Balancing 3.5, need ideas and advice

[Tallis]

I've finished reading through the 4e books. It is obviously better balanced than 3.X. Unfortunately in achieving this balance WotC seems to have cut out the high and low ends of the power scale available in 3.X. Also: the classes come across as rather bland to me. They are too much alike. Maybe once I've actually played a bit I'll change my mind about that part, but the first point still stands.

In the past I've never worried too much about balance, but then I've usually played a caster. 4e inspired me to finally give it a try.

My starting problem is this: full casters are obviously more powerful than anyone else at higher levels. I love the higher level spells and don't want to lose them.

My solution: Casters get new spell levels every 3 levels instead of every 2. So a wizard will still get 2nd level spells at lvl3, but then progression changes.
spell level learned at caster level
3 6
4 9
5 12
6 15
7 18
8 21
9 24
A wizard would need to reach epic levels to cast 8th and 9th level spells, but they would still be available this way. Since I still want them to learn something new at each level and I don't want them to be too weak at low levels I might give them more low level spells per day.

Working from this premise what would you do to balance the other classes to this power level? Mainly I'm interested in the core classes at this point, but any suggestions are welcome.

Thank you in advance for your help and advice.

[Tempest Fennac]

One problem with doing this with Divine Casters is that putting healing magic gain back to higher levels doesn't weaken the caster much, but it can hinder everyone else. It could work well for Arcane casters, though.

[Tallis]

One problem with doing this with Divine Casters is that putting healing magic gain back to higher levels doesn't weaken the caster much, but it can hinder everyone else. It could work well for Arcane casters, though.

Yes, I thought of this. I considered the idea of giving clerics other healing abilities like lay on hands or as a divine channeling alternative to turn undead. I would keep the healing ability weaker than spells. It would only be there to make up the difference in delaying their healing spells. Alternatively the levels of cure spells could be adjusted down one level. I haven't quite figured out how to make it balanced though.

One other related idea comes from OD&D. Clerics did not get lvl1 spells until they were second level. They only had their turn undead as a special ability at level one. In this case they would have lvl0 spells and maybe lay on hands at level 1.

I've also considered dividing the cleric spell list into spheres like they did in 2e. It adds a level of complexity but it makes more sense to me that clerical powers would be tied to their god's sphere of influence rather than all clerics having the same abilities.

[Tempest Fennac]

That would be interresting as far as flavour goes (to be fair, I'm probably the wrong person to give advice here; I tend to think that eliminating a few broken spells, and abilities as far as Druids go, would be sufficient to fix spellcasters.)

[Baron Corm]

You could just make the healing spells more powerful, but make them out-of-combat-only; have them grant Fast Healing equal to the amount they normally heal for 1 round per caster level (or a fixed length, your choice, just throwing this out here), but take 2 rounds or longer to cast. In combat, the players can use potions.

Edit: By the way, I think that your type of fix is one of the most effective at balancing casters towards the other PHB classes. That said, I find those classes to be dull by themselves; paladins get 10 levels of interesting things... then 10 dead levels... woot. There may be a lot of dead levels in your fix, as you said, but that IS balanced according to the other classes.

[Viruzzo]

I think that nerfing the casters is only a small part of the solution: the problem with them is also that a lot of their spells can substitute many skills and achieve results that the other classes mechanically can't. You should at least remove many "utility" spells from the casters and redistribute them in some form the the other classes, in particular the melee ones.
Also Druid shapeshifting is broken, and Hide in Plain Sight, and the list goes on... Why don't you try to expand 4e instead of restricting 3e?

[Severedevil]

Cure spells are terrible even at the current rate they appear. Why not push Cure Moderate Wounds up to 3d8, Cure Serious Wounds up to 5d8, and Cure Critical Wounds up to 8d8?

I'd also allow leftover healing from a cure spell to bestow positive hit points up to caster level (max - level of cure spell * 5), but I may've played too much TF2 Medic.

[arguskos]

Why don't you try to expand 4e instead of restricting 3e?
Speaking as someone doing the exact same thing as the OP, I can say that I'd rather rebuild 3e, since I like the system's particulars more. 4e isn't bad or anything, just not my cup of tea, and according to the OP, it's not his either.

On topic now, I'm rebuilding casters by introducing more core caster classes (bear with me), rebuilding all the classes to give them more interesting features across their whole progressions, and, this is the important bit, rewriting the spell lists available to the casting classes.

Mind you, I'm also adding more specialized casters, like the Savant (necromancy/divination), the Spellweaver (transmutation/abjuration), etc.... Each class has a unique and shorter spell list that focuses on their areas, and doesn't stay much. Wizards still have versatility, but now, their spells aren't incredibly powerful, or if they are, they get them later than other classes. It's just my take, and I've found in preliminary tests that it doesn't actually detract too much from the game. Sure, a party w/o a Wizard AND a Savant pretty much has no divination effects that matter a whole lot, but that's why Bards and Rogues have UMD, and why several other classes have divinatory effects (in case of this situation, there's always someone who can pick up the slack).

Of course, my campaign setting helps define many of my choices, and this isn't the best way to fix the issue, but I figured I'd toss it out there if you were interested. :smallwink:

-argus

[Viruzzo]

Speaking as someone doing the exact same thing as the OP, I can say that I'd rather rebuild 3e, since I like the system's particulars more. 4e isn't bad or anything, just not my cup of tea, and according to the OP, it's not his either.
Well the greatest difference is in the powers instead of attacks/spells, other stuff from 4e can still be useful in balancing things.
I like the limited core casters, but if you keep a general Wizard be sure to limit the variety of his spells, not only their power.

[arguskos]

Trust me, the Wizard is severely limited. Not really in variety, but in power. He's still good, thanks to the fact that, given time, he can probably produce an answer to lots of things. However, he can't do ANY of the standard cheese that Wizards in Core 3.5 are capable of, which is what made the class so powerful.

