Primary Spellcaster Fix

[mroozee]

In Dungeons and Dragons, the basics of physical combat efficiency are represented by two key numbers: BAB and Hit Points. All else being equal, pure spell-casters should not be able to compete in physical combat with Bards, Rogues, Rangers, Monks, Paladins, Barbarians or Fighters. As things stand right now, a 12th level Wizard with a Staff and no Armor is a real threat to low level Fighters (the city guard) even in an Anti-Magic Field.

In my mind, from worst to best in melee, the primary spell-casters SHOULD rank: Wizard < Cleric < Sorcerer < Druid. The methods that Wizards and Clerics use (studying tomes, prayer) aren't that applicable to the gladiatorial arena. Sorcerers aren't kept in the library all night reading and Druids are surviving in the wilderness making them a bit more capable.

It's also not clear to me why Clerics are armored. IMO, they should have no armor or weapon proficiency - even though their divine spells are unaffected by Arcane Spell Failure. If a priest wants to learn to fight, let her take the feats or branch out into another class.

Casters in Melee
{table=head]
Class|
Start HD*|
Level HD|
BAB
Cleric|
1d4|
1d0|
+1/4 Lev

Druid|
1d6|
1d2|
+1/3 Lev

Sorcerer|
1d4|
1d2|
+1/4 Lev

Wizard|
1d4|
1d0|
+1/5 Lev

[/table]

*Start HD means the HD you receive as a 1st level character who chose this class. Many campaigns will give full HP here. For any level after first or if you multi-class into this one, you get the Level HD instead.

Being a pure spell-caster grants you lots of power... Wish, Miracle, Time Stop, Resurrection, etc... but all that mental and spiritual work leaves little time for physical training. Since they are generally considered to be unbalanced already, a little weakening couldn't hurt.

Some results that I see are:
1. Traps are more dangerous to casters (pro-Rogue)
2. Evocation spells are deadly to opposing casters (pro-Evoker)
3. Feats based on BAB are harder for spell-casters to get (pro-Everyone else)
4. Half-casters that can survive first contact are now useful (pro-Paladin)
5. Defensive buffs, summonings, and escape spells are more valuable
6. Multi-classing may be seen as necessary (two levels of Monk, yeah!)
7. Prestige Classes would obviously have to be adjusted similarly

Any thoughts?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Pointless. No wizard is ever going to allow himself to get hit anyways. Spells like Mirror Image are going to keep him from getting hurt, and he has too many win buttons to push.

Nerfing BAB on casters is already rather pointless. RTA's will generally hit because they ignore armor, or if it is something with obnoxious touch AC, they will just try something different.

I see your point, a 10th level wizard having a BAB of +5, being the equal of a 5th level Warrior. However, your method of going about it is flawed, and doesn't really contribute to making the caster classes any less powerful in the long run.

[Fiery Diamond]

Yes. There is a similar thread suggesting almost exactly this same thing (in the homebrew section, I think...it might be in the other section. I'd have to check). And every single response was negative. And I have to say that I think this is a bad idea - it doesn't get rid of the cheese, it just gives a staggering fatal flaw. Balance is not achieved by making someone uber-powerful in one area and choosing another area in which to more-than-cripple them.

-Fiery Diamond

[magic_unlocked]

Yes. There is a similar thread suggesting almost exactly this same thing (in the homebrew section, I think...it might be in the other section. I'd have to check). And every single response was negative. And I have to say that I think this is a bad idea - it doesn't get rid of the cheese, it just gives a staggering fatal flaw. Balance is not achieved by making someone uber-powerful in one area and choosing another area in which to more-than-cripple them.

-Fiery Diamond

I agree with Firey Diamond here. Doing this is asking for trouble. A lot of it.

[mroozee]

Yes. There is a similar thread suggesting almost exactly this same thing (in the homebrew section, I think...it might be in the other section. I'd have to check). And every single response was negative. And I have to say that I think this is a bad idea - it doesn't get rid of the cheese, it just gives a staggering fatal flaw. Balance is not achieved by making someone uber-powerful in one area and choosing another area in which to more-than-cripple them.

