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Belial_the_Leveler
2008-09-01, 05:41 PM
I've been thinking; Most of the 'fixes' of the caster/noncaster imbalance require one or more of the following:

a) a lot of homebrew rules that restrict spellcasting
b) homebrewing better concaster classes
c) nerfing caster classes
d) reworking the spell lists of casters
e) changing of XP allotment so noncasters are ahead.

These solutions are not easy to implement because they require a lot of paperwork, time and calculation and the immediate nerfing of casters or reworking of spell lists isn't usually received well by the people that play casters. So here is a simple, easy to implement solution that evens the scales:


Gestalt: The Gestalt system is used for characters. Wizard, Sorceror, Cleric, Druid, Sujenja, Favored Soul, Wu Jen and any other full caster classes and their full caster PrCs take both sides of the gestalt. Other classes, including Warlock and Bard, take only one side of the gestalt. The ability score increases of 4th edition (increase 2 different abilities every 4 levels, increase all abilities every 10 levels) are used to help classes/combinations with MAD to work while casters don't get much out of it.


I believe this helps even out the classes ALOT more and a lot more easily than most of the complicated fixes.

The above doesn't take into account direct attempts to do gamebreaking stuff like Pun Pun, Gate cheese, Infinite CL and the like. The following four rules however do. Implement at your discretion:


CL limitation: Unless a specific limit (cap) to the increase of a spell's effects by caster level is given, the caster's character level is that limit. Caster level checks, opposed caster level checks, SR checks and dispel DC is not affected by this. Basically, this limits cheese like Blasphemy, infinite CL stuff and arbitrarily high damage from spells like Cometfall.

Polymorph limitation: Polymorphing prevents the use of spells with somatic and/or verbal components. Also, the last change ends all previous ones. The druid's natural spell feat still applies.

Creature Control: You can control a maximum CR total of creatures at once equal to your own CR+2. Stronger or more creatures than this limit can't be given commands. Beyond this limit, creatures you dominate or otherwise bind to your control will act as if you've given no orders and creatures you call can refuse to help you but in both cases still won't attack you or your allies directly. This applies in combat and other situations that might be harmful or detrimental to the creatures in question; you are not limited when giving commands in non-harmful situations. Summoned or animated creatures are exempt from this rule.

Conservation of Cost: Attempts to get a gain in treasure of any kind or XP beyond what the method you use costed fails. Examples: using wish to create/enchant magic items costing more than what a wish scroll costs fails. Using Gate to call a Pit Fiend then command it to use its Wish for you will fail because a Wish costs more than a Gate. Using a thought bottle to recover more XP than 1/5 the bottle's cost in GP fails. Using polymorphing to create precious materials costing more than a casting of polymprh fails. Note that dominating someone to force them to hand over valuables still works but dominating someone to demand Wish/Miracle and XP expenditures in general doesn't.

Talic
2008-09-01, 05:45 PM
Casters are still ahead.

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-09-01, 05:54 PM
I'm not so sure. I mean, I can do a semi-cheesy noncaster with the standard system that can survive 20+ rounds against a wizard that is specifically prepared against noncasters (barring gate/pun pun cheese) and eat the wizard for breakfast if he's overconfident.

How much more is possible with a better system?

Tengu_temp
2008-09-01, 05:57 PM
The easiest fix?

Casters: Use psionic classes, classes from ToM and OA.
Non-casters: Use ToB classes. Factotum for skillmonkeys.

Not perfect, but much closer to balance than normal DND. And infinitely cooler!

CASTLEMIKE
2008-09-01, 06:14 PM
Gestalt Caster//Non-Caster now everything is equal.:smallsmile:

Using Sorcerers, Favored Souls and Shamans instead of Wizards, Clerics and Druids tones things down without magic stores.

Using DMG demographics for magic item creation and availability.

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-09-01, 06:16 PM
Depends on the caster. If we're talking about the bard... :smalltongue:

Pie Guy
2008-09-01, 06:18 PM
IF you already have the books, might I suggest using the 4e noncaster powers?

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-09-01, 06:28 PM
That would work, yes. But it falls under the "too much work", "too complicated" and "possibly imbalanced" categories. The new edition gives powers for five noncasters. 3,5 has dozens of noncasters. So you need to sit down and work over the classes for months. Not worth it, really.

