Psionics+ToB+ToM = A balanced game?

[ClericofPhwarrr]

So I'm planning on DMing a game in the near future. After enough time seeing how overpowered the PHB magic system is, I've become sick of it. I'd like to take this game to higher levels, but without the horrible caster/other disparity normally found there. I'm really annoyed with the inbalance inherent in the system.

So I'm not using the normal arcane/divine magic system. Psionics will be the main replacement. Melee classes will get Tome of Battle as an option with the normal Complete series choices. And I'm also looking at adding Tome of Magic classes so that the caster options aren't so limited. So I have two main questions here.

Will psionics and ToB give a balance between the casters and meleers?

What parts of ToM are balanced with psionics/ToB? Binders look quite balanced and fun, but I'm not sure about Truenamers or Shadowmancers, (especially Shadowmancers, who look like they have some overpowered spells).

[GryffonDurime]

The general consensus, so far as I've seen regarding the Shadowcasters, is that mysteries are largely inferior to PHB spells; the number of powerful, breakable options is greatly reduced and a caster has fewer attempts at each per day. Truenamers are generally regarded as weaker than wizards and their ilk, unless the DM allows for some truly cheesey combos to pump Truespeaking into the stratosphere. Barring such things, they're largely seen as the peer of the warlock.

I'd love to see a psionics/martial adept/binder/truespeaker campaign; I'm largely indifferent about the Shadowcaster.

[The_Snark]

Don't worry about Shadowmancers; they do have a few good spells, but their extremely limited use and selection will balance this out a lot. In fact, the shadowcasters will likely be overshadowed by the other classes. They're still a lot of fun, though.

Which mysteries were you worried about?

Psionics and Tome of Battle are probably pretty balanced. Binders fit well into the curve there, too. Truenamers... need a good reworking, because as it is they're usually fairly bad and occasionally overpowered.

[Fax Celestis]

Will psionics and ToB give a balance between the casters and meleers?

Yes. Absolutely yes. I would also recommend allowing Magic of Incarnum (no, not a caster book) to give options to those who don't like ToB.


What parts of ToM are balanced with psionics/ToB? Binders look quite balanced and fun, but I'm not sure about Truenamers or Shadowmancers, (especially Shadowmancers, who look like they have some overpowered spells).

Shadowcasters seem overpowered, but you have to realize that they have far less versatility than even a sorceror. Their mystery selection is incredibly limited--particularly with their forced need to branch out into multiple paths to learn higher-level mysteries--and they're unable to apply metamagic frequently. They're actually quite balanced (and some say that they're very weak).

Truenamers also seem strong, until you realize how incredibly ridiculous the casting DCs can get. (15 + 2*CR) is incredibly difficult to hit at higher levels without serious twinkage. I personally houserule (15 + 3*Utterance Level) for the cast DC, altering the skill itself to not allow bonuses from outside sources (except for ability modifiers).

Also, I hope you realize that you're going to have a very gritty world without any curative magic (besides the Truenamer's powers and some self-only psionic powers). I would recommend providing a feat that gives the Paladin's Lay on Hands (or better, the Dragon Shaman's Touch of Vitality), probably doing Class Level * Cha mod or Wis mod.

[Fourth Tempter]

Psionics and Tome of Battle are very well-balanced against each other (splashing a little psionics onto your Tome of Battle character is, however, delicious), and the Binder can compete if built well but will lag behind if made poorly. Shadowcasters are.. well, I have have seen one played, but the word on the internet street is that they're on the weak side, but they are spellcasteresque; I have seen a number of suggested "fixes", including by the author of that section of the Tome of Magic, largely revolving around making them more useful at low levels.
Truenamers are not particularily playable.

Tome of Battle is also on the same level as specialized or secondary spellcasters--the Dread Necromancer, the Beguiler, the Favored Soul, the Spirit Shaman, the Shugenja, and so on, so you would be fairly safe including them.

