E6/E8 from what I hear curbs it well.
Also keeping spells core only helps.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
E6 is probably the best bet, but make no mistake even 3rd level spells are powerful. It does help balance things out somewhat though and is really the solution that requires the least amount of change to the system.
|
You can always take a page from the sal'adim player class (from Al-Aquir,) and have your player's familiar "retrieve" the spell from whatever plane the spell's properties is based on. (Mind you, the sal'adim familiars are basically tiny genies, usually of one of the four element.) According to the updated class information I have on hand, it takes 1d4 rounds per spell level for the familiar to depart, negotiate for the spell, and return to your side with the spell ready to cast. Sal'adim cast spells like sorcerers, so you'll have to decide how it works for wizards, but adjusting for divine casters would be as easy as battlefield communion.
If you still want standard spell casting, then yeah, keeping the core spells always "available" is doable; just use the method I described for any exotic spells your players will still try to sneak by and double the rounds. >)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Monsters can target and focus fire on spell casters the way PCs do. It might inspire your spell casters to reevaluate their actions in battle.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Monsters can target and focus fire on spell casters the way PCs do. It might inspire your spell casters to reevaluate their actions in battle.
I'd imagine killing them would certainly tone them down, but that doesn't sound particularly helpful at all.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Monte Cook had a 18 spell level idea in one of his experimental arcana books, where you got spells every level instead of two, so for a wizard you could make haste a 6th level spell and something less popular like Arcane Sight a 5th level spell (your caster level corresponded with the level of spell you could cast, for example a 6th level wizard could cast 6th level spells in this system). It led to more spells overall, but less powerful ones being slung, as in stead of having 4 first levels spells 3 second and 2 third, it was more like 3 2 2 2 2 1. Was interesting.
|
Monsters can target and focus fire on spell casters the way PCs do. It might inspire your spell casters to reevaluate their actions in battle.I'd imagine killing them would certainly tone them down, but that doesn't sound particularly helpful at all.
You are right. It isn't.
We are not running a "high tactics" style game.
The game is in a homebrew so most changes I find I can most likely work into the setting, I will have a fairly decent control over spells allowed in game as they will be country bumpkins that need to join the Imperial College to legally learn arcane spell casting. And the Imperial College is strict in its membership code.
Get rid of Metamagic Rods and Pearls of Power. Also get rid of Dazing Spell, Rime Spell, Persistent Spell, and Spell Perfection.
If you do that you will remove some of the worst offending options spellcasters get.
random suggestion.
Make spell DC's calculated like wands?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The fastest, easiest ways I've found so far:
* Increase the casting time of every spell by one step: Standard becomes full-round, full-round becomes minute, minute becomes 10 minutes, etc. Easy peasy, no hassle, no fuss, no bookkeeping. This means that every basic combat spell will tale a full-round to cast, so the caster begins on his turn in round one and finishes on round 2 which makes them much easier to interrupt. Longer spells like Sleep will now take a full minute to cast, taking them out of the realm of combat functionality entirely.
* Actually track spell components and don't make them easy to find. Also get rid of Eschew Materials and Spell Component pouches. This puts the work on the players to make sure their PC has components. Try finding bat guano and sulfur for Fireball in areas where there are no bats or no sources for sulfur, and even in town the economics of supply and demand drive the prices up to ridiculous levels like 20gp for one ball of guano and sulfur to cast one spell, and the merchant only has two on hand. Actually carrying butter around for Grease gets improbable on a hot summer day in the desert, and rodents might get into it during the night when the mage is asleep.
* Make the preparation time take much longer, say, 15 minutes per spell level. No problem for that level 1 wizard with 4 spells, that's only an hour, But wait until he has 4, 3, 2, 1 which takes 5 hours. And then he gets interrupted during his preparation. Maybe, instead of burning every spell every day, those casters will only use them in emergencies so they don't have to spend forever prepping spells tomorrow morning. This is a fun one because it really only impedes the players; the monsters/NPCs will be assumed to have taken care of this already, off-camera.
You can implement any of these WITHOUT having to spend days or weeks making up a new magic system or spending countless hours rewriting every spell. Just write down the rules, hand them to the players, and presto! You're done. No work involved.