Talic
2008-09-01, 06:38 PM
I'm not so sure. I mean, I can do a semi-cheesy noncaster with the standard system that can survive 20+ rounds against a wizard that is specifically prepared against noncasters (barring gate/pun pun cheese) and eat the wizard for breakfast if he's overconfident.

How much more is possible with a better system?

I can promise you. Use any 3.5 sourcebook. Use any rule. Build a level 20 noncaster/partial caster. Heck, make it gestalt.

I shall build a level 20 fullcaster. Only buffs up would be what would be considered up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entirety of that fullcaster's life.

the arena will be small, 100x100x100.

It will be featureless, with stone on all sides.

And the mage will win.

Every time. All the time. In under 3 rounds.

Either through no-save, no attack roll damage, negative levels, or the like.

I'll optimize no more than you do. I.E. Half green dragon trolls with an ex immunity to fire and a death ward effect will be met with similar levels of optimization.

Shadowtraveler
2008-09-01, 07:29 PM
That would work, yes. But it falls under the "too much work", "too complicated" and "possibly imbalanced" categories. The new edition gives powers for five noncasters. 3,5 has dozens of noncasters. So you need to sit down and work over the classes for months. Not worth it, really.How many noncasters do you really need to work on though?

You've got the Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, Knight, and Swashbuckler. Around six, maybe seven classes. All the others (Samurai, Ninja, etc.) are mostly superfluous.

Akimbo
2008-09-01, 07:50 PM
Or instead of redesigning every spell in the game and every martial class, if you are okay with doing X damage and a one round stun being the maximum level of power just play 4e. And if you want spells to do what they do in 3.5 Play 3.5 with or without fixes to other effects.

Mushroom Ninja
2008-09-01, 08:02 PM
The easiest fix?

Casters: Use psionic classes, classes from ToM and OA.
Non-casters: Use ToB classes. Factotum for skillmonkeys.

Not perfect, but much closer to balance than normal DND. And infinitely cooler!

That sounds cool, (assuming you bar Font of Inspiration cheese for the archivists). Does OA have any divine casters?

Griffin131
2008-09-01, 08:54 PM
We just... talk to players who start to overshadow. Yes, casters rule over noncasters, but not if people don't play them to their maximum.

SurlySeraph
2008-09-01, 09:02 PM
How about this fix: Casting a spell is a full-round action, and making a full attack is a standard action. All characters that have iterative attacks can make full attacks on charges.

Griffin131
2008-09-02, 07:12 AM
How about this fix: Casting a spell is a full-round action, and making a full attack is a standard action. All characters that have iterative attacks can make full attacks on charges.
Wouldn't change much - the problem is getting to the caster to make the attack in the first place, if you're fighting one.

If you're fighting non casters the only thing it changes is the surprise round.

Gavin Sage
2008-09-02, 10:49 PM
Others have touched on a bunch of these but here's my fixes for magic in 3.5. Albeit some of this is a litte intensive for houseruling, but until we can get 3.7 and not 4e its might be worth it. Anyways:

1) Make 95% of Spells have a 1+ round casting time. Shuts down a mages moblity if he wants to cast first of all so if a melee class in in range they can take their full attacks. And even if not in range it gives everybody a chance to do something about the caster before the magic goes off. Doesn't reduce the badarsery nessecarily but makes the caster more reliant on the party for protection and at least slows things down. I'm still deciding whether Quicken should be allowed to make things standard actions.

Note the remaining 5% should be basically direct damage spells. To encourage the rather tame course of blasting things to bits. Also keep Counterspelling (and Dispel Magic) a standard action that can be used to stop normal casting.

2) Make DC checks for Concentration both higher, and more easy to force. Something like a DC 25+damage-dealt+spell-level for any attack that hits and heck a DC 20 for melee attacks that miss because having a screaming barbarian swing at you with a deadly weapon you should be distracting. Ranged attack too, though maybe dependent on how close to hitting they were. Again this doesn't make mages that less badarsed directly, but more exploitably vulnerable when combined with 1) to give you a whole round to distract a mage. Force a caster to rely on their party more and you fix their overwhelming quality of casters by demanding teamwork.