Also, don't think I am neglecting the other casters. Clerics and Druids both got beaten with the Nerfing Stick, just to keep everyone fair. All three classes are still fun and powerful, but no longer do they dominate the universe at level 7. :smallmad:

-argus

NINJAEDIT: Also, I totally forgot your other point. I've read the 4e stuff, and frankly, I wasn't impressed. It wasn't my thing, but I do recognize that some of it is useful (I like rolling certain skills together, I'm stealing a few powers [Thunderwave comes to mind], etc...).

[Hawriel]

The core books for 3rd ed are not broken. If you fallow the rules, like casting time, equipment (spell components), keeping track of time, and actualy pay attention to casting times. It will work out. Even in my games we gloss over spell components, and casting times. Its not because where powergamesr. We happen to have a pritty casual, conservetive, and self regulating group. If a spell has a move action, or full round casting time, inforce it. Inforce all effects of a spell, celerity may let you have an extra action but the caster is dazed for one round after that bonus action.

Its the powercreep of the splat books that brakes the games. Or more accuretly combining multiple abilities from multiple splat books that give GMs problems. Weather your using a published world (FF), or your own setting its up to you to deside what fits with in it. Not every thing ever published by WOTC needs to be in your world. Maybe you like the Master Spy from Complete Scoundrel, but dont like the rest. Thats fine. Allow the spy but ban the rest. If you dont like phsionics dont allow it. Some classes have a small RP requierment to play them. Druids, Clerics and Paladins are such classes. Players should keep that in mind if they use thoughs classes.

Metagaming is another thing that can be a problem. This really gets out of controle with the Magemart style gaming. Yes guilty of this myself. A handy haver sack is a must have for any D&D player. Players will seek that out first almost exclusivly over other items. Who can blame them, its damn handy. This is whare meta gaming comes in. Has the characters ever heard of an extradementional space? Has the wizard? Just because a character is a wizard does not give that wizard all knowledge of every thing magical. If a character has an idea they should work to accomplish it. Such as the wizard thinking to himself, hmm Im not very strong, I have alot of stuff. I wish I had a bag, backpack, fanypack, lunchbox, that could hold alot more stuff than its size should. Hmm that would be very heavy. I want it to lighten the weight of the stuff inside. That would be a very handy thing for me to have. The character can learn how to make his own stuff or learn whare he can find stuff that does what he wants, or close to it. Or he murders an NPC takes their stuff and they happen to have a handy haversack.

Here is the other method to lessen the "brokeness" of 3rd ed. If the players can do it, it can be done to them.

[Tallis]

I am planning on going through the spell lists and making adjustments to spells, but I'm still pretty early on in the brainstorming process and haven't gotten to it yet. Having the caster gain spells at later levels has the same effect as raising them level of the spell in the standard progression. I figure that'll take care of some of the problems at least, though I'm sure I'll still have to make adjustments.

For druids I was thinking of altering the natural spell feat so that the character casts at CL - 5 (so a lvl 10 druid would cast as 5th level in animal form).

I am looking to adjust non-casting classes too. So hopefully that'll help with making things like pally and fighter more interesting. I am definitely looking for ideas for all classes.

I also was thinking of rolling up some of, but not all, the skills similar to 4e. Hide and move silently become stealth, listen, spot and search become perception, etc. I'll also probably make perception a class skill across the board along with basic physical skills. Possibly gives some classes (fighter I'm looking at you) a couple extra skill points.

The reason for adjusting 3.5 instead of 4e is because 3e is closer to what I want to end up with. I do intend to take some ideas from 4e also. Besides I'm more familiar with 3.5 so I feel like I can judge the effects of the changes I make more easily. Although my changes will include restrictions on spellcasters, I do plan to expand other classes.

[arguskos]

As a note Tallis, if you want a hand in balancing classes and spell-lists, I'd be glad to share stuff with you. For example, I have the reworked Barbarian my friends and I came up with laying around somewhere, if you'd like to see it.

Figured I'd offer, in case you want a hand or anything.

Also, I actually banned Natural Spell most of the time. I never understood how a bear, or octopus, or whatever, is casting spells and whatnot. Never made any sense to me.

-argus

[Baron Corm]

The core books for 3rd ed are not broken.

See: any spell which offers no save. Also, candles of invocation. Among other things. You must not have looked at core very clearly. Also:

*follow *actually *it's *we're *powergamers *pretty *conservative *enforce *breaks *accurately *whether *you're *decide everything *psionics *requirement *those *control *haversack *exclusively *where *extradimensional *a lot *fannypack

Just for future reference.

[Tallis]

As a note Tallis, if you want a hand in balancing classes and spell-lists, I'd be glad to share stuff with you. For example, I have the reworked Barbarian my friends and I came up with laying around somewhere, if you'd like to see it.

Figured I'd offer, in case you want a hand or anything.

Also, I actually banned Natural Spell most of the time. I never understood how a bear, or octopus, or whatever, is casting spells and whatnot. Never made any sense to me.

-argus

I'd definitely be interested. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for here.:smallbiggrin:

[arguskos]

Well then! I'll PM you with more details, cause I'm awesome like that. :D

-argus

[Tempest Fennac]

Arguskos, Frosty and I were working on a pair of full casters a while back which were limited to 2 schools: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4055352&highlight=Tempest#post4055352 (Frosty never came up with abilities for the Diviner/Transmuter sadly). Also, the Vigour spells grant Fast Healing rather then healing a lot in 1 go. They can be found on http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Spells-Cleric.pdf .

[Tallis]

Well then! I'll PM you with more details, cause I'm awesome like that. :D

-argus


Thank you very much:smallsmile: