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shadowkat678
2017-08-27, 03:18 PM
Just got a 3.5e handbook and might try to run a game in the future, but I hear a lot about how overpowered magic users are compared to non-magic classes. Has anyone come up with solutions to balance it out? Come up with revised class like 5e did to fix the complaints about Rangers? And just lower the rate players gain strength overall, so you can stay with less world shattering story plots longer while still allowing players to be challenged?

rferries
2017-08-27, 04:42 PM
These are very much brute-force solutions, but may I suggest the revised classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22229504&postcount=297) (Bard, Paladin, Ranger, and Wizard) in my signature? The first three have had their power level increased, and the Wizard has had its power level decreased.

Deepbluediver
2017-08-27, 11:11 PM
The short answer is "no" because it's not magic-users per se that are broken, but spells, and to a lesser extent the fact that many non-magic-using classes are underpowered compared to encounters that are supposedly designed for their level. You will never achieve true class parity in 3.5 without redoing a majority of all the material ever printed.
Now, there are a number of bandaid-fixes, such as simply banning the most OP spells or the tier 1 and 2 classes, but at the end of the day I think the best short fix is just to ask your players not to go crazy.

That being said, you can play plenty of games where it's not a problem. What sort of campaign are you planning an how experienced are your players? What sourcebooks do you have available? Maybe we can make some suggestions, like telling you to use the Tome of Battle classes instead for anyone who wants to play a Fighter, Monk, or Paladin.

Lalliman
2017-08-28, 02:28 PM
Since you mention slowing the rate of power gain, you might consider using the E6 rules. These cap out class levels at 6th, and from there the character only advances by taking feats. This means they can continue advancing indefinitely, but they never get to the point of being basically Superman, nor do casters get access to the type of spells that can derail the entire setting. The caster/martial imbalance is greatest at high levels, so this goes a long way in solving it.

I haven't used them myself though, so maybe someone else can give you better info on what it's like. You can also just google it.

Nifft
2017-08-28, 03:07 PM
Just got a 3.5e handbook and might try to run a game in the future, but I hear a lot about how overpowered magic users are compared to non-magic classes. Has anyone come up with solutions to balance it out?

Absolute power isn't a problem -- the DM can scale the opposition to challenge any group of PCs. Relative power can be a problem. Get all your PCs within the same range of power, and you've eliminated this potential issue.

Thus, the most-used fix with the least tampering is: Everyone plays characters which are roughly equal in power.

This means:

- If you want a game of Wizards, Clerics, and Druids, then everyone plays a T1-T2 spellcaster. There are all types of spellcasters, so this isn't much of a limitation. Instead of a Rogue, you'd have a Beguiler. Instead of a Fighter, you'd have a Cleric or Druid.

- If you want a high-magic game but not quite that high magic, then everyone plays a T2-T3 character. This includes some primary spellcasters (Psion, Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Beguiler), but it's generally less broken than the above.

- If you want a mid-magic game, then everyone plays a T3-T4 character. There are all types of these characters, so this isn't much of a limitation. Barbarians, Binders, Warlocks, Wildshape Mystic Rangers, Rogues, Scouts, and Dragonfire Adepts are all at home here.

- If you want a game of grunts and mundanes, then everyone plays a T4-T5 character. There are several types of these characters, so it's possible to play a game in this range, but it's not as easy as the above two groupings.

Cheers!

jqavins
2017-08-29, 02:28 PM
Just got a 3.5e handbook and...
If what you've got is a PHB, you might be confused and frustrated by the gazillions of classes mentioned so far. One way of nerfing wizards and sorcerers that just occurred to me, and is totally untested, is to eliminate the cantrip spell slots, relabel the cantrip spell list as level 1, the level one list as level 2, etc. This might leave the wizards and sorcerers totally useless until they get level two (used to be level one) spells, but after that it might work. Or it might be a disaster.

Jormengand
2017-08-29, 02:45 PM
If what you've got is a PHB, you might be confused and frustrated by the gazillions of classes mentioned so far. One way of nerfing wizards and sorcerers that just occurred to me, and is totally untested, is to eliminate the cantrip spell slots, relabel the cantrip spell list as level 1, the level one list as level 2, etc. This might leave the wizards and sorcerers totally useless until they get level two (used to be level one) spells, but after that it might work. Or it might be a disaster.

I don't think this idea would work. The problem with wizards and sorcerers isn't just that their power level is greater than a fighter's, it's that their power, in arbitrary power ranking units, goes something like 1, 2, 10, 20, 100, 200, 1000, 2000, 10000 rather than the fighter's 10, 20, 25, 35, 40, 50, 55, 65 (this being at the optimisation level where the wizard thinks that blasting is the way forward - anything else and slap an extra zero or two on the end of all the wizard's numbers). Pulling the wizard two levels back just makes it go 0, 0, 1, 2, 10, 20, 100, 200. It doesn't stop the wizard invalidating the fighter (at 7th level, the wizard's doing 7d6 area damage to the fighter's 4d6+12 single target damage in the unlikely event the fighter even hits twice); it just makes it happen later.

Eldan
2017-08-29, 02:51 PM
There's a system overhaul I once did, which is only sort-of-finished, here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?233664-Arcane-Magic-Base-Class-and-System-Overhaul-WIP-PEACH

But it's really quite thorough and probably more than you want.

Really, what needs doing is radically rewriting or outright banning spells, on every level. Start with the all-purpose solution spells: summoning, planar binding and planar ally, for bringing in a huge list of creatures which can solve any problem, shapechange and similar, for the same reason, and wish/miracle. These might just have to go outright.

Then, I'd also have a look at spells which offer perfect instant solutions to problems (teleport for distance, flight and short-range teleportation for obstacles, invisibility for stealth, knock for doors, etc. etc.) There's a ton of these, which probably need to be rewritten.

FreddyNoNose
2017-08-29, 02:55 PM
Meta-careers. Not the regular working joes but the ones who work the system. In the real world, lawyers, politicians, and anyone with massive amounts of money and/or power. Those people rule.

In fantasy RPGs, magic-users are that in most systems. In ancient dnd, magic-users started off weak and were frequently killed off. Making those few who made it to 10th level special and powerful. Even more powerful later one. Because they are meta with powerful abilities that can do amazing things. Perhaps even change the world.

If this is a problem for sake of argument, what can you do:
1) give non-meta-classes more power.
2) change meta-classes to have less powerful abilities.
3) remove meta-classes as a player option.
4) accept that meta-classes exist and you allow them, but let them die when they are weak.

Jaeda
2017-08-29, 08:26 PM
I don't think this idea would work. The problem with wizards and sorcerers isn't just that their power level is greater than a fighter's, it's that their power, in arbitrary power ranking units, goes something like 1, 2, 10, 20, 100, 200, 1000, 2000, 10000 rather than the fighter's 10, 20, 25, 35, 40, 50, 55, 65 (this being at the optimisation level where the wizard thinks that blasting is the way forward - anything else and slap an extra zero or two on the end of all the wizard's numbers). Pulling the wizard two levels back just makes it go 0, 0, 1, 2, 10, 20, 100, 200. It doesn't stop the wizard invalidating the fighter (at 7th level, the wizard's doing 7d6 area damage to the fighter's 4d6+12 single target damage in the unlikely event the fighter even hits twice); it just makes it happen later.

I think it's not a bad idea, but it probably doesn't go far enough. Another option would be to insert extra rows that get 0 spells / day of a given level (bonus spells only, like the bard), causing new spells to come only every 3 levels to slow down the curve. This would delay when the brokenness comes, giving more time that everyone can still participate on an equal footing. It also means that you'll cap out at 7th level spells at 18th level, removing the most reality-warping spells from the game. You'll probably still want to spot-check the spellbooks to remove the most broken things.

Another option that I've seen recommended is to dump the core PHB casters and only use the splat casters like beguiler and favored soul. They tend to have a tighter spell list and so they have fewer types of win buttons available to them.

Jormengand
2017-08-30, 04:05 AM
I think it's not a bad idea, but it probably doesn't go far enough. Another option would be to insert extra rows that get 0 spells / day of a given level (bonus spells only, like the bard), causing new spells to come only every 3 levels to slow down the curve. This would delay when the brokenness comes, giving more time that everyone can still participate on an equal footing. It also means that you'll cap out at 7th level spells at 18th level, removing the most reality-warping spells from the game. You'll probably still want to spot-check the spellbooks to remove the most broken things.

