Balanced spellcasting variant?

[Belial_the_Leveler]

For balancing spellcasting, I'm trying to find a middle point between nerfing too much and not nerfing enough, while making the variant neither too big and involved (i.e. not fixing the entire spell list spell by spell) nor rendering magic uncool and boring. Here's what I got so far. You guys can tell me if it works;


Spell Slots [i.e. making magic less spammable]
Casters have a number of "daily" spell slots equal to their highest mental ability score modifier. Those slots are of the highest spell level they can cast. They can regain a slot by spending one hour of normal time without using magical effects, or the equivalent longer period of fast time, or the equivalent shorter period of slow time. Using magical effects from sources other than their normal slots (items, SLAs, supernatural abilities) still counts against the time limit.
Casters of levels 1-5 can cast one spell per encounter or scene without slot expenditure. Casters of levels 6-10 can cast two. Casters of levels 11-20 can cast three.


Spell Duration [i.e. no more ridiculous stacking of effects]
The results of a magical effect remain for a number of minutes equal to the caster's highest mental ability score modifier, maximum. Damage, movement, penalties and created objects without GP value are not thus limited. Items that replicate spells are also limited to this rule. Exception: permanency still works normally.


Magic Bonuses [i.e. no more ridiculous stacking of plusses]
All magic items modifying stats numerically give an item bonus. Multiple bonuses never stack.
All magic effects modifying stats numerically give a magic bonus. Multiple bonuses never stack.
Exception: ability score bonuses are enhancement, be they item or effect.
Anything that gave inherent bonus still gives inherent bonus. Multiple bonuses stack to +5.
Effects replacing stats now give a bonus instead. See Pathfinder polymorph spells.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I dislike the first option. Not having anything to do is pretty boring, and having to ineffectually shoot a crossbow or whack something with your mace/quarterstaff most of the time because you're out of spells defeats the point of playing a caster.

For the second option you could just ban Persistent Spell. Most inherently long term buffs aren't all that overpowered, the real abuse starts when people start stacking short term buffs that are persisted for free via DMM or Incantatrix. That also takes care of most of the "massive stacking buffs" issue.

One option i've played with that has worked okay for our group was to increase casting times. Adding 1 round to every spells casting time reduces caster dominance a lot (especially if you combine it with the persist ban) and makes mundane martials a lot more useful to protect the spellcasters while they're casting. It also increases the threat from ranged enemies, who will disrupt spells a lot more often if not taken into account.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

A) With this system, a first level caster can be expected to cast 2 spells per fight in an adventuring day; 1 for free and 1 from his/her daily slots for an ability score of 16-18. A 6th level caster is expected to cast at least 3 per fight, an 11th level caster is expected to cast 4-5 per fight and a 20th level one is expected to cast 6 per fight. For low-level casters, that's more than the current system gives them (where they only get a couple slots per day). For high-level casters, do you expect fights to last more than 5-6 rounds?


B) Even when out of spell slots, a caster doesn't have to resort to crossbows. There's a bazillion spells that give more powerful attacks and if you don't want to use them, there's always Reserve feats.


C) Just banning Persistent Spell is not a solution. There are loads of spells that are powerful thanks to duration. From Polymorph and Mind blank, to illusions, to Shapechange and Energy Immunity, to various forms of mind control. Even worse offenders are spells and effects that break WBL or give other permanent and semi-permanent bonuses. Having a hard cap on the duration of magic resolves all those problems outright by forcing the wizard to be as intended; powerful but only in short bursts. No longer could a caster be strong all day long.



D) Increasing casting times introduces a serious problem; half the combat rounds the caster is effectively doing nothing - not even shooting a crossbow. In a fight with a 6-round duration, the caster would waste at least 3 rounds. Beyond that being boring, that also messes up with all those spells that are intended to be cast as swift or immediate actions merely to work. And it doesn't resolve anything about the buff issue, the WBL issue or the broken combo issue.