-Fiery Diamond

The name for this thread may be misleading. I didn't mean to imply that this was some panacea that would fix all of the imbalances between spell casting and melee classes. What I hoped to address was more narrow; specifically, an unreasonable level of combat competence among spell casters.

If this were House-Ruled, I think it would fix the caster-in-melee issue. But there would be repercussions - many of which I'm sure I haven't considered. I listed a couple off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are many more.

So what are the repercussions (particularly to Core as our group is exclusively Core)? Will Spell Casters tend to dip into other Classes? Explore other Schools? Select different Spells? Magic Items? Focus on Defensive Feats? Will there be a shift in priority for Abilities? A lower ratio of casters to other party members? How would casters and parties differ from their current incarnations?

Since spell casters gain nothing, are weakened with this change and are now and will remain the dominant classes, the result should be no less balanced than it currently is. Since none of the player characters gain anything, you would expect overall combat competence (other than against Spell Casting NPC's) to degrade.

[Haruspex]

It could work I suppose. Though glass cannon syndrome is made a lot worse by these changes. I agree about the cleric thing, since not all cleric power sources are combet-oriented.

Am I reading the table correctly? Wizards and clerics gain NO HD after level 1? Is the current class imbalance that bad? Wizards can now kill each other in a boxing match. Or by sending their familiars to assassinate one another.

[mroozee]

It could work I suppose. Though glass cannon syndrome is made a lot worse by these changes. I agree about the cleric thing, since not all cleric power sources are combet-oriented.

Am I reading the table correctly? Wizards and clerics gain NO HD after level 1? Is the current class imbalance that bad? Wizards can now kill each other in a boxing match. Or by sending their familiars to assassinate one another.

My impression about the spell caster problem has always been more about the cannon part and less about the glass. The above weakens the glass and only very slightly alters the cannon (lower BAB for Touch Attacks and some Feats).

The table gives Hit Dice for a lot of game-mechanical purposes (including Con Bonuses) but they are d0's, meaning no Hit Points from dice. Familiars would still have only 1/2 of their Master's Hit Points and would use the Master's BAB. A boxing match between Wizards with no Con Bonuses would be no different than a boxing match between 1st level Commoners with no Con Bonuses other than the BAB.

One result is likely to be that Adventurers will put their best stat on their primary spell casting ability and their second best on Con. With 3d6 you expect to have a +1 or +2/+1/+0 on your top three stat modifiers and with 4d6 take the best 3, you expect +2 or +3/+1 or +2/+1.

If you have, say, a 15/13 as your top two stats, you almost HAVE to use your attribute point at 4th or 8th on Con (10th level with 13 Hit Points? Yikes!) or use a Feat on Toughness. There are other options, of course... you could construct a Con item, or hope your DM is nice and gives you one (the Fighter-Types might want it though) or some Wishes, or maybe your world has generous magic shops that build to order. Any limitation on the primary casting stat helps to limit the spell caster / melee character disparity.

Santa Clause DM's notwithstanding, a Wizard with a natural 22 Int is going to be extremely rare and most won't see 18 in any fashion until at least 12th level. If you have a 16/14 to start, will you have an 18 by 12th? Maybe. If you don't have stat raisers, it's gonna take guts to leave your Hit Points from 26-32 for 12th-15th level adventures - where a single 10d6 Fireball can take you out and probably the party Cleric as well.

[Haruspex]

So you further increased the importance of Con for adventuring spellcasters. Therefore those that stay at home will naturally be less robust than their active counterparts. I think that make sense.

Combined with the reduced Base Attack, I'd say you've accomplished what you set out to do. Which is to weaken spellcasters in an attept to redress the balance issue. Since I have not played in a game where Wish and Time Stop appeared, I can't say for sure whether this will help much.