Another option that I've seen recommended is to dump the core PHB casters and only use the splat casters like beguiler and favored soul. They tend to have a tighter spell list and so they have fewer types of win buttons available to them.

Neither of these things works.

The first-level spell charm person, the second-level spell alter self, the third-level spell suggestion, the fourth-level spell polymorph, the fifth-level spell dominate person and a few others are so obscenely powerful that they massively outpunch every other spell of their level. You'll notice that, like, half of those are beguiler spells: a beguiler doesn't have quite enough ridiculous power to be on-par with the sorcerer but it's up there. Worse, the beguiler picks some of the neat spells for you, so anyone who thinks "Ooh, charm person sounds like a neat spell, let's cast that" is confronted with the reality that yes, it's a save-or-consider-me-your-trusted-friend-or-ally spell and yes, that's far better than whacking the person in question with a metal stick until they keel over and die. Beguilers don't have access to the insanely powerful transmutations which make the wizard/sorcerer list so silly, but bards do, so hard luck balancing via bards. Favoured souls cast off the cleric list and are basically sorcerer-tier clerics, so I don't know why you suggested that they might be more balanced than them.

As for delaying when you get access to it, Charm Person will always be better than whatever a martial character can do at that level unless they can kill the target before they fail a will save. Alter Self will always give you an array of useful options. And more to the point, if you delay them to the point where they're not overpowered, scorching ray and burning hands start to look very naff by comparison (though scorching ray still deals more damage than whacking someone with a stick at most levels!)

Now, you may at this point throw your hands up in frustration and say "What about Adept? Surely they aren't overpowered?" To which I would reply "Well, not compared to a decent martial class, no. Leave the fighters and monks at home." At this point you have a barbarian (2d6+some fairly high constant, multiple attacks) and a rogue (2d6+1d6/2 levels after 1st, maybe multiple attacks) flanking an enemy who is having low-grade blasting spells (scorching ray deals up to 12d6, which isn't outside either martial's order of magnitude) thrown at them from beyond. Just... stay away from that polymorph you get at 12th level onwards.

Essentially, you need to craft spell lists which make people less powerful, or tier martials up so they're the same power as everyone else.



In my upcoming part-homebrew-part-DM-guide work, Sword Vs Spell: The Book of Balance, I define three "Power levels" - the Low Power Level, the Medium Power Level, and the High Power Level, as is relatively intuative. The descriptions for the Low and Medium power level are:

"At the low power level, everything is predictable. Fighters fight, after all, and while there are a few options for how, each individual fighter will be geared for one or two. Rogues’ capabilities generally come down to a list of ten or so skills, plus the ability to stab someone in the spleen - assuming that the target has a spleen worth stabbing, which surprisingly many foes do not. Barbarians can do an uncannily-high level of damage, but that is the limit of their capability. Adepts mainly heal people, kill people, and inconvenience people in combat, and few of their spells break this mould. Soulknives throw psychic bastard swords at you and truenamers heal, harm, know things, and occasionally shoot people through walls.

This makes the game much easier as a DM, but at the same time limits the adventurers’ ability to solve problems. If a wizard notices a trap, he can summon a creature to walk into it, cast a spell that disables it, fly over, or simply use dimension door to bypass the trap entirely, not to mention becoming immune to the trap’s effects and just walking through it. Low Power Level characters, however, are likely to have to take the damage the trap deals, or possibly be able to disable it. On the other hand, this may encourage more creative solutions (Grapple the balcony and swing over the trap, use my ridiculously good jump check to launch myself over the trap, or trick an enemy into running into the trap)."

and:

"At the medium power level, people have a lot more competence and versatility, making them less predictable. A rogue can fend off an army by setting traps that can take out squads, by picking up a wand of fireball, poisoning the rations, or assassinating (or impersonating) the generals. A psychic warrior can breathe a wave of acid over the approaching foes, create claws which are deadly poisonous and shred through enemies, healing himself, and rack up a kill count, or take the expanded knowledge feat to collapse bridges by taking bits of them out of the time stream, or summon big beasties which fight for them, or create impassable walls of burning death. Barbarians largely deal damage, but a lot of it, and can also potentially pass the strength check to smash the bridge directly while in a rage.

As a DM, this makes your job a little more difficult in some ways, and easier in others. Suppose a fighter, a paladin, a ninja and an expert walk into a room with a trap, some kobolds and a few hiding spots. Generally, the expert disarms the trap, the fighter and paladin kill the kobolds, and the ninja opens the door. At each stage, other members of the party have limited ways of helping. This frustrates players, such as the fighter who cannot meaningfully interact with the trap, and the expert who cannot meaningfully fight. This may result in a campaign full of paladins and ninjas, because of the relative versatility of those classes (paladin is also somewhat appropriate for the medium power level, alongside hexblade, fighter and truenamer).

Suppose however that we decide that a swordsage a psychic warrior, a crusader and a factotum enter the room. They may simply teleport or fly across the trap using their limited magic. After beating the kobolds, with the crusader using her ability to heal her party members while she attacks and repeatedly give herself additional rounds of actions at the next initiative count, the psychic warrior may simply remove the lock from the door, or the swordsage may throw his party members onto the other side, irrespective of the presence of the door, allowing it to be opened from the other side, or simply burn down the door. The crusader might simply smash the door twenty feet off its hinges. None of this is a problem, except that it makes the challenges a lot easier.

However, challenging the first party is a lot easier. For example, a rickety ladder upon which the party is attacked by flying archers is an easily challenging encounter. Further, restricting where the players can go is easier – you can put something up in the air because they cannot fly or teleport, unlike the second party who have ways of doing so. You can set a trap that the ninja cannot reach, but the factotum can be carried up to it by the swordsage if they even need to confront the trap at all.

These powers have limits, however: a party confronted by an angry dragon several challenge ratings higher them will, at this power level, probably have to run away. They probably can't take over nations without particular worries. What they do have, however, is the ability to do something useful in any situation, or at least to excel when their own speciality comes up."

The description for the high power level isn't written yet, but it essentially amounts to "The players can interact with almost any game object or situation easily. They can easily defeat encounters which they specialise in defeating and can trivialise many challenges. For example, at higher levels, you cannot challenge members of the high power level with long-distance travel due to teleport and similar spells. When faced with challenges they should not be able to face, they can often succeed with enough skill. In general, the options that high-power characters have are clearly-defined in their use and so inventiveness may not be required to get great results. However, there is a lot more room to make the abilities do something stronger than intended if the players are inventive."

To the original poster: Which of these sounds like the game you want to play? Because I can only suggest a fix based on which of those things you're actually after.

Eldan
2017-08-30, 04:55 AM
Alter self is a spell I just dislike for so many reasons. It should not be a thing.

It's extremely versatile, especially for such a low level. You get movement modes, size, natural weapons, skills and feats. Basically, if you know what you're doing, it can replicate about a half-dozen spells of the same level.

One spell should not let you breathe water, fly (a third level spell!), make you faster, give you weapons, give you better armomr than mage armor easily and give you a huge variety of skill boni.

And that's just if you're a humanoid. If you're an outsider (say, Tiefling, Asimar), an aberration (elan) or a monstrous humanoid, this spell just gets obscene.

rferries
2017-08-30, 05:09 AM
Alter self is a spell I just dislike for so many reasons. It should not be a thing.

It's extremely versatile, especially for such a low level. You get movement modes, size, natural weapons, skills and feats. Basically, if you know what you're doing, it can replicate about a half-dozen spells of the same level.

One spell should not let you breathe water, fly (a third level spell!), make you faster, give you weapons, give you better armomr than mage armor easily and give you a huge variety of skill boni.

And that's just if you're a humanoid. If you're an outsider (say, Tiefling, Asimar), an aberration (elan) or a monstrous humanoid, this spell just gets obscene.

Ha yeah, in my homebrewed non-humanoid races I often include a special subtype that makes them count as humanoids specifically for alter self. It should be limited to a +10 bonus on disguise checks, and maybe a bonus on climb/jump/swim checks depending on who you emulate.

King of Nowhere
2017-08-30, 06:02 AM
Just got a 3.5e handbook and might try to run a game in the future,

Guys, how does nobody is giving the due importance to that part?