Side note: I'm not suggesting all of these at once. Nobody would play such a caster.
Second side note: If you MUST nerf casters, then for pete's sake, give them something else meaningful to do - increase their BAB, give them ways to fight and defend themselves in battle so they don't have to be wimpy at magic AND wimpy at everything else too. I sure wouldn't want to play a heavily nerfed caster. I'd just go fighter instead so I could have all the power and none of the nerfing.
Monsters can target and focus fire on spell casters the way PCs do. It might inspire your spell casters to reevaluate their actions in battle.I'd imagine killing them would certainly tone them down, but that doesn't sound particularly helpful at all.
It was meant to be humorous/bad advice. Regular focus fire on any player, regardless of role, will create tension in the group.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
It was meant to be humorous/bad advice. Regular focus fire on any player, regardless of role, will create tension in the group.Monsters can target and focus fire on spell casters the way PCs do. It might inspire your spell casters to reevaluate their actions in battle.I'd imagine killing them would certainly tone them down, but that doesn't sound particularly helpful at all.
Oh Pish-Posh!
As a player, I expect, even demand, that intelligent bad guys should, must, be played intelligently. I don't want easy/cheesy fights where we slaughter the morons in front of us because they couldn't figure out how to tie their own shoes, let alone figure out how to take down our healer or our earth-shattering arch mage. I would be VERY disappointed with such a game.
As a player of a healer or mage, I FULLY expect my GM to try to snuff me out with every encounter smart enough to know better, and I FULLY expect to have to protect myself. Also, when I'm playing a different role in the group, I fully expect to have to figure out tactics to keep my precious ally healers and my fragile ally mages alive.
On a side note, if the casters spend the first round or two casting defensive spells, they're much harder to kill, but they are much less in need of being toned down because they are not trivializing every encounter before the rest of the combatants get to make a difference.
...strangely, from what I have seen, is you want to tone done casters, increase the amount of magic items. Run a high, high magic campaign. "Low magic" campaigns (not counting E6 and such) just make casters more powerful, because they are the only sources of magic. But there there are plenty of other magic items out there, then it takes the special away from casters.
"Oh, you can cast fireballs? That's nice. My hat does the same thing, except it has more hit points than you."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...strangely, from what I have seen, is you want to tone done casters, increase the amount of magic items. Run a high, high magic campaign. "Low magic" campaigns (not counting E6 and such) just make casters more powerful, because they are the only sources of magic. But there there are plenty of other magic items out there, then it takes the special away from casters.
"Oh, you can cast fireballs? That's nice. My hat does the same thing, except it has more hit points than you."
Poof!
The fighters are now wizards that use magic items!
Spells still rule.
|
Oh Pish-Posh!
As a player, I expect, even demand, that intelligent bad guys should, must, be played intelligently. I don't want easy/cheesy fights where we slaughter the morons in front of us because they couldn't figure out how to tie their own shoes, let alone figure out how to take down our healer or our earth-shattering arch mage. I would be VERY disappointed with such a game.
As a player of a healer or mage, I FULLY expect my GM to try to snuff me out with every encounter smart enough to know better, and I FULLY expect to have to protect myself. Also, when I'm playing a different role in the group, I fully expect to have to figure out tactics to keep my precious ally healers and my fragile ally mages alive.
On a side note, if the casters spend the first round or two casting defensive spells, they're much harder to kill, but they are much less in need of being toned down because they are not trivializing every encounter before the rest of the combatants get to make a difference.
Exactly this.
Every creature of moderate intellegence who has any kind of social contact with other creatures should have heard about the dangers of spellcasters. While they may not recognise one on sight, the moment that the wizard/sorcerer/cleric/whatever starts casting those enemies should be looking to bring the pain down on them. That doesn't mean that they should abandon common sense and ignore threats they are already engaged against, but they should be looking for a solution to try to neutralise the caster as quickly as possible.
|
|
Offensive Sorcerer (Dual blooded Orc/Draconic, fireball specialist with proper feats and a lesser maximize rod) Just throws an empowered fireball for 5D6 + 90 fireball and they all die or are so close to death they now do not matter.
That exact situation is why casters will always be the top to the heap in and D&D type game.
Any game that allows such shenanegains.