3) Remove the stat component of saving throw DCs. Removes much of the optimization impetus right then and there when your Gray Elf with a headband of Int stills casts Finger of Death with a DC 17 instead of 25-30+. Though I'm still open to other bonuses they should be fairly limited, and probably non-stacking. Perhaps just make a universal limit of +5 to spell DCs under any circumstance.

4) Caster level should have limits wherever it doesn't, and less should rely upon it. Yeah pretty self-explanatory but I can't think of a general formula. If magic doesn't scale up as well then it goes a long way to balance.

5) In general get rid of durations reading "hour/level" out there. If this is an offensive spells make it rounds or minutes, if its a buff then the same though some could have a static duration of say 2hrs if its the likes of Mage Armor.

6) Have saving throws get retests to shrug off effects and apply the phrase 'you always get a save' too. And always always spell resistance When loosing one throw doesn't put a character out of the entire fight its a lot less ownage on the part of a mage I think. How often might depend on the specific effect. And there should not be "no-save" effects. Something like Solid Fog becomes much more reasonable when you can make a Fort save to push through the slowing effect and still close in on the mage.

7) Metamagic aids cannot 'break sequence.' What I mean by this is you cannot use say Divine Metamagic to cast a spell you could not prepare and cast normally. You wanna cast Persist with metacheese, well then you can't go above level 3 spells and only if you can cast 9th level spells to begin with.


Beyond this some micro-scale fixes to specific spells like making Grease just an area effect spell. Also I have three for some specific classes:

Wizards- No free spells at leveling up. Though makes starting above level 1 a bit interesting, using the Sorceror known list with a one level bonus seems equitable.

Clerics- No free healing exchange. Devoting more to keeping the party going means draw back the numbers of buffs you can just layer on.

Druids- Actually done fairly well in the PHBII variant I think.

Glimbur
2008-09-02, 10:57 PM
Don't allow Wizards, Clerics, Druids, etc. Just Healers, Warmages, and Bards. No Sublime Chord either. That'll get rid of a lot of your crazy self buffs, Save or Dies, etc while still allowing blasting, healing, and some illusions etc. Might also need to nerf the Bard spell list. [never thought I'd have to say that].

Aron Times
2008-09-02, 11:46 PM
The horrible balance between casters and noncasters is one of the reasons why I switched to 4E. Now, a level x fighter is comparable in power to a level x wizard.

Now, if you still want a world where casters are generally more powerful than noncasters, just make your caster NPCs much higher in level than than the noncaster NPCs. For example, if I were to run a 4E game set in the Wheel of Time, I'd stat Aes Sedai NPCs as much higher in level than most fighters.

Akimbo
2008-09-02, 11:49 PM
*A list of stuff that shows a distinct lack of ability to do basic math.*

So now, no buffs last longer then 2 hours, all spells require a saving throw which anyone at all can pass without trying, SR is ten times as dangerous because it always applies to everything and you can't boost you CL at all. All spells suck, because the all have some weird CL cap that you never explained, and they all take 1 round or more to cast, and just as a bonus you increased the concentration DC that mages never make ever.

Congratulations, now all casters are 100% unplayable and Rogues win D&D instead.

Seriously, have a level 1 Warrior fire an arrow that does 1d8 damage at a Wizard casting a spell (and he can't have protection from arrows up, because the duration caps at 2 hours and takes 1 full round to cast).

Let's say he's facing a level 10 Wizard: DC 32 Concentration DC, has 13 ranks, maybe a +3 from Con. So now he has to roll a 16 for something that does 1 damage. He's better off meleeing a level 1 Warrior to death, because he'd have to burn through tons of spells against the worst level 1 Warrior, against a decent one he'd be looking at an unpassable DC. So you effectively prevented and spell that isn't Planar Binding from being worth ever casting (Unless you want to reduce that duration to 2 hours as well.)

Frosty
2008-09-03, 12:00 AM
The easy fix is to restrict powerful spells...and to give the non-casters LOADs of cold. With enough gold, you can bridge any gap.

Zeful
2008-09-03, 12:09 AM
Here's a fix I'm working on for wizards right now.