See, the thing is, spells are overpowered only in the hands of someone who knows very well how to use them. In the hands of someone who "just got a handbook" and "might try", they are not.
Polimorph is powerful? Only if you know the range of creatures you can turn into to become what you need. Otherwise, you'll just turn into a bear before engaging battle, and you'll be still weaker than your fighter.
Planar bindings are powerful? Yes, if you know all the magical capacities of the creatures you can call and how you can exploit them. If you just call in a deva to help you with fighting some monster, it isn't overpowered in the slightest, and it costs you xp to cast. Same goes for all the summoning.
Charming is powerful? Well, that depends on what the DM let you get away with. If your new charmed "friend" starts immediately fighting for you against his older friends, or gives you all his money, than certainly. If he sees his new friends and his former friends fight and he tries diplomacy because he don't want either to die, then it is no more effective than sleep. And if he decides the way to go is to incapacitate you with nonlethal damage and sort it out later, then it is not powerful at all.
Fireballing deals more damage than an attack? Yes, but it risks hurting the party too, and you have it only a very limited number of times until you are very high level.

And also, casters are super powerful only at high levels. At low levels, martials outclass them, unless we're playing at uber levels of skill. Even then, a lucky saving throw will still allow a martial to mop the floor with a caster.

If you play with casual players and you start at level 1, like most new players, then you won't find any problem whatsoever with balancing casters and noncasters. You may even have to help casters. Don't make the mistake of taking anything said in this forum at face value; almost always, people posting here are taking for granted a skill in the game much greater than the average player. Even I, who played for years, am nowhere near the assumed level of proficiency.
.
I found myself in a similar position to yours a few years ago, and I tried to help the martials (better gear, some limitations to casters) and I accidentally ended up making the party barbarian capable of soloing the rest of the group. Why? Because the cleric, druid and wizard that make the rest of the group are not capable of using their skills to the best. Don't repeat my mistake. Until they figure out they can get three wishes for free every time they summon an efreeti, let the casters be.

Anyway, I came up with a wide array of limitations to introduce in my games. They do not enforce equality, nor they are intended as such - a skilled wizard will always be better than a skilled fighter of equal level - but they at least introduce more chances for counterplay, giving mundanes chances to counteract some win buttons. Most importantly, they make sense.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?513152-Introducing-interesting-limitations-to-primary-casters-(houseruling)

nonsi
2017-08-30, 06:37 AM
Just got a 3.5e handbook and might try to run a game in the future, but I hear a lot about how overpowered magic users are compared to non-magic classes. Has anyone come up with solutions to balance it out? Come up with revised class like 5e did to fix the complaints about Rangers? And just lower the rate players gain strength overall, so you can stay with less world shattering story plots longer while still allowing players to be challenged?

You might wanna click the second item in my sig ("The Minimalistic 3.5 fix") and give it a look.
Basically I tried to assemble the 3.5 necessities for bringing the different classes/characters a lot closer in terms of power, and to remove/tweak the major issues known to ruin the fun for many.

Jormengand
2017-08-30, 06:45 AM
Guys, how does nobody is giving the due importance to that part?

See, the thing is, spells are overpowered only in the hands of someone who knows very well how to use them.

This is patently false. A player who stumbles across the hilarity that is Charm Person is already far overpowered (guys this enemy now considers me his trusted friend and ally, that sure won't be useful). I showed D&D 3.5 to my fiance, who has never played any RPG, and the first thing they realised was "Wait, aren't wizards really overpowered?" Hells, even fireball puts you leagues apart from any fighter (at fifth level, if you're clever enough to hit two enemies with it, you deal 10d6 points of damage. A fighter with no real optimisation is dealing 2d6+6, and if they miss they do nothing. If you miss - which is less likely, because reflex vs DC 17 is hard and attack vs AC ~14-19 is somewhat hard - you do half). Making the fighter irrelevant isn't difficult.

(Yes, I am assuming the spells do what they say in the description because of course I am.)

Jaeda
2017-08-30, 08:59 AM
This is patently false. A player who stumbles across the hilarity that is Charm Person is already far overpowered (guys this enemy now considers me his trusted friend and ally, that sure won't be useful). I showed D&D 3.5 to my fiance, who has never played any RPG, and the first thing they realised was "Wait, aren't wizards really overpowered?" Hells, even fireball puts you leagues apart from any fighter (at fifth level, if you're clever enough to hit two enemies with it, you deal 10d6 points of damage. A fighter with no real optimisation is dealing 2d6+6, and if they miss they do nothing. If you miss - which is less likely, because reflex vs DC 17 is hard and attack vs AC ~14-19 is somewhat hard - you do half). Making the fighter irrelevant isn't difficult.

(Yes, I am assuming the spells do what they say in the description because of course I am.)

I'm aware that this doesn't really solve the problem since some spells are insanely useful. But we are trying to offer ShadowKat some advice on how to at least reduce the disparity. I'm trying to offer suggestions other than "Play 4e" (since this seems contrary to her initial post) and "Rewrite half of the spell book" (since this is more work then she should be forced to do).

Jormengand
2017-08-30, 09:51 AM
I'm aware that this doesn't really solve the problem since some spells are insanely useful. But we are trying to offer ShadowKat some advice on how to at least reduce the disparity. I'm trying to offer suggestions other than "Play 4e" (since this seems contrary to her initial post) and "Rewrite half of the spell book" (since this is more work then she should be forced to do).

There are solutions - say you want everyone to be at the medium power level, you can use things like fixed sorcerer lists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20843044&postcount=3) (look, more fixed sorcerer lists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22287455&postcount=3)!) (or just fixed-list casters in the first place, but a lot of them have broken spells on their lists too). Just "Make all spells, broken or no, harder to get access to" isn't very helpful.

nonsi
2017-08-30, 10:02 AM
There are solutions - say you want everyone to be at the medium power level, you can use things like fixed sorcerer lists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20843044&postcount=3) (look, more fixed sorcerer lists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22287455&postcount=3)!) (or just fixed-list casters in the first place, but a lot of them have broken spells on their lists too). Just "Make all spells, broken or no, harder to get access to" isn't very helpful.

Solutions like fixed-list casters and up limiting the character concepts at one's disposal.
What I tried to do last year with "The Minimalistic 3.5 fix" (to whatever degree of success I managed to achieve, which I personally find satisfactory), was to come up with a relatively simple solution that would take away as little as possible from the available supply of character concepts out of the equation.

King of Nowhere
2017-08-30, 11:07 AM
This is patently false. A player who stumbles across the hilarity that is Charm Person is already far overpowered (guys this enemy now considers me his trusted friend and ally, that sure won't be useful). I showed D&D 3.5 to my fiance, who has never played any RPG, and the first thing they realised was "Wait, aren't wizards really overpowered?" Hells, even fireball puts you leagues apart from any fighter (at fifth level, if you're clever enough to hit two enemies with it, you deal 10d6 points of damage. A fighter with no real optimisation is dealing 2d6+6, and if they miss they do nothing. If you miss - which is less likely, because reflex vs DC 17 is hard and attack vs AC ~14-19 is somewhat hard - you do half). Making the fighter irrelevant isn't difficult.

(Yes, I am assuming the spells do what they say in the description because of course I am.)

I stand by my position. I have experience with groups of unskilled players, and I've never seen wizards outperform anyone, for the reasons I explained. Yes, of course casters can still do plenty of stuff that others cannot, but I don't see it as a problem if the party needs to teleport somewhere and it's the wizard who has the spell. In battle, they either don't deal more damage than the martials (at least after burning their most powerful spell or two) and they die very quickly if attacked; which, since they don't know how to stay out of range with spells and such, will happen if they are not protected. And you can reliably count on them to always be unprepared.
I'd say, start playing, and then start worrying only if you see that some members are getting outperformed.

Cosi
2017-08-30, 11:22 AM
Magic users are often substantially more competent than character that do not have magic, this much is true.

But that, in and of itself, is not really a solvable problem. You have A > B. You want A = B. But there are, hopefully obviously, two ways to get there -- decreasing A and increasing B. Which one you want depends on what you want the game to do.

If you want to play a low powered fantasy game in the vein of Lord of the Rings, Conan, or Game of Thrones, you could play E6, which limits the game to the portion where casters and non-casters are both competitive.

On the other hand, if you want a high powered fantasy game in the vein of Lord of Light, Malazan, or Wheel of Time, you might find more success with a houserule like "all non-casters automatically gestalt with Sorcerer, casting stat is any stat of their choice".

You can't solve this problem effectively until you understand what you want success to look like.

Jormengand
2017-08-30, 11:48 AM
Solutions like fixed-list casters and up limiting the character concepts at one's disposal.

Technically, following the rules of the game also limits the character concepts at your disposal. In general, though, I find "Sorcerer who has a bunch of different spells which do completely unrelated things" to be a really crap build concept compared to "Time mage" or "Fire mage."