[Jasdoif]

Also, I hope you realize that you're going to have a very gritty world without any curative magic (besides the Truenamer's powers and some self-only psionic powers).Empathic transfer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/empathicTransfer.htm) followed by those self-only psionic powers is also an option.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Also, I hope you realize that you're going to have a very gritty world without any curative magic (besides the Truenamer's powers and some self-only psionic powers). I would recommend providing a feat that gives the Paladin's Lay on Hands (or better, the Dragon Shaman's Touch of Vitality), probably doing Class Level * Cha mod or Wis mod.

Bah. When you get used to d20 Modern and games where nobody wants to play a cleric healing stops being important.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Glad to hear this would work. Some notes:

I understand Incarnum is pretty balanced, but I don't enjoy using it.

A gritty world is more what I'm looking for. Though there's a surprising amount of healing available: Crusader during battle, Truenamer after, psionic self-healing/empathic transfer, and Ardents. I'd also allow CW-style pallys and rangers (though why people would take them over Crusader/Swordsage I don't know). In fact, restricting the Truenamer so that everyone couldn't be healed for free after every confrontation might be in order.

And GryffonDurime, I'll give you a pm when the recruitment thread is up, though I have no clue when that'll be.

[Fax Celestis]

In fact, restricting the Truenamer so that everyone couldn't be healed for free after every confrontation might be in order.


Remember the Law of Resistance: every time you speak an utterance, the DC increases by 2.

[GryffonDurime]

Remember the Law of Resistance: every time you speak an utterance, the DC increases by 2.

Meaning that the Truenamer will quickly reach a point where the check becomes absolutely impossible to make.

Hmm...what effect will this have on your proposed world's economy of mystic goods, then? When you throw out Arcane and Divine magic, you have to ask yourself what types of items and equipment need conversion to psionic or the like, what simply gets thrown out, and what's simply a question of a change in name. Because, for example, I don't believe there are (by RAW) any psionic items that confer stat bonuses...which could add greatly to the feel of your world, but could also prove irksome.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Remember the Law of Resistance: every time you speak an utterance, the DC increases by 2.

Missed that. That does tend to fix things.


Hmm...what effect will this have on your proposed world's economy of mystic goods, then? When you throw out Arcane and Divine magic, you have to ask yourself what types of items and equipment need conversion to psionic or the like, what simply gets thrown out, and what's simply a question of a change in name. Because, for example, I don't believe there are (by RAW) any psionic items that confer stat bonuses...which could add greatly to the feel of your world, but could also prove irksome.

Some stuff will be converted, some stuff thrown out, and some stuff homebrewed. I'm still debating as to whether magic goods will be in such abundance that every household has them to a limited degree (not Eberron, but along that train of thought) or whether they'll be so rare that a simple +4 stat booster is an enormous boon. I also intend to use personalized legacy items, possibly even more than one per player. Since I'm in a game where arcane magic items are not allowed (though psionic and divine magic items are), I'm getting a feel for what works.

[GryffonDurime]

Hmm...to that end, what about the Psionic Artificer? A simple enough variant, but helps to explain where all the hoozits and whatzits come from.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Hmm...to that end, what about the Psionic Artificer? A simple enough variant, but helps to explain where all the hoozits and whatzits come from.

Is this just a converted Artificer, or is it found somewhere particular? I've skimmed briefly over the Artificer class, but have never been in a game with one.

[GryffonDurime]

Is this just a converted Artificer, or is it found somewhere particular? I've skimmed briefly over the Artificer class, but have never been in a game with one.

The variations are listed officially in Magic of Eberron, but really the changes are obvious: Use Magic Item becomes Use Psionic Item, Wand becomes Dorje, Wondrous Item becomes Universal Item, Scroll becomes Power Stone, ad nauseum.

[SpiderBrigade]

Somehow I think if the plan is to make a more balanced game...putting artificers in there might be a bad idea.

On the other hand, they might not be as powerful without wizards and clerics around to imitate. I guess it depends on what you let them do.

[Emperor Tippy]

You could just say that most of the arcane and divine full casters traveled to the outlands thousands of years ago for (Insert high level plot point here) and they can't come back to the material plane for more than a day per level at a time (they have to stay back in the outlands for an equal amount of time).