They start play with access to two schools of magic. At 3rd level they gain access to a third but at a -2 caster level. Then you add this feat.

Expanded School knowledge
Your broad studies into the arcane open up new possibilities.
Prerequisites: Wizard Level 5+
Benefit: You gain access to another school of magic of your choice. You may cast spells from this school as if you were a wizard two levels lower then lowest level school you have access to.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times, choosing a new school each time.

In short, access to new school but at -1 spell level.

Of course I'm also doubling each school's number of spells at each level and redefining what the schools can and can't do. But this should stop much of the higher level abuse.

Morandir Nailo
2008-09-03, 12:27 AM
IMO, the absolute simplest thing to do is get rid of free spell access. Wizards no longer get two freebies at level-up, and the DM should keep careful watch over what scrolls/wands/etc are available at any given time. This way, the DM controls exactly what spells are going to be used in his/her game. Basically, just remember that you as DM have control over what is and isn't available in your game; exercise that ability. (Do so wisely, of course.)

I think that giving all spells a minimum casting time of 1 full round will help as well. Making Concentration checks more meaningful is good as well, but my idea is to get rid of Casting Defensively altogether. Instead, casting while in Melee always provokes an AoO, and if you take damage you have to make a Concentration check (DC as normal) or lose the spell. Remember that PCs and NPCs alike can ready actions to attack the caster if s/he casts, providing plenty of opportunities to keep Batman in check.

You might also want to limit the mitigation of Metamagic effects - ban Divine Metamagic, and do not allow any feats or PrCs that reduce the cost of a Metamagic feat, or give extra Metamagic feats. Get rid of the rods as well.

My personal opinion is that the easiest fix of all is to switch systems rather than keep patching a broken one (I'd recommend Labyrinth Lord or Castles & Crusades), but I realize that's no help here. Still, it's worth mentioning.

Mor

Gavin Sage
2008-09-03, 12:56 AM
So now, no buffs last longer then 2 hours,

Yeah as opposed to a level one spell lasting half the day, I'm negotiable with things like Extend metamagic working, or higher limits for higher level spells but not open ended effectively permanent after level 6 ones.


all spells require a saving throw which anyone at all can pass without trying,

At level 9 a Barbarian Will save is +3 and its Wis which is going to be how close to being a dump stat? But lets give him plus +2 for someone that rolled really well for a +5 total. While a Wizard of the same level casting a 5th level spell gives a DC 15. That's a 50/50 chance. Which given the consequences possible for loosing a save with magic is a high risk. Now that's not the Barbarian strong suit and with a Fort save your could have +10 but and with a DC 15 the odds are in your favor. But then again given that categories of magic tend to include "save-or-lose" as game breakers I fail to see what the problem is. Casting Dominate on a Barbarian can still win you the fight.

Oh as for spamming beyond stats with feats and items, well both sides can still do that. I'm down with Spell Focus for a bonus to DCs from one school, and maybe an item doing the same. Main casting stat is just the place that seems to get spamming worse since between races, level advancement, and items.

I'm also open to negoiating the base DC for spells and maybe a bonus for leveling up, just not as stackable as stats currently are.

You seem to think that not getting automatic wins on a standard action is unfair?



SR is ten times as dangerous because it always applies to everything and you can't boost you CL at all.

Sounds good to me.


All spells suck, because the all have some weird CL cap that you never explained,

What's the one of the most important difference between Chill Touch and Magic Missile for a character at level 15? The latter of the pair has 15 dice rolls for damage when Magic Missile caps at 5. Spells need caps to how much caster level can improve things, I'm just not tying myself to exact caps.

I'm looking for methods not specifics and I'm fairly negoiable on the exacts specifications.


and they all take 1 round or more to cast,

Yeah kinda like when I was play BGII and you could actually hope to disrupt a spell from going off.


Seriously, have a level 1 Warrior fire an arrow that does 1d8 damage at a Wizard casting a spell (and he can't have protection from arrows up, because the duration caps at 2 hours and takes 1 full round to cast).

ZOMG hes not immune to an entire branch of combat the entire time anymor!!!

Because its so unfair that a mage have to you know think "gee were going to raid a bandit camp later today, maybe I should hold off on putting my shield up until we get there" or something like that.