Alent
2017-08-30, 12:32 PM
People have mentioned fixed list fixes, and a few other thing, one of the things that will probably be of interest to the OP coming from 5th is knowing the expected rate of magic item acquisition. The DMG doesn't prescribe it, expecting you to somehow divine it. The results of not awarding items on time are like trying to play 5e without any proficiency bonus, so it is a pretty big deal to martials. One of the reasons Magic is considered overpowered is that casters can fully ignore these items and still be overpowered.

"Average" Mob AC was unintentionally balanced with the expectation that you'll get magic weapons on the following schedule:


+1
+2
+3
+4
+5


Level 3
Level 6
Level 9
Level 12
Level 15


You're expected to start getting +Stat items in these level ranges:


+2
+4
+6


Level 5~7
Level 9~11
Level 12~14


If you follow WBL, you'll be able to purchase these a little ahead of that schedule, but as long as all your martial characters have access to their stats and enhancement bonus on schedule, with other magic items on the side, it helps considerably.

Other useful items include Masterwork tools, offering a +2 bonus to a skill check. Your skillmonkeys should be loaded up with these and other skill boosting items to keep pace with magic users. Again, another reason magic is overpowered is it bypasses the skill system, eliminating the need for skill monkeys in specific situations. You can help with this just by disallowing/discouraging specific spells, or making spells that turn a skill check into a binary "I have [spell]" situation into a flat +1/2 CL bonus to the relevant skill, allowing the wizard to attempt it himself without invalidating the skill monkey, or put it on the skill monkey so both of them can feel good about solving a puzzle.

The Knock spell is my go to example for this, since it lets you disable device 100% as many times as you have it prepared. If knock instead grants you a +1/2 CL bonus to disable device checks made to open the targeted door/chest/lock/etc, it suddenly becomes useful without arbitrarily invalidating one of the Rogue's three reasons for existing in the first place.

Deepbluediver
2017-08-30, 01:02 PM
I'm aware that this doesn't really solve the problem since some spells are insanely useful. But we are trying to offer ShadowKat some advice on how to at least reduce the disparity. I'm trying to offer suggestions other than "Play 4e" (since this seems contrary to her initial post) and "Rewrite half of the spell book" (since this is more work then she should be forced to do).
That's why I asked what resources the OP had. On the one hand, replacing some of the Tier 1 and Tier 5/6 classes from the PHB with Tier 2/3 alternatives from other sources is pretty quick and straightforward, on the other hand if OP is playing with a new group and is only familiar with the PHB then you don't want to over-complicate things. In the latter case, it might be better to just suggest banning a few of the most OP spells at each level.



Edit:

"Average" Mob AC was unintentionally balanced with the expectation that you'll get magic weapons on the following schedule:


+1
+2
+3
+4
+5


Level 3
Level 6
Level 9
Level 12
Level 15


You're expected to start getting +Stat items in these level ranges:


+2
+4
+6


Level 5~7
Level 9~11
Level 12~14


If you follow WBL, you'll be able to purchase these a little ahead of that schedule, but as long as all your martial characters have access to their stats and enhancement bonus on schedule, with other magic items on the side, it helps considerably.
I've never seen this spelled out displayed so clearly- that's actually really useful.

I'll also say though, that I don't like +stat bonuses. I get that always-on, passive, ability-score increasing benefits are very attractive for players because they are rarely not-useful, but I ideally you'd have a system where martial characters could get all the combat prowess they need from their class abilities, weapons, and armor, and save the magic-ring slots for items that are more situational but also more interesting.
*shrunk because somewhat off-topic*


Again, another reason magic is overpowered is it bypasses the skill system, eliminating the need for skill monkeys in specific situations.
One of the things I think a full magic-fix would include is some kind of roll to cast any spell. Unfortunately the only experience (AFAIK) most people have with that in 3.5 is the Truenamer, which put a lot of people off the concept entirely.

Recherché
2017-08-30, 03:28 PM
Couple of quick things to mention that help with the issue a bit even if they don't entirely fix them. First is that a large part of the issue is that magic users get more good stuff on leveling up. This means that at lower levels caster superiority is unlikely to be a problem. Casters are about equal until level 6 and mundanes can still mostly keep up in my experience until level 9 or 10.

Second, mundane classes generally need better ability scores to keep up longer. All the wizard really needs is an 18 in Int and everything else is bonuses. A paladin meanwhile wants at least 4 scores of 14+ to work well at high levels. Be generous with the ability scores and martials benefit.

Third, while it's possible for newbies to stumble into some of the amazing options for casters or into some of the horrible traps for martials, it's not very likely. It's fairly common for new people who don't read the boards to think monks are awesome. So you may not need to be that heavy handed.

Four, you've mentioned that you don't like playing with pdfs elsewhere but the least balanced material in 3.5 is the core rulebook. (The developers hadn't actually figured out how parts of their own game were going to work and they made some bad choices based on assumptions about 2e.) The more you focus on core the worse the balance problems will get. Would it be possible for you to get the pdfs of some of the other books or the pathfinder srd and then print them out and put them in a binder? You don't even need the entire book, just enough to reference what's important for the mechanics you're allowing.

Alent
2017-08-30, 08:06 PM
Off Topic Reply spoilered!

I've never seen this spelled out displayed so clearly- that's actually really useful.

I'll also say though, that I don't like +stat bonuses. I get that always-on, passive, ability-score increasing benefits are very attractive for players because they are rarely not-useful, but I ideally you'd have a system where martial characters could get all the combat prowess they need from their class abilities, weapons, and armor, and save the magic-ring slots for items that are more situational but also more interesting.
*shrunk because somewhat off-topic*

You and me both. Those tables are actually an artifact of an earlier attempt of mine to scrap the +stat items entirely without breaking the game. It stalled out since my group plays so rarely, and I still haven't come up with a good solution.

Next campaign I run, I'll be letting people purchase stat increases with skill ranks to see if that works out. I haven't come up with good rules yet, but I'm thinking to go with "You can buy a stat point for 3 skill points, with each stat having an individual limit of 1/2 your ECL up to a maximum of +6.". Hypothetically, if you do the +stat skill manuals that I've never heard of anyone using, you could let that go all the way to +10 at level 20. I think I'll bundle that with some other general skill changes I've been working on and posting them here, soon, since I am gearing up to try starting another game.

I've been working on skill system improvements in general, and already have a raised skill point growth rate for everyone, since I see skills as one of 3.5's great strengths, and I want to work with it rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater like 5e did. What 5e did to skills was inexcusable and killed my interest in 5th.


One of the things I think a full magic-fix would include is some kind of roll to cast any spell. Unfortunately the only experience (AFAIK) most people have with that in 3.5 is the Truenamer, which put a lot of people off the concept entirely.

Rather than making every spell require a check, I think there should be ways to modify a spell that forces a spellcraft check. Try to do something the spell isn't meant to do, you get to make a spellcraft check. Extend spell? Spellcraft check. Maximize Spell? Spellcraft check. Exclude a creature from the spell? Spellcraft check. Shape a Fireball to fill a different volume of space? Spellcraft check.

Off topic stuff out of the way, I agree with Recherche's points, especially #4. Expanding outside of core gets you a much better rounded party, and opens up to some fascinating character concepts that don't exist in 5e. Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Battle are the standouts, but there are other good classes worth including from outside of core. (Such as Warlock, which is a little different from it's 5e cousin.)

Kane0
2017-08-30, 08:59 PM
If you're just starting off it's best to stick to the book until you're familiar with everything. It's easier to learn the game then tweak it than the other way around.

Deepbluediver
2017-08-30, 09:29 PM
You and me both. Those tables are actually an artifact of an earlier attempt of mine to scrap the +stat items entirely without breaking the game. It stalled out since my group plays so rarely, and I still haven't come up with a good solution.
....
I've been working on skill system improvements in general, and already have a raised skill point growth rate for everyone, since I see skills as one of 3.5's great strengths, and I want to work with it rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater like 5e did. What 5e did to skills was inexcusable and killed my interest in 5th.
I'm not familiar with 5e, but I've got both an armor (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290667-Simplified-Improved-Armor) and a (newly posted) weapon-upgrade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?534853-Weapons-amp-Upgrades-Fix-(for-use-with-3-5-amp-Pathfinder)&p=22339292#post22339292) fix that give martial characters a lot more defense and damage from non-magical gear. It doesn't entirely solve the Christmas-tree problem, or the issue that martial characters don't have a lot of options when they CAN'T just beat on something, but I think it gives you sufficient power and toughness that you can free up feats, skill points, item slots, etc, for things that give you versatility and other options.


