Reining in Tier One casters. Make them mostly-spontaneous, with a loophole. PEACH.

[johnbragg]

Premise: Tier 2-4 is okay. Tier 1 and 5 are the problem child classes. So the aim is to knock the Tier 1s down to Tier 2 without completely rearranging the background world.

Premise: I like the fluff of book-based magic-users, and 3.5 assumes access to certain spells (things like restoration, neutralize poison, raise dead, stone to flesh, atonement plus spells that let you adventure in certain environments--water breathing, plane shift)

Preference: I like to keep fixes relatively simple. Repurposing existing math and text is preferable to building from scratch, and creating new unforeseen problems.

Thought experiment.

First, make the Tier Ones spontaneous casters. Wizard is now an Int-based Sorcerer. Clerics and Druids use the Spontaneous Divine Caster option. Sorcerers? MAgical powers based on special-snowflake bloodlines are known as Warlocks, with or without refluffing.

Second, since the game assumes that a variety of spells are somewhat available to the PCs, we build in an escape hatch. Tier 1 casters CAN use one of their spells-per-day slots to memorize and cast a spell from a book, using a Spellcraft check.

By the existing rules, the Spellcraft check for this is trivial, 15 + SL. WE haven't really done anything to make casting from a book harder. So instead of 15 + SL, how about 20 + (SL*CL), scaling the same way magic item prices scale. So casting a 1st level spell from a spellbook is a DC 21, a

SL DC
1 21
2 26
3 35
4 48
5 65
6 86
7 111
8 140
9 173

And then to hit those ridiculous DCs, you start adapting systems like Circle Magic. This means casting a low-level utility spell for a scroll is doable, with a reasonable amount of effort. Getting a mid to high level spell requires the PCs to either gather allies willing to help or go through significant shenanigans to get their Spellcraft check boosted that high.

PEACH: Why is this idea terrible and bad and unworkable.

[JNAProductions]

This doesn't really solve anything. Sorcerers can already break the game, with proper spell selection-limiting Wizards to a Sorcerer-like spells known will probably drop them to T2, barring massive shenanigans to boost your Spellcraft, but 1) those shenanigans are possible, and 2) T2 can easily bust the game wide open.

Honestly, I would recommend that, if you're having trouble at your table, talk to your players and ask them to tone down their characters. If, however, this is just a general "How to tone down T1 people", I'd extend it to T2 people as well, since they can break the game (just not as hard as T1 or in as many ways) and focus on making everyone fit T3-4.

A good recommendation I've seen is to just delete classes like Sorcerer and Wizard-replaced by more specific casters, like Beguiler, or Dread Necromancer.

[johnbragg]

This doesn't really solve anything.

First of all, thanks for reading and responding. I do mean that.


Sorcerers can already break the game, with proper spell selection-limiting Wizards to a Sorcerer-like spells known will probably drop them to T2, barring massive shenanigans to boost your Spellcraft, but 1) those shenanigans are possible, and 2) T2 can easily bust the game wide open.

The shenanigans are possible, but they're fairly resource-intensive, and usually have things that DMs can "nope" comfortably. Google's first result http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?208321-DnD-3-5-Optimizing-Spellcraft-for-Incanatrix requires 2 feats, Item Familiar rules, a +10 Spellcraft item, and gets you to +52. Let's take the rest of the suggestions and you're at a +60.

Looking at my numbers, after all that a 10th level arcane caster optimized for Spellcraft still has a 25% chance of failiing the DC 65 check for a 5th level spell.


Honestly, I would recommend that, if you're having trouble at your table, talk to your players and ask them to tone down their characters. If, however, this is just a general "How to tone down T1 people", I'd extend it to T2 people as well, since they can break the game (just not as hard as T1 or in as many ways) and focus on making everyone fit T3-4.

It's a theoretical exercise right now. But I've seen a T1 break games basically by accident. This was in the early days at the dawn of 3X, so probably just knowing it's possible is enough to avoid the problem.


A good recommendation I've seen is to just delete classes like Sorcerer and Wizard-replaced by more specific casters, like Beguiler, or Dread Necromancer.

The T3 casters have a lot of fans, but I'm arbitrarily ruling out fixes that require rewriting huge amounts or designing a half-dozen new classes.

[Anymage]

Assuming a gentleman's agreement that nobody uses the really campaign busting spells, looks okay for a quick n' dirty fix. Get your players to agree to work in themes, it'll be even better.

T2 still wouldn't be ideal if you were building a system from the ground up. But only having to plan for a handful of abilities per player instead of dozens (a reasonable wizard's spellbook) or hundreds (practically everything on the cleric's spell list) will save an appreciable amount of frustration.

[Cosi]

The fundamental problem with the Wizard is not that you can cast glitterdust, or even that you can cast glitterdust today and web tomorrow. Those are just fair things to do, and the classes that can't contribute in the face of that usually also can't contribute in the face of level appropriate monsters (which, at high levels, often simply are full casters). The problem is that Wizards can cast planar binding, which breaks the game. A solution that takes away their ability to switch between glitterdust and web, but not their ability to cast planar binding is a bad solution.

[johnbragg]

Assuming a gentleman's agreement that nobody uses the really campaign busting spells, looks okay for a quick n' dirty fix. Get your players to agree to work in themes, it'll be even better.