Delete the Wizard and Sorcerer options, the only Arcane caster allowed is the Bard and Magus.
Ooh, polymorph any object.
Any 15th level wizard can use it to create a sun the size of the universe due to it's bad wording, causing everything to die in but a second, as the sun collapses into a black hole.
Depending on how you want to limit them, Rogue Genius Games has a spellpoint system that makes it cost more to repeatedly cast the same spells. They also run the risk of fatigue as they cast more and more using up their spellpoints. It gives a bit of flexibility but some high costs depending on how they're used.
If you (and your players) aren't turned off by campaign/setting restrictions on classes (some don't mind, while others hate them). One way to restrict the presence of spellcasters is to require that a character take the Eldritch Heritage feat before they can take any level of a spellcasting class. This means there are no 1st-3rd character level spellcasters (unless you allow the adept NPC class) and all spellcasters are three levels behind "normal" on CL and spell progression.
You could also impose other restrictions, such as "prepared arcane casters (alchemist, magus, witch, wizard) and spontaneous divine casters (inquisitor, oracle) only" (or vice versa; bard, sorcerer, summoner vs. cleric, druid, paladin, ranger), restrict paladins and rangers to non-spellcasting archetypes (or convert the 3.x prestige paladins and rangers; prestige bards are also an option if using the "prepared arcane casters only" restriction and still want bards), require specific bloodline choices for specific caster classes, etc. Restrictions on races (to minimize racial SLAs) may also be something to consider.
Combined with a level cap of 10 (usually, magic items aren't that unbalancing for the first 10 levels or so, if you follow WBL guidelines, especially the "balanced approach" distribution between defenses, offense, other, and consumables) and the Slow progression (or even of Slow progression with half of all XP and treasure awards), this keeps magic present without being overwhelming. In general, once you get above 10th level, characters go beyond "high fantasy" and into "superhero/demigod" power levels, anyway.
Oooh, I just thought of one. Never tried it so dunno how well it works.
What if you put all full-casters on the "Slow" XP track, partial casters on the "Medium" XP track, and non-casters on the "Fast" XP track. If anyone takes even one level of a caster class, they are forever on the Medium or Slow track as applicable, even if they take later levels of non-caster classes.
Then, for the OP who is planning an E6/E8 game, just set the maximum XP for the campaign at 80,000. This will cap the non-casters at 10th level, the partial casters at 9th level and the full casters at 8th level.
E6/E8 from what I hear curbs it well.
Also keeping spells core only helps.
E6/E8 is probably the best way to go. I tried it once and never looked back. It's a better game overall if you can get your players to go along with it.
Any game that allows such shenanegains.Offensive Sorcerer (Dual blooded Orc/Draconic, fireball specialist with proper feats and a lesser maximize rod) Just throws an empowered fireball for 5D6 + 90 fireball and they all die or are so close to death they now do not matter.
That exact situation is why casters will always be the top to the heap in and D&D type game.
I'm actually trying to figure out how there's +90 to the fireball, even with all that...
I'm actually trying to figure out how there's +90 to the fireball, even with all that...
Caster Level 15. 2xlvl(15)+60+5D6 for a maximized/empowered fireball. Dazing is pretty killer on that too if your fighting foes with low reflex, though in a different way.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...strangely, from what I have seen, is you want to tone done casters, increase the amount of magic items. Run a high, high magic campaign. "Low magic" campaigns (not counting E6 and such) just make casters more powerful, because they are the only sources of magic. But there there are plenty of other magic items out there, then it takes the special away from casters.
"Oh, you can cast fireballs? That's nice. My hat does the same thing, except it has more hit points than you."
This is very interesting and my observation as well.
In the current campaign I am running, I had all of the PCs (as a result of being blessed by a dead nature god) acquire "spirit marks". The first level of these (least spirit marks) were in the form of a free feat granted by the dead god, and linked the PCs to animal spirits that allowed them to choose one spell of level 1-2 and use it as an SLA 3/day. Then at level 5 they could spend a feat to increase their spirit marks to "lesser" spirit marks, granting an additional spell of level 3-4 usable as an SLA 2/day. Finally, after level 8 (this is an E8 campaign) they could spent a feat to improve their spirit marks to "greater" spirit marks, granting one spell of level 5-6 usable as an SLA 1/day.
