Campaign Idea - On Casters

[JackMage666]

Alright, so I've been getting an urge to be a DM for a few weeks now, and I'm thinking up some rules for a campaign. First off, is do away with some stuff about magic - Mainly, preparing spells.

Not magic in total, just things like wizards and clerics working as toolboxs. So, here are my proposals.

Wizards - Get rid of them. No offense to anyone, it's just I don't want one overpowering character ruining it for the rest. If he can learn more spells then he can cast, I don't need him in my campaign.

Sorcerers - This turns into the generalist arcane caster. Give him the bonus feats that a Wizard normally gets (Switch Scribe Scroll to Eschew Materials, it seems more fitting.) Really, I'm combining Wizard and Sorcerer, but I've come to the problem of Specialist (Former) Wizards. I suppose I could allow Sorcerers to Specialize, banning two schools in order to get +1 CL in a certain school. As well, they'd gain 1 extra spell at each spell level from that school. Or, I could do away with it, some feedback would be nice for this one.

Bard - Good how he is.

Favored Soul - I like already, but get rid of the MAD. Make him fully Cha based. The Cleric is for Wisdom.

Druid - Change spellcasting to equal Favored Souls, in spells known and spells per day, but their spell choice is still the Druid Spell List. Eliminate Natural Spell, Surrogate Spellcasting, or any other feat that allows casting in Wild Shape.

Cleric - This one's giving me the most trouble. Right now, I'm thinking that they get to keep their spells per day, max of 4+Domain. Give them the Favored Soul's Spells Known, plus Domain Spells, and a Healing (positive) or Inflict (negative) spell at each spell level. If the level has a Cure or Inflict spell, that's the one they get, but if it doesn't, I'll make a ruling as to what spell they get. That means, that, though they cast less spells, they should have the largest spell list. As well, they start off knowing more spells of any given level than a caster of equal level. This one's still in rough draft.

Shugenja/Wu Jen - Don't want them, jsut because it' not an oriental campaign.

Spirit Shaman - It's not like anyone wants to play him anyway. I'll do away with him.

Beguiler/Dread Necromancer/Warmage - They fit my idea of a specialized Sorcerer well enough for me to keep them the way they are.

Warlock - Good how he is.


Those are my ideas for full casting classes. The half casting classes liek Ranger and Paladin will take example of a Hexblade with spells known/spells per day as well. For the most part, these changes will be easy to adjust to, and, overall, easier for the players to keep track of. The idea is to make spells known choices more important, and so characters can't just wait a day to prepare the needed spell. Oh, yes, preparation time will all equal a Sorcerers as well (8 hours of rest, 15 minute of meditation).

Can I get me some feedback?

[MeklorIlavator]

I have a lesser cleric in my sig, I haven't playtested it yet, but it could fill in for a cleric if you are secifically looking for a weaker one.

Otherwise, it looks pretty good.

[Emperor Tippy]

Dumping the wizard for the sorcerer doesn't do much. You just have to be careful with your spell selection. To be teh uber leet pwing wizard requires maybe 10 spells. And the sorcerer can get them all.

[Gralamin]

Alright, so I've been getting an urge to be a DM for a few weeks now, and I'm thinking up some rules for a campaign. First off, is do away with some stuff about magic - Mainly, preparing spells.

Not magic in total, just things like wizards and clerics working as toolboxs. So, here are my proposals.
Always a good place to start.


Wizards - Get rid of them. No offense to anyone, it's just I don't want one overpowering character ruining it for the rest. If he can learn more spells then he can cast, I don't need him in my campaign.
That is a very shallow opinion. You do know the a Cleric automatically gets their entire spell list right? And Wizards are only overpowered if you make an effort of it. Unless your comparing to the Fighter class, which is sub-par at best. I see you later try to fix Clerics, which are stronger then wizards into late game. This doesn't make sense to me, at all.

I suggest you read Logic Ninjas Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18500&highlight=Logic+ninja%27s+guide) and ban all spells in his Cheese Section.



Sorcerers - This turns into the generalist arcane caster. Give him the bonus feats that a Wizard normally gets (Switch Scribe Scroll to Eschew Materials, it seems more fitting.) Really, I'm combining Wizard and Sorcerer, but I've come to the problem of Specialist (Former) Wizards. I suppose I could allow Sorcerers to Specialize, banning two schools in order to get +1 CL in a certain school. As well, they'd gain 1 extra spell at each spell level from that school. Or, I could do away with it, some feedback would be nice for this one.
Sorcerers have always been the odd ones, I try to ignore them personally.


Bard - Good how he is.
At what he does yes. Still sub-par.