It's a step, for sure. But I always thought that magic itself needed to be addressed, not the combat ability of the casters, which is their least significant asset.

[Ilphros]

I think that this has made glass cannon TOO hard. Having a single fireball take a spellcaster out isn't right - with this, Magic Missile is now the Mage Killer of the day - or else every adventuring caster in the world blows a spell slot on shield, regardless of level. Clerics are unbalanced in melee, so I do want to see them lose the armor proficiency (and probably a lot of weapons too..) but I don't want to see the spellcasters in the game have less hitpoints than a window pane! Adventurers gain hit points as they advance because they learn to better deal with pain, distraction, etc... So wizards should have a downgrade, not a removal. Also, do druids need to be any more tempting?

I reccomend simply bumping all casters down to 1/2 BAB, Simple Weapon Proficiency (Except wizards and clerics, who get the wizard list) and a 1d4 HD. Possibly 1d6 for a sorcerer, who, with all that time using magic he doesn't need to actually learn besides exploring his powers, should certainly not have less hitpoints than the cleric. Druids do not get hardiness from living in the wild, they live in harmony with nature - nature protects them in the same way a deity shields his clerics, so a druid doesn't need that sort of hardiness (They just cast spells.) The upshot of this is that, suddenly, divine spellcasters are a little closer to arcane spellcasters. It does NOT fix your problem of combat efficiency, but look at it like this: The wizard has spent years adventuring for those ten levels. Of course a town guard who has probably done nothing more strenuous than maybe break up a bar fight isn't as good a combatant as said caster - But a veteran soldier is probably better than he is, and a trained recruit about as good. This way, any spellcaster is handled as following: Power Attack, he's dead. This probably encourages cheese - What else can you do BUT turn into a fighting machine, if anything else leaves you a mere standard action from being a smear of blood to anything that walks your way? Perhaps downgrade adepts, who do tend to stay at home, and use those as the standard NPC caster. Wizards, Clerics and such are at heart made for adventurers, and so a certain amount of hardiness is demanded by the profession (Or else you are the aforementioned bloody smear)

[Lappy9000]

Keep in mind that clerics aren't simply priests. They're holy warriors of the church. Any expert (possibly an aristocrat) would probably fill the role of a priest who spends majority of their time in the church.

[Haruspex]

Keep in mind that clerics aren't simply priests. They're holy warriors of the church. Any expert (possibly an aristocrat) would probably fill the role of a priest who spends majority of their time in the church.

I forgot about that aspect of it. But since clerics as well as druids are also full spellcasters, it seems that they currently have the best of both worlds. Moderate combat ability and impressive spell power.

[magic_unlocked]

Hmm... I don't think the combat-ability of the wizard needs adressing. If anything, it's spells, magic in general, and feat-cheese. I play casters often, and i think that the core abilities of the casting classes are balanced against each other.

The cleric is limited by alignment. They can't cast anything that opposes their alignment. If they go out of the Faith's Favor, they lose ALL abilities. Their spell list is mostly about utility spells. Not damage, unless you count the inflict spells.

In return for all that, they get armor, average BAB, casting while wearing armor, and a little more spell slots, and domain spells to represent their deity.

Druids, on the other hand, are still limited, but not as much. While they can cast in armor, it can't be metal. They can't teach their language and the have a general "code" of honor, so to speak. If the break that, like the cleric, they loose all abilities. In exhchange for domain spells, druids get Wild Shape.

Wizards have almost no restrictions, except for armor and specializing. They have almost all damage-dealing spells and useful boosts. They are flashy and tend to make things go boom. They have a limited number of spell slots because they have to LEARN their spells. They also get an automatic +2 spells at each level. They can also learn other spells, depending on the DM.

Sorcerers have very few spells known. they, however, are a magical dynamo with almost umlimited magical energy. They can also cast spontaneously, a very powerful ability. And to reflect their stay in the wilderness, or them being outside more often than wizards, they know all simple weapons.

So, if you believe that there is a problem, its with the spells themselves. Not the Core Classes.