(3.5)I have a theory about full casters...

[Cogidubnus]

You see, everyone knows full caster classes can do basically whatever they want, with the correct tools/preparation. They also have far more battle potential than your average melee character, due to save or failatlife spells. However, from what I've seen, I think the designers built a mechanism to stop this happening.

I think this is spell slots per day.

You see, now that casters and their power level are a daily part of life, we rest when the casters run out of spells. I think the plan was for casters to have to make those spell slots stretch, or be left useless. Hence why the Warlock seemed like a good idea - he's weaker than any true caster, but he doesn't have a limit on how often he can use his abilities.

Furthermore, while Save or Xs/buffs/conjurations are great spells, I don't think they were intended to be a caster's, or at least an arcane caster's, primary weapon. I think blasting spells were. Simply because that's "what wizards do". It's cool. We all secretly love the idea of blowing stuff up with magic - it's just fallen into disuse because it's not optimal.

So, there's my 2 cp on how I think casters were supposed to be limited - and how logical thinking has cause those plans to fail.

Thoughts, anyone? Though if this could not devolve into a discussion of the merits of: non-caster classes, evocation or warlocks, that'd be fab.

[penbed400]

I don't think that there was really any argument over this perspective as it would be silly for the game's creators to actually want to make the wizard the most powerful class ever. They just accidentally did it. In fact most examples of wizards that they give are blasting wizards rather than conjuration specialist "look at me I can do anything" wizards.

[GhoulPolitician]

The other issue is that at high levels, that is when casters become truly godly spells per day becomes almost irrelevant. By that time casters have amazing all day buff spells, not to mention that spells like shapechange can grant full cleric casting, among other things.

[Chipp Zanuff]

Give me a minute, I've got something for this.

[Zaydos]

The other issue is that at high levels, that is when casters become truly godly spells per day becomes almost irrelevant. By that time casters have amazing all day buff spells, not to mention that spells like shapechange can grant full cleric casting, among other things.

How many DMs actually rule spellcasting as an extraordinary ability? It's marked that way in a single creature's entry in MMIV, but it's never marked that way in the glossaries which mark what type of ability things are, in the MM, or on any other creature.

[Chipp Zanuff]

How many DMs actually rule spellcasting as an extraordinary ability? It's marked that way in a single creature's entry in MMIV, but it's never marked that way in the glossaries which mark what type of ability things are, in the MM, or on any other creature.

It isn't an EX ability, but it is one of their Combat Options. Shapechange gives all of those in addition to the EX abilities the creature may have.

[Duke of URL]

I think it's quite obvious that the designers expected what you say to be true. At low levels, spells per day is truly limiting, though at higher levels, even single-classed casters run into the Mystic Theurge problem of having more spell slots than they'll ever need in a single day.

They also expected "blasting" to be main priority, and didn't think so much as to how the "utility" spells could actually be more powerful, and that HP damage is one of the least effective means of winning a fight.

[Chipp Zanuff]

I think it's quite obvious that the designers expected what you say to be true. At low levels, spells per day is truly limiting, though at higher levels, even single-classed casters run into the Mystic Theurge problem of having more spell slots than they'll ever need in a single day.

They also expected "blasting" to be main priority, and didn't think so much as to how the "utility" spells could actually be more powerful, and that HP damage is one of the least effective means of winning a fight.

This is indeed true. Starting at level 7, an average Wizard (average meaning 19 Int) will have a good number of spells slots left over if he really knows what he is doing.

Once you hit 20th level, you could literally cut a Wizard's Spells/Day in half and deny him his bonus spell slots and he's still got 5 spells/encounter.

[Duke of URL]

This is indeed true. Starting at level 7, an average Wizard (average meaning 19 Int) will have a good number of spells slots left over if he really knows what he is doing.

Once you hit 20th level, you could literally cut a Wizard's Spells/Day in half and deny him his bonus spell slots and he's still got 5 spells/encounter.

Slowing spell progression would still help, as it would minimize the number of higher-level slots available, forcing the caster to make more and better use of his/her lower-level spells. If an 11th-level wizard still needed to rely on his/her 2nd-level spells in combat, it would certainly tone down some of the borkedness of full casters.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Tests have shown that, even at low levels, assuming either sorcerous casting, divine casting, or Focused Specialist wizardry, casters still have the power to drop one meaningful (read, "winning") spell per combat and retain at least one extra spell from bonus slots for gits and shiggles.

By about 4th level, as long as the caster had at least an 18 to start, they're rocking out just fine for the rest of their adventuring career. At 3rd level for elves and people with some means of free extend and 4th level for everyone else, Rope Trick means never having to run out of spells.

In short, as others have said, while the per day limitation was meant to possibly balance spellcasters with mere mortals, it didn't.

