balancing the spellcasters

[quiet1mi]

while surfing the web i found this DnD variant, called sanity...

to summarize it, if you see anything that is way out of the ordinary, you must roll to see if you take sanity damage. also if you learn/cast spells, you take sanity damage because the way you must bend your mind to understand and summon magic from seemingly nowhere.

the details are in the srd i think... or a website with the srd?( i don't know what i can or can not say about websites with DnD info, such as UA)

...so my question)s) are/is...

Would enforcing sanity checks balance out spell casters?Is it not enough?Is it too much?

How do sanity checks affect a game? Does it help with the Role playing,or does it hinder it?

[Tengu]

That's not balanced, in the same way that an unstoppable attack which kills both your target and yourself is not balanced.

[quiet1mi]

is it at least more balanced then an unstoppable attack that does not kill you, but kills your target?

[Nebo_]

Generally, if you have to ask 'Does this balance x?', then the answer is no.

[Tengu]

is it at least more balanced then an unstoppable attack that does not kill you, but kills your target?

Yes, but anything short of pun-pun is, so that's not saying much.

[quiet1mi]

Generally, if you have to ask 'Does this balance x?', then the answer is no.

Wow.... can i sig that...

[Cuddly]

Generally, if you have to ask 'Does this balance x?', then the answer is no.

Explain your reasoning.

[The Necroswanso]

The sanity variant from UA gets nowehere close to balancing anything. Making wizards/sorcerers unstable due to their casting is only going to have them beef their wisdom and will save even more. And those are high as is.
And Nebo is right. If you have to question it, it's usuall a big hairy negative.

[quiet1mi]

... oh for a second i thought that you were talking to me... im a little jumpy at the key board...

[valadil]

Depending on the numbers and how insanity affected you it could balance things out. But if I want to play a game where altering the universe with magic would mess up the caster I'd rather just play Mage.

[DementedFellow]

I agree with Tengu.

Sanity damage with spells was big in Cthulhu d20. There was actually a spell that would damage your INT by 10. And guess what an average investigator (who isn't a genius) has. Yeppers. 10 INT.

Yes, this is one spell, but by all rights, it's a rock-awesome spell.

Even BRP Cthulhu didn't have that much nerfing to spellcasting. It had sanity loss, sure, but it didn't really matter because of the usual high mortality rate. It isn't uncommon to have an extra character in case your character got eaten by a shambling mound.

Also, with the d20 Cthulhu there was no real cost-effective way of regaining lost Sanity. At least with the BRP system, you could gain it back by fighting back the very essence of alien evil, or at least delaying them and the cold comfort that they are gone, for now, is enough to warrant a small amount of SAN back. But there was also a Psychology skill that could be used with a Therapy roll and it could regain a few points, which is very helpful if you had a character who could cast things.

Cthulhu's SAN-draining spells were not a problem with BRP because combat wasn't the objective and magic is supposed to be scarce and evil. d20 Cthulhu is more combat driven and since you play weaklings the magic would be an actual benefit. But they carried that Sanity albatross over to d20 and crippled the combat system. Good luck making it past first level.

And yes, I realize that some supplements like Delta Greene or a couple others had magic sources that weren't all that negative, but I didn't play those. In the core BRP rulebook, the least SAN-draining spell was like Summon Fish, which costs 1 SAN. You basically summon a bunch of fish. Unless the walk upright and follow me home, I doubt that would damage me mentally.

for the tl:dr's

Sanity isn't balancing, it's crippling in a d20 session.

[Xuincherguixe]

Not really.

I think the most important reason why is that it clashes with the theme too much generally. For the Cthulhuesque, it fits. You're dealing with strange forces far beyond you. Using them takes a bit away from you.

In D&D, Magic is generally cheap, and easy. But only if you're amongst the privileged who has it.

To balance it, there should be less of a gap between the magic users, and the non magic users.


That is to say, "Everyone gets to be awesome."

