Good spell level cut-off for balanced world.

[IdleMuse]

I am designing a 3.5 campaign setting to add to my already pile-high list of games to run, and have decided to give it a fairly gritty feel.

Now, for doing this in d&d, it is generally widely recommended to look at the E6 variant, which I have done before, however, I feel it is a little too restrictive in my eyes. I tend to run games in the level 4-10 gamut, and I'm happy with power levels up to around ECL12 (for this campaign I will be allowing only LA+2 races, from a very short list). What I like best about E6 is the fact that everyone is bound to it. Specifically, there are NO spell effect over third-level spells, which I think helps significantly to neuter the overpowered spellcaster classes.

Since I want to generally be using something a little higher than E6 though, what I've come here to ask is, for a balanced setting, what level do you think spells should be cut off at? Is it the 4th-level Polymorph that should be prevented? The 5th-level Lesser Planar Binding? Is it only at spell levels 8 and 9 things get actually broken?

(For the record, I'll also be limiting all shapechanging (and probably Summon Xing) to things that have been observed by the caster, in a somewhat effective limiting factor against druids. This leaves Artificers as the only other T1 class I believe that's still potentially too powerful, and I have little problem with that at the time being).

tl;dr - At what spell level does typical Wizard spellcasting become broken?

[kestrel404]

Right now I'm working on a variant where all casting classes have spell progressions that only go to level 6 over 20 levels (melee/caster hybrids still only go to 4). Spells of higher level are basically epic spells.

[JaxGaret]

In the E6 writeup it says that you if you feel like 6 levels isn't high enough, you can do E8 or even E10 if you feel like it.

I think that E8 is the highest one should go if you don't want casters completely overshadowing everyone else. E6 is the most balanced, at that point pretty much every build at the same optimization level is at just about the same level of power. At E8 the casters are getting a bit more powerful, but it's not totally out of hand yet.

[Tyndmyr]

E6 still allows for access to 4th level spells, albeit at a price. This seems to work out fairly well. I imagine E10 is past the balance point, though I frankly haven't played it. PrCs play a heavy role by then, and having access to at least 5th level spells allows much more craziness.

[jiriku]

Depends on how you use martial powers. If you don't involve ToB, then melee's primary strength is feats. Most feats are generally the equivalent of 0th to 2nd level spells, while epic melee feats approach 3rd level spells.

ToB maneuvers, however, track much more closely to spells and I've read many opinions that 9th level martial maneuvers are competitive with 5th level spells. So if you allows manuevers up to 9th and you slow-ball the progression of casters so they're getting 6th level slots when they'd normally be getting 9th level slots, that should theoretically do you pretty well.

[Frosty]

E6, where going straight Fighter is a GOOD idea! Hellooooooo Dungeoncrasher. You also just qualified for Shock Trooper.

[Lapak]

For me, the cutoff point where spellcasters pull ahead for good and all is at fifth-level spells. Just from Core: Teleport and Overland Flight utterly change the terrain for arcane casters, and Lesser Planar Binding lets them grab power out of proportion to the spell. Righteous Might makes divine casters step up to melee-monster levels, access to True Seeing breaks the usefulness of illusions in many ways, and clerical spell level five contains the biggest game-changer of them all: Raise Dead.

[Haarkla]

At what spell level does typical Wizard spellcasting become broken?

5th

[Emmerask]

Problem with E6 or any other lower spellcasting houserules is that you still need to address some of the lower level spells.
For example crossing a desert, create water makes this a walk in the park which is pretty un-gritty

[Thrice Dead Cat]

At 1st level, Color Spray and Sleep are both able to end encounters. Grease and Ray of Enfeeblement are both able to ease the pain suffered from a fight, potentially significantly. Protection from X can also shut down a decent amount of enchantment-type abilities.

Glitterdust is a 2ne level spell that ends encounters. Web can do similar work at the same level, too. Alterself opens up a lot of trickier with nabbing races with high AC or alternate movement modes normally not available. Then you've got Rope Trick to live through the night safely.

Once you get to higher level spells, you get stuff like Shivering Touch, Bands of Steel, Dispel Magic, and Explosive Runes. Magic can be just straight up awesome in some places.

[valadil]

I like getting to 5th or 6th level spells at end game. You shouldn't have them for most of the game, but they're fine for the portion of the game leading up to the conclusion.

E10 would probably be reasonable, but I wouldn't go past that.

As an alternative to E6 (or EN, where the Nth level is considered epic) you should try my variant, G6. Instead of going epic you go gestalt. So what I mean by that is that you'd take you're first 6 levels in a class. Then level 7 is your first gestalt level, which runs parallel to your first original level. By what would be level 12, you're effectively a complete level 6 gestalt character.

I think this is a good compromise. Gaining feats infinitely does not appeal to me. G6 is more interesting, but it won't get as ridiculously powerful as high level D&D because there are diminishing returns with each iteration. ie, once you've taken your rogue levels you won't be gaining any more skill points from levels. You'll max out your HP after taking your barbarian levels. It's almost starting to remind me of FF Tactics' job system.

[IdleMuse]

I like getting to 5th or 6th level spells at end game. You shouldn't have them for most of the game, but they're fine for the portion of the game leading up to the conclusion.

E10 would probably be reasonable, but I wouldn't go past that.

As an alternative to E6 (or EN, where the Nth level is considered epic) you should try my variant, G6. Instead of going epic you go gestalt. So what I mean by that is that you'd take you're first 6 levels in a class. Then level 7 is your first gestalt level, which runs parallel to your first original level. By what would be level 12, you're effectively a complete level 6 gestalt character.

I think this is a good compromise. Gaining feats infinitely does not appeal to me. G6 is more interesting, but it won't get as ridiculously powerful as high level D&D because there are diminishing returns with each iteration. ie, once you've taken your rogue levels you won't be gaining any more skill points from levels. You'll max out your HP after taking your barbarian levels. It's almost starting to remind me of FF Tactics' job system.

Sounds interesting; I have toyed with a similar idea myself, and I think it works well within the 1-6 framework. For this campaign (since I only really intend to go as high as about lvl10 anyway), I think I might be going for E10.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would like to sometime try running levels all on thier own level spreads and you gain the best stat from any of your levels and let a player gain exp based on his highest level. Doing so in a 6th level cap would prevent things from getting out of hand.

you could run a fighter6, then take wizard 4 and rogue 2, then keep going for more classes.

You get more class features, but there is a hard cap on your bab, saves, skills, and max spell levels.

[Tyndmyr]

Problem with E6 or any other lower spellcasting houserules is that you still need to address some of the lower level spells.
For example crossing a desert, create water makes this a walk in the park which is pretty un-gritty

Well, if the only challenge is crossing a desert is the lack of water, then the problem is not the wizard. It's the very, very boring adventure.

[IdleMuse]

Well, that's my first session idea scrapped then

But more seriously, you're right it is worth pointing out that magic is still useful to the world at large even in E6, and the world is most likely still radically different because of it.