T2 still wouldn't be ideal if you were building a system from the ground up. But only having to plan for a handful of abilities per player instead of dozens (a reasonable wizard's spellbook) or hundreds (practically everything on the cleric's spell list) will save an appreciable amount of frustration.

Thanks. Any thoughts on the "safety valve" mechanic?


The fundamental problem with the Wizard is not that you can cast glitterdust, or even that you can cast glitterdust today and web tomorrow. Those are just fair things to do, and the classes that can't contribute in the face of that usually also can't contribute in the face of level appropriate monsters (which, at high levels, often simply are full casters).

There is truth in this, but my bias is towards Tier 2-4, which indicates dialing back the monsters rather than cutting off the lower half of the Tiers.


The problem is that Wizards can cast planar binding, which breaks the game. A solution that takes away their ability to switch between glitterdust and web, but not their ability to cast planar binding is a bad solution.

I've thought about what you said, and you're not entirely wrong. But solutions on that scale involve things like write new RPG from scratch, or the related play 5e. And I'm running a sporadic 5e campaign, but I'm old and grumpy about changing over from 3e.

Limiting spells known limits the planar binding problem, because there are only so many level-relevant spells that the DM has to plan for or, failing that, adjudicate on the fly. When glitterdust and web are heavy hitters, the main culprits are alter self and summon monster.

Sorcerer spells known means the DM knows what the casters are bringing to the table. The safety valve mechanic means that the DM has notice when the players want/need to bring something else to the table.

Any thoughts on the safety valve mechanic?

[Cosi]

There is truth in this, but my bias is towards Tier 2-4, which indicates dialing back the monsters rather than cutting off the lower half of the Tiers.

This seems totally inconsistent with your position that we shouldn't change planar binding because that's too much work. There are more than a hundred monsters in the first Monster Manual. There aren't that many classes in the entire game. If your goal is to balance the game with minimal work, you have already committed to the balance point where monsters are which is, at high levels, full casters.


I've thought about what you said, and you're not entirely wrong. But solutions on that scale involve things like write new RPG from scratch, or the related play 5e. And I'm running a sporadic 5e campaign, but I'm old and grumpy about changing over from 3e.

I don't see how that's true. The broken spells probably number less than two dozen. Fixing that many spells barely seems likely to take more than a single thread, let alone a whole RPG.


Limiting spells known limits the planar binding problem, because there are only so many level-relevant spells that the DM has to plan for or, failing that, adjudicate on the fly. When glitterdust and web are heavy hitters, the main culprits are alter self and summon monster.

No it doesn't. planar binding's problem isn't that your DM doesn't realize "hey, he can cast planar binding", its that planar binding is broken. The fact that your DM knows in advance you can bind allies more powerful than yourself doesn't do anything to make that ability anything other than obscene.

Also, summon monster is not and has never been broken. Spending your turn to summon a monster with CR around half your level is a parlor trick at best.


Any thoughts on the safety valve mechanic?

Gating abilities behind skill checks is dumb and terrible. Skill checks are either stupidly low if you don't cheese them up, or stupidly high if you do. If you want people to get some number of free picks, just give them some number of free picks.

[johnbragg]

Gating abilities behind skill checks is dumb and terrible. Skill checks are either stupidly low if you don't cheese them up, or stupidly high if you do. If you want people to get some number of free picks, just give them some number of free picks.

I want the picks to be neither free nor out of reach.

I'm thinking that this mechanic costs the players both
A. Time--8 hours of spellbook work to learn the spell to cast it once and either
B. 1. Plot work--rallying allies to contribute resources to the pseudo-Circle Magic (Aid Another reskinned?)
B. 2. Build resources--as the player spends feats and magic-item budget to boost the Spellcraft check to the ridiculous DCs to use higher level spells.

(The rest is ground we've gone over before.)

EDIT: The way to dial back the monsters is not to rewrite the monster manual, it's to use different monsters.
And summon monster is an issue not because it's overpowered, but because gameplay stops while the player goes bookdiving. My solution that your summon monster spell gives you one summoned form per caster level. It's a spell line where the DM should have some kind of houserule. That's what I mean by an issue.

[Cosi]

A. Time--8 hours of spellbook work to learn the spell to cast it once and either

Time tends not to work terribly well as a limiting factor, because it necessitates that every adventure have some kind of time constraint.


B. 1. Plot work--rallying allies to contribute resources to the pseudo-Circle Magic (Aid Another reskinned?)

If I can take Leadership, I can get enough caster followers to hit all of these targets for one feat (pretty sure)


B. 2. Build resources--as the player spends feats and magic-item budget to boost the Spellcraft check to the ridiculous DCs to use higher level spells.

I think Incantatrix probably proves that it does not place a particularly serious constraint on your build to get Spellcraft checks that are "very large".


The way to dial back the monsters is not to rewrite the monster manual, it's to use different monsters.

That sentence is doing a lot more work than you seem to think it is.


And summon monster is an issue not because it's overpowered, but because gameplay stops while the player goes bookdiving. My solution that your summon monster spell gives you one summoned form per caster level. It's a spell line where the DM should have some kind of houserule. That's what I mean by an issue.

The only way it's remotely justifiable is if it gets the whole list. If you want to reduce the complexity, write out stats for the celestial and fiendish critters.