And it all hangs in the balance...

[Fualkner Asiniti]

I have seen too many over/underpowered threads in my time here. I know that not all the balance issues can be fixed, but there must be a way to fix the obsence amount of "Wizards autowinkillyeah!"

My ideas:
1. Everything has spell resistance and all spell are affected by it.

2. Less spells a day.

3. Some sort of penalty attached to spell casting, beyond that of the occasional GP or XP payment.

Don't get me wrong, I love spellcasters, but the broken has to stop.

Any other ideas?

[the_tick_rules]

the debate will rage forever, it's just one of those things.

[Fax Celestis]

Here's a few things that can help a great deal:

1. Reduce durations of hours/level to 10 min/level. Remove Persistant Spell.

2. Increase casting times of standard-action spells to full-round actions. Quicken Spell makes casting a full-round into a standard.

3. Remove Contingency.

[Indon]

the debate will rage forever, it's just one of those things.

And if it wasn't about Wizards, it'd be about something else, until and unless everything in D&D had the exact same level of effectiveness. (oh, who am I kidding, people'd still talk about imbalance)

[Jasdoif]

Any other ideas?

Use psionics instead.

Give them a "magic" flavor if you like, renaming and such.

[Fualkner Asiniti]

Ah, thank you Fax. The Full-round casting would help a great deal.

[crazedloon]

I dont know if it would realy be a fix but it would be interesting if every spell you cast did damage to you. For every level the spell it is you lose 1 hp. So a 1st level spell would do 1 a 9th would do 9. With the mages low hp it would restrict the casting a little and may force a mage to think about what to cast and prepare. And if you have a problem with Contingency make it cuase damage for both spells when they go off.

It would not effect clerics as much but it may be interesting.

Also no celerity at all IMHO

[asqwasqw]

I dont know if it would realy be a fix but it would be interesting if every spell you cast did damage to you. For every level the spell it is you lose 1 hp. So a 1st level spell would do 1 a 9th would do 9. With the mages low hp it would restrict the casting a little and may force a mage to think about what to cast and prepare. And if you have a problem with Contingency make it cuase damage for both spells when they go off.

It would not effect clerics as much but it may be interesting.

Also no clerity at all IMHO

This would make wizards suck in the beginning horribly, but would not make much difference later on. I say just ban some problem spells, and be sure your player is not a munchkin. Or bump up the stats of the other classes. Or play level 3-4 games. Also, if you really want to weaken casters, make it so that spells could backlash. Roll d20 for each spell you cast 1-2 fails critically (DM decides what happens, save or die spell you may have to make the save or die); 3-8 spell fizzles; 8-12 spell works at half efficiency (again, DM's choice), 12-20 spell works. It is a inefficient fix, but it gets the idea across.

[crazedloon]

how would it make them suck at the begining it would just make them play smarter. at level 1 they can do at most 1 and sorc can do 3.

[asqwasqw]

how would it make them suck at the begining it would just make them play smarter. at level 1 they can do at most 1 and sorc can do 3.

Depends on your policy on level 0 spells. It doesn't make them play smarter, just makes them squishier. Your choice.

[crazedloon]

squishy is ok though. Expesialy when you consider that they normaly can be 1/2 hitted by an equivlent fighter at low levels.

Now I am still confused as to why it would not make much of a diffrence at higher levels.

(I am not saying this is a good system particualrly becuase I came up with it in a few seconds just want to know in case I plan on using it later on)

[MeklorIlavator]

Also, add MAD to all casters. Something like the Archivist. That way, no more boosting 1 stat to the exclusion of all others. casters alreasy have a bit of this, with rangesd touch attacks and such, but they only really need a 10 in those to be effective. Making DC's reliant on something esle would add som variety, if nothing else.

[TheOOB]

Remove preperation casters, magic is powerful enough with the ability to rewrite your class every day.

Make 1 spell known and 1 spell per day for each level a class ability so that you have to lose something important to take a PrC. At the moment you lose pretty much nothning by PrCing, but if you where to say lose a spell known and a spell per day for 5th-9th level from a 10 level PrC, you might reconsider.

[asqwasqw]

squishy is ok though. Expesialy when you consider that they normaly can be 1/2 hitted by an equivlent fighter at low levels.