There. You now have all the magic items you could ever want in the game, you have a very valid reason for no full casters on the material plane (no one to teach the wizards, sorcerers don't exist/have been weeded out of the bloodline/are the ancestors of the other casting types and have evolved, and the gods are blocked from giving clerics power on the material plane (perhaps it deals with that plot point).

You can use wizards and other full casters as NPC's and BBEG's in the end game fairly easily (they may not be present in body often but they have a large hand in material plane stuff) as well.

[GryffonDurime]

You could just say that most of the arcane and divine full casters traveled to the outlands thousands of years ago for (Insert high level plot point here) and they can't come back to the material plane for more than a day per level at a time (they have to stay back in the outlands for an equal amount of time).

There. You now have all the magic items you could ever want in the game, you have a very valid reason for no full casters on the material plane (no one to teach the wizards, sorcerers don't exist/have been weeded out of the bloodline/are the ancestors of the other casting types and have evolved, and the gods are blocked from giving clerics power on the material plane (perhaps it deals with that plot point).

You can use wizards and other full casters as NPC's and BBEG's in the end game fairly easily (they may not be present in body often but they have a large hand in material plane stuff) as well.

I see that done a lot, but honestly? I'd rather see the interesting developments of a world COMPLETELY free of Arcana and the Divine.

[SpiderBrigade]

I see that done a lot, but honestly? I'd rather see the interesting developments of a world COMPLETELY free of Arcana and the Divine.So...D20 modern then? :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin:

[Emperor Tippy]

It's been free for say 10,000 years. Pretty much completely free.

Most people wouldn't even know that wizards had ever existed. Perhaps they are permanently blocked from getting to the material plane (epic spell that shields the world from that stuff wouldn't be to hard to make).

so psions can plane shift to sigl and pick up magic items but the mages can't get to the prime material. People with their level of magic are blocked from the world.

To compensate for the loss of magic the races evolved psionics over a hundred thousand years or so, and to combat this the previously magical races (such as dragons) evolved as well.

Play completely without transparency and it could be very fun.

[JaronK]

An easy way to get magic items in is to allow Warlocks. They're balanced with the rest, and can create any magic item.

I'm actually working out a campaign where the only magic users are Binders and Warlocks, though I dropped Buer to a 1st level vestige and let Warlocks heal with eldritch blasts, healing 1d3 points of damage for every 1d6 damage they would normally be able to do.

JaronK

[ChaosOfTheStick]

Im currently running a non-magic, psionics only game and everything seems to be running smoothly. I made up a base class version of the sangehirn presented in the Mind's Eye articles for healing and have psionic artificers for saturating the world with psionic items.

As for the power of the psionic artificer, it appears to me atleast so far that without Perisist and other metamagic feats available in psionic varieties that they are deffinately less powerful than they're magic using kin.

[GryffonDurime]

See, now, in this respect it's really more a flavor choice than a mechanics choice, but the prospect of a world that has never had arcane or divine magic just seems to be the most interesting prospect to me, at least.

Inviting Sigil into the mix in homebrew settings is generally just asking for the degregation of any sense of wonder you've built up about your own world. And like I said, in most cases the conversion of Wondrous to Universal item is a matter of name and flavor: oh, this Headband of Intellect? It's now a third eye of mental awakening.

[Emperor Tippy]

An easy way to get magic items in is to allow Warlocks. They're balanced with the rest, and can create any magic item.

I'm actually working out a campaign where the only magic users are Binders and Warlocks, though I dropped Buer to a 1st level vestige and let Warlocks heal with eldritch blasts, healing 1d3 points of damage for every 1d6 damage they would normally be able to do.

JaronK

I forgot about that ability of the warlock. That solves the magic item issues.

As for Sigil, just make it any epic, extraplanar, city of your choice.

In my next game I have all the outer realms and extraplanar stuff (yes even Sigil) but it won't affect anything.

