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There have been several attempts to being casters and martials more in line with each other, or at least to keep full-casters from breaking the game across their knee like so much dry tinder once they get into late-game. So, here's my attempt at it, presented for your approval (or disdain).
1. 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells no longer exist.
2. Clerics, druids, and oracles-- who currently get 3/4 BAB and a few other martial options-- have their spell progression adjusted to match bards and inquisitors.
3. Wizards, sorcerers, and witches-- who have 1/2 BAB and no real function outside of spellcasting, keep their current spell progression. They now gain their highest level spells at level 11 or 12. Optionally, they still gain slots for 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells, but can only use the slots to cast metamagically-enhanced spells.
The arguments of such a house rule, as I see them:
1.Several of the most game-breaking spell effects (Time Stop, Gate, Wish, the majority of instant-death spells) are removed from the game.
2.The cleric, druid, and wizard lists all have plenty of powerful effects at or below 6th level to justify playing those classes (and clerics and druids have plenty of class abilities outside of their spells to focus on).
3.Most, but not all, spells that can bring a dead person back to life are removed, giving death more in-world significance without eliminating the possibility of coming back to life.
4.Martial and hybrid classes become more relevant in comparison.
5.The majority of 7th+ level spells were simply extensions of lower-level spells (Mass Invisibility, Summon Monster VII-IX, Greater Scrying) and were therefore not contributing anything to the game that it didn't already have at lower levels.
1.The most gamebreaking spell effects are also some of the most beloved by a certain portion of the community.
2.The full-casters were built with the assumption of eventually getting high-level spells. Taking those away and giving them nothing in return is a drastic and unwarranted nerf.
3.The monsters in the Bestiary whose CR are high enough to be pitted against a PC who can cast 9th level spells was built under the assumption that it would have to face 9th level spells. The CR of those enemies and the difficulty of endgame in general may need to be completely re-balanced.
4.The majority of 7th+ level spells are simply extensions of lower-level spells, and thus removing them from the game accomplishes nothing. Indeed, losing the Mass versions of several staple spells (including higher-level Cure and Inflict spells) simply adds additional headaches when multiple targets are involved.
5.Most PF campaigns don't even go into higher levels anyway. PFS, for example, stops at level 12, so sorcerers, wizards, and witches would be completely unaffected by these changes while clerics, druids, and oracles lose 5th and 6th level spells for no clear reason.
I'd love to get some feedback here. Any pros or cons I missed? Any favorite spells I'd forgotten? Any anecdotes of your own experiences?
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Now clerics get really boring spell progression up till the very end of their career. Ouch. Before we only had to wait till 7th/9th.
What class abilities are you speaking of for Clerics to focus on? Channel Energy? Druids have wildshape but thats a helluva lot better than Channeling.
not to mention bards and summoners are now they only ones with access to higher than 6th level spells, due to their reduced spellcasting.
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Any time you're creating house-rules to make high-level characters play like low-level characters, you should really consider whether what you want is actually just a level cap. Capping the party at the 12th level and allowing them to continue progressing by acquiring new feats will probably meet all your objectives with virtually no modifications.
The Spell Plane Shift may be a problem.
Arcane Casters are no longer capable of traveling the planes, ever.
Clerics/Oracles still are.
just a thought to consider.
- Torger
I agree with Dasrak. This won't feel fair and it will weaken classes in the wrong ways as well as the right. It will also allow the most powerful melee characters to laugh in the face of spellcasters and make high levels of wizard so terrible you'd be mad not to multiclass.
If you just cap the game before the spells get silly, everybody gets treated fairly.
Alternatively, you could limit spellcasting level to a certain proportion of total character levels and add a fix to multiclass spellcasting as good as other kinds of multiclassing. (I like "spellcasters get an extra level of their spellcasting progression for every two levels they take in other classes, but they can't have more extra levels than normal levels")