at around that level, T3/4 at least. Because that is good game design, and it is fair for all of the players of the game. And you can't really un-bork something if you're not willing to look at from a game design perspective and not the perspective that it's a lot of fun to have 3,000 spells to choose from which allows your caster to select the perfect foil for any given game threat. Oh, and non-casters just suck it because spells are where it's at.

Extra Anchovies

2014-09-18, 11:56 PM

Any valid fix, for me, must both remove the ability of a T1 caster to break the game (the thread topic is "How would you un-bork 3.5 magic?", is it not?), set their tier at about 3, and also have the martial classes all at around that level, T3/4 at least. Because that is good game design, and it is fair for all of the players of the game. And you can't really un-bork something if you're not willing to look at from a game design perspective and not the perspective that it's a lot of fun to have 3,000 spells to choose from which allows your caster to select the perfect foil for any given game threat. Oh, and non-casters just suck it because spells are where it's at.

You raise some excellent points, it's always nice to have some input from a long-time veteran :smallsmile:

Now that I've finally gotten around to coming up with a fix, maybe this:
1. Change all the full casters other than list-casters (e.g. shugenja, but not beguiler) to 6-level progressions a la the Pathfinder half-caster classes (Magus, Inquisitor, Hunter, etc). Maybe do the same with the list-casters if you're feeling nerfy. Give Psions and Wilders (and the other psionic classes that get 9th-level powers) progressions that cap at 6th-level powers, and give Psychic Warriors powers up to fourth level.
2. Create (on a case-by-case basis) special in-game requirements to cast some, but not all, 7th- through 9th-level spells that aren't on a list-caster's list, such as an extensive ritual and/or an exotic component that must be obtained via questing.
3. Make high-level NPC spellcasters rare in your game world; if a PC caster gets up to level 20, they're the first one to do so.
Should take the T1 and T2 casters down to T3 or so, and puts the list-casters and PsyWar somewhere around T4. Lack of access to high-level NPC casting and highly restricted access to high-level spells in general should keep the setting itself balanced. It's a bit of a rough fix, but doesn't involve any spell-by-spell nerfs.

Amphetryon

2014-09-19, 06:26 AM

You raise some excellent points, it's always nice to have some input from a long-time veteran :smallsmile:

Now that I've finally gotten around to coming up with a fix, maybe this:
1. Change all the full casters other than list-casters (e.g. shugenja, but not beguiler) to 6-level progressions a la the Pathfinder half-caster classes (Magus, Inquisitor, Hunter, etc). Maybe do the same with the list-casters if you're feeling nerfy. Give Psions and Wilders (and the other psionic classes that get 9th-level powers) progressions that cap at 6th-level powers, and give Psychic Warriors powers up to fourth level.
2. Create (on a case-by-case basis) special in-game requirements to cast some, but not all, 7th- through 9th-level spells that aren't on a list-caster's list, such as an extensive ritual and/or an exotic component that must be obtained via questing.
3. Make high-level NPC spellcasters rare in your game world; if a PC caster gets up to level 20, they're the first one to do so.
Should take the T1 and T2 casters down to T3 or so, and puts the list-casters and PsyWar somewhere around T4. Lack of access to high-level NPC casting and highly restricted access to high-level spells in general should keep the setting itself balanced. It's a bit of a rough fix, but doesn't involve any spell-by-spell nerfs.

But. . . shugenja is generally regarded as T3 already. . . .

Gemini476

2014-09-19, 07:17 AM

But. . . shugenja is generally regarded as T3 already. . . .

Yeah, for all it has access to 9th-level spell it doesn't have access to the really good ones. Oh, and it's really really limited in which ones it can choose. (Half must be from the chosen element, one is from the Order, and the rest are mixed between the two non-opposing elements.)
The Beguiler, Dread Necromancer and Shugenja are all T3, the Warmage is T4, and the Healer is either T4 or T5, I don't remember which.

(And besides, the Beguiler is probably the strongest of the classes I listed. Some people like to argue that it should be T2.)