The Material plane is made up of a universe as large as ours in real life. The empire takes up only about a hundred thousand star systems worth of that space. Various other entities control another couple million star systems. The rest is unknown space. The gods don't interfere in affairs in the empire for one simple reason, fear. They grant magic to clerics and work to win converts but they don't intervene.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Ah yes, Warlocks. They might end up being the only arcane casters allowed in (along with bards, whom I'm thinking about adjusting for this; Naming Magic seems similar enough flavor-wise to bardic music for bards to get some access to it. Alternatively, the Thoughtsinger (http://www.bossythecow.com/classes.htm) seems fairly balanced; anyone care to give their thoughts on it?).

Then again, changing the flavor of magic items might be more rewarding in the long-term. As for allowing Sigil, as handy as it can be to some campaigns, I doubt I'll be using it in any games I run for quite some time.

Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions so far.

[Sornas]

I don't have a lot of personal experience with Psionics, but from what I have read, this seems like it would work out to be pretty well-balanced.

Though, I will say it seems sort of odd for warlocks to be creating magic items. They can create them as if they knew the spell with a UMD check, right? But if those spells don't exist in the first place, because there are no arcane casters (unless you go with Tippy's idea), then what exactly are you emulating?

I guess you can change around the flavor to be less mimicry and more "imbue with personal power," but as written, the flavor seems kind of odd.

Either way, I'm also very interested in this game. ^^ Would you mind telling us when the recruitment thread goes up?

[Emperor Tippy]

Yeah, I am interested as well.

How do you feel about 20,000 year old Elan psions running around?

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Either way, I'm also very interested in this game. ^^ Would you mind telling us when the recruitment thread goes up?

Of course. *Makes note of 3 people to pm*


How do you feel about 20,000 year old Elan psions running around?

They're welcome aboard.

Note for those interested: until I figure everything out, the only stuff I've decided on is a homebrew world, heavy RP, starting at levels 1-3, and the previous stuff mentioned. (Besides, if I say any more, this thread will be in the wrong forum.)

[NEO|Phyte]

You can add another person to your list :smallbiggrin:
Not sure what I'd be, but I've got some ideas.

[Emperor Tippy]

Yeah, I'm thinking Psion.

How do you feel about 32 point buy or higher?

It's fairly easy to add points, but its a pain to take them away.

I would much prefer level 3 to level 1 (how do you explain a 20,000 year old Psion who is level 1? and level 1 is boring).

How do you feel about adding plot points to your backround?

[Gralamin]

This makes sense, and sounds balanced from how you've described it. Great job.[/back on topic]

[PhoeKun]

Is this an actual, recruiting game, or just a thought exercise? Or was it one and now the other?

Regardless... well, ok, I have nothing new to add. S'all been said already. Still, this is a very interesting idea for creating a sense of game balance without large amounts of screwing with the rules, and I for one would play in such a game in a heartbeat.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

This will be an actual game on the boards. Recruitment has not started, but will be in the appropriate forum. All those who have expressed interest here will get a pm when the thread is up. If you express interest after this, please pm me and I'll add you to the list (since I don't want to break any rules by having this turn into a recruitment thread, and my questions have been answered). Due to some misunderstanding in pm's I've gotten, I'd like to clarify: I'm not recruiting at this point, but adding interested people to the list of people to pm when the recruitment thread is up. While I'm at it, if you pm, assume I've added you.

Tippy: I will get back to you once I've decided, but 32 pt would be the max. Other stuff is still up in the air.

[Behold_the_Void]

From what I can tell, it sounds fairly balanced. And interesting to boot, go ahead and throw me on the PM list if you so desire.

[nows7]

I've not had much experience with the TOB, and i've not read the TOM, so please take my misunderstandings with patience. if you re considering adding the warlock, you should think about how they interact with truenamers and soulbinders(?) and such. Diffrent ways of acsessing the same dark powers? Perhaps you could form a couple of other varients of the warlock for other forces? A fey warlock who gets a bonus to trickery and enchantment, but can't use the more flashy evocations (no fire or such), a more destructive force could give full BAB, higher HD, but ll his eldrich blasts much be delivered on a melee attack (not a touch) and doesn't get the UMD bounus's and such.