You don't have to be as extreme as I was (you could limit the marks to spell levels 1, 2, and 3 respectively in a strict E6 game), but I felt it was acceptable in the game I wanted to run. You could reskin them as "wild talent psionics" or whatever if you wanted. The point is that the non-magic users gained SLAs that tended to dovetail well with their abilities and helped them better compete with the casters. Meanwhile the casters had fun picking up spell abilities outside of their normal spell lists (for example the Flame Oracle chose Scorching Ray as her "least" spirit mark power).
For more fun you could open these up to NPCs or even monsters, allowing for (say) wyverns that could turn invisible 3/day or displacer beasts capable of dispelling magic. All of this does tend to make the wizards and their cousins less head and shoulders above everyone else, even more so in an E6/E8 game.
I'm actually trying to figure out how there's +90 to the fireball, even with all that...Caster Level 15. 2xlvl(15)+60+5D6 for a maximized/empowered fireball. Dazing is pretty killer on that too if your fighting foes with low reflex, though in a different way.
True, but the example was Level 8.
EDIT: Nevermind. I figured it out. Saw that with the maximized metamagic, he just added the 8d6 into the flat bonus.
If casters are too much for you to handle in an E6 game, just scupper them altogether and play it Conan style. Just put in a houserule for some form of accelerated healing between fights and you should be good to go.
I always feel like you might as well play another game when you do that personally. Not that its innately a bad thing, but the game is sort of boring when your left with a lot of mundanes. Doesn't feel like it was built for it, you know?
I find that E6 helps with a more Sword and Sorcery game, but I also like to keep the 4th+ level spells. So I like to use the rules for incantations from Unearthed Arcana found here. for 4th+ level spells. It allows for magic that you'd see in stories and such, but treats them as lengthy rituals.
An updated version for Pathfinder exists here. I've gotten a lot of use for it in all my games, low magic or not.
Make casting stats increase either DC's OR spells per day, not both - caster chooses.
Make casting stats increase either DC's OR spells per day, not both - caster chooses.
Oh no, I only get to use black tentacles three times per day instead of 5... . Well I guess instead I could lose my +10 to my DC from my intelligence.
Not the best way to balance things unfortunately. The number of spells per day you cast is a fake balance and controlled heavily by the number of encounters you have(which means your being manipulated pretty heavily by your own attempt to balance something!), and if you don't have the bonus from casting stat you lose out on a lot of your DC, starting at 3-5 easily, and growing up to 10 easily! That's a pretty big loss imo.
I've always had the mindset that poorly made up caster nerfs aren't the way to address power discrepancy between the classes; rather, it's best to encourage casters to cast spells that don't end encounters and allow for their martial party members to participate in combat; however, if casters fail to recognize the queues you give them then you distribute gear that suites the martial classes more so than the caster classes. Perhaps I'm mistaken though, there might be some easy house rules that fix power discrepancy between the classes without shafting the full caster classes.
Any other ways to simply control to power level of magic in a standard fantasy setting?
It might be a little more work, but one option I've considered for a reduced magic game I'm thinking of running after I finish my current campaign is to reduce spell progression for full casters to something like that of 6th level casters by making it so that new levels of spells come every three levels instead of every two and capping spells at 6th.
You'll end up with them maxing out at 6th level spells, which are still fairly powerful, but less so. I'm also thinking I'd compensate them a little, either with something class specific(free second bloodline, 2nd focused school, additional revelations, etc), 2 more skills per level, higher hit die, or maybe a bonus feat for each lost level of spells(one every 6 levels?).
You'd probably also need to drop the levels of 6th level casters to 4th, and 4th to 2nd or 3rd. So it's a bit more complicated, but I think it could work.
Might be a bit difficult to gauge what monsters need a CR bump with fewer spells available, though.
Simple solution - eliminate the magic mart mentality. Wizards can't simply purchase scrolls of whatever spell they want. Eliminate any particularly troubling or other spells that simply don't fit the vibe of the campaign. Add expensive material components to the spells you want to remain in the game, but you want to limit.
When determining loot, scrolls should be rare, as should wands, staves, rods, etc.
