Thoughts on Wizard (and other casters)

[Fouredged Sword]

Ok, I have been thinking and an idea poped into my head.

How would this effect the balance of casters

Wizard - all casters must be specialists, but they don't loose any spell slots or have any forbiden schools. Rather all spells of schools other than thier favored school, divination, and general spells are one spell level higher.

Sorcerers - same as normal, all spells at normal levels

Cleric - all clerics are favored souls. Maybe gain domains as they level 1/4 levels.

Druid - needs some changes, but I can't decide what. Maybe more like the pathfinder druid. Needs some spell restriction, like a spellbook with limited spells and limited copying of spells.

I think this would go a long way to getting rid of tier one.

Thoughs on how this would effect the game?

[Cyrion]

I don't think this really balances things for your wizards very much, because you make their non-favored-school spells more potent- you make all of their DCs go up by 1. Also, it changes which spells get stopped by a globe of invulnerability- for example a minor globe will stop an evoker's fireball, but not an enchanter's because it's now a fourth level spell. You are, in essence, giving wizards a free Heighten feat on all of those spells, and you haven't made that cost anything significant.

[Snake-Aes]

Ok, I have been thinking and an idea poped into my head.

How would this effect the balance of casters

Wizard - all casters must be specialists, but they don't loose any spell slots or have any forbiden schools. Rather all spells of schools other than thier favored school, divination, and general spells are one spell level higher.

Sorcerers - same as normal, all spells at normal levels

Cleric - all clerics are favored souls. Maybe gain domains as they level 1/4 levels.

Druid - needs some changes, but I can't decide what. Maybe more like the pathfinder druid. Needs some spell restriction, like a spellbook with limited spells and limited copying of spells.

I think this would go a long way to getting rid of tier one.

Thoughs on how this would effect the game?

As far as "who is whose bitch", those changes wouldn't make a difference, except maybe for the druid who would lose his single-stat dependency. Wizards are almost always specialists by default because it's better than the spells they lose. Removing such penalty only gives them more power.

[Yora]

It's not the classes that are rediculously strong (except for druid), but the spells. Every attempt to "fix" wizards and clerics can only work when revising their spells.

Druids are a bit worse, with their wild shape and animal companions, but I think Pathfinder got them quite right. But they still have the problem of all these spells.

[Shenanigans]

Wizard - all casters must be specialists, but they don't loose any spell slots or have any forbiden schools. Rather all spells of schools other than thier favored school, divination, and general spells are one spell level higher.

What would happen with 9th level spells outside of their school? Would they just not be allowed to cast them?

[Fouredged Sword]

Yes, the idea is that a wizard is good at one school of magic, but isn't wholesale prevented from casting spells of other schools. A wizard gets his level 2 spell slots at 3rd level. He can cast 2nd level favored school spells and 1st level of any spell useing those slots. The next level a sorcerer of the same level gets 2nd level spells (that he can pull from any school). The level after that the wizard can cast 3rd level spells and 2nd level non favored spells.

The sorcerer gains greater diversity faster, but for a limited number of spells. The wizard gets his favored spells faster, but his non favored spells are all delayed 2 levels, and cost him more opertunity cost to cast. And I think it is a not unreasonable for a wizard to only be able to cast the 9th level spells of his school.

[PirateMonk]

I don't think this really balances things for your wizards very much, because you make their non-favored-school spells more potent- you make all of their DCs go up by 1. Also, it changes which spells get stopped by a globe of invulnerability- for example a minor globe will stop an evoker's fireball, but not an enchanter's because it's now a fourth level spell. You are, in essence, giving wizards a free Heighten feat on all of those spells, and you haven't made that cost anything significant.

Heighten is generally viewed as useless, and sorcerers are considered weak partly because they have a one-level delay in getting spells. It's not sufficient, but it is significant.

[ericgrau]

I like the wizard variant for flavor, but I don't think any of these changes do much to balance. Partly because the tiers are versatility not raw power, so adjusting power levels doesn't help, and partly because all the changes are minor. Even the wizard variant becomes moot once you search enough books for enough mis-schooled spells that are within your specialty school yet actually replace the other schools. And no the slight advantage of automatic heighten does not outweigh the major drawback. I'd rather have an actual spell of that level so it has the higher save DC and is also a stronger spell.

But back to the point, the wizard variant seems like a fun idea for a game where the DM/players make sure not to abuse spells that shouldn't be in the PC's specialty school. And for that matter making sure you don't abuse the game is the most common and effective way to deal with casters. I still have never witnessed any gaming groups with serious problems.