Balancing Casters by Killing Them

[SirNibbles]

I thought I'd throw my bad idea into the ring of bad ideas to somehow fix the imbalance between 20th level characters who are really good at hitting things with sticks and 20th level characters who can summon a horde of celestial super-beings at will.

Idea:
Channelling magic through your body puts irreparable stress on it. Every time you cast a spell, you lose an hour of your life per spell level. Your age is treated as being higher than it actually is for the purpose of determining age penalties to physical stats (but not bonuses to mental stats or actual age category) and for determining if you have reached your maximum age (and thus died).

A Wizard who casts 24 levels of spells per day essentially loses a day of his life, reaching his grave in half normal time.

[Venger]

Uh huh.

I'm a necropolitan. The end.

This was present in 2e. Every time you cast haste, your guy lost a year off his life.

[Covenant12]

I get the motivation to balance spellcasters, I really do. This idea is going to fail at that and add a lot of bookkeeping.

Forget necropolitan, even core go standard elf wizard. Casting every round of every encounter for typical encounters/level and he won't change age category by level 20.

Also, I don't like the idea in general. Premature aging for casters doesn't fit campaigns I'd like to DM. Risk of something like taint maybe, though I find the 3.5 rules for taint lacking.

A final note when attempting to make casters miserable: parties quite close to outright need clerics. They have by far the best debuff removal (restoration is hard to come by, ability drain hurts. also revenance/revivify combo), and often are played not at T1 but focus on healing, debuff removal, with the occasional buff or flamestrike. If you try to make god wizard or druid miserable and make the good guy cleric stop showing up at all, you failed as DM.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I think you're not going far enough. To balance casters, introduce backlash damage for non-epic spells, equal to [caster level * spell level] squared. That way, anything but the weakest magic is sure to kill your character outright, which is very balancing.


Look, the only nerf that really 'works'--in the sense that it brings wizards to t3--is limiting all spellcasters to 4ths. Anything else ignores the problem.

[Quertus]

As was previously stated, this was a 2e thing. Only the most powerful/broken spells aged the caster, though. Except Haste, which aged the target(s).


Look, the only nerf that really 'works'--in the sense that it brings wizards to t3--is limiting all spellcasters to 4ths. Anything else ignores the problem.

The only way? No. I play my signature academia mage, Quertus, for whom this account is named, as tactically inept, and it balances him just fine. :smalltongue:

Arguably, it goes a little too far in the opposite direction...

[King of Nowhere]

how about we balance casters by making them incapable of casting?

[Nifft]

I thought I'd throw my bad idea into the ring of bad ideas to somehow fix the imbalance between 20th level characters who are really good at hitting things with sticks and 20th level characters who can summon a horde of celestial super-beings at will.

Idea:
Channelling magic through your body puts irreparable stress on it. Every time you cast a spell, you lose an hour of your life per spell level. Your age is treated as being higher than it actually is for the purpose of determining age penalties to physical stats (but not bonuses to mental stats or actual age category) and for determining if you have reached your maximum age (and thus died).

A Wizard who casts 24 levels of spells per day essentially loses a day of his life, reaching his grave in half normal time. Dead people tend to fall down, and are thus demonstrably terrible at maintaining any sort of balance.

You'd need to hang them up, perhaps on plot hooks.



Uh huh.

I'm a necropolitan. The end.

This was present in 2e. Every time you cast haste, your guy lost a year off his life.
This is one plank in the platform of of Elf Supremacy that started in 1e.

And yeah, it's a bad solution because some races can just NOPE that restriction. Necropolitan is a great example; Elan is another.

[jdizzlean]

lets just go w/ the white wolf variant on magic and make every spell cast cause paradox if it's seen by a mundane. the more unbelievable the effect, the more paradox is generated, and the more dangerous it is for the mage.

that'll teach em!

[Reversefigure4]

It also doesn't balance by virtue of the fact that player loses out on little here - if their character dies, they just make a new one. You might burn through Gandalfius the Mighty Wizard, then his similar brother Radagastius, then Sarumius, over the course of the campaign, but that's not a big loss.

[ryu]

lets just go w/ the white wolf variant on magic and make every spell cast cause paradox if it's seen by a mundane. the more unbelievable the effect, the more paradox is generated, and the more dangerous it is for the mage.

that'll teach em!

Then you just kill all mundanes by summoning things where they can't see them and sending them on murder raids. Still a debateably good solution because now there's no imbalance among the living.

