Nelphine
2007-10-30, 10:42 PM
I am designing a homebrew world in which I want magic to be lower level, less common, and less world changing (for the most part. clearly for certain monsters, magic will still be there in all it's glory)
As I want to enforce this amongst player characters I have been trying to determine how to reduce the amount of magic without just banning certain classes.
I toyed with the idea of forcing multiclassing upon spellcasters, but that seems contrary to the idea of players getting to choose their own. Also, one of my players wanted to be a bard, and upon reflection this doesn't seem to be really bad, as bards are not godly masters of magic. They are very magic reliant, but it is not a world changing magic, and usually only has subtle effects, so I didn't want to force a reduction of the bard class.
What I have been thinking about instead is reducing all the primary spellcasters to a level of spellcasting around that of a bard. So a primary spellcaster would start out only with access to 0th level, gain 1st level spells at 2nd level, and gain another level spells every 3 levels until at 17th they gain 6th spells which will be the cap.
To balance this I want to give all primary spellcasters more physical oriented abilities. I am thinking along the lines of increased hit dice, and increased attack bonus, and possibly increased saves for the arcane casters to bring them in line with a bard.
What I'm asking these forums is what do you think of this idea overall, and does anyone have any particular suggestions as to benefits to give the primary spellcasting classes?
Current ideas: Sorcerer: For unrelated reasons I may just not allow sorcerers, so at the moment I haven't thought about them. (So look at wizard for now)
Wizard: One of two choices: roguish wizard (d6 hp, rogue BAB, good ref saves) or tough wizard (d8 hp, good fort saves, light armour proficiency and maybe ignore arcane failure on light armour)
Cleric: d10 hp, and free benefit as per the war domain (war domain clerics would get weapon specialization as well)
Druid: possibly no bonus, as I think the special abilities of the druid will be almost as effective. on the other hand this clearly indicates I think druids are blatantly overpowered, which I don't, so I would definitely like ideas.
As I want to enforce this amongst player characters I have been trying to determine how to reduce the amount of magic without just banning certain classes.
I toyed with the idea of forcing multiclassing upon spellcasters, but that seems contrary to the idea of players getting to choose their own. Also, one of my players wanted to be a bard, and upon reflection this doesn't seem to be really bad, as bards are not godly masters of magic. They are very magic reliant, but it is not a world changing magic, and usually only has subtle effects, so I didn't want to force a reduction of the bard class.
What I have been thinking about instead is reducing all the primary spellcasters to a level of spellcasting around that of a bard. So a primary spellcaster would start out only with access to 0th level, gain 1st level spells at 2nd level, and gain another level spells every 3 levels until at 17th they gain 6th spells which will be the cap.
To balance this I want to give all primary spellcasters more physical oriented abilities. I am thinking along the lines of increased hit dice, and increased attack bonus, and possibly increased saves for the arcane casters to bring them in line with a bard.
What I'm asking these forums is what do you think of this idea overall, and does anyone have any particular suggestions as to benefits to give the primary spellcasting classes?
Current ideas: Sorcerer: For unrelated reasons I may just not allow sorcerers, so at the moment I haven't thought about them. (So look at wizard for now)
Wizard: One of two choices: roguish wizard (d6 hp, rogue BAB, good ref saves) or tough wizard (d8 hp, good fort saves, light armour proficiency and maybe ignore arcane failure on light armour)
Cleric: d10 hp, and free benefit as per the war domain (war domain clerics would get weapon specialization as well)
Druid: possibly no bonus, as I think the special abilities of the druid will be almost as effective. on the other hand this clearly indicates I think druids are blatantly overpowered, which I don't, so I would definitely like ideas.