[Nebo_]

Wow.... can i sig that...

Yes.

Explain your reasoning.

Most of the time that question comes up, is when someone thinks of a quick fix to the problem, as is the case here. The problem goes much deeper than than and takes a lot more effort than just adding or subtracting some rules. When someone comes up with the statement "This fixes x", and has put some effort into the fix, then it might be promising.

[JaxGaret]

I find Vitalizing Magic to be a better overall method to use to balance (read: nerf) spellcasters a bit.

[Nohwl]

with vitalizing magic, could you cast a spell that will make you not fatigued every so often and have more spells per day than you would normally?

[JaxGaret]

Spells that remove fatigue and exhaustion (such as heal and restoration) leave the recipient with a spell point total equal to two-thirds of his normal maximum.

Yes, that is correct. You could effectively almost always be at 2/3rds of the maximum spell point total once you gain access to such spells.

However, I would recommend a small change to disallow such spells to work thusly. My suggestion is to only allow magical fatigue to be recovered via normal rest.

[Nohwl]

how does giving them more spells per day nerf them?

[JaxGaret]

how does giving them more spells per day nerf them?

Well, I would suggest changing that part of the rules. It is silly to allow such abuse.

Remember, they are variant rules, so you can modify them to your liking.

[Wraith_Lord]

If you want to stop mages from being overpowered then why not just approach it from a different angle?

1. If the uber-powerful spells require physical ingredients then have a shortage of them (finding ingredients could then be an adventure in itself)

2. If the spells require free hand actions and the like then have the mage tied up somehow

3. If your mage uses spells that seem reminiscent of a nuclear attack then send them on adventures that require stealth

"A greatsword may be able to slice a man in half but it's not a lot of use if you can't swing it... "

[pasko77]

Explain your reasoning.

I will add my two cents.
I've been playing Warhammer (the miniature battle simulation) for a long time, at high levels if i can say, and, since the game is unbalanced and easily broken, i've been through a lot (a hell of a lot) of "house rules" in local tournaments. All these rules were meant to improve the game and nerf killer combos. It NEVER worked.
As a general rule, you change what you PERCEIVE as wrong, and ignore what another player, with a different style, can do with your changes. Therefore you generally just tilt the point of unbalance in another combo. The smart players will find it :)

So, even if in a slightly different field, i second Nebo_'s generalization.

[Torger]

I think I'm entirely in the minority in not thinking that arcanists, at the very least, are not overpowered.

You're 18th level, going up against a level-appropriate encounter. The Fighter swings his sword an infinite number of times. The Rogue stabs it an infinite number of times. Yuo cast your good, useful spells.

You win. 1/6th of the party's resources are expended. However, for the casters, it's the top 1/6th of their resources. All those 7th and 8th level spell slots... Suddenly, you're back in NWN territory, resting after every fight.

Just becasue I can bend reality once or twice doesn't mean that I can do it all dya, and it certainly doesn't mean that I can make it all the way through this dungeon. Hell, it probably doens't mean that I can make it through the front room. Five or six encounters in, I'm trying down to magic missiles and my emergency "RUN AWAY!" spell.

Then, when we come back, they've fortified the place. CR's bumped up by one or two, now, as we're attacking a defensive position that knows we're coming. Oh Boy.

Once again, I might be able to burn some Big Boom, but they'd have counterspellers on the front lines, and if they don't, I'd have to blow my wad breaching the gates. Now, I'm a bad crossbow fighter trying not to get stabbed.

This is the way it's been in every high-level game I've ever been in. I don't know if it's jsut becasue I have played with good DMs, or I'm not enough of a twink to Maximize my phenomenal cosmic power, but that's how it stands, and everyone I game with agrees.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

A 10th level Specialist Wizard has 4 5th level spells. He can usually destroy at least half an encounter with one of them. He has 5 4th level spells. He can usually eliminate the remainder of the encounter with one of those if his 5th level wasn't enough. There are only supposed to be 4 encounters a day without rest, but even if there are more, he still has his lower-level spells available. Meanwhile, the Glass Cannon is cracking, the Meatshield is a pincushion, and the Monk probably got ganked by a grappling monster 3 encountersback and is now decomposing in the Bodybag of Holding. Everyone else has limited resources, too, they're called HP. The mage should never run out of spells before the Fighter wants a break if he's halfway competent.