[ben-zayb]

Oh, I thought based on the title that the thread was about outright killing the caster characters to make them more or less as effective as their mundane counterparts:smallconfused:

[Deophaun]

This is awesome! We can have the character's natural life span plotted out so we know exactly how many hours of his life he has left, and then every time time passes, we can mark that off so that we always know how many spells he can cast before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

And we really should keep track of this for every character, not just spellcasters, in the event a mundane wants to multiclass into a caster in the future. So everyone gets to keep track of their every minute left in their character's life all the time!

I've been looking for a way to make people stop complaining about tracking weight, food, and ammo. I think this would do it.

[Goaty14]

This is awesome! We can have the character's natural life span plotted out so we know exactly how many hours of his life he has left, and then every time time passes, we can mark that off so that we always know how many spells he can cast before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

And we really should keep track of this for every character, not just spellcasters, in the event a mundane wants to multiclass into a caster in the future. So everyone gets to keep track of their every minute left in their character's life all the time!

I've been looking for a way to make people stop complaining about tracking weight, food, and ammo. I think this would do it.

You forgot the blue text there, buddy.

I agree with Deophaun here: The subtraction is way too insignificant and number-provoking that it effectively does nothing but add unnecessary complexity.

[ericgrau]

Oh, I thought based on the title that the thread was about outright killing the caster characters to make them more or less as effective as their mundane counterparts:smallconfused:

Like many solutions this doesn't work because many casters will just find a way to keep functioning after death.

[ryu]

Like many solutions this doesn't work because many casters will just find a way to keep functioning after death.

We DO, in fact, have options that read as stop being dead. Some of them even function as something that can be prepped in advance with no outside interaction at all. Even discounting undead, and long lived races anyone who can access the druid list can reincarnate, and thus simply stop being old even as a human.

[Bavarian itP]

It's a very flavorful idea, imho (I love it), but, as others have pointed out, it will not help game balance. And add a lot of bookkeeping.

[flappeercraft]

lets just go w/ the white wolf variant on magic and make every spell cast cause paradox if it's seen by a mundane. the more unbelievable the effect, the more paradox is generated, and the more dangerous it is for the mage.

that'll teach em!

Well I guess Invisible spell is now even more broken especially for being a +0 spell, baator make it a class feature now.

[ryu]

Well I guess Invisible spell is now even more broken especially for being a +0 spell, baator make it a class feature now.

Also viable. Still that costs a feat. Can't we just take my plan? I'll even do it myself if I have to. It's just faster with others helping.

[RoboEmperor]

Steal Life. The end.

[Yogibear41]

And here I was thinking you meant a dagger in the back and a fistful of D6, or a power attacking great-sword to the face.

But like others have said undead, immortal race, etc. Also there are a handful of 3rd party spells that you can cast to de-age you.

Personally I'm in the boat that people put way to much weight into the tier system and caster's aren't as op as everyone thinks they are.
Not saying they aren't good, just saying they aren't as unstoppable as people think they are.

[RoboEmperor]

But like others have said undead, immortal race, etc. Also there are a handful of 3rd party spells that you can cast to de-age you.

Steal Life isn't 3rd party.

[lylsyly]

Didn't read the discussion, just the title. "Balancing Casters by Killing them." Capital Idea!

That's why the only casters in my campaign are Bard, Paladin, and Ranger. ​And I even took 6ths away from the Bard.

[Mordaedil]

Every time I see someone suggest balancing casters, it always focuses on the end-game level and usually operates around cutting them off at the knee-caps and elbows, and fail to make casters a bit more survivable at the early stages. Yes, yes, sleep is a very powerful spell, but it can still fail 25% of the time and that is assuming they have no bonuses to will save.

If you want to fix the linear fighter and quadratic wizards problem, you are failing to notice the obvious. You have to boost the wizards up a bit in the early game before making them linear. Making spellcasting costly in lifespan doesn't eliminate the problem or even approach a fix.

If you want your wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids to be more balanced with the other classes, just use the warlock and change it to be based around the theme of the other classes. There, done, good job.

[Nifft]

Every time I see someone suggest balancing casters, it always focuses on the end-game level and usually operates around cutting them off at the knee-caps and elbows, and fail to make casters a bit more survivable at the early stages.

You'll love this thread, since it doesn't suggest cutting anyone off at the knees or elbows -- the cutting happens right at the neck.

Also, there's no need to wonder if casters are survivable at any particular level. They're already dead.

[Sto]

I feel like It's time to mention dragons. Do I get to take my wyrmling dragons to ancient simply by having them do nothing but spam spells? This seems fair and balanced. Might as well do it with a Kobold!

[Deophaun]

I feel like It's time to mention dragons. Do I get to take my wyrmling dragons to ancient simply by having them do nothing but spam spells?
Yes, but they would gain none of the benefits of their increased age categories until they took the requisite number of dragon levels. I think there's a spell or a magic item that might hit them harder.

[Mato]

Oh, I thought based on the title that the thread was about outright killing the caster characters to make them more or less as effective as their mundane counterparts:smallconfused:Contingency animate dread warrior?

[Eldariel]

Every time I see someone suggest balancing casters, it always focuses on the end-game level and usually operates around cutting them off at the knee-caps and elbows, and fail to make casters a bit more survivable at the early stages. Yes, yes, sleep is a very powerful spell, but it can still fail 25% of the time and that is assuming they have no bonuses to will save.

If you want to fix the linear fighter and quadratic wizards problem, you are failing to notice the obvious. You have to boost the wizards up a bit in the early game before making them linear. Making spellcasting costly in lifespan doesn't eliminate the problem or even approach a fix.

If you want your wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids to be more balanced with the other classes, just use the warlock and change it to be based around the theme of the other classes. There, done, good job.

Wizards absolutely need no help on low levels, except in the hands of the most inept of players. And in those cases the help should be aimed at the player, not the class. Same goes for 2e and 3e alike but 3e even more so.

[RoboEmperor]

Wizards absolutely need no help on low levels, except in the hands of the most inept of players. And in those cases the help should be aimed at the player, not the class. Same goes for 2e and 3e alike but 3e even more so.

A wizard that doesn't use ACFs and doesn't use spells "creatively" needs lots of help on low levels. Now whether only inept players don't grab wizard ACFs or not... XD

[Eldariel]

A wizard that doesn't use ACFs and doesn't use spells "creatively" needs lots of help on low levels. Now whether only inept players don't grab wizard ACFs or not... XD

I dunno, even a bogstandard Core Wizard with no ACFs and using a combat-only set of Sleep, Color Spray, Grease, Enlarge Person is more than able to pull their weight over an entire adventuring day far as combat is concerned. Add some scrolls and even creativity is unnecessary: you can brute force CR 3 encounters if you feel so inclined.

Now, defenses are harder without cheese, ACFs or creative use of spells but stealth, mounts, formation, initiative, hirelings, alternative companions, etc. give you some good options. And even with none you're still a glass cannon with the best offense in the game and thus worth hauling around.

[ericgrau]

I dunno, even a bogstandard Core Wizard with no ACFs and using a combat-only set of Sleep, Color Spray, Grease, Enlarge Person is more than able to pull their weight over an entire adventuring day far as combat is concerned. Add some scrolls and even creativity is unnecessary: you can brute force CR 3 encounters if you feel so inclined.

Now, defenses are harder without cheese, ACFs or creative use of spells but stealth, mounts, formation, initiative, hirelings, alternative companions, etc. give you some good options. And even with none you're still a glass cannon with the best offense in the game and thus worth hauling around.

Those spells do alright, but a sword kills much more reliably. I did a core level 1 challenge before. Winner was vanilla barbarian. Sleep & scythe coup de grace wizard came out on bottom IIRC. Yeup, defense was a big issue, but so was spell reliability. With abrupt jaunt and enough spells per day, maybe things would be different, I dunno. But then who knows what the barbarian could do with splats.

You can manage ok early on, but there's a big jump once you get to 3rd level spells.

[Eldariel]

Those spells do alright, but a sword kills much more reliably. I did a core level 1 challenge before. Winner was vanilla barbarian. Sleep & scythe coup de grace wizard came out on bottom IIRC. Yeup, defense was a big issue, but so was spell reliability. With abrupt jaunt and enough spells per day, maybe things would be different, I dunno. But then who knows what the barbarian could do with splats.

You can manage ok early on, but there's a big jump once you get to 3rd level spells.

It also depends on your opponents. Unsurprisingly Wizard, who ignores enemy defenses does much better against higher HP enemies such as Ogres. No other level 1 character posts similar numbers vs. CR3-4 enemies.

Also due to having AOE and the mentioned nuke power and being able to outsource defenses, a Wizard 1 benefits a party and of a party more than any other class, really. The party can be basically anything really (4 Wizards do fine with some specialisation) but disabling spella act as force multipliers and obviously AOE is the better the bigger groups you're fighting. Similarly, HP ignoring attacks get the better the higher HD your adversaries.