[Chipp Zanuff]

I knew this was posted here! Just had to dig a little.


Solid Evidence that Bonus Spells/Day are Worthless to an Optimized Wizard:

Spoiler

Show

The Core rules are built around resource management. In this, the DM is assumed to challenge the players to 4 or more encounters per day that encounters are held. Not every day needs to have encounters, and not every day that has them needs all 4.

Let's look at the resources here (Disclaimer: This assumption is based on the Core rules, but will utilize resources outside of Core. As such, this is not restricted to Core only in any way. This is also assuming the Wizard is a member of a party of 4 characters. PvP situations are being ignored):

A 20th level non-specialist Wizard is capable of casting 4 spells of every level he is able to cast (assuming his Int score is high enough). This means the Wizard has a base 40 spells/day, not counting magic items or bonus spells.

Assuming the average encounter is 2 levels above the party's ECL (because the CR system is borked, another issue), it is fully possible for the Wizard to expend anywhere between 3 and 9 spells per combat (the latter is considered a nova, the average would be about 4 or 5 spells per encounter if the player knows how to manage a Wizard). Combat tends to last between 3 and 5 rounds. Longer combats usually see the Wizard pulling out a wand or crossbow or Reserve feat.

Assuming the Wizard is smart enough and a little lucky, the Wizard will only need to expend between 12-20 spells per day. Why is this? Many 5 spell combination are able to neutralize an encounter, rendering the enemy a non-threat. The Wizard can then sit back and leave the remaining effort to his comrades.

If this is the case, then by the end of the day the Wizard will have exhausted an approximate 50% of his base 40 spells per day. At the end of every day, he may very well have 20 spells left over to use as he sees fit.

The main reason this works is because spells are so powerful that the override the assumption WotC made (that an encounter will consume 20% of the party's resources, assuming it is appropriately scaled to their ECL). WotC assumed people would play Blasters, but several people have proven Blasting to be inefficient resource management. Those people refer to the Batman guide and GOD handbook more often than not, advocating Battlefield Control and similar strategies instead.

So the resources are eschewed in favor of the casters. Compare to the noncasters, who must go to extreme lengths to avoid expending even 50% of their abilities each combat (an example would be the Fighter against something like Big T: If the Fighter tries tanking against Big T, he will likely burn through 70% of his HP unless he gets lucky, and even then he cannot end the encounter for more than a minute or so without devoting his time to hitting Big T until the negative HP value is too low for it to recover within a few minutes).

Specialization adds another 10 spells/day. Magic items can add a few more (from Pearls of Power to Rings of Wizardry). This means the Wizard will have even more luxury and freedom after a day's worth of encounters. But those are the weakest of benefits, as they require investments and sacrifices that are usually irrelevant to the Wizard himself.

The biggest offender? Bonus spells. I linked you to the chart with the above link, so let's crunch some numbers here:

Assuming no specialization or magic items that grant additional spells per day as a direct effect, the Wizard will have a base of 40 spells per day. An optimized Wizard will also have an Int score in the low 30's. Let's assume 36, as this is fairly easy to get (18 base+2 race+5 levels+6 Enhancement+5 Inherent=36).

Assuming the Int 36 and 40 base spells/day, the Wizard will have a total of 64 spells/day. At the rate of 20 spells being expended each day, the Wizard will end the day with more spells than the base value simply by expending bonus spells alone. 44 additional spells/day to do with as he pleases.

What the hell was WotC thinking when they kept this in?

For those who don't understand why this is such a big deal, let me spell this out: Every 2 points of Int means the Wizard has additional actions/day that he may never even need, but will have in case he actually does need it. That 36 Int Wizard with the 24 bonus spells? That translates into

• 4 additional uses of Grease, Protection from X, Ray of Enfeeblement, and other spells.
• 3 additional uses of spells such as Glitterdust, Levitate, or Invisibility.
• 3 additional uses of spells such as Fly, Explosive Runes, Dispel Magic, and Stinking Cloud
• 3 additional uses of Evard's Black Tentacles, Solid Fog, Dimension Door, or even Scry or Celerity.
• 3 additional uses of Cloudkill, Teleport, Wall of Stone, Planar Binding, and other goodies.
• 2 additional uses of Antimagic Field, Greater Dispel Magic, Acid Fog, Wall of Iron, or other spells.
• 2 additional uses of Limited Wish, MMM, Plane Shift, Mass Invisibility, Ethereal Jaunt, or Control Weather.
• 2 additional uses of Polymorph Any Object, Prismatic Wall, Greater Planar Binding, or Summon Monster 8 (one of the best levels for that line).
• and 2 additional uses of Time Stop, MDJ, Prismatic Sphere, or Astral Projection

Let's look at it another way: What does the Fighter get for having a Str score of 36?