Yeah.


Let's say he's facing a level 10 Wizard: DC 32 Concentration DC, has 13 ranks, maybe a +3 from Con. So now he has to roll a 16 for something that does 1 damage. He's better off meleeing a level 1 Warrior to death, because he'd have to burn through tons of spells against the worst level 1 Warrior, against a decent one he'd be looking at an unpassable DC. So you effectively prevented and spell that isn't Planar Binding from being worth ever casting (Unless you want to reduce that duration to 2 hours as well.)

Skill Focus and a suitably modified Combat Casting could lower that needed roll, plus Mage Armor to make it fairly hard for a level 1 character to hit the mage in the first place nevermind the low odds to begin with, and missed missiles would generally not invoke distraction and even close misses should be a lighter DC.

Oh and on a loss you have to try again next turn, as opposed to being turned into a powerless small animal or sent to another plane or made to serve your enemies or just outright death. And of course while a level 1 warrior tried to attack the mage someone else in the party would chop off his head.

Though perhaps a base DC of 25 is excessive, I suppose DC 20 would be more appropriate.

And somehow you seem to think two hours not a lot of time for a fight, where anything less then a major battle (as in like a war) should be pretty well wrapped up by then. Its not like a round is a lot of time outside of combat either, so pre-fight buffing is still a go and should leave you with ample time to kill the dragon or whatever.

You wanna waste your buffs on getting potentially ambushed in the first few hours of the day that's your issue. Me I'd have the caster simply let the fighters and rogues of the party deal with those early encounters to reserve everything for the real fights.

Akimbo
2008-09-03, 01:45 AM
Yeah as opposed to a level one spell lasting half the day, I'm negotiable with things like Extend metamagic working, or higher limits for higher level spells but not open ended effectively permanent after level 6 ones.

Indeed, how dare Wizards get a broken +4 to AC all the time, or a super broken fly all day even though that's exactly what the spell was designed for.


At level 9 a Barbarian Will save is +3 and its Wis which is going to be how close to being a dump stat? But lets give him plus +2 for someone that rolled really well for a +5 total. While a Wizard of the same level casting a 5th level spell gives a DC 15. That's a 50/50 chance. Which given the consequences possible for loosing a save with magic is a high risk. Now that's not the Barbarian strong suit and with a Fort save your could have +10 but and with a DC 15 the odds are in your favor. But then again given that categories of magic tend to include "save-or-lose" as game breakers I fail to see what the problem is. Casting Dominate on a Barbarian can still win you the fight.

Hi, welcome to D&D, you forgot the +2 to will saves for Raging and the +3-4 from Cloak, giving him a total Mod of +10 mod, against DC 15. So yes, the weakest saves have an 20% chance of success, the strong saves a 0% chance. And all Wizards would be crap. Not that it matters because no Wizard would ever be able to cast anything.


Oh as for spamming beyond stats with feats and items, well both sides can still do that. I'm down with Spell Focus for a bonus to DCs from one school, and maybe an item doing the same. Main casting stat is just the place that seems to get spamming worse since between races, level advancement, and items.

I know, why did the designers set up save DCs to scale with level, since save modifiers scale with level. A level 20 Wizard should not be able to effect level 15 characters at all ever.

Seriously, save DCs scale because everything scales, and since saves scale much much faster the spell levels (like 3-4 times as fast) you have to scale DCs by more then spell level.


You seem to think that not getting automatic wins on a standard action is unfair?

You seem to be under the false impression that all other characters are incompetent. If you have a 0% of ever casting a spell because a level 1 Warrior with a bow can stop you all the way to level 15 then no one ever plays a Wizard, instead everyone plays a Rogue that does 42d6 damage in a round at level 10, or a Fighter that charges for 200 damage. Or an archer that all by himself can stop all casters within 1000ft from casting any spells at all.


Sounds good to me.

Oh my God. It's like you want to give them a negative chance of effecting enemies with spells. They already have a 0% chance, what more do you want?


What's the one of the most important difference between Chill Touch and Magic Missile for a character at level 15? The latter of the pair has 15 dice rolls for damage when Magic Missile caps at 5. Spells need caps to how much caster level can improve things, I'm just not tying myself to exact caps.

