Is this a good idea? [Homebrew Idea, 3.5]

[Kellus]

So lately I've been thinking about the way different kinds of casting are balanced, such as traditional spellcasters vs things like warlocks. There's alwys a conflict between how OFTEN you can do something and how POWERFUL that something is. Warlocks obviously get lots of small abilities at unlimited usage, as opposed to wizards who get more powerful spells but are limited in spells per day.

What if this were taken to the other extreme? An anti-warlock, say? A system of magic where you might only have 2 or 3 (spells? rituals?) a day or so, but they're really impressive things. It's definitely a theme in fantasy, with sacrifices and rituals and stuff like that that obviously have power far beyond traditional spells in D&D, but which take way longer to set up. So would it be potentially balanced to have a class and system of magic centered around at the most one spell per encounter which would be, as they say, a showstopping number?

I think it could work. It would certainly be a different kind of character to play strategy-wise. It would be more about staying alive long enough to unleash your single powerful ability, and not slowing the party down the rest of the time. It would also change the tactical situation with the whole group, where the rest of the party might need to buy the caster enough time to complete his ritual sacrifice and summon the pulsating spirit of the eternal undying god of HATE to rip out the souls of their enemies. Instead of spending 6 seconds to shoot off a smaller spell or something.

[Daracaex]

So what would this character be doing the rest of the time? Twiddling his thumbs? I'm reading this suggestion as "spend several rounds on your one big spell for the entire encounter." That's a big no no in game design. Nobody's going to want to play a character who spend several rounds of every combat doing nothing.

[KKL]

So what would this character be doing the rest of the time? Twiddling his thumbs? I'm reading this suggestion as "spend several rounds on your one big spell for the entire encounter." That's a big no no in game design. Nobody's going to want to play a character who spend several rounds of every combat doing nothing.

Crossbows, bows, maybe? Melee attacks?

[Xefas]

You need to give them an active component to their casting. "Pass on your turn 3 rounds and then auto-win" isn't a terribly satisfying experience after the first battle where the novelty is probably enough to keep you going.

Perhaps a Sacrificialist who needs to melee the opposition to ramp up enough Bloodletting points to unleash his powerful Pillar of Uncomfortable Doom spell would work. He wouldn't deal a whole lot of damage with his melee, but he would still need to be doing something active while not unleashing superdoom.

Also, some utility always helps. Core non-casters, and even Tome of Battle characters can get annoying because there's nothing special they can do outside of a combat situation. They can bust down doors with their head, but the Wizard and Cleric are busy forging magic items, scrying, detecting secret doors, sending messages to allies a few continents away, and generally making life more interesting with some creative use of low-to-mid level spells.

So, give the uberdoombringer something they can do outside of battle, and that will go a long way to making them fun to play.

[DracoDei]

Give them standard wizard non-combat utilities, but usually with greatly increased casting time? Item creation should definitely have rules for it, one way or another.

[lesser_minion]

I think it could work, although I agree about their potential to be useless in combat until they've finished their casting.

I like Xefas' method - reaping seventeen souls to accumulate the power to cast "Greater Invocation Of Infernal Sticky Abyssal Eternal Indefatigable Horrifying Agonising Doom With A Rich Chocolate Sauce Dressing" might be an interesting route. especially if you add a toffee filling to the spell...

I think that isn't really what you had in mind, but I think the idea of having a few epic uber-abilities is still good. Possibly a few minor combat abilities, and then for the big fights they can maybe evoke an Epic Breakage of Brokeness - it should be pretty good fun if you then have the tension associated with preventing them casting the spell or making sure they do. Which actually makes this a painfully awesome choice for NPCs.

[Limos]

You could make a Ritualist class.

It would need to disable an opponent and then drag him out of combat long enough to use a ritual to sacrifice his still living opponent and channel his fading lifeforce into one amazingly powerful spell.

Make all his spells require the ritual sacrifice of an opponent.

Then give him lots of abilities focused around disabling opponents. Class skills would need to include Use Rope, that would be very important to have.

EDIT: If you have ever read the Aleran codex series by Jim Butcher there is a caste of Canim (Wolf people) called Ritualists. They cast spells with blood as the somatic component. They need to drain bodies of their blood and carry around a sack of it to cast their spells. Even then there is a whole ritual involved and even with several working together they usually only cast a few spells per day.

(The two spells you see them cast are a wall of bloodred lighting that kills all but two of the command staff of a legion, and streams of fire from the sky that kill legionares by the dozen.)

[Neithan]

Is this a good idea?

It cetainly really isn't a good threat title.

[DracoDei]

EDIT: If you have ever read the Aleran codex series by Jim Butcher there is a caste of Canim (Wolf people) called Ritualists. They cast spells with blood as the somatic component. They need to drain bodies of their blood and carry around a sack of it to cast their spells. Even then there is a whole ritual involved and even with several working together they usually only cast a few spells per day.

(The two spells you see them cast are a wall of bloodred lighting that kills all but two of the command staff of a legion, and streams of fire from the sky that kill legionares by the dozen.)

You mean Material Component, or Focus... Somatic is waving your hands around... so a somatic component would be what Blood Magi do to super-charge their spells, or getting the artierial spray of your opponents to form a mystic sign in the air or something...