Action Economy fix?

[PD]

It seems like one of the major concerns with high level casters is their ability to unbalance the action economy through contingencies, time stops, quickened spells and so forth. The most common fix seems to be the desire to enhance other classes' action economies, just as PF's fix to weaker classes (Sorcerer, Fighter) was to add more abilities.

I'm beginning to think this escalating arms race of power is going in the wrong direction. How about simply increasing Casting Time for higher levels spells, and tweak Quicken Spell Metamagic. E.g. split spells into 5 tiers: 0, 1-3, 4-6, 7-8, 9. By default, casting time for spells in each tier is Move Action, Standard Action, Full Round, 2 Rounds, 3 Rounds (casting as Move action doesn't allow 2 spells to be cast in a round, although it would allow a wand to be used)

Then tweak Quicken Spell, such as:
Quick Spell, Variant 1: Casting time reduced by 1 step for every +3 levels (or 2 steps for +6 levels). 1 Step down from Move Action is a Swift Action.

Quicken Spell, Variant 2: Two feats, Lesser Quicken Spell, +2 levels per step down, levels 0-2 only; Greater Quicken Spell, +3 levels per step, levels 3+.

This also has a powerful narrative / game play effect, because rather than the caster blowing encounters away in the first round, instead you have a titanic struggle as the melee fighters try to keep the enemy at bay long enough for the casters to bring out the big guns. It also nullifies part of the concerns about balance issues between casters and grunts, because they have very clear and discrete roles at different stages of an encounter. And it also introduces tougher strategic decision-making for casters about whether to throw a Fireball in right away, or take a bit longer to throw down Chain Lighting.

[Joshua Goudreau]

This reminds me of the balancing factor of casting times in AD&D 2nd Edition. It made so the more complex spells took longer to cast and left the caster vulnerable longer, though the initiative system in 2E ended up with the casters going last most of the time anyway.

[Redneckdevil]

This is very interesting read and idea.

[PD]

It also means, if you want to put a 0th-level spell in a 6th level slot, you can cast it as a Free action. Spam the battlefield with Dancing Lights!

It is very definitely based on AD&D. I was just thinking that although High level Wizards were more powerful than High level Fighters in AD&D, it wasn't really an issue, it was just accepted (and was reward for Magic Users being walking tombstones at low level). That made me think that the issue isn't so much the power, as how much and how quickly they can bring it into play.

That and they need to be squishier at low levels, so fewer of them make it through to the point of being dangerous hehehehe

[upho]

PD wrote:

It seems like one of the major concerns with high level casters is their ability to unbalance the action economy through contingencies, time stops, quickened spells and so forth. The most common fix seems to be the desire to enhance other classes' action economies, just as PF's fix to weaker classes (Sorcerer, Fighter) was to add more abilities.

Before we get into the specifics of your suggestion, I really have to question some of the premises:

PF's fix to weaker classes? Might be true with regards to the barbarian and certainly the paladin, but the fighter? Please tell me in what way the fighter has become less weak (in comparison to other classes) than the fighter was in 3.5? I'd say the opposite is actually more true due to lessened value of good combat maneuver feats, lengthened feat chains for equal (or less) mechanical benefit and no access to options as strong as Zhentarim or dungeon crasher.

Sorcerer was a weak class? According to whom? AFAIK, it was widely known as considerably more powerful than just about any class in 3.5 save the druid, cleric, wizard, archivist and perhaps artificer. And seriously, a class which can create its own demi-planes, nuke entire cities just by using 1st level spells and easily destroy any enemies in any published encounter below say CR 25, in the first round, is anything but weak. I'd call such a class ridiculously powerful. Or did I just totally miss the joke?

Quote:

I'm beginning to think this escalating arms race of power is going in the wrong direction. How about simply increasing Casting Time for higher levels spells, and tweak Quicken Spell Metamagic. E.g. split spells into 5 tiers: 0, 1-3, 4-6, 7-8, 9. By default, casting time for spells in each tier is Move Action, Standard Action, Full Round, 2 Rounds, 3 Rounds (casting as Move action doesn't allow 2 spells to be cast in a round, although it would allow a wand to be used)

Then tweak Quicken Spell, such as:
Quick Spell, Variant 1: Casting time reduced by 1 step for every +3 levels (or 2 steps for +6 levels). 1 Step down from Move Action is a Swift Action.