[Xerlith]

Spell Slots:
A mistake. This hits the balanced classes, like Warmage, Dread Necromancer or Duskblade, the most. The problem with spellcasting isn't the quantity- it's the quality. Really, the easiest way of T3-ing the spellcasters is:
1. Allowing Core spells minus the greatest offenders;
1a. Allowing non-core spells case-by-case. As a rule of thumb, save-or-sucks and direct damage is okay, while reality-changing spells should be restrained.

Durations:
Well, this has a result that you surely didn't want. Now the caster is less likely to buff a teammate, since spells are scarce (as per first rule) and their durations abysmal. This actually borks the non-casting guys in the party more. And this is actually pretty... Bad taste. As it was said, banning Persistent Spell is much more... Well, balanced.

Bonuses:
As above - this is a nerf that penalizes the non-spellcasters the most. They get to do even less with their stuff, because now they don't get to buff their skillchecks and whatnot. I get the intention to nerf polymorph line of spells, but, well... Pathfinder did it a lot better, IMO.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If you want to make mundanes more useful you should ban the biggest offenders that make magic so powerful.
My group has the following list for "general" campaigns and anything including newbies. Some of those can and have been relaxed for some campaigns depending on DM and group experience, but most of them are generally part of a gentlemans agreement at most tables for practical play, at least in my experience.

1. Free metamagic. Persistent round/level buffs, free twinned/empowered/maximized/whatever Enervation or Orbs of X, etc. Doesn't matter, you don't want it in your game.
That includes DMM, Incantatrix, Metamagic Spell Trigger, Arcane Thesis, Circle Magic and any other way to cheap/free metamagic on your spells. Ban it all.

2. Ignoring XP and/or Material Components. Yes, Wish is powerful. It also costs 5000xp, so Mr. Wizard shouldn't cast it unless the situation is dire. Similar reasoning applies to anything else with a costly XP or GP component. Dweomerkeeper, Shapechanging into a Zodar or whatever or any other way to ignore those costs is banned. Power has a price. No pay, no power.

3. Shapechanging magic. Leaving aside the ridiculously broken Shapechange, the drawback for your spellcasting prowess is supposed to be a certain squishyness. You can get around that - to a point - if you spent a significant part of your spell slots on buffing yourself. Having a single Polymorph turn you from squishy wizard into The Spellcasting Wartroll turns that concept into a joke, as does Natural Spell. Polymorph is banned. Alter Self is banned. Shapechange is BANNED. Natural Spell is also banned. Clericzilla will need to spend an in-combat action on Divine Power if he wants to bash face, because persisting is out. If you want to cast and melee in the the same encounter it's going to cost you actions - any rounds you waste wild shaping or buffing is a round the enemy can attack you without retaliation.

4. Action Economy abuse. Everyone gets one move, one standard and one swift. Mr. Wizard does not get "one standard whenever i want it, and additional standards depending on how many contingencies i can come up with". Celerity is banned. Synchronicity is banned. Anticipatory Strike is banned. Swiftblade 9 does not give you an extra standard action per round. Wildshaping into a Nilshai/Thoon Elder Brain/Chronotyrn etc. is nerfed to the standard amount of actions. Craft Contingent Spell is also banned.

5. Spells that are just too good. You know them. Shivering Touch gets a save. Venomfire gets capped to 10d6 and once/round. Do something similar to any other offenders to bring them in line with the general powerlevel of their spell level, or ban them outright. There's thousands of spells. If missing a single one means your character concept is no longer playable the problem is almost certainly not the game.

That should curb the worst of the abuse, at least. If you have a bunch of players to DM for who will actively hunt for loopholes in these rules, apply

6. Don't be a ****. Everyone plays to have fun. The other players are not your supporting cast. If the DM isn't that good at optimizing or just can't be bothered to customize every monster, adjust your power level accordingly. If the two newbies in the group want to play a Fighter and a Warlock, don't bring out the DMM Cleric.