• +13 to attack rolls
• +13 to damage rolls
• +13 to Strength-based Skill Checks
• +13 to Strength-based Ability checks.
• Improved save DC for things like Stand Still.
• A higher carrying capacity.

So we're comparing a +13 to attacks/damage/skills against 2 extra uses of Time Stop and a %60 increase in spells/day.

[Private-Prinny]

I knew this was posted here! Just had to dig a little.


Solid Evidence that Bonus Spells/Day are Worthless to an Optimized Wizard:

But that's not saying they're worthless. That's saying they're excessive. He probably won't need to use them, but it's always good to keep them on hand. Plus, bonus spells per day provide a nice buffer zone for the "well what if the Wizard doesn't have the right spell prepared" naysayers, since you could prepare spells like Water Breathing and Wind Wall and still have room for your important spells.

[Lapak]

I think it's quite obvious that the designers expected what you say to be true. At low levels, spells per day is truly limiting, though at higher levels, even single-classed casters run into the Mystic Theurge problem of having more spell slots than they'll ever need in a single day.

They also expected "blasting" to be main priority, and didn't think so much as to how the "utility" spells could actually be more powerful, and that HP damage is one of the least effective means of winning a fight.

Indeed. This has been brought up before. The 2e -> 3e switchover made several changes all at once that combined to have this effect.

For blasting spells, hit points inflated across the board - not just a little bit, either - while blasting spells stayed on the same scale. A 2e ogre had (IIRC) 19 hit points on average, while a 3e ogre has 29. That's more than half again as much. But spells like lightning bolt and magic missile do exactly the same damage as before, meaning that the wizard is taking a smaller bite out of the enemy in a relative sense. At the same time, the way that saving throws interact with spells changed utterly - a high level opponent in 2e was going to save against your spells much, much, much more often than not. This made save-or-lose and save-or-suck spells much less attractive, because it meant throwing away your action much of the time. Blasting pretty much always did something, and it was the right thing to do much of the time in pre-3e.

The changes combined in a way the designers didn't forsee because their testing was still geared towards the earlier style of play. Very much like the whole idea of generals fighting each war using the tactics that won the previous one and playing catch-up to new technologies and tactics as things progress, really; and this is why they started to put solutions together over the life of 3e. Caster-types that had weaker SoD potential but lasting hit-point-damage power (like Warlocks and Incarnum users); Melee-types that had greater utility and SoD options (Tome of Battle); optional rule changes that took away some of the unexpected advantage they'd given casters (PHII Shapeshift Druid variant); these are attempts to make things work closer to the original vision.

The spell slots issue is a whole other topic, of course.

[Zaydos]

It isn't an EX ability, but it is one of their Combat Options. Shapechange gives all of those in addition to the EX abilities the creature may have.

Shapechange says Ex and Su abilities and it doesn't say it grants Combat (or Attack) Options in either MMIV, MMV, or Rules Compendium. It's also not an Attack Option, and Combat Option isn't even an entry; spellcasting gets it's own entry right above spell-like abilities.

The two hobgoblins in MMV (I had the wrong MM earlier) do have an Ex ability called Arcane Talent that lets them cast as a wizard but that would mean you could get 9th level wizard casting by shapechanging into one of them, absolutely nothing for other creatures.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Beyond fixing stuff, or doing the obvious 'rushed' save the world campaign, you can have balanced casters only with fairly heavy-handed nerfs:

• Severely limiting schools of magic and bonus slots from specialization
• Deny all bonus spells / pp (at least beyond the first per slot if you like the idea)
• Halve or quarter all spells per day (even with 1 total spell slot per level, druids will still be strong)

[Lans]

The only full caster that has to worry about running out of spells is the shadow caster. At 20th level it has 37 noncantrip spells compares well to the wizards 36.Then you add the wizards bonus spells for intelligence, and realize that only 8 of the spells are above level 6.

And at level 6 it had 6 spells. Better hope you don't need more than 2 in a fight.

[Psyx]

In short, as others have said, while the per day limitation was meant to possibly balance spellcasters with mere mortals, it didn't.

It did back when memorising spells took more than an ignorable amount of time, and there was any kind of time pressure. Spells used to take - I seem to recall - 15 minutes per spell LEVEL to mem. That meant a full load-out for a character would take days to memorise, and wizards would be a lot more careful with them.

[Bulwer]

It did back when memorising spells took more than an ignorable amount of time, and there was any kind of time pressure. Spells used to take - I seem to recall - 15 minutes per spell LEVEL to mem. That meant a full load-out for a character would take days to memorise, and wizards would be a lot more careful with them.

That sounds like a good balancing mechanism for wizards and artificers in 3.5.