Yahzi

2014-09-19, 08:23 AM

Well... you actually can have that conceit pretty firmly in place, if you want.
I thought that game existed, and was called Exalted. :smallbiggrin:

I agree that for a typical railroad - er I mean plot-based - game it's only necessary to have a few high-level casters. Lord of the Rings had 2 elves, 3 wizards, a disembodied demi-god and the Witch King (not that we ever see him do magic). And nobody has to ask why none of those guys were casting Wall of Iron every day and selling the iron. It's just not their style; they aren't there to make money.

But D&D is not like that. The planes are expressly full of countless magic-using fiends; the demographics tables in the DMG put multiple 15th level people in every major city. And cash is straight-up equal to power because you can spend it on magic items.

I agree you have to have a sharp, sharp xp curve (mine doubles every level). But you still need magic to have a price. The game explicitly linked gp to xp in the 1st edition, and has spent all of its time running away from that. I say, no more running! Embrace it! GP is XP, and vice versa. We all swallowed hit points, so let's just accept this abstraction and move on.

My tael mechanic is a reasonably elegant way to do that. It adds more player agency, it doesn't break anything, and it answers lots of questions. No, you can't gain levels by "defeating" the same trap over and over or even the same foe. You get levels for sucking people's souls. However you do that is up to you. You can slay them with your mighty sword, poison them in the night, or just corner the grain market and starve them. It doesn't matter; when they die, you get their XP. Or you can just steal all their money and then buy XP from people who have corpses to spare but need money to buy other stuff (like swords and grain). Everybody knows the rules, so everybody knows how to act, and it turns out that the world those actions produce looks a lot like the D&D game we all play in anyway.

Amphetryon

2014-09-19, 09:04 AM

Yeah, for all it has access to 9th-level spell it doesn't have access to the really good ones. Oh, and it's really really limited in which ones it can choose. (Half must be from the chosen element, one is from the Order, and the rest are mixed between the two non-opposing elements.)
The Beguiler, Dread Necromancer and Shugenja are all T3, the Warmage is T4, and the Healer is either T4 or T5, I don't remember which.

(And besides, the Beguiler is probably the strongest of the classes I listed. Some people like to argue that it should be T2.)

Indeed, with most of the "Beguiler is T2" discussion centered around the use of Arcane Disciple, as I understand it.

Gemini476

2014-09-19, 09:31 AM

Indeed, with most of the "Beguiler is T2" discussion centered around the use of Arcane Disciple, as I understand it.

Well, at least people aren't arguing about them being T1 because of the Rainbow Servant :smalltongue:

Amphetryon

2014-09-19, 09:38 AM

Well, at least people aren't arguing about them being T1 because of the Rainbow Servant :smalltongue:
Rainbow Servant? But that's not even a full caster class!It's a joke

Fax Celestis

2014-09-19, 10:20 AM

Indeed, with most of the "Beguiler is T2" discussion centered around the use of Arcane Disciple, as I understand it.

And UMD with the skill points to afford it, I thought, but yeah, pretty much that.

Stella

2014-09-19, 04:04 PM

I agree that for a typical railroad - er I mean plot-based - game it's only necessary to have a few high-level casters. Lord of the Rings had 2 elves, 3 wizards, a disembodied demi-god and the Witch King (not that we ever see him do magic). And nobody has to ask why none of those guys were casting Wall of Iron every day and selling the iron. It's just not their style; they aren't there to make money.

But D&D is not like that.
Indeed. The typical D&D game, and any published D&D setting, has far more magic and magic use in it than the entire LotR trilogy and associated books.

In the LotR, Gandalf casts a couple of light spells, and maybe enchants his staff for a fight. He casts Shatter on Saruman's staff, and that's about as close as this set of fantasy novels comes to D&D, despite D&D using it as source material.

In D&D the Wizard is completely different, because it's not a novel. People playing a game as equals need to have equal characters.

georgie_leech

2014-09-19, 05:02 PM

Indeed. The typical D&D game, and any published D&D setting, has far more magic and magic use in it than the entire LotR trilogy and associated books.