Now I am still confused as to why it would not make much of a diffrence at higher levels.

(I am not saying this is a good system particualrly becuase I came up with it in a few seconds just want to know in case I plan on using it later on)

It is less effective because you can heal later on, while in the beginning your are in the midst of fighting, and potions are rare. Who cares if you spend an extra round drinking a health potion, you can kill them anytime you want.

[greenknight]

Here's a few things you can do to put the brakes on spellcasters:

* Never allow characters past level 10. If you do this, you can ignore nearly all the suggestions below.

* Disallow all effects which permit the casting of more than 1 spell per round. Quickened spells, Celerity, Time Stop, Contingency all qualify.

* Remove all spells or effects which completely replace ability scores. Things like Wild Shape, Polymorph and Shapechange are obvious candidates.

* Make sure every spell with the potential to affect others allows a saving throw.

* Remove all magical items which increase caster level or provide a metamagic feat from the game. Orange Ioun Stone, Bead of Karma (from a Strand of Prayer Beads), the Metamagic Rods and Incense of Meditation are examples of things which should be removed.

[Arbitrarity]

Use the sanity rules, type C.

Casters take (spelllevel)d6 sanity damage every time they cast a spell

[Dhavaer]

All spellcasters base save DCs on Charisma.

[Belteshazzar]

An interesting method of spell failure I use is (casting stat mod)+(d20) Vs (spell level) + (10).
My only foreseeable problem with this method is characters with somewhere around 50+ in a casting stat at which point ignoring spell failure is the least of my problems as the character probably has enough intelligence to realize he is part of a of role playing game or enough wisdom to realize that our universe is probably a game as well.

[13_CBS]

Actually, I was wondering if it might be more wise to upgrade te non-casters instead of nerfing the casters. That way, casters can still have fun making the laws of physics cry while fighters can do things like leap off of multiple walls or bounce arrows off of surfaces and what not.

[Mad Wizard]

My ideas:
1. Everything has spell resistance and all spell are affected by it.

I've been in a game where this was actually done. Not fun at all.

[Fualkner Asiniti]

Actually, I was wondering if it might be more wise to upgrade te non-casters instead of nerfing the casters. That way, casters can still have fun making the laws of physics cry while fighters can do things like leap off of multiple walls or bounce arrows off of surfaces and what not.

Wow, what a great idea! Why don't we give the other classes more power? Oh, right: No matter what happens, you can still get dominated! Giving the other classes more power probably won't work.

[Stevenson]

My question is this. Are you doing this because of forumfights? Or are you having problems with wizards in a game of yours? If it's the second, talk to your player, spray CHEEZE-B-GON amply around the area, and make sure they know it.

If the first, than all of this is completely useless: The people who would be "disproven" by it can simply say "well gee, I guess if you want you can also make a little house-rule, "casters die at creation", it doesn't make things balanced."

So yeah. Those are my opinions on how to fix casters.

[Quikngruvn]

How about slowing the spell-level progression for casters? For example, 7th level Wiz/Clr spells wouldn't be known till around 18th level, 8th and 9th level spells would become Epic level, and Epic spellcasting would be (a bit) further out. Or even be more heinous and have only up to 5th level spells pre-Epic. Basically stretch out the spell progression tables to where spellcasters have more but lower-level spells. (I'll leave this as an exercise to the reader.)

[Dhavaer]

Or even be more heinous and have only up to 5th level spells pre-Epic.

This is called d20 Modern. You also don't get spells until 4th level. It's not perfectly balanced, but without higher level spells it's not so bad.

[ocato]

Unfortunately 90% of caster fixes involve taking a wizard, lashing him or her to a tree, burning his spell book, then taking the still warm scraps of leather from the remains and writing bad words on his/her skin with it.

There is rarely a happy medium, it seems many either want to burn them as witches or welcome them as our new gods.

[Fax Celestis]

Unfortunately 90% of caster fixes involve taking a wizard, lashing him or her to a tree, burning his spell book, then taking the still warm scraps of leather from the remains and writing bad words on his/her skin with it.

There is rarely a happy medium, it seems many either want to burn them as witches or welcome them as our new gods.

Or both. *shudder*

[ocato]

"So, why do we worship a disfigured elf with with the word 'crumbum' burned into his back flesh?"

"Don't.Question.It."