Next campaign I run, I'll be letting people purchase stat increases with skill ranks to see if that works out. I haven't come up with good rules yet, but I'm thinking to go with "You can buy a stat point for 3 skill points, with each stat having an individual limit of 1/2 your ECL up to a maximum of +6.". Hypothetically, if you do the +stat skill manuals that I've never heard of anyone using, you could let that go all the way to +10 at level 20. I think I'll bundle that with some other general skill changes I've been working on and posting them here, soon, since I am gearing up to try starting another game.
I'd be interesting in hearing how that works out, but my knee-jerk reaction is that I'm not a big fan. Martial types rarely have extra skill-points as it is, and it feels like trading away what little non-combat effectiveness they have.
I left this next bit unspoilered because it's actually got some of my suggestions for "nerfing" casting a bit.


Rather than making every spell require a check, I think there should be ways to modify a spell that forces a spellcraft check. Try to do something the spell isn't meant to do, you get to make a spellcraft check. Extend spell? Spellcraft check. Maximize Spell? Spellcraft check. Exclude a creature from the spell? Spellcraft check. Shape a Fireball to fill a different volume of space? Spellcraft check.[/SPOILER]
Why not have a roll every spell? You make one for every attack and every skillcheck and every a-bunch-of-other-stuff. Here's the thing though, I'm not thinking about making this a skill-check. I do think a skill-based casting alternative can work in 3.5, but it's not what I want to do for most of the vancian casting.

What I'm imaging is more like a modified ability-check. The DC to cast a spell is 10+ the spell's level, and your modifier to cast is your Wisdom bonus (if a prepared caster) or your Charisma bonus (if spontaneous). Ability scores aren't unbreakable, but in my experience they are harder to cheat up to absurd levels than skill checks. Especially if you make all casters dual-stat casters like the Archivist. Let all casters get their bonus spells from Intelligence, and then modify their casting checks and DC's from either Wis or Cha as I described.
It works out pretty well IMO.

Alent
2017-08-31, 02:49 AM
I'm not familiar with 5e, but I've got both an armor (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290667-Simplified-Improved-Armor) and a (newly posted) weapon-upgrade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?534853-Weapons-amp-Upgrades-Fix-(for-use-with-3-5-amp-Pathfinder)&p=22339292#post22339292) fix that give martial characters a lot more defense and damage from non-magical gear. It doesn't entirely solve the Christmas-tree problem, or the issue that martial characters don't have a lot of options when they CAN'T just beat on something, but I think it gives you sufficient power and toughness that you can free up feats, skill points, item slots, etc, for things that give you versatility and other options.

So, in 5e, they changed skills to be stat + Proficiency bonus if trained, or just +stat if not. Since Proficiency bonus starts at +2 at level 1 and stops at +6 at level 20, this basically means that there's a negligible difference between a high level character and a level 1. People were complaining about this in OP's other post over in the 3.5 forum before it degenerated into a 3.5e v 4e edition war somehow.

I'll look at those. My own WIP approach has been to go the opposite way with the Christmas Tree Problem and embrace it by converting all the special abilities like Flaming and Ghost Touch into gems and using a Diablo 2 inspired socket system so that your enchants are portable. Basic enhancement bonuses on weapons, armor, and resistance bonuses on cloaks were nonmagical and based on craftsman knacks from Dragonlance campaign setting, abstracting players' access to each quality of item as them not having the reputation to have the more skilled craftsmen make time to work with them. As to the sockets themselves, an item can have as many sockets as enhancement bonuses, so a +2 weapon can have two sockets, and any given special ability still takes a number of sockets equal to it's bonus price, so Shocking Burst takes up 2 sockets.)

I got to try the socket system briefly in the most recent campaign and it was received fairly well and worked well, but three of my players (the roommates hosting us) got in a fight over unrelated IRL drama and so I only got a limited amount of test data. I was afraid at first at basically letting players "double dip" on enhancement bonuses, but I then remembered that Pathfinder has a ton of class features that effectively work like that and it works out in the martial classes's favor without being excessive. There's some chance it could've gone pearshaped later down the road, but from what we encountered it seemed to work out.


I'd be interesting in hearing how that works out, but my knee-jerk reaction is that I'm not a big fan. Martial types rarely have extra skill-points as it is, and it feels like trading away what little non-combat effectiveness they have.

That reason is why even before considering this, I bumped all my martials up to 6+int and some to even 8+int to help smooth martial skill crunch in general, and if I go this route I might bump from 4+int, 6+int, and 8+int to 5+int, 7+int, and 9+int.

I strongly dislike the trope of "unskilled martial", and feel like Rogue needs a better designed niche. Just dropping a ton of skill points and trapfinding on him doesn't really define a niche as much as it highlights the absence of one.


I left this next bit unspoilered because it's actually got some of my suggestions for "nerfing" casting a bit.

Why not have a roll every spell? You make one for every attack and every skillcheck and every a-bunch-of-other-stuff. Here's the thing though, I'm not thinking about making this a skill-check. I do think a skill-based casting alternative can work in 3.5, but it's not what I want to do for most of the vancian casting.

What I'm imaging is more like a modified ability-check. The DC to cast a spell is 10+ the spell's level, and your modifier to cast is your Wisdom bonus (if a prepared caster) or your Charisma bonus (if spontaneous). Ability scores aren't unbreakable, but in my experience they are harder to cheat up to absurd levels than skill checks. Especially if you make all casters dual-stat casters like the Archivist. Let all casters get their bonus spells from Intelligence, and then modify their casting checks and DC's from either Wis or Cha as I described.
It works out pretty well IMO.

A kudo for believing in MAD casters. I've loved that idea since someone showed me Fantasycraft. :smallbiggrin: (I somehow overlooked the Archivist altogether in 3.5)

My thinking is a mix of flavor, psychology, and tuning reasons.

First, because of save DCs, many popular spells already have a reasonable chance to fail/underperform. I am pretty loathe to make already failure prone mechanics even more likely to fail. For how often we talk about how broken magic is, it's often a small handful of offenders and spell templates while the greater whole are fairly tame if not outright useless. Some of those primary offenders just need to be re-written or removed (Guidance of the Avatar and Alter-Self for rewrite candidates, and Wish/Planar binding/Fly/Teleport for removal examples.), and some don't actually become broken until you abuse Metamagic or stack DC boosts in questionable ways. (Some are also better balanced by granting Pathfinder Monk style pseudo-casting to the mundanes, but that gets much more involved than just a simple blanket statement or two has arms to carry.)

I don't think metamagic should be the baseline performance of casters, but I can think of zero reason not to load up on metamagic wands and feats as a caster, especially with some of the more famous glitch metamagics like invisible spell. I also think the resource management aspect of the law of resistance was a stroke of genius, and if you're wanting to use skill checks to restrict magic, those two junctions are a good place to do so. If you use a variation on that rule to limit the amount of metamagics and spellshapes you can execute per day, making each metamagic/shaping action a higher DC, it lets you keep things on a skill basis instead of an ability check, paying the "risk" forward in a way that keeps you aware of it, but gives you some risk free use of it at first.

I fear a check every single cast, especially using a raw ability check, would run afoul of Grod's Law. I know as a player, I would find that an encouragement to dip Marshal for Motivate Cha or Wis depending on my casting stat, and I'd be tempted to do so even if I wasn't a caster, just to support the party casters. I can also think of a magic item, I forget if it's in 3.5 or not, but I know it's in PF, that grants a bonus specifically to cha checks, even base ability ones. There's more than a few ways to circumvent it, and again, I really think Skills are the strength of 3.5, it doesn't make sense to bypass them.

That said, that's just kinda my initial thoughts on it. it might not hurt anything to force all spellcasting to use an ability check, but I can't help but think that a fresh level 1 character rolling a DC 11 check with d20+3 then following that up with a DC 14 saving throw is just asking for disappointed players out the gate, and it pretty much gets worse from there.

Edit:
Actually, thinking about it, since the most you can expect from a secondary stat is +3 and you shouldn't invest your primary stat boost in it, you'll be making d20+3 vs dc 11 and dc 12, at 5th level you'll be shooting d20+4 vs dc 13, then 14, then d20+5 vs dc 15, 16, lastly d20+6 vs dc 17, 18, and finally dc 19...