I'lll say what i've said before when people talk about settings without arcane magic: Read Vorpal_Tribble's "Dying Ember" campain setting. He did a great job of using psinics and divine and cutting the arcane almost completely out. Of course he also incuded the Wujen, which you may wish to do as well. While they are full arcane casters, they don't have the timestop/fireball/cloudkill/etc power of a Wiz/Sor.

Drop me a Pm when you open recruitment as well please.

[Corncracker]

Wow, quite a few people want this. Add me in too, I might be interested in the Variant Bard, as Bards are fun.

[Khantalas]

Ooh. This is awfully like a setting I was working on.

PM me, too. I'd like to see how it works out.

[Corncracker]

I get the feeling if you don't ready a massive Campaign for many people, many a poster a going to be upset.

[puppyavenger]

PM for me to please

[BardicDuelist]

For warlocks, I would consider changing UMD to UPD simply not to take away one of their abilities (and one of the few things that can add versitility).

Monte Cook has an interesting bard variant in Arcana Unearthed (not UA), a third party book. This revolves around music more, and so would fit the no arcane magic if you'd like to check it out.

[Draz74]

Here's what I suggest:

Allow all Psionics and Tome of Battle stuff, like you're planning, as well as that old staple, the least controversial of all PHB classes, the Rogue.

Allow the Scout from CAdv. If people want to play a Ranger but don't want to be weak, then Scout/Swordsage probably will make them feel a lot more Ranger-ish than a pure Swordsage. And people seem to think, pretty consistently, that the Scout is on par with the Rogue in terms of power.

You want to include the Bard, but not his spellcasting; and you like the Truenamer, but he's too weak to go with the psionic and ToB characters. So make a Bard class which is basically a Bard//Truenamer gestalt combo, minus the Bard's usual spellcasting. It's up to you whether the Truenaming skill still exists and powers the Bard's Utterances, or whether the bard can now cast Utterances through his Perform skill.

Likewise, you like the Warlock's ability to create magic items, but the Warlock will be awfully weak in this campaign. But his flavor is nearly identical to the Binder's. So give the Binder Use Magic Device, Deceive Item, and Imbue Item. If that makes him too strong, then nerf some of his minor stuff -- remove Soul Guardian abilities, or give him a poor Fort save, or something.

Drop the classes that are too weak to fit with this campaign: Soulknife, Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Barbarian, Shadowcaster, Monk. You can hopefully duplicate them all with combos of better classes.

So you'd have the following base classes:

Ardent
Bard (with Truenamer-style casting)
Binder (with Warlock abilities sprinkled in)
Crusader
Divine Mind
Lurk
Psion
Psychic Warrior
Rogue
Scout
Swordsage
Warblade
Wilder

That looks like a very well-rounded, fun, and balanced set of base classes to me. If anything, the Rogue, Scout, and Wilder will lag behind the others a bit. (And maybe the Complete Psionic classes; I know very little about them.)

You could probably allow the Swashbuckler, Shadowcaster, Soulknife, Knight, and Dragon Shaman too, without violating any of the principles you're trying to achieve in this campaign; but they'd all be weak. If you can find good house rules to buff them up, I think they'd add good options (especially the Dragon Shaman's auras). The Knight needs less buffing than the others; the Soulknife needs more.

[Were-Sandwich]

Another one for the magic list.

[Bagera]

Also, I hope you realize that you're going to have a very gritty world without any curative magic (besides the Truenamer's powers and some self-only psionic powers). I would recommend providing a feat that gives the Paladin's Lay on Hands (or better, the Dragon Shaman's Touch of Vitality), probably doing Class Level * Cha mod or Wis mod.

A vigor followed by an empathic transfer is perfect for healing.

[Morty]

That looks really interesting. I'd be maybe interested in playing some of the Tome of Magic casters but alas, I don't have the book.