Favored Soul - I like already, but get rid of the MAD. Make him fully Cha based. The Cleric is for Wisdom.
Sounds okay, Cha needs the Love.


Druid - Change spellcasting to equal Favored Souls, in spells known and spells per day, but their spell choice is still the Druid Spell List. Eliminate Natural Spell, Surrogate Spellcasting, or any other feat that allows casting in Wild Shape.
Still Overpowered. The Easiest way to balance them is change their spell List, and use the shapeshifting variant in the PHB2


Cleric - This one's giving me the most trouble. Right now, I'm thinking that they get to keep their spells per day, max of 4+Domain. Give them the Favored Soul's Spells Known, plus Domain Spells, and a Healing (positive) or Inflict (negative) spell at each spell level. If the level has a Cure or Inflict spell, that's the one they get, but if it doesn't, I'll make a ruling as to what spell they get. That means, that, though they cast less spells, they should have the largest spell list. As well, they start off knowing more spells of any given level than a caster of equal level. This one's still in rough draft.

This doesn't balance them at all. The Casting isn't really the problem (as long as you don't allow Divine Metamagic, and get rid of cheese like Divine Power), It's the fact they have d8 HP, Full Armor, And spells to make them a better fighter then the Fighter.


Shugenja/Wu Jen - Don't want them, jsut because it' not an oriental campaign.

Spirit Shaman - It's not like anyone wants to play him anyway. I'll do away with him.

Fair Enough


Beguiler/Dread Necromancer/Warmage - They fit my idea of a specialized Sorcerer well enough for me to keep them the way they are.
They work, except Warmage is sub par.


Warlock - Good how he is. And very very weak.



Those are my ideas for full casting classes. The half casting classes liek Ranger and Paladin will take example of a Hexblade with spells known/spells per day as well. For the most part, these changes will be easy to adjust to, and, overall, easier for the players to keep track of. The idea is to make spells known choices more important, and so characters can't just wait a day to prepare the needed spell. Oh, yes, preparation time will all equal a Sorcerers as well (8 hours of rest, 15 minute of meditation).

Can I get me some feedback?
Needs a lot of work.

[JackMage666]

Perhaps I should use the Cloisted Cleric variant for Clerics as well, reduce their general spells known list by 2 at each spell level, but keep the +4 (3 Domain [thanks to the Knowledge Domain from Cloisted Cleric], 1 Healing)? Does that do better?

Oh, and allow them to use general spell slots for Domain spells as well. But the +1 is still reserved for them.

[Gralamin]

Perhaps I should use the Cloisted Cleric variant for Clerics as well, reduce their general spells known list by 2 at each spell level, but keep the +4 (3 Domain [thanks to the Knowledge Domain from Cloisted Cleric], 1 Healing)? Does that do better?

Oh, and allow them to use general spell slots for Domain spells as well. But the +1 is still reserved for them.

Cloistered cleric helps, Ban Divine Power and Divine Metacheese

[JackMage666]

Oh, and I forgot about healers from the Miniatures Handbook.

Healer - Cast as Arcane rather than Divine. Treat mainly as a Warmage/Beguiler, as they know every spell on their spell list. Gain spells per day equal to Warmage/Beguiler.

I know, Healing magic is generally not arcane. But the healer is weird, and noone will probably play him anyway. He acts more like an arcane caster than not,, what with his "I can't wear armor" thing. He's my square peg.

[Aquillion]

Wizards - Get rid of them. No offense to anyone, it's just I don't want one overpowering character ruining it for the rest. If he can learn more spells then he can cast, I don't need him in my campaign.
You know, I think that some of what people say about wizards overemphasizes how powerful they are just a tad.

Yes, it is true that at higher levels a wizard contributes more to the party than a fighter, just like a typical melee type contributes more at very low levels. But that in and of itself isn't automatically broken--game balance doesn't necessarily require that everyone contribute equally at all times. Allow me to present a few facts.

First, in terms of balance, wizards are the least-broken of the three top-tier casting classes. Yes, a wizard can do a wide variety of things very well, but they still do have their limits--they're less effective at dealing damage than melee classes, and at the end of the day, despite the powerful defensive abilities of their spells, they're still a d4 with no physical armor. Clerics and Druids can actually make melee classes obsolete if well-built. Wizards can't. They can survive without them if they have to, they can incapacitate all sorts of opponents, etc, etc, but at the end of the day they work well with functional melee (and particularly backstabbing) builds; they don't eclipse them completely (unlike, say, a well-built druid or cleric). The best use for wizard spells is really supportive, by disabling opponents, manipulating the battlefield, or giving your allies buffs. They're very good supportive characters, but that's basically what they are. Clerics and particularly druids, ironically, are the ones best-suited to moving outside of the supportive role, not wizards.