... I'm half asleep and dyscalculic when I'm awake, so I'm probably goofing the math, but to my eyes it looks like if you don't invest your +5 from leveling into that primary caster stat, you're looking at around a 40% to 45% failure rate at best for most current level spells for your entire career. :smallconfused:

Deepbluediver
2017-08-31, 11:32 AM
So, in 5e, they changed skills to be stat + Proficiency bonus if trained, or just +stat if not. Since Proficiency bonus starts at +2 at level 1 and stops at +6 at level 20, this basically means that there's a negligible difference between a high level character and a level 1. People were complaining about this in OP's other post over in the 3.5 forum before it degenerated into a 3.5e v 4e edition war somehow.
I see- I do think that sounds like the pendulum swinging to far in the other direction from 3.5's easily breakable imbalanced skill system.


My own WIP approach has been to go the opposite way with the Christmas Tree Problem and embrace it
I'm fully behind you there- the issue I was mainly referring to was that Martial-classes NEED huge numbers of magic items to be effective while Casters see much less difference. In order to bring parity to the game, I want to give magic-users something to spend their gold on, which I'll talk about more in a moment.


I got to try the socket system briefly in the most recent campaign and it was received fairly well and worked well, but three of my players (the roommates hosting us) got in a fight over unrelated IRL drama and so I only got a limited amount of test data. I was afraid at first at basically letting players "double dip" on enhancement bonuses, but I then remembered that Pathfinder has a ton of class features that effectively work like that and it works out in the martial classes's favor without being excessive. There's some chance it could've gone pearshaped later down the road, but from what we encountered it seemed to work out.
Sounds a bit like the gemcrafting profession from WoW. And I'm all for taking inspiration from videogames, you just have to realize that there are some things videogames do better and some things tabletop games do better and trying to port one directly into the other doesn't always work out the way you think it can. But yes, in general there's very little you can do to make martial classes OP compared to casters- a lot of the "ToB is OP!" and similar sentiments seem to come from comparing homebrewed martial stuff to the existing tier 5 classes in the PHB.


I strongly dislike the trope of "unskilled martial", and feel like Rogue needs a better designed niche. Just dropping a ton of skill points and trapfinding on him doesn't really define a niche as much as it highlights the absence of one.
Yes, again agreed. Dumping a ton of skill points on a class and calling it a day is only slightly less-bad than just dumping a ton of feats on the class. I've seen people complain that giving other classes more skill points and more class-skills is an indirect nerf to the rogue, because it makes what they've got going on less special. Which is just a silly argument IMO- that means the problem is with the Rogue, not the attempt to buff up other classes.

Also, and this might be REALLY petty, but one of my pet peeves in 3.5 is the "trapfinding" rule that you can't find traps with a DC higher than 20 unless you've dipped rogue (or a similar class). It feels like it's trying to make rogues feel special by creating a rule specifically to limit everyone else, which just screams "I have no idea how to make this class attractive without mandating it from on-high!"



First, because of save DCs, many popular spells already have a reasonable chance to fail/underperform. I am pretty loathe to make already failure prone mechanics even more likely to fail. For how often we talk about how broken magic is, it's often a small handful of offenders and spell templates while the greater whole are fairly tame if not outright useless.
Yes, but while there are plenty of save-or-die spells, some of the most OP examples don't target hostile creatures at all, and don't involve saves. And beyond that, there are plenty of spells that don't usually make the "broken" lists but just target objects, summon minions, provide helpful buffs, etc etc etc, and also don't involve saves. At the end of the day, if you want rolls to be consistently involved with casting spells, then you have to require them when the spell is cast.

I think that some of the less popular spells are only that in comparison to their OP bretheren, but a full fix would involve turning UP the power level on some of the more situational ones.


I don't think metamagic should be the baseline performance of casters, but I can think of zero reason not to load up on metamagic wands and feats as a caster, especially with some of the more famous glitch metamagics like invisible spell.
Metamagic didn't break casting, but it was one more really nice thing on top of an already OP system, and used cleverly it was able to circumvent a lot of the intended limitations on casters.

Here's a confession though- I always really liked all the funny builds and neat tricks people found to stack metamagic reducers or otherwise get "free" metamagic. The fact that it turned things writers had probably intended to be a once-per-day nuke or nova or whatever into something a caster used every round was a little frustrating, but I liked the creativity players showed, and I wanted to keep that.

I struggled with this problem for a while, until I had moment of epiphany- requiring a roll for every spell gives you TWO separate statistics to work with- spell-level and difficulty. I can make metamagic reducers affect one and not the other, so that players are still encouraged to take them but if you pile to much metamagic on a single spell it gets out of hand anyway.



I also think the resource management aspect of the law of resistance was a stroke of genius, and if you're wanting to use skill checks to restrict magic, those two junctions are a good place to do so.
I think I may have mentioned I like the "everything plus the kitchen sink" approach to magic systems in 3.5, where you've got at least half a dozen entirely different methods to pick from. One thing you want to be wary of is overcomplicating or over-restricting any single system, sort of like what WoTC did with the Binder. Personally I feel that spell-slots (or power points or whatever) is already a pretty big restriction, and something like the law of resistance works better in conjunction with casting Invocations, i.e. something that you can use as often as you like.

I'm not gonna say which is objectively better though; I'd rather just throw them both in the game together and let players pick.


I fear a check every single cast, especially using a raw ability check, would run afoul of Grod's Law. I know as a player, I would find that an encouragement to dip Marshal for Motivate Cha or Wis depending on my casting stat, and I'd be tempted to do so even if I wasn't a caster, just to support the party casters. I can also think of a magic item, I forget if it's in 3.5 or not, but I know it's in PF, that grants a bonus specifically to cha checks, even base ability ones. There's more than a few ways to circumvent it, and again, I really think Skills are the strength of 3.5, it doesn't make sense to bypass them.

That said, that's just kinda my initial thoughts on it. it might not hurt anything to force all spellcasting to use an ability check, but I can't help but think that a fresh level 1 character rolling a DC 11 check with d20+3 then following that up with a DC 14 saving throw is just asking for disappointed players out the gate, and it pretty much gets worse from there.
I'm totally down with that you're saying- a nuke you can only use once per week is still a nuke. But here's the thing- it's not JUST an ability check.
Technically I call it a Spellcraft Roll. You make skill CHECKS, you make attack ROLLS, you make spellcraft ROLLS, etc etc etc; this gets people in the right mindset.

Once you've given something a name, the biggest benefit is that you can modify 6 ways from Sunday. Feats, class features, items, etc, everything can contribute to (or in a bad situation, detract from) your spellcraft roll.

Examples: Specialized wizards get a bonus on when making spellcraft rolls for the school they specialized in. The Spell-Mastery feat gives you a spellcraft bonus on those specific spells. Ditto with the Spell Focus feat. Wands?- they give you +1 on spellcraft rolls. And you can have different levels of wands (apprentice, journeyman, master) that give you different bonuses (+1, +2, +3). The possibilities are endless, but the point is that you've given your casters a number that they actually want, even NEED, to expend resources to improve.


Actually, thinking about it, since the most you can expect from a secondary stat is +3 and you shouldn't invest your primary stat boost in it, you'll be making d20+3 vs dc 11 and dc 12, at 5th level you'll be shooting d20+4 vs dc 13, then 14, then d20+5 vs dc 15, 16, lastly d20+6 vs dc 17, 18, and finally dc 19...

... I'm half asleep and dyscalculic when I'm awake, so I'm probably goofing the math, but to my eyes it looks like if you don't invest your +5 from leveling into that primary caster stat, you're looking at around a 40% to 45% failure rate at best for most current level spells for your entire career. :smallconfused:
Sorry if I wasn't clear that it shouldn't be a raw an ability check- you'd be right about that. But part of the idea of dual-stat casters is that you can pick and choose which stat you want to focus on, whether you want more variety or more consistency. And if the system is done well enough, you might see players actually change which stat they valued most over the course of a campaign.

Based on the kind of stuff I outlined above, it shouldn't be that hard to keep your success rate at around 75% for your highest level spells, with lower level stuff frequently in the 90%+ range. Assuming you actually did a full fix and your casters didn't get stuck with so many of the "planned obsolescence" spells that showed up in the PHB, I think it works out pretty well.

For a shortened version of the fix, just reduce the DC- instead of 10, start it off at 5+spell level. That makes it a lot easier for low level casters to hit the mark consistently, and you only need to think about increasing that stat bonus 1 every 2 levels to keep up that level of success.