The most important difference between those two crappy spells is range, the second one is number of actions. And that is why anyone who casts Chill touch is a moron.


Yeah kinda like when I was play BGII and you could actually hope to disrupt a spell from going off.

That was BG II. This is turn based. They have a 100% chance of attacking you, a 100% chance of hitting you because you can't have any buffs, and a 100% chance of forcing a Concentration DC you can never ever make.

You don't have a chance of being disrupted, you have absolutely no chance of casting spells.


ZOMG hes not immune to an entire branch of combat the entire time anymor!!!

ZOMG A level 5 Warrior is going to beat a level 15 Wizard who tries to cast spells every single time without fail.


Because its so unfair that a mage have to you know think "gee were going to raid a bandit camp later today, maybe I should hold off on putting my shield up until we get there" or something like that.

90% of D&D combats start with neither side getting surprise, so therefore 90% of all combats start with the caster having 0 buffs and because he has zero buffs, having a 0% chance of casting any spells because a level 5 Orc Warrior can solo him without ever letting him get a spell off.


Skill Focus and a suitably modified Combat Casting could lower that needed roll, plus Mage Armor to make it fairly hard for a level 1 character to hit the mage in the first place nevermind the low odds to begin with, and missed missiles would generally not invoke distraction and even close misses should be a lighter DC.

Oh and on a loss you have to try again next turn, as opposed to being turned into a powerless small animal or sent to another plane or made to serve your enemies or just outright death. And of course while a level 1 warrior tried to attack the mage someone else in the party would chop off his head.

Though perhaps a base DC of 25 is excessive, I suppose DC 20 would be more appropriate.

And somehow you seem to think two hours not a lot of time for a fight, where anything less then a major battle (as in like a war) should be pretty well wrapped up by then. Its not like a round is a lot of time outside of combat either, so pre-fight buffing is still a go and should leave you with ample time to kill the dragon or whatever.

You wanna waste your buffs on getting potentially ambushed in the first few hours of the day that's your issue. Me I'd have the caster simply let the fighters and rogues of the party deal with those early encounters to reserve everything for the real fights.

You still aren't getting it. You never have any buffs up, your AC is always crap, and you can never ever cast a single spell in combat at all for any reason. You also have no HP, and no skills, and no anything because you can't even compensate with spells because you can't have them active ever without it being a waste.

Just remove the all casters from the game. It's exactly the same thing, it means that Rogues now win D&D, and the core party is:

Archer who prevents all casting of any kind by anyone.
Rogue who kills things and does skills.
Fighter who kills things and kinda tanks.
Maybe a DMM Persist Cleric who can sort of buff the party with a bunch of piddly spells thanks to your limit on metamagic. (Hey guys, I wish I could persist Greater Magic Weapon for you, but I can't until level 17. Remember when I didn't even have to Persist this when we use to play by sensible rules?) But probably just another Fighter, since casters are so incredibly useless.

Seriously, anyone who plays any caster at all under those rules is worse then a NPC Warrior.

Talic
2008-09-03, 02:01 AM
What's the one of the most important difference between Chill Touch and Magic Missile for a character at level 15? The latter of the pair has 15 dice rolls for damage when Magic Missile caps at 5. Spells need caps to how much caster level can improve things, I'm just not tying myself to exact caps.


And here I thought it was range 250 vs Range: Touch attack.

Superglucose
2008-09-03, 02:19 AM
And here I thought it was range 250 vs Range: Touch attack.

Ah, but we're assuming that this particular wizard as 10-15 levels on his opponent.

I'm sorry, but what exactly makes you think it's fair OR balanced that a level 1 fighter with a bow owns a level 15 wizard? When your wizard HAS to pick up a sword to beat a level 1 character, your system phails, unless you have some strange definition of the word 'wizard.'

Griffin131
2008-09-03, 06:45 AM
We just... talk to players who start to overshadow. Yes, casters rule over noncasters, but not if people don't play them to their maximum.

Just FYI. This works the best I've found and requires 0 house rules.