In the LotR, Gandalf casts a couple of light spells, and maybe enchants his staff for a fight. He casts Shatter on Saruman's staff, and that's about as close as this set of fantasy novels comes to D&D, despite D&D using it as source material.

In D&D the Wizard is completely different, because it's not a novel. People playing a game as equals need to have equal characters.

Or characters that are fundamentally different in such a way as to have differing spheres of influence. No Class Features that can overtake entire other classes for instance *coughdruidcough*

Stella

2014-09-19, 05:06 PM

Or characters that are fundamentally different in such a way as to have differing spheres of influence. No Class Features that can overtake entire other classes for instance *coughdruidcough*

I agree, but what you're describing isn't a D&D 3.5 T3 caster. It's not enough. It's not just druids, it's any T1/2 caster who makes the poor T5 fighter irrelevant.

*cough*T1/2 caster*cough* The class features you're referencing as being able to "overtake entire other classes" is just the spell list.

Aquillion

2014-09-19, 06:00 PM

Because that is good game design, and it is fair for all of the players of the game. And you can't really un-bork something if you're not willing to look at from a game design perspective and not the perspective that it's a lot of fun to have 3,000 spells to choose from which allows your caster to select the perfect foil for any given game threat.I strongly disagree with the way you are framing this argument; game design is about more than just balance. I believe that I am talking good game design, and you are not.

Game design is about making the game fun. Period. That is the only thing that matters. "Fairness" has no value whatsoever in and of itself unless you're making something for competitive play (which D&D certainly is not). It is simply not an end-goal that game design should give any consideration on its own. Now, often balance is necessary for fun, and has to be considered for that reason, but not always -- asymmetric design is entirely valid, and even when something is utterly "unfair" on paper, it is still excellent design provided everyone has fun.

Sacrificing that fun for an abstract concept of "fairness" is always a bad idea. From my perspective, therefore -- when I say "3000 spells are more fun" (for everyone -- I believe they can make the game more fun even for non-casters if the rest of the game is designed properly), I am looking at things from a game design perspective. Whereas when you start talking about abstract fairness as if it is more important than 'mere' fun, I feel you're no longer talking good design -- you are sacrificing good game design (which, again, for a non-competitive game ultimately means fun game design, and nothing else) for something that has no value whatsoever on its own.

georgie_leech

2014-09-19, 11:47 PM

I agree, but what you're describing isn't a D&D 3.5 T3 caster. It's not enough. It's not just druids, it's any T1/2 caster who makes the poor T5 fighter irrelevant.

*cough*T1/2 caster*cough* The class features you're referencing as being able to "overtake entire other classes" is just the spell list.

I never said 3.5 is balanced. It's horribly unbalanced. I just mean that a greater degree of imbalance is acceptable if said imbalance is between things that are fundamentally different in purpose. That doesn't describe Core 3.5 mind you; my favourite example is the Druid though, because it literally gets a beatstick as a class feature, in contrast to the Cleric or Wizard who at least need to burn spells at some point to get theirs. A Druid with only spells is still extremely powerful; the AC is a slap in the face of the martial classes.

aleucard

2014-09-20, 08:34 AM

I never said 3.5 is balanced. It's horribly unbalanced. I just mean that a greater degree of imbalance is acceptable if said imbalance is between things that are fundamentally different in purpose. That doesn't describe Core 3.5 mind you; my favourite example is the Druid though, because it literally gets a beatstick as a class feature, in contrast to the Cleric or Wizard who at least need to burn spells at some point to get theirs. A Druid with only spells is still extremely powerful; the AC is a slap in the face of the martial classes.

How would you modify it so that it's still useful without being able to transplant a Melee Martial? To be perfectly honest, I'm drawing blanks.

Gemini476

2014-09-20, 09:06 AM

How would you modify it so that it's still useful without being able to transplant a Melee Martial? To be perfectly honest, I'm drawing blanks.
I'm assuming that you're talking about the Druid's Animal Companion here, just so you know.