Edit: Maybe I didn't mention it in this thread, but here's a comment I made recently about magic-systems in 3.5:

Vancian spells: I cast Fireball
Psionics: I excite the molecules at a given location to deal heat damage via enhanced molecular energy
Binder: Through my pact with a demonlord of the pit, I curse you with eldritch fire!
Dragonfire Adept: through my veneration of dragons I have gained a measure of their power
ToB: I punch you and my fist bursts into fire through SHEER AWESOMENESS!
Incarnum: I shape the essence of a dragon and gain it's flame-breath attack.
Truenamer: I speak a word and your own armor cooks you alive
Mundane: my sword is enchanted! activate fire damage!
etc etc etc

King of Nowhere
2017-08-31, 06:16 PM
If you want to add a dice roll to casting spells without penalizing the player too much, you can do it for fine applications. For example, if you want to cast a fireball that hits the monsters, but not the pcs in melee with them, it requires a very accurate aiming of the fireball, including a very accurate estimate of the explosion size and distance; you could then ask for a spellcraft check, and a failure would mean the fireball hits slightly off, and so it may leave some monsters unhurt or it may hurt some allies. If you want to cast any aoe spell to maximize the number of targets, you may ask for a spellcraft check to get the aiming right.
It doesn't really change the balance, but if nothing else, it has a realistic feel. Anyone who played baldur's gate should know hhow difficult it is to properly aim a fireball; later games showed the area of effect before you cast the spell, but a wizard does not see a translucent circle while he considers where to aim his arcane fire.

Morphic tide
2017-08-31, 06:24 PM
Kinda a crude, simple fix: Halve the spell slots of all the casters, then let them take a point of Wisdom damage for (casting modifier/2) spell levels, with multiple points being able to be taken at once for higher-level slots. Prepared casters have to choose when they prepare spells, Spontaneous can do it whenever they feel like it, even without having any slots currently or

This does a few things, and I consider all of these advantages:

1. It makes spell slots unlikely to be wasted, because they become significantly more limited.
2. It makes the strong Will save on literally all the casters a mitigating factor, not a bonus.
3. It makes CoDzilla far less powerful, as they have to trade casting stat for slots to do it.
4. It makes Clerics more likely to prepare buffs, as they lose the slots and DC to BFC.
5. It makes all casters have Wisdom as an important stat, making Wiz and Sorc TAD.
6. It makes CoDzilla stick to gish, rather than BFC, as it's more efficient slot usage.
7. It makes Bards get a leg to stand on for healing, as they don't use Wis as their casting score.
8. It makes Pal/Rang have a means of using a good number of spells, because they're low-level spells.
9. It makes low level casters have a lot of slots to use, relative to how they used to be and higher level.

This simultaneously makes casters considerably stronger, while also much weaker. It forces newer players to understand that spells are not to be spammed casually and actively seek efficient slot use, which makes them develop an eye for efficiency in resource use. This makes them less likely to dive for trap options because they look cool. Having to trade a save-stat for slots makes them counterable if they are being problematic with spell spam, simply by sending a problematic Will save their way. They whine about it? Tell them to keep track of their Will save, so they aren't as vulnerable next time.

CoDzilla is somewhat dependant on reliably having enemies fail saves somewhere along the line, or otherwise needs a high Wisdom score, if only for spell slots to burn. Due to being Wisdom casters, Clerics and Druids have far more to lose from burning too much Wisdom. Namely, their access to higher level spells. As a result, Clerics will bank on no-save spells and useful low-level buffs, then focus on Gish abilities rather than casting improvement. Druids will do much the same, relying on lower-level spells unless something big is coming up. Basically, high-level spells will be rarely used, for fear of not having enough slots.

Forcing Wizard, Sorcerer and Bard to pump Wisdom, and their Will save to cover lost Wisdom, draws resources of theirs away from stacking bonuses for their spells or making themselves harder to kill. This cuts down the ceiling on single spells and non-spell power significantly. Forcing Clerics and Druids to Gish means that Clerics and Druids compete with Wizards and Sorcerers less, which makes the caster roles more distinct, and efficient slot use incentives make the players seek the numbers that martials actually use, so they get more familiar with what to look for to make Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, etc. work.

Bards get perhaps the best deal out of this. They don't suffer for spell levels like Clerics do, and are spontaneous casters, so spontaneous Cure is as simple as getting the spell(s) known. Their lower level spells mean they get, proportionately, more power for the same Wisdom damage as a Sorcerer. The ability to burn Wisdom whenever they need more slots, combined with access to healing spells and having a non-Wisdom casting stat, makes them basically the king of the spot-heal, because they can burn Wisdom to get the slot to heal whenever needed. Or to pull out a Hideous Laughter or something. BFC Bard? Sure.

The biggest shift of them all, perhaps, is how Paladins and Rangers suddenly find themselves with enough slots to actually care about their casting. They can sack one Wisdom for multiple slots quite easily, and Paladin comes with inbuilt Charisma-to-Saves to make the Will save a near non-issue when they have the stats to spare. And given that they get access to quite a few buffs as 2nd level spells, they can afford to spend quite a bit to pump Wisdom, thanks to now having enough slots to spend on buffs. Including +4 Wis, for more room to burn it. Same for CoDzilla, but they need more Wis anyways.

The single most valuable thing is making the low level slotless hell die in a fire. With the caster's sanity, given the scale of Wisdom damage for power involved. The biggest issue is, ultimately, that casters get so much endurance out of it. But that's great at low levels, and 3rd level spells, basically the lowest level of spells that are properly useful at higher levels outside "Use X to Solve Y" spells, get expensive in Wisdom damage to make more of fairly quickly. Three CLW will accomplish more than a CSW out of combat right up until CL 15, at which point they're equal. And there's more good situational 1st and 2nd level spells on the Cleric list than 3rd level spells. 3rd level Core Cleric spells don't have much in the way of spam bait, compared to 1st and 2nd with better scaling for out of combat healing due to more instances of CL adding.

If someone can think of how to make this actually be sure to curb the abuses of higher tier optimization, go ahead and mention it. But the ultimate goal of this idea is, essentially, forcing casters to be vulnerable to Will saves and be able to get Wisdom-drained to doom.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-09-01, 02:03 PM
If you're just starting off it's best to stick to the book until you're familiar with everything. It's easier to learn the game then tweak it than the other way around.
First, very much this. Obviously, you know your group better than us, and if you've got a bunch of experienced RPG-ers-- or just the sorts of nerds who like digging into the nuts of bolts of things-- that'll accelerate the process. But I think you're probably safe dealing with problems as they actually arise, rather than showing up with a


Kinda a crude, simple fix: Halve the spell slots of all the casters, then let them take a point of Wisdom damage for (casting modifier/2) spell levels, with multiple points being able to be taken at once for higher-level slots. Prepared casters have to choose when they prepare spells, Spontaneous can do it whenever they feel like it, even without having any slots currently or

This does a few things, and I consider all of these advantages:
And it does one thing that's a huge disadvantage-- it makes casters less fun to play, because now you have to horde every spell like a miser. Actually, two things that are hugely disadvantageous, because it also swings the boat heavily towards the most efficient, overpowered spell uses. Blasting becomes doubly crappy, while buffing yourself up (and replacing the Fighter) becomes moreso. BFC remains as good as ever, but now you'll just stand there with a crossbow feeling bad about yourself for the rest of the fight.

----------

When trying to weaken a game mechanic, you have to remember why you're doing so. You're not trying to achieve some platonic ideal, you're trying to make everything more fun. If your "fix" causes more unhappiness than it removes, you've objectively failed to fix anything, regardless of any abstract you use to measure "balance."

So. With that in mind. And with the apparently limit on book availability. Here are some solutions for improving core-only D&D.

