Well a major problem with multiclassing is that spells dont benefit from all you character levels. This means picking any classes but one weakens your overall spells. That is in addition to not actually gaining as many spells known and spell slots overall.
With spells petering out because you wanted to be creative and pick any class but spellcaster its just an arbitrary penalty and unnecessary.
And then you get people going as a Wizard 1/Sorcerer 1/Cleric 1/ Druid 1/ Psychic 1/ Witch 1/ Oracle 1/etc. because they can take a 1-level dip into a full-caster class and have all of their spells level up despite never taking another level in the class. Do you really want to deal with a character that, at level 10, has the casting power of a 10th level Alchemist, Arcanist, Cleric, Druid, Oracle, Psychic, Shaman, Sorcerer, Witch, and Wizard, with Mutagen, bombs, arcane reservoir, domains, and so on, on top of that? That's just asking for trouble (and an essentially endless number of daily spells).
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And then you get people going as a Wizard 1/Sorcerer 1/Cleric 1/ Druid 1/ Psychic 1/ Witch 1/ Oracle 1/etc. because they can take a 1-level dip into a full-caster class and have all of their spells level up despite never taking another level in the class. Do you really want to deal with a character that, at level 10, has the casting power of a 10th level Alchemist, Arcanist, Cleric, Druid, Oracle, Psychic, Shaman, Sorcerer, Witch, and Wizard, with Mutagen, bombs, arcane reservoir, domains, and so on, on top of that? That's just asking for trouble (and an essentially endless number of daily spells).
Caster level has nothing to do with what spells you can cast. Class level does. Caster level only increases the strength of the spells you can already cast.
A 4th level wizard who gets a +1 caster level boost from somewhere isn't capable of casting 3rd level spells despite his newly acquired caster level 5. He is still only capable of casting 2nd level spells (The same as any other 4th level full caster), he just gets the effects from those spells as if he were 5th level instead of 4th.
So replacing caster level with your total character level will not give you any additional spells beyond what your actual class level gives. It just increases the power of your existing spells. A wizard 1/sorcerer 1/cleric 1/druid 1 (4th level character) would still only have the spells granted to those classes at 1st level, he just casts them as if he were 4th level - he would get 4d6 damage from spells that do 1d6/caster level instead of just a single d6), a spell that lasts 1 minute/level would last 4 minutes instead of 1, and so on.
And then you get people going as a Wizard 1/Sorcerer 1/Cleric 1/ Druid 1/ Psychic 1/ Witch 1/ Oracle 1/etc.Oh no, a 7th level character who can cast a bunch of first level spells at a higher CL.
I think you're dramatically overstating how powerful that would be. Because first level spells are kind of not very impactful at higher levels anyways.
Tell that to the people who think Potions of Shield, Divine Favor, True Strike, et. al. are overpowered.
Or wands for that matter.
Ah. Yep. Misread the OP. I thought he was saying that all aspects of spellcasting should scale with Character level, not the "the spells are weaker as well as getting fewer spells each level." That was my bad. Still just asking for trouble, though (in my opinion, anyway).
I like this idea, however I would tweak it so that it only stacks with similar casting types. So Divine casting capability would stack only with Divine classes.
You should definitely check out optional rule from 3.5 Unearthed Arcana. Pretty much exactly what you're looking for, with some balancing factors.
I like this idea, however I would tweak it so that it only stacks with similar casting types. So Divine casting capability would stack only with Divine classes.
But you can argue for it applying to all caster classes. Spellcraft works regardless of the caster classes involved, so the basics are the same between divine and arcane casting. (Knowlege (Arcana) and Knowledge (Religion) cover the specifics of the appropriate type or casting.)
You could also make mixing the types be a bonus. Either with a feat, or as something a god of magic can grant to his cleric/wizard followers (or as a benefit of the Magic domain).
3.5 had a feat, Practiced Spell Caster to help multiclassed casters cast their spells more powerfully and I think there's a trait that does a bit of the same, but I forget the name because it's not in a book I own.
Chaos Ticket,
This is actually one of our house rules. You caster level is your character level. We've been using it for 2 years without any problems.
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Magical Knack is a trait that allows you a +2 caster level to one class. It cannot be used on more than one class and you cannot use it to raise your caster level above your Hit Die.
There's the closed-content 3.5 feat Practiced Spellcaster that grants a +4 bonus to caster level for one spellcasting class. I allow this feat in my Pathfinder games.