In AD&D and 2E the Animal Companion was more of the Ranger's schtick than the Druids - the later being the shapeshifting hippy (I don't think they could cast whilst shapeshifted, but I'll need to recheck that.) BECMI, meanwhile, had the Druid as a Neutral Cleric 9+ with some additional more wizardly spells in exchange for Turn Undead, and the Ranger was... pretty much not a thing? I guess there might have been some class in one of the Gazetteers, but I'm kind of drawing a blank.

Basically, there's no real reason that the Druid needs to have a pet meatshield. Them having one at all is a (relatively) recent development.

Of course, the big issue with Animal Companions lies more in how powerful animals can get at relatively low Effective Druid Levels and how it just snaps the Action Economy over its knee. A Ranger with an Animal Companion has two attacks/turn straight out of the gate, and hits more often than the Whirling Frenzy Barbarian does as well because of flanking. WotC's D&D has been scaled down so far that giving players extra characters kind of doesn't work that well anymore. This goes for undead and bound/summoned creatures as well.

Extra Anchovies

2014-09-20, 09:15 AM

Of course, the big issue with Animal Companions lies more in how powerful animals can get at relatively low Effective Druid Levels and how it just snaps the Action Economy over its knee. A Ranger with an Animal Companion has two attacks/turn straight out of the gate, and hits more often than the Whirling Frenzy Barbarian does as well because of flanking. WotC's D&D has been scaled down so far that giving players extra characters kind of doesn't work that well anymore. This goes for undead and bound/summoned creatures as well.

Agreed. The quickest way to create enforceable (relative) party balance with respect to the druid is to remove its animal companion and prevent access to Natural Spell (both fixes, of course, would be communicated to players well before character creation). Without those two tricks, they lose a lot of their ability to render other players obsolete.

aleucard

2014-09-20, 10:23 AM

Gemini476

2014-09-20, 11:21 AM

Agreed. The quickest way to create enforceable (relative) party balance with respect to the druid is to remove its animal companion and prevent access to Natural Spell (both fixes, of course, would be communicated to players well before character creation). Without those two tricks, they lose a lot of their ability to render other players obsolete.

Wildshape without Natural Spell is alright, and kind of like Tenser's Transformation in some respects. When you're wildshaped you're muscling into beatstick territory, but you're locked out of your own casting niche for the duration.

The big issues come when people can muscle in on multiple niches at once, like the current thing with Druids, Clerics, and Wizards. (Animal Companion, Divine Power and summons/planar binding all muscle in on the Fighter's area, Knock and Invisibility+Silence make Rogues feel useless, save-or-die invalidates dealing damage, etc. etc.)

Although do note that Knock and the like are alright if you have a sufficiently limited number of spells per day - then you'll only pull those things out when the Rogue fails. It's just that that ceases to be an issue somewhat quickly.

(Personally I'm alright with just replacing the Tier 1-2 classes with lower-tier ones. Make Sorcerers Dragon Fire Adepts or Warlocks, for instance, Wizards into list casters, Druids into wildshaping rangers/Wild Monks, and Clerics into list-Healers and Shugenjas and Ardents... And the same for some lower-tier classes as well, like making Fighters into Warblades and Monks into Swordsages [as well as the aforementioned Wild Monk.])

Telok

2014-09-20, 02:57 PM

Wildshape without Natural Spell is alright, and kind of like Tenser's Transformation in some respects. When you're wildshaped you're muscling into beatstick territory, but you're locked out of your own casting niche for the duration.

In AD&D the druid could not cast in wildshape and the animal's abilities were not added to the druid's abilities, they replaced them. Further druids were restricted to natural animals and explicitly DM permitted animals, no dire animals or dinosaurs. There was pretty much no way around these limits except the DM changing the rules (houserules).

At 7th level (Initiate of the 5th Circle), the following additional powers are gained:
1. Immunity from charm spells cast by any creature basically associated with the woodlands, i.e. dryads, nixies, sylphs, etc.
2. Ability to change form up to three times per day, actually becoming, in all respects save the mind, a reptile, bird or mammal.
2a. Each type of creature form can be assumed but once per day.
2b. The size of creature form assumed con vary from as small as a bullfrog, bluejay or bat to as large as a large snake, an eagle, or o black bear (about double the
weight of the druid).
2c. Each assumption of a new form removes from 10% to 60% (d6, multiply by 10) of the hit points of damage, if any, the druid has sustained prior to changing form.