Complex situation - Redesign the magic system, separating spells from rituals or incantations. Put a limit on the number of buffs one character can have running at the same time (2, for example). Rewrite or eliminate any troubling spells. Increase casting time, eliminate option to cast defensively.
Honestly, I've never run into a campaign where spellcasters have been a problem. Most of my campaign worlds are built where magic is rare, magic-users (particularly arcane casters) are feared/hated, surprise attacks happen, traps are actually deadly, etc.
|
|
If casters are too much for you to handle in an E6 game, just scupper them altogether and play it Conan style. Just put in a houserule for some form of accelerated healing between fights and you should be good to go.
Casters are neutered enough just by playing them in E6 rules. Chopping them down from there pretty much makes them not worth playing at all.
Our group isn't bad, not like some of the horror stories I read on RPG boards. At the same time though we have a player that likes to build powerful characters which tend to be arcane based (not always, but lately). It gets so that encounters go as that player wishes in terms of survivability. If the encounter is being handled he holds his power back, then he trivializes the BBEG encounter.
From what I am reading here E6/E8 seems to be enough although I am liking some of the other ideas I have read so far as an alternative/addition.
Off to work, hope to see more thoughts later.
I am potentially starting a new campaign for my group.
I am thinking of E6/E8.
Any other ways to simply control to power level of magic in a standard fantasy setting?
To be honest, in my experience, the power disparity really doesn't become so problematic until 12th level or higher... E12 with a slow progression has always seemed an ideal balance for me - remember, casters suck pretty hard in the early going so there's nothing wrong in my opinion with letting them enjoy their power level a bit towards the latter part of the campaign.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I have a houserule that addresses an area of imbalance - martials depend on full round action to get their full scaling of power (full attack iteratives) yet casters could generally give a rat's ass about full-round actions apart from summons and a few other particular spells, leaving them to spend their move actions at leisure for minor side benefit actions (drawing items?) and simply better tactical position.
Now, casters (like melee) DO actually care about positioning, particularly for touch spells and AVOIDING ending up in enemy threat zones, so this has the effect of giving them pros/cons to using their top level spells OR being able to maneuver more (and act when limited to a standard action, e.g. surprise rounds, slowed, etc): rather similar to how melee types must choose between full attacking and the other options they can manage with a standard action combo. It just feels weird for a major limiting game mechanic to be so IRRELEVANT to the internal mechanics of spellcasting classes, while other classes are so harshly constrained by the standard/move/fullaction dichotomy.
How the houserule works is comparing spell levels gained per class level with full bab advancement and how soon iteratives are gained (every 5 bab).
For 'full'/9 spell level casters, they cast their top 2 spell levels as full round actions unless otherwise noted in the spell (i.e. an immediate action spell or a quickened spell). This is a NORMAL full round action, equivalent to a full attack, NOT a '1 round action' like Summons (which is more interrupable and disruptable than other actions), all it's doing is denying you the move action: the spell still "goes off" ON the turn you start casting it, not "just before your next turn starts" (as per 1 round spells).
For '3/4'/6 spell level casters, they cast their top (1) spell level as a full round action.
'1/2' or 4 spell level casters don't modify their casting times at all, as spellcasting is just not a huge factor for these classes.
The full and 3/4 casters are actually being rounded "in favor of" by my method, in terms of comparing the spell levels gained in the same 5 class levels as a full BAB class, if you wanted to be harsher you could increase the range of effected spell levels, but I felt my solution worked best.
My take to reduce magic power would be to increase all spell levels by +1 without changing anything else.
As a result cantrips/orizons would now be level 1 spells and so on. 9th level spells would be legendary stuff perhaps known by famed, mythical legends or gods.
I might allow every caster to choose one cantrip/orizon that can be cast unlimited times per day.
Not really house rules but some things I have found to reduce disparity. Higher point buy, martial characters tend to benefit more from higher tertiary stats. Make it a high magic campaign, this way martial characters can afford to get some utility items instead of flat bonus items. Run more than 6 encounters before a rest period, this requires a bit of work but it can make a big difference. Use a higher point buy for npc's, monsters should make use of most of their treasure to improve combat ability, any monster without treasure should get the advanced simple template.