Or, if you want to do some actual game design, you could try to adapt the multiclass spellcasting rules from D&D 5e.
I like this idea, however I would tweak it so that it only stacks with similar casting types. So Divine casting capability would stack only with Divine classes.But you can argue for it applying to all caster classes. Spellcraft works regardless of the caster classes involved, so the basics are the same between divine and arcane casting. (Knowlege (Arcana) and Knowledge (Religion) cover the specifics of the appropriate type or casting.)
You could also make mixing the types be a bonus. Either with a feat, or as something a god of magic can grant to his cleric/wizard followers (or as a benefit of the Magic domain).
Of course, I'm not saying that Feats and other options wouldn't allow you to "cross class" so to speak. Just as a base rule keep them separate.
I thought carefully about this today and all the scenarios in order to access the resulting trade-offs.
1) Spellcaster dipping into another spellcasting class - This effectively gives you an extra low level spell slot in another spell list and whatever class feature the other spellcasting class gets at low levels. However, you lose a level of your spell progression, which is really important. So there's good perks, but a significant drawback to it.
2) Spellcaster dipping into a martial - An often useful dip for gish classes that want a little more martial at early levels. However, Magical Knack already allows you to add up to 2 CL from non-spellcasting classes, so this houserule isn't much more of a buff than what you can already do.
3) Martial dipping into a spellcasting class - This houserule actually makes this worthwhile. My concern is that it might make gish classes a little less valuable, and it might become mandatory for most martials to multiclass into a spellcaster after 5th level. Though, doing this does significantly hurt iterative attack progression
Overall, I think it's not a bad idea despite feeling reluctant about it at first. It's a little buff to spellcasters, but it's a much larger buff to martials.
It's a very significant boost for people looking to dip a few levels of a spell casting class or looking at a gish prestige class. Which are concepts that could probably use a boost.
It would also be a solid boost for Rangers and Paladins.
There are a large number of blocks to keep levels in spellcasters from doing as much harm as some people imply.
The #1 effect raising spellcaster level would increase spell durations. There are some low level spells still useful if they could last longer like Shield but that doesnt mean one or two spells per day will make you invincible.
Stacking multiple spellcasters means you have multiple but very weak pools for spells. 10 level 1 spell pools doesnt mean youre a level 10 caster. Its more a "master of none" build.
There are damage caps, buff caps, range caps, fixed durations and so on.
Really I think this is an argument of opinion. Should putting levels into a spellcasting class have some use or be a waste of levels?
Because casters need the buff?
Yes we have all heard that there is like 7 threads about it and 50 threads that aren't about it that became about it. Don't need another one ;)
I thought it was clear this was about multiclassing,
Magical Knack is a trait that allows you a +2 caster level to one class. It cannot be used on more than one class and you cannot use it to raise your caster level above your Hit Die.
Half-elf offers the alternate racial trait Multidisciplined (+1 CL for two classes, stacks with Magical Knack) and the race trait Bifurcated Magic (same effect, but as trait bonus). The latter one doesn't stack with Magical Knack when applied to the same class, but you could have 3+ caster classes...
If you want to move on to 3pp, Spheres of Powers is quite popular - and it allows to stack CL like BAB.
I only wish, my sadistic 3.5 DM made me take Practiced Spellcaster so my necromancer/warlock/eldritch theurge can be really efficient with his spells
On its own, this change can be made to work with minimal changes to the rest of the game system. For example, anyone taking the Magical Knack trait should be told to pick something else since that trait would become meaningless.
But thinking about how to extend the logic of this change to other class features does open a can of worms. In the case of spellcasting, the general idea seems to be that caster level increases with character level but that spells per day and spells known do not. So what other class features currently based on class level should also increase with character level? Some choices in this regard might increase the likelihood of single level dips into other base classes -- is this a good thing or a bad thing?
The main benefit of having at-level spellcaster level for spells is their durations. Some also have their range increases.
More rare is area of effect and possible targets being effected.
Buffs usually dont scale in effect, only duration. Spells like Mage Armor and Shield stay the same, they just last longer.
Now the great possible hurdle for this rule is damage. Some spells have flat damage, and they quickly become outdated even with high Spellcaster level meaning little. Others have damage based around Spellcaster level. They have caps in place to keep you from having say a 20d6 tier 1 spell. You need metamagic like Intensified Spell to help but not completely remove that.
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Now there is a whole separate topic possible about breaking down those caps to improve the earlier level Spellcasting use.
That would require more thought. I think you would have to put in a Mana System to balance that out.