Second, the issues with regards to wizards and melee fighters isn't a matter of wizards being good; the issue is that, to be blunt, melee fighters are horribly gimped. If an enemy does anything but stand in one place waiting for the fighter to hit it, then that fighter is totally dependant on either their magical items or their casters to provide the support necessary to keep fighting.

Which leads to point three: Banning wizards completely doesn't help melee fighters at all. Just the opposite. Are you going to remove dragons and balors, too? If not, your melee fighters still don't have any way to fight them on their own, and now they don't have toolbox casters to back them up or disable the enemy, either.

[JackMage666]

Divine Metamagic is banned, I forgot to add.

Divine Power isn't, but I'll alter it. It's not quite as good as Tenser's Tranformation, so I'll keep it at 4th level. But, as an added cost, you must drink a Potion of Bulls Strength (just like Tenser's), so, the spell effects are reduced. Is that better? I'd hate to ban the spell, considering Sorcerers will have the same ability (mostly) for a meterial component at later levels.

[JackMage666]

To Aquillion -

The main point I've done is do away with prepared spellcasters. Keeping both Wizard and Sorcerer would be mostly pointless, I think. I've pretty much combined the classes, and a well built sorcerer should be able to do the job of a wizard in my campaign. If they need a spell, they can buy a wand, scroll, or staff, rather than hold it in a book just in case.

[Gralamin]

Divine Metamagic is banned, I forgot to add.

Divine Power isn't, but I'll alter it. It's not quite as good as Tenser's Tranformation, so I'll keep it at 4th level. But, as an added cost, you must drink a Potion of Bulls Strength (just like Tenser's), so, the spell effects are reduced. Is that better? I'd hate to ban the spell, considering Sorcerers will have the same ability (mostly) for a meterial component at later levels.

Take another look at divine power

Divine Power
Evocation
Level: Clr 4, War 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level

Calling upon the divine power of your patron, you imbue yourself with strength and skill in combat. Your base attack bonus becomes equal to your character level (which may give you additional attacks), you gain a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength, and you gain 1 temporary hit point per caster level.
You gain a bonus to Strength, more Hit points, and your base attack bonus BECOMES a Fighters.

Compare to

Transformation
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level

You become a virtual fighting machine—stronger, tougher, faster, and more skilled in combat. Your mind-set changes so that you relish combat and you can’t cast spells, even from magic items.

You gain a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, a +4 natural armor bonus to AC, a +5 competence bonus on Fortitude saves, and proficiency with all simple and martial weapons. Your base attack bonus equals your character level (which may give you multiple attacks).

You lose your spellcasting ability, including your ability to use spell trigger or spell completion magic items, just as if the spells were no longer on your class list.
Material Component

A potion of bull’s strength, which you drink (and whose effects are subsumed by the spell effects).
This is a poor option for a Caster as look, you loose spell casting and you do not gain any Hit Points (except 2/Level from Con, which still leaves you behind Divine Power)

[JackMage666]

See, and I don't see why divine power is so great.

Divine Power -
+6 Strength, BAB=Character Level, 1 temporary hp/CL

Tenser's Transformation -
+4 Str/Dex/Con, BAB=Character Level, 2 hp/level (lost at end of casting), +5 to Fort Saves, Proficiencys, +4 Nat. AC, but lose the ability to cast spells.

Tenser's Transformation is winning in my book, still. Both are strong, yes, but also put the squishy character in the heat of battle. Also, now both have a (somewhat) costly material component, so it seems fair. But I guess that's just me. Either way, it's like Polymorph. I'll allow it, but if my players use it wrong, their will be reprocussions.

[JackMage666]

Or, how about if I made it, like Tenser's, where the caster could not cast spells? Would that even it out more?

[Aquillion]

See, and I don't see why divine power is so great.What it really comes down to is that most wizard / sorc builds aren't going to have the slightest combat ability or combat-related stats (except a bit of con, which won't help what with their low dice and all). Tenser's Transformation is giving its bonuses to people who start with nothing, so they're still going to be weaker than a normal melee class in the end. All those armor bonuses, say, are just to make up for the fact that they probably started barely-armored.

Clerics, by comparison, will often lend themselves well to melee builds that are already half-decent even before they cast divine power. Then they keep all their old class abilities, they get a higher strength bonus, and they had the AC and extra hp. And don't forget they get it two spell levels lower, too.

[JackMage666]

Well, the cloistered cleric variant for all clerics should help eliminate the huge differences between sorcerers and clerics.

Personally, I'm more worried about in the hands of a Favored Soul, who's now a battle oriented cleric.