[Killer Angel]

You see, everyone knows full caster classes can do basically whatever they want, with the correct tools/preparation. They also have far more battle potential than your average melee character, due to save or failatlife spells. However, from what I've seen, I think the designers built a mechanism to stop this happening.

I think this is spell slots per day.

While this is true, Spell slots per day, was present also in all the previous D&D editions, and balance wasn't a so big problem.
The mistake they made, was to keeping the same structure, while removing all the limiting factors of the spell system.
In AD&D, the casting time of spells, vary with the spell's power: a 1th lev. spell, you need 1 "segment" to cast it, pratically you declare it and cast it. A 7th lev. took 7 "segments", during the combat round. And you were vulnerable to damage, hence losing the spell, no need of preparing an interrupt from your opponent. Imagine now to cast a disintegrate at initiative 18, and anyone with an initiative from 17 to 11, can decide on the fly, to spend his action to interrupt your casting.
With AD&D version of Haste, you lose 1 year of life each time. 3.5 removed that limit, rendering it a lot more usable.
And so on.

[Greenish]

You see, everyone knows full caster classes can do basically whatever they want, with the correct tools/preparation. They also have far more battle potential than your average melee character, due to save or failatlife spells.

By "full casters", you're actually talking about "tier 1-2 casters", for full casters range all the way to tier 5. Healer or warmage have less options than the ToB classes, for example.

However, from what I've seen, I think the designers built a mechanism to stop this happening.

I think this is spell slots per day.

Oh, right, we had all missed that one. Hooray for Cogidubnus, who was first to notice that casters use spell slots!


In the other news, this is at least a monthly topic.

[Chipp Zanuff]

Oh, right, we had all missed that one. Hooray for Cogidubnus, who was first to notice that casters use spell slots!

This post contains lulz.

[2xMachina]

3.5 Wizards are made by the Wizards of the Coast. Of course, they made it powerful :P

[Greenish]

That sounds like a good balancing mechanism for wizards and artificers in 3.5.

Artificers don't prepare spells.

[oxybe]

balance the spells, not the spellcasters.

adding extra hoops for the casters to jump through doesn't help much. if you put a restriction that spells can only be cast on the 2nd tuesday of every month and requires to have a guy called Williamshire nearby, you can better expect to have your casters hide out until the 2nd tuesday of the month and have poor Williamshire sovereign glued to a nearby dolly for easy transportation.

all these restrictions do is add an extra layer of security the guy has to go through before he can use his bazooka on a Chihuahua.

the main problem? the guy STILL HAS A FRIKKIN BAZOOKA!

all the security in the world won't save the yappy dog if that bazooka is aimed and unloaded on him.

to balance the spellcaster, look at the spell lists and either:

A) nerf the spells he has access to.
B) remove those spells entirely.

[Zaydos]

Disallow focused specialization, and remove bonus spells from high stats. Won't completely stop a wizard but will mean that until high levels he won't have the spells for offense and super high defense.

[Greenish]

Disallow focused specialization, and remove bonus spells from high stats. Won't completely stop a wizard but will mean that until high levels he won't have the spells for offense and super high defense.

I agree with Oxybe, the problem is the bazooka itself, not the munitions.

If high tier casters are a problem, I recommend using the lower tier ones with less problematic spell lists, such as beguilers and dread necromancers.

[Esser-Z]

Disallow focused specialization, and remove bonus spells from high stats. Won't completely stop a wizard but will mean that until high levels he won't have the spells for offense and super high defense.

Focused specialization, sure, but remove bonus spells? That punishes the player at low level by limiting how often they can actually do magic, which is what one plays a caster to do. At high levels, it's irrelevant. Furthermore, it just causes him to use encounter winning spells even more often. If you can only cast once per fight, you'd better make sure it counts.

Reducing the amount per day is absolutely the wrong action. To balance spellcasters, you need to simultaneously limit the extremes of their power and increase the power of other classes.

I'd say the first step, regarding casters, is at-will cantrips, so that the player can always do SOME magic. After that, address the spell lists. Here, look at the most powerful spells and find ways to make them less powerful without making them pointless. Then, limit access. Part of the problem with Wizard, or Cleric, or Druid is that they can completely change what they do overnight. This is.... extremely powerful.

[Kesnit]

Forgive me if this idea has been discussed elsewhere. I have not seen it.

What would the effect be if all spells that are Ranged Touch became "Ranged"?

[Esser-Z]

Casters would become way less accurate with primarily non-overpowered spells, unless I'm missing something. No fix.

[Yora]

Instead of the caster making a ranged touch attack, the target would make a saving throw.
As touch AC barly rises at all at higher levels but saves do, this would make the spells less reliable later in the game.