Quicken Spell, Variant 2: Two feats, Lesser Quicken Spell, +2 levels per step down, levels 0-2 only; Greater Quicken Spell, +3 levels per step, levels 3+.

This also has a powerful narrative / game play effect, because rather than the caster blowing encounters away in the first round, instead you have a titanic struggle as the melee fighters try to keep the enemy at bay long enough for the casters to bring out the big guns. It also nullifies part of the concerns about balance issues between casters and grunts, because they have very clear and discrete roles at different stages of an encounter. And it also introduces tougher strategic decision-making for casters about whether to throw a Fireball in right away, or take a bit longer to throw down Chain Lighting.

While this may result in a somewhat extended "golden period" where the classes are roughly balanced, I don't think it really addresses the main reasons the full caster classes are OP (which has very little to do with fireballs, chain lightning and similar sub-par blasting spells IME). The problems are rather that casters have not just superior flexibility but also many ways allowing them to stack or "cultivate" benefits over long periods. I think you may have heard the expression "cast today, benefit tomorrow", which puts the finger on a large portion of most full casters' power. Longer casting times has virtually no impact on the most powerful and game breaking tricks, ranging from contingencies and permanency to armies of undead minions and planar binding. In higher levels, long casting times would also quite easily be circumvented since full casters can decide how fast their time passes in relation to the time everybody else lives and acts by (see for example create demiplane and astral projection). I applaud the effort though.

[Cap. Darling]

This is an interesting idea. If some one try it out i want to gear how it goes.

[blood_kite]

I think I see a possible issue with a spellcasting system like that. You are severely punishing spellcasters for casting their most powerful spells during a fight, much more than melee experts are punished by the movement restriction for using full-attack.

With casting times like that, I would expect Quicken Spell to go from a useful metamagic to mandatory for all 9-level caster classes. Right now Quicken is good for squeezing out a little extra damage or a buff. Under this system I would expect ALL 7-9 level slots taken up with Quickened spells that weren't long-term buffs. I would even expect a lot of Quickened spells in the 4-6 level slots because there are a lot of times you cannot afford to only 5' step that round.

I would even expect to see 4th and 5th level spell slots filled with 3rd level non-Quickened combat spells to be able to get more spells off.

I admit that playing mostly PFS has prevented me from seeing Quicken Spell and multi-spell combos used all that often, but I would expect it to suddenly become the standard much earlier with the casting times proposed.

[PD]

upho wrote:

Before we get into the specifics of your suggestion, I really have to question some of the premises: PF's fix to weaker classes?

Just to clarify, I meant that part of what PF was trying to do was fix perceived weaknesses in 3.5 classes, but I agree with you about their relative success in doing so. And with Sorcerers, the weakness was vs. their most direct comparitor, Wizards, not all other classes as a whole.

blood_kite wrote:

With casting times like that, I would expect Quicken Spell to go from a useful metamagic to mandatory for all 9-level caster classes.

2 rounds to cast Polar Ray or a standard action to cast Cone of Cold, both doing 15d6 damage. Yes, you're probably right. I still think there's something in this, but definitely needs a case-by-case review rather than blanket by-level approach.

[Joshua Goudreau]

PD wrote:

It is very definitely based on AD&D. I was just thinking that although High level Wizards were more powerful than High level Fighters in AD&D, it wasn't really an issue, it was just accepted (and was reward for Magic Users being walking tombstones at low level).

AD&D also had the added balancing factor of each class progressing in level differently so they weren't balanced based on level but on amount of XP earned.

As far as the casting times here, I'm not as adept at system mastery to give detailed feedback but it looks effective enough though, as mentioned, metamagic might mess with it a lot. I'm curious how it plays out.

[Trogdar]

It might be better to have spells after 6th level be full round actions and adjust quicken metamagic to adjust the spell by one time increment. That way you could never cast a high level spell as a swift action and would have to rely on lower level spell slots which, as a consequence, makes buffing spells and spells without dc based effects more attractive.