Remove the spells Alter Self, Polymorph, Divine Power, Planar Binding (and derivatives), Planar Ally (and derivatives), Gate, Contact Other Plane, Rope Trick, Glitterdust, Teleport (and derivatives; things like Wind Walk are fine), Mage's Mansion, and... I'm probably missing a few, but those are big ones. Take out Natural Spell and demote the Druid's Animal Companion to a familiar, too.
Let players gestalt any two classes without 9th level spells-- they get all the features of both, along with whatever hit die, BAB progression, and so on is better. This makes sure that everyone has options in-play, and increases the wealth of character builds available.

and/or (though if you do "and," limit the gestalt to "without 6th level spells")

Force all classes with 9th level spells to use the spells/day (and spells known, if applicable) table of the Bard, except that all classes (including the Bard) start with 2nd level Bard casting. With one major difference: the Wizard and Sorcerer (and other low-BAB casters) get twice as many spells/day. This slows down the power creep and keeps the strongest spells out of the game altogether. Medium BAB casters can make up for reduced spellcasting ability with martial skill, while low-BAB casters get extra spells to make sure they can cast all day long (and, thus, still feel Wizard-y)

jqavins
2017-09-01, 05:56 PM
When trying to weaken a game mechanic, you have to remember why you're doing so. You're not trying to achieve some platonic ideal, you're trying to make everything more fun. If your "fix" causes more unhappiness than it removes, you've objectively failed to fix anything, regardless of any abstract you use to measure "balance."
:thumb-up: :applaud: :thumb-up:

I've said a number of time before, and I'll say it again: balance is overrated. This depends greatly on your group, but most of the players I've ever known simply decline to abuse highly abusable things. My own character with the sword of three wishes is an example. I got it with physical signs of use, so I couldn't know how many wishes it had in it, but I knew it was at least one. So I waited to use it until it was really necessary. One use was to undo an action from just one round previous in which a party member had spectacularly died. The second was when the party needed to get back to our home city to warn of a coming invasion but the enemy army was in the way so I wished us and all of our stuff into a safe place in the city. Of course I could have worked out some world-changingly awesome way to abuse those wishes, but they would probably have involved (what I would have considered) poor character playing and I used the wishes the way Wish was meant to be used.

And most DMs I've known don't let players abuse things that are only abusable because they're vague. Charm Person has been mentioned on this thread as abusable because it makes someone see the caster as a trusted friend. So when a player in my game charms the gate guard at the tyrant's castle and then asks to be let in, the guard says "Gee, my trusted friend, I'd really like to let you in, but it's my head if I do. I mean, I like you and I trust you, but I'm not stupid! I won't turn you in or anything, but I think you'd really better go."

If the game is working, which means if everybody is having a good time, then leave well enough alone.

Knitifine
2017-09-01, 07:08 PM
The easiest thing to do is to give all spellcasters bard's casting progression and spells known.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-01, 07:32 PM
I've said a number of time before, and I'll say it again: balance is overrated.
Yes, not everything has to PERFECTLY balanced, but in my experience fun is easier to achieve if your PCs (and classes) are at least sort-of operating in the same sphere.



The easiest thing to do is to give all spellcasters bard's casting progression and spells known.
As Grod was saying- the issue with that is that it can also easily backfire. With fewer spell slots and fewer options, casters often feel pressured to make every spell count for even more, which leads to them picking only the most OP ones.

Knitifine
2017-09-01, 07:34 PM
As Grod was saying- the issue with that is that it can also easily backfire. With fewer spell slots and fewer options, casters often feel pressured to make every spell count for even more, which leads to them picking only the most OP ones.This is impossible thinking. For someone to do that, they must -

a. Not be aware spellcasters are OP, and thus think the change will cause them to not be effective.
and
b. Be interested in character optimization.

No one falls into both categories for more than like 30 minutes.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-01, 08:31 PM
This is impossible thinking. For someone to do that, they must -

a. Not be aware spellcasters are OP, and thus think the change will cause them to not be effective.
and
b. Be interested in character optimization.

No one falls into both categories for more than like 30 minutes.
It's not impossible in the slightest- with the Bard's progression at level 5 you'll likely only have 11 spells per day, including bonus spells from your stats. At 3-4 encounters per day and an encounter lasting (on average) 4-5 round, that's WAY less than 1 spell per round; of course you've got to make each one count.
A difference of 3-4 spells per day might not sound like much, but you've got to remember that you also know fewer different spells- a Wizard will know all 0th level spells and 14+ spells of 1st through 4th level. The Bard's progression gives you 6 0th level spells and 7 1st and 2nd level spells. The two factors combine to create a multiplicative effect.

Being "ineffective" and being "less effective" are different things- someone can be aware that spellcasters are OP and choose not to exploit that because they know that they've got wiggle room. They don't have to use an OP spell every round because if thing's get tight they've got extra spells to fall back on. If you have too few spells to keep any in reserve though, then you can't really choose to be less effective because your only two choices are between "OP" and "useless".


Edit: Think of it this way- if you tell someone that you are nerfing their class, then there's not much they can think EXCEPT that their class is OP. If anyone wasn't aware that spellcasters where OP before they nerf, they're certainly going to be afterwards.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-09-01, 09:26 PM
Fewer spells known is alright. It's fewer spells per-day that I find more concerning. The guy who just wants to blast will be happy with just Fireball and Lightning Bolt as third levels, but they'll be sad if they can only cast them once. Hence my suggestion for increasing spells/day.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-01, 10:12 PM
Fewer spells known is alright. It's fewer spells per-day that I find more concerning. The guy who just wants to blast will be happy with just Fireball and Lightning Bolt as third levels, but they'll be sad if they can only cast them once. Hence my suggestion for increasing spells/day.
It wasn't that fewer spells known is bad all on it's own- I agree with that part actually, it's just that if you do both, the changes sort of build on each other.
But yes, unless you REALLY front-load the spells per day, full casters have a risk of running short until around 6th/7th level. Giving them a wand with a low level Evocation or something similar achieves the same overall effect as plinking away with a crossbow, but somehow most magic-using players seem happier with it.

jqavins
2017-09-02, 09:33 AM
I think there is a serious downside to fewer spells known: it creates pressure in the direction of all casters being the same. Using the blaster example from above, everyone is going to take FB and LB at third level. You'd like to do other, more interesting things, but you've got to be able to dish out the damage when that's what's really needed, and you just can't pass these two up. With fewer spells known you've got less room on your list for the more interesting stuff, so everybody's third level lists look a little more the saame. And ths goes for the oter spell levels as well; there are usually (always?) one or two must haves, so interesting diversity requires ample space on the list.

The same goes for spells per day for prepared casters. Even if you've got every spell in the book on your spells known list, you're still going to prepare the must haves.

I see why my off the cuff idea earlier doesn't work, but on further thought I think that delaying some spells' availability can be part of the solution. Focus the fix primarily on the spells, not the spell counts. Nix some, nerf some more, delay some others, and leave some alone. Also, increase sor/wiz hit points; compensating for their OP abilities by making them overly squshy has always fealt like a bad solution to me. It's like someone said "High level MUs are too powerful, so let;s make sure no one ever lives long enough to get there." (Of course some do live long enough anyway.)

Nifft
2017-09-02, 02:41 PM
If you're just starting off it's best to stick to the book until you're familiar with everything. It's easier to learn the game then tweak it than the other way around.


When trying to weaken a game mechanic, you have to remember why you're doing so. You're not trying to achieve some platonic ideal, you're trying to make everything more fun. If your "fix" causes more unhappiness than it removes, you've objectively failed to fix anything, regardless of any abstract you use to measure "balance."

Yeah these. That's exactly why I proposed not changing the rules on the previous page, and instead changing the pallette of classes so that all choices are relatively balanced amongst each other.



Absolute power isn't a problem -- the DM can scale the opposition to challenge any group of PCs. Relative power can be a problem. Get all your PCs within the same range of power, and you've eliminated this potential issue.

Thus, the most-used fix with the least tampering is: Everyone plays characters which are roughly equal in power.

This means:

- If you want a game of Wizards, Clerics, and Druids, then everyone plays a T1-T2 spellcaster. There are all types of spellcasters, so this isn't much of a limitation. Instead of a Rogue, you'd have a Beguiler. Instead of a Fighter, you'd have a Cleric or Druid.

- If you want a high-magic game but not quite that high magic, then everyone plays a T2-T3 character. This includes some primary spellcasters (Psion, Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Beguiler), but it's generally less broken than the above.

- If you want a mid-magic game, then everyone plays a T3-T4 character. There are all types of these characters, so this isn't much of a limitation. Barbarians, Binders, Warlocks, Wildshape Mystic Rangers, Rogues, Scouts, and Dragonfire Adepts are all at home here.

- If you want a game of grunts and mundanes, then everyone plays a T4-T5 character. There are several types of these characters, so it's possible to play a game in this range, but it's not as easy as the above two groupings.

Cheers!


The other popular way to handle class imbalance is to restrict levels of play to low-level, which is where classes are less imbalanced due to having fewer features.

Exponential Wizard (1x2x3) = Linear Fighter (1+2+3) at very low levels.

This is usually called E6 or E8, and you can find descriptions of them here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?202109-E6-The-Game-Inside-D-amp-D-(with-PDFs!)).

Cheers!