Bayar
2008-09-03, 06:53 AM
Ah jeez. Why every spellcaster fix include: nerf spellcasting, restrict spellcasting ?The non-spellcasters should grab ToB if they have half a mind or create a one shot kamikaze character that deals a vrapload of damage and never misses at the expense of his AC (which would be well into negatives).

Or just fix the non-spellcasters. Let them double their damage whenever they hit and multiply the double damage when they crit, as long as they are over 6th level or something.

Magic was designed to be versatile. Parallel magic-tehnology. If you restrict magic, it would be like you lose your remote and you would have to change the channels and stuff manually, from the TV, implying that you have to get your ass off of the couch and actually move to the TV. Or even better. Force you to fight wars with a pistol and a flashlight while your enemy blasts you with an RPG or a thermobaric bomb. or, forcing you to walk/ride a bike to the other country instead of using the plane )flight) or bus (expeditious retreat).

kamikasei
2008-09-03, 07:21 AM
Ah jeez. Why every spellcaster fix include: nerf spellcasting, restrict spellcasting?

Because the problem is that spellcasting is too powerful?

And it's not just a question of relative class power. Many complaints are directed against the absolute power of magic - its ability to wreck plots and bypass challenges, restricting the DM in what he can throw at the party.

Tokiko Mima
2008-09-03, 07:23 AM
How about just making full casters have MAD? a lot of how cool the wizard is comes from how easy it is to increase Intelligence with the result of making themselves better in all ways as far as spellcasting is concerned. What if Wizards used Intelligence only for Spell DC's and needed Wisdom for max spell level (wisdom 20 to be able to cast epic spells!) and Charisma for bonus spells? Now they would still be awesome but that awesomeness wouldn't be as easy to achieve. :smallsmile:

Oh, and Concentration checks should have a DC that somehow involves the foe that is close enough to break your Concentration; it shouldn't be a set DC that a caster can setup to always make. Maybe make the DC = 10 + the highest Attack bonus of a foe threatening you + damage dealt in the last round + 1/2 continuous damage being dealt. The same revamp should go for Tumble of course, but that's another subject.

Again, casters are still more powerful than melees, but I think with those two changes the gap narrows a lot.

SleepingOrange
2008-09-03, 07:52 AM
I'ma go with a modified version of Griffin131's opinion here: if this is your problem, find better players.

To quote (or paraphrase) Vaarsuvius: "[...]It's as though the universe was trying to enforce some arbitrary equality between those of us who can reshape reality at a whim and those who cannot!". In my opinion, someone who spent forty years learning how to bend the universe to their will SHOULD be more powerful than someone who spent five learning how to swing a pointy metal thing around; that said, a campaign where the wizard is lording his higher kill-count over the fighter has its priorities sadly misplaced. A player should play a wizard because they like mystique and magic; a player should play a fighter because they like the idea of kicking butt and being able to bench-press a dwarf; neither should be playing as such because they think it will garner some advantage: this is D&D, not Team Fortress. Not everyone needs to play the sniper. The DM should tailor the campaign to the party.

The very idea of non-literal cheese vexes me. I completely fail to see the point of or the fun in creating a character whose contrived makeup is designed solely to be a killing machine. I've always viewed the game as an opportunity to role-play, to tell stories, not as a chance to do nothing but kill stuff. If an unbalanced combatant is ruining your campaign, perhaps the problem lies not with the rules.

Talic
2008-09-03, 08:02 AM
Ah, but we're assuming that this particular wizard as 10-15 levels on his opponent.

I'm sorry, but what exactly makes you think it's fair OR balanced that a level 1 fighter with a bow owns a level 15 wizard? When your wizard HAS to pick up a sword to beat a level 1 character, your system phails, unless you have some strange definition of the word 'wizard.'

No. We're not. We're comparing a 15th level Chill Touch vs a 15th level Magic Missile. The opponent is irrelevant.

The range at which you can fire a magic missile, when you're 15th level, is 250 feet (100 ft + 10 ft/lvl).

The range at which you can hit with a chill touch spell is: Melee.

The difference in a few dice of extra damage for chill touch has little to no bearing compared to the range difference, and the fact that one requires an attack, and the other hits.

This was not intended to be a Wizards > beatsticks post. This was a Magic Missile > Chill Touch, despite the damage caps post.