I'm looking at bringing down the over all level of magic in my campaign world and it has been suggested to simply drop all full caster classes from the campaign world (pc & npc).
As a part of this idea I was considering using 6th level partial casting classes as a form of wizard specialists.
Evoker -> Magus
Conjuration -> Summoner
Enchantment & Illusion -> Mesmerist
Abjuration -> Magus?
Transmutation -> Alchemist
Necromancy -> Summoner who specializes in undead??
Divination -> Got nothing for this one.
Bard could fit a couple of roles such as
Transmutation / Divination -> adventuring bards
Charm / Enchantment -> City / Intrigue bards
Any suggestions on the Abjuration, Divination and Necromancy types?
So far the only working idea for them is to wrap them into the Magus, Bard and Summoner respectively.
WarPriest and Inquisitors could replace clerics
Hunter could replace Druids...although I hate the idea of giving up shape shift for an extra animal companion. I'd rather drop both animal companions and keep shape shift.
Any thoughts on this?
NOTE: yes I know the Mesmerist isn't an "Arcane" caster, it does however fit the role nicely for this setting with only a couple of solid whacks from yea-old hammer of house ruling.
It's certainly possible to drop them from the games. Functional parties with only 6-level casting characters aren't hard to build. In fact, 3/4 BAB and 6-level casting seem to be far and away Paizo's favorite chassis when they create new classes so there's a pretty broad selection of them to pick from. On the flipside, all those classes tend to be specialized into niches and have trouble fulfilling a general-purpose spellcasting role (since that's what 9-level casters do). Most of their spell lists are limited, and that can make it hard to get the right combination of abilities your concept calls for.
Keep the full-casting classes, but use the E-6 or P-6 rules for them.
I've played around with dropping *prepared* 9-level casters. You can slot the Psychic in to replace the Wizard so you still have a 9-level INT based caster. The problem is figuring out how to get a 9-level Wis-based caster, since I don't think there are spontaneous archetypes for the Druid and Cleric out there (the Witch would still exist via the Ley Line archetype).
I feel like "having a limited set of spells to choose from mitigates a lot of the problem with 9-level casters in theory. Where you won't have the perfect level 6 spell for every occasion, since you're only going to know like a half-dozen six level spells, so you'll just pick ones that are generally useful but aren't silver bullets or ones that are on theme.
If you do drop full casters make sure you have a means for the PCs to access some healing/condition ending spells. 6-level casters may have some difficulty with remove blindness, remove curse, stone to flesh or even restoration especially at the times these first become necessary. Easy access to relevant items or a healer in a nearby town who can provide them, or something like that.
I feel like in a world without Clerics, Kinetic Chirugeons would become pretty important. You never run out of heals (you can just give the burn to the person who needs healing and tell them to go home and sleep), and you get more mercies than a Paladin does (every other level, rather than every third level.
You need to get pretty high up there to cure blindness and remove curses though. So that might be a solution: make relevant mercies available at lower levels. Alternatively, maybe a trip to the big city to visit the high level chirugeon would be worth if you're trying to cure something major. The charge will be minimal, since the chirugeon can cure 600 people of blindness in an hour at no cost.
One option is to keep full casters but onlu allow up to 6th-level spells... Levels 7, 8 and 9 are then used for metamagic. We tried othat in one of our campaigns, and it worked pretty well.
We also gave full casters free Heighten Spell at 13th level.
Occultist handles all the Wizard's schools of magic pretty well on a 6/9 caster, being able to specialize in any of school(s).
There are several ways to get get access to the Wizard/Sorcerer/Arcanist list on 6/9 (ish) casters:
Warlock Vigilante
Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue
Skald can access the list (and one archetype can get certain divination spells of up to 7th level).
Medium can access spells from the list in a limited fashion up to 6th level spells, and as a pseudo-capstone can access a 9th level spell once per day.
Witch has the Cabalist Vigilante, and Skald can pick up access to the Witch list.
Druid has Hunter and Wildsoul Vigilante, and Skald can pick up access to the Druid list.
Cleric and Oracle have Warpriest, and Skald can access the list.
Psychic has the Psychic Investigator.
I feel like "having a limited set of spells to choose from mitigates a lot of the problem with 9-level casters in theory.
This could easily achieved with prepared casters as well. Just limit access to spells to learn. Every theoretical uber-wizard cluttering up the message boards seems automatically assumed to know every spell on the Wiz/Sorc list. In real games, however, this is easily mitigated by the GM limiting access to spells to learn. It seems entirely reasonable that some, or many, spells are rare and incredibly difficult to find. This can also make the spells a prepared caster does find seem more valuable and satisfying. A mini-game in itself.
Evoker -> Magus
Conjuration -> Summoner
Enchantment & Illusion -> Mesmerist
Abjuration -> Magus?
Transmutation -> Alchemist
Necromancy -> Summoner who specializes in undead??
Divination -> Got nothing for this one.Bard could fit a couple of roles such as
Transmutation / Divination -> adventuring bards
Charm / Enchantment -> City / Intrigue bards
If you drop the 9-level casters, don’t worry about assigning classes to the schools of magic. Leave it to the players to sort those things out.
I'm looking at bringing down the over all level of magic in my campaign world and it has been suggested to simply drop all full caster classes from the campaign world (pc & npc).
We dropped them as PC classes (still exist in places as villains and NPC's) and have never looked back...
Rather than do that, I would simply put a cap on character level. Look for the E6 rules online for a good example. Short version: Characters advance normally until level 6. After that, each level gained gets them a feat (and nothing else).
If you drop the 9-level casters, don’t worry about assigning classes to the schools of magic. Leave it to the players to sort those things out.
Actually my campaign builds are a little different from those many suggest on these forums in that the world isn't as PC-centric as it would otherwise be in more typical campaigns. When I'm looking at questions like the Elven Ranger (for example) I'm immediately thinking about a border patrol ranger for the elven forests. When you first build a living, breathing functioning world the PC's will be earner to become part of such an environment.
So to say that PC's will figure it out, is absolutely true, however giving them a warm backdrop against which to weigh such characters is typically an excellent way to evaluate their campaign engagement.
For those who have suggested simply putting a cap on spell levels (such as banned all spells over 6th level) or on putting a level cap on character level advancement I'd point out that I have already done such things. In fact those are the rules that are currently in place now in my campaign. I'm exploring the concept of the no full casters as an alternate way to build the campaign in a fashion that might be more compatible with D20 RAW.