AD&D animal companions were different too. If I recall correctly they appeared in AD&D 2nd edition and the druid got a number of hit dice of animals, but the animals themselves never advanced. So if the druid got 12 hit dice of animal at high level... They could end up with six basic, standard, wolves. And being a druid meant that you would never willingly sacrifice or kill your animals to try and get something else. I don't recall there being any way to dismiss them either, but someone wlse will have to check that.

Rangers, above 9th or 10th level in AD&D 2nd edition, attracted followers in a manner similar to the fighter except that he didn't need a stronghold and most of them were animals. The ranger explicitly did not control the animals, neither their actions not the type that appeared. However the random table of possible companions did include things like brownies and other fey creatures. Again I don't recall the exact list but I think things like centaurs and treants may have appeared on it.

So that was animal companions in AD&D. In the beginning of D&D 3.0 the Natural Spell feat did not exist. When it first appeared in... Song and Forest?... whatever splatbook it showed up in, it was immedately recognized by my group as being too good. We knew instantly that it was an overpowered feat and banned it under the "unbalanced spatbook stuff" category. Of course than 3.5 came out, Keen and Improved Crit no longer stacked while Natural Spell was moved into the PH. Bend over and take it melee, bend over and take it.

aleucard

2014-09-20, 04:46 PM

In AD&D the druid could not cast in wildshape and the animal's abilities were not added to the druid's abilities, they replaced them. Further druids were restricted to natural animals and explicitly DM permitted animals, no dire animals or dinosaurs. There was pretty much no way around these limits except the DM changing the rules (houserules).

At 7th level (Initiate of the 5th Circle), the following additional powers are gained:
1. Immunity from charm spells cast by any creature basically associated with the woodlands, i.e. dryads, nixies, sylphs, etc.
2. Ability to change form up to three times per day, actually becoming, in all respects save the mind, a reptile, bird or mammal.
2a. Each type of creature form can be assumed but once per day.
2b. The size of creature form assumed con vary from as small as a bullfrog, bluejay or bat to as large as a large snake, an eagle, or o black bear (about double the
weight of the druid).
2c. Each assumption of a new form removes from 10% to 60% (d6, multiply by 10) of the hit points of damage, if any, the druid has sustained prior to changing form.

AD&D animal companions were different too. If I recall correctly they appeared in AD&D 2nd edition and the druid got a number of hit dice of animals, but the animals themselves never advanced. So if the druid got 12 hit dice of animal at high level... They could end up with six basic, standard, wolves. And being a druid meant that you would never willingly sacrifice or kill your animals to try and get something else. I don't recall there being any way to dismiss them either, but someone wlse will have to check that.

Rangers, above 9th or 10th level in AD&D 2nd edition, attracted followers in a manner similar to the fighter except that he didn't need a stronghold and most of them were animals. The ranger explicitly did not control the animals, neither their actions not the type that appeared. However the random table of possible companions did include things like brownies and other fey creatures. Again I don't recall the exact list but I think things like centaurs and treants may have appeared on it.

So that was animal companions in AD&D. In the beginning of D&D 3.0 the Natural Spell feat did not exist. When it first appeared in... Song and Forest?... whatever splatbook it showed up in, it was immedately recognized by my group as being too good. We knew instantly that it was an overpowered feat and banned it under the "unbalanced spatbook stuff" category. Of course than 3.5 came out, Keen and Improved Crit no longer stacked while Natural Spell was moved into the PH. Bend over and take it melee, bend over and take it.

I thought 3.5 Druids had their physical stats transplanted in a Wildshape, too. Granted, that gives them free reign to completely ignore their physical stats with the minor exception of Constitution, but still. I do agree that Natural Spell is pretty @#$^ed in the head, though the thought of someone trying to pet a dog that immediately starts launching whatever blasty spells Druids have at them is amusing.