Then there are some things you can do as a DM. Pretty much any spellcaster/spellcasting monster that is capable of it should learn and use Dispel Magic and its variants. Encounters with more than one enemy spellcaster should make use of counterspelling, with appropiate builds to make that viable. Ranged attackers should prepare actions to disrupt spellcasting.
Magic is powerful. Anything intelligent will know that, so defending against/countering it is Common Sense. There is no excuse not to do this unless everything your party faces is non-intelligent.

[Xerlith]

If you want to make mundanes more useful you should ban the biggest offenders that make magic so powerful.
My group has the following list for "general" campaigns and anything including newbies. Some of those can and have been relaxed for some campaigns depending on DM and group experience, but most of them are generally part of a gentlemans agreement at most tables for practical play, at least in my experience.

1. Free metamagic. Persistent round/level buffs, free twinned/empowered/maximized/whatever Enervation or Orbs of X, etc. Doesn't matter, you don't want it in your game.
That includes DMM, Incantatrix, Metamagic Spell Trigger, Arcane Thesis, Circle Magic and any other way to cheap/free metamagic on your spells. Ban it all.

[stuff]


I can agree with all your points except the first. Because this alone fully invalidates the weakest archetype - the Blaster. Without cheaper metamagic the direct damage spells hit rock bottom in their usefulness. Why should that be the case?

[torrasque666]

I dislike the first option. Not having anything to do is pretty boring, and having to ineffectually shoot a crossbow or whack something with your mace/quarterstaff most of the time because you're out of spells defeats the point of playing a caster.

So you dislike playing low level casters then as well? Because that can happen really easily with a low level caster. Assuming a 22 INT, a first level Wizard has a grand total of 6 spells per day. After that, they have to "shoot a crossbow or whack something with [their] mace/quarterstaff".

[sleepyphoenixx]

I can agree with all your points except the first. Because this alone fully invalidates the weakest archetype - the Blaster. Without cheaper metamagic the direct damage spells hit rock bottom in their usefulness. Why should that be the case?
Not the point. Blasting is weak - that's true. The problem is that the same optimization needed to make blasting viable automatically makes other types of spells overpowered, so it has to go.
If someone wants to play a blaster there are other workarounds. Leaving in free metamagic "for the blasters" means it's also available for other spells, in all its gamebreaking glory. Which misses the goal of balancing magic since free metamagic is probably the biggest offender here, even ahead of ignoring costs.

You can either use options like Fiery Spell and Cold Spell Specialization to increase damage per die, Born of Three Thunders to add additional utility to your blasting or homebrew a solution that only improves blasting. It hasn't really come up yet for us - nobody has wanted to play a blaster caster in a sufficiently high-powered game for optimizing damage to be necessary.

Melee is simply better at dealing direct, single target damage than casters. Since casters are better at almost everything else we can live with that.
If your group can't, brainstorm something, talk it out and see how it works out in an oneshot. That's probably the best advice i can give you on that.


So you dislike playing low level casters then as well? Because that can happen really easily with a low level caster. Assuming a 22 INT, a first level Wizard has a grand total of 6 spells per day. After that, they have to "shoot a crossbow or whack something with [their] mace/quarterstaff".

Yes. Playing a first level anything is a pain, but casters especially. Thankfully low levels are usually over pretty fast, if you have to start at first. I try not too.
It also helps that i generally prefer to play divine casters, who aren't quite as helpless with their spell slots gone.

[SinsI]

Just use casters like Warlock, Dragonfire Adept or Binder instead of T1s.

[AuraTwilight]

Or rewrite and cut all the problematic, story-breaking spells.

[Xerlith]

Yeah. The quickest fix is really just cut the Wizard from the game, give Druid and Cleric the spontaneous versions, make the Druid choose between Animal Companion and Wild Shape...
Then forhget the Sha'Ir exists.

And finally rewrite/ban the most offending spells. There aren't THAT many.
Look at Grod_the_giant's fix. It's the closest to my preferred.