[Nohwl]

this is probably a stupid idea but why not just give spell casters a level adjustment? i think the problem is more of when the casters get the spells. instead of wizard wins initiative, casts color spray, battles over, have color spray and every other spell come at a level when it wont end the fight in one casting.

[Azerian Kelimon]

A nice fix is making the max levels before Epic 6 or 7 and making the progression of new spell levels avilable 2-3-4-2-3-3 (Only include the last level if you choose to go up to 7 level spells), and then give the casters more spells per day. They'll still be REALLY strong, but cheese like solid fog comes three levels later, when monsters are more prepared to handle it, and everyone else is already at their peak. Of course, it requires tweaks (For example, knocking flight down a level and making it a mass spell, and removing some other spells or upping their level), but it should work.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Personally I prefer to fix the spells themselves rather than the spell casters.

TS

[Falrin]

The only way you'll ever have a chance to balance spellcasters is to balance the spells.

Say you have a Feat that gives a character a +5 on attack and +15 damage.

you don't say:
Hey, let's give the fighter less feats.

You say:
Lets make that +1 on attacks.


Same with the casters.


When you really want to to this, here are someguidlines:

Open TLNs Guide. Look at all the spells and nerf them.

[Azerian Kelimon]

And then, if you nerf 'em all, you get exactly zilch reasons to play a caster, so your nerf hope approach backfires on you spectacularly.

No, nerfing spells is a useless and enourmously complex affair. The problem is not in them, but in the fact that casters go way too fast. A fighter get's minor bonuses, but a caster gets twenty new I Win buttons every other level. It's a matter of delaying and spacing the buttons 'till they're not I Win, but rather "Hey, that was much easier."

[Nohwl]

i agree that the spells shouldnt be changed. at least not the majority of them. some spells need to be fixed.

i think the problem is more how early you get the spells not their individual effects.

[Falrin]

I never said Fixing spells would be easy. That has become the whole point of this thread: there are no easy fixes for casters.

And please tell me the differene between 'slowing' the caster and weakening their spells? When we would neerf the '9th LvL spells' to a '7th LvL spell' in power, wouldn't that be the exact same?

And last: You can't say "Caster Rule the world, but we can't nerf them, because nobodyu would play them". Where's the logic in that? Wouldn't it be possible to nerf them to, let's say, rogue LvL instead of samurai like you seem to suggest?

[Azerian Kelimon]

I never said Fixing spells would be easy. That has become the whole point of this thread: there are no easy fixes for casters.

And please tell me the differene between 'slowing' the caster and weakening their spells? When we would neerf the '9th LvL spells' to a '7th LvL spell' in power, wouldn't that be the exact same?

And last: You can't say "Caster Rule the world, but we can't nerf them, because nobodyu would play them". Where's the logic in that? Wouldn't it be possible to nerf them to, let's say, rogue LvL instead of samurai like you seem to suggest?

Actually, my fix is pretty easy. You got it wrong, you get spells of UP TO seventh level under the normal rules, the eight and ninth level spells are epic. Thus, you get Solid fog at level 10, and Limited Wish at level 18.

And you both SLOW the casters down on the spell levels they, and take out broken spells. But REALLY broken spells, like celerity, there's no point in playing a wizard if the best you can do is Chain lightning at level 18. The other ones are actually not so problematic when you get them quite a few levels later. Thus, you get casters who will never get things like Otto's Dance or Time Stop, and they'll get Solid Fog and Enervation later.

You really got the fix wrong.