I need a battle oriented arcane caster now. But, that's already made for me, in the form of the Battle Sorcerer.

I'll do it one better.

Arcanix - See Battle Sorcerer. Uses the Metamagic Specialist from the PHB II, and gains Eschew Materials at 1st level. at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, he gains one metamagic spell as a bonus feat.

[JackMage666]

Hmm... Last post reminded me that metamagic is now mostly obsolete... I'll make a new feat, I suppose.

Metamagic Caster (General)
Prereqs - Caster 5th, Spellcraft 8 Ranks, any metamagic feat
Benefit - You can use metamagic without increasing casting time.
Special - Any spellcasting class can take this feat as a bonus feat.

[clericwithnogod]

Cloistered cleric balances nothing. It gives free stuff to a cleric that focuses on casting rather than melee. All you're doing is enforcing a flavor change from clerics being able to cast well or fight well depending on how they build to clerics that cast well.

Pace your campaign according to the rules, ditch divine metamagic, and explain to the players that them going nova inefficiently with stacked self buffs doesn't obligate you to change the pace of events so they can rest and recover.

Remember that the cleric can only recover spells once per day at a set time. It's not like wizards and their eight hour rest, leave a spot open and do something in 15 minutes thing.

If they blow them anyway, have them fail at something because of it. Otherwise, you're just rewarding poor tactics. A cleric of a war god that casts divine power each battle at 9th or 10th level isn't blowing his slots, he's being what he is - a cleric that fights. One that casts divine power and righteous might during each battle at 9th or 10th level or one that casts divine power, righteous might and a quickened divine favor is using his slots inefficiently and that's going to limit his and the party's success.

If you have a problem with the number of spells a cleric has, figure out the number of encounters you're normally going to be having before rest and do the math. If you have three encounters rather than four, give him 3/4 the spell per day, if two rather than four, give him 1/2.

Remember that this is going to make your campaign that much more deadly. If you're running according to the DMG, making some encounters more dangerous than others and thus needing more resources than others, when you hit a little bit higher CR encounter, the cleric isn't going to be able to burn more slots sometimes. That means no "Align Weapon, Mass" for something with a high DR, no Holy Storm when a bunch of summons appear and no Dispel Magic or Remove Fear spell when the fighter fails a save.

Teamwork means giving everyone a chance to be a star and this is Dungeons and Dragons not Grey's Anatomy, so being a star means killing dragons and taking the dragons gold while saving princesses, not spending combat time standing behind the fighter touching him a lot. Clerics already spend a bunch of slots healing the fighter after battles and curing him of whatever he catches from the serving girl at the tavern. Taking away the cleric's ability to use his remaining slots to do something interesting and fun like attacking the enemy doesn't balance the game, it just makes it less fun for the player of the cleric.

[JackMage666]

OK, here's my deal with casters (in stricly my opinion) in regard to the Wizard, Clerics, and Druids spell lists and my reasosn for doing away with them.

For starters, none of the players I'll have really understand the idea of the large spell selection they can get, and it's much easier and less confusing for them if I do away with it for my game. It's much easier to say "You learn 1 second level spell and 1 third level spell", than "You now gain access to the entire 3rd level spell list, and can prepare whatever you want from it every day." They don't get that, so I'm just going to make spontaneous casters the norm.

As well, in strictly my opinion, I don't like the idea of the huge adaptable spell list. Sure, you have to plan ahead, but I don't think that's enough. Magic should not be something that someone can do anything in, I think. A 20th level caster is great and all, but I want him to see another caster's spell and think "Man, I can't do that.", because, again, in my opinion, I don't think anyone should be able to master a force as potent as magic, whether divine or arcane.

I still realize that a well built caster can easily be overpowering, but I shouldn't have that problem with my players. As well, I realize that not all characters who are Druid, Clerics, and Wizards will be greatly overpowered. But, I feel for flavor purposes and game purposes, my system of magic will work better for my campaign.

And, it is my campaign world after all, none of you have to play it.

Chances are, none of the players will want to be casters anyway, since they are afraid of reading about spells, so maybe this is all useless to build.

[SMDVogrin]

Hmm... Last post reminded me that metamagic is now mostly obsolete... I'll make a new feat, I suppose.

Metamagic Caster (General)
Prereqs - Caster 5th, Spellcraft 8 Ranks, any metamagic feat
Benefit - You can use metamagic without increasing casting time.
Special - Any spellcasting class can take this feat as a bonus feat.

Don't need a new one, Rapid Metamagic is already in Complete Mage:
Prereq: Spellcraft 12 ranks, ability to spontaneously cast
Benefit: When you apply a metamagic feat to a spontaneously cast spell, the spell takes only its normal casting time.