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Casting defensively is irritating to me. Its so easy for the caster to make their check when they get to the mid levels. Martial currently have lots of feat taxing, why not do the same for casters.
Defensive casting (ex)
Pre requisits: spell focus
When casting a spell from a school which you have spell focus in you may elect to cast it defensively so that you do not provoke an attack of opportunity. The DC to cast defensively is you must make a concentration check (DC 15 + double the level of the spell you're casting) to succeed. You lose the spell if you fail.
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I can't say I agree with this train of logic.
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Well it just seems to me that it is way to easy for a wizard to change the very fabric of reality with an angry barbarian in his face. Martials need to use feats to shore up their weaknesses, I dont understand why that shouldn't also apply to casters. I just think that this would greatly help knocking caster's down a peg, atleast in the middle of combat. Sure, if they have Spell Focus and can cast defensively in that school they will definitely make the fighter cry... while he is grappled by Black Tenticals in another dimension... but atleast it means that the casters have to respect the fighter as a threat.
Concentration checks have greatly increased DCs the higher the spell level is. Also, the barbarian could, ya know, just grapple the wizard. The wizard will have a terrible CMD/CMB. If the barbarian pins him, then he can't cast any somatic and material component spells.
Martial feat tax exists moreso to discourage non-martials from picking up combat feats since martials get lots of bonus feats. Not that I agree with that train of logic, but there ya go.
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I don't actually have a problem with the magus, if I were to implement a feat requirement like this, I would add this ability to spellstrike/ spell combat for the magus spell list. The problem I have is that whenever a melee gets in the face of a 9th lvl caster, it really doesn't even begin to phase him.
I typically play martial types and it drives me nuts trying to take care of the caster. If I manage to get through his summons, and difficult terrains, and avoid domination and illusions. When I finally am next to him and ready to swing I always find myself still just as much of a threat as when I woke up that morning on my bedroll.
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I don't have a problem with a shifty wizard who can get shift around while casting a spell so he doesn't provoke. I just think it should cost him something to do it and he should have to focus on itto have a high chance of success, like my martials must to hit and to save. Requiring that they have spell focus in the school they want to cast defensively isn't bad. I mean if we wanted to just make it tied to combat expertise like everything else... Actually its not a bad idea thematically for it to be tied to combat expertise... Maybe make it require both. :-)
Even taking your viewpoint on concentration checks into consideration, I don't think this is a good idea. I honestly think this will hurt low level spellcasters more than high level spellcasters. In the end, it won't stop spellcasters from easily succeeding on concentration checks. If it's too easy to make concentration checks, then increase the DC. Make it 15+SL^2 instead of 15+2*SL. Alternatively, you could make it equal to a threatening enemy's 10+CMB.
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Has anyone ever tried changing the casting defensively mechanic to just being a flat arcane spell failure chance increase instead of a check? Something like 50%, 35% with combat casting, stacks with all other arcane spell failure chance. Would hurt just as bad at all levels. Disruptive would increase the failure chance by 25% or something.
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Why not just raise spell failure to 100 percent when someone just simply wields a sword in the same room while you're at it, the way it was done in Saberhagen's books?A fighter who misses his opponent is out a hit opportunity. He still has infinite amount of sword swings left in him. A wizard who loses a spell to arcane failure is out a daily resource he's not getting back until tomorrow.
That's a massive false equivalence. Standing next to a guy waving around a greatsword can and should impose a significant penalty to being able to alter reality at a whim using precise gestures, vocalizations and components.
There are so many ways for a wizard to not even get into a defensive casting situation it's not even funny. Not to mention having a huge pool of resources he can draw from if he (for some unknown reason) spends every round standing next to melee guys and somehow always fails his defensive casting, like using wands, school powers, pearls of power, staves, scrolls, his bonded object, using the SLAs of his summons, etc. Don't pretend like wizards' resources are meaningfully limited.
And any number of spells prevent any chance a melee martial might even have to physically get next to the wizard.
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Honestly, with 5' step, there's rarely any reason to bother casting defensively. You can usually just move out of the way until you start facing Large enemies (or enemies with Step Up) consistently.
I'd personally just remove casting defensively entirely. If you wanted, a feat could allow casting spells of a certain level without provoking attacks of opportunity.
Cheers!
Landon
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Why not just raise spell failure to 100 percent when someone just simply wields a sword in the same room while you're at it, the way it was done in Saberhagen's books?A fighter who misses his opponent is out a hit opportunity. He still has infinite amount of sword swings left in him. A wizard who loses a spell to arcane failure is out a daily resource he's not getting back until tomorrow.
Yea I'm not about to pity the casty. The fact is defensive casting is too easy and it criples melee. People say then melee should get step up, well then you are once again feat taxing the melee. What is wrong with requiring some defensive feat investment from casters? It means they can focus on their defense, there power through metamagic, or their accuracy with increasing their DCs. Or they could, like a melee, have to cover their bases and maybe not be quite so powerful with a great sword in their face.
I like this. Maybe just make it a feat with a BAB prerequisite. Wizards have 0 combat training it's time they acted like it.
Or what if it was based on BAB instead of caster level? You'd want to adjust the DCs a bit though.
That's a massive false equivalence. Standing next to a guy waving around a greatsword can and should impose a significant penalty to being able to alter reality at a whim using precise gestures, vocalizations and components.
Yes, and that's why no matter what a wizard does while casting while threatened, he risks losing a spell and a standard action.
If it's too easy to make concentration checks, then increase the DC. Make it 15+SL^2 instead of 15+2*SL.DC 96 to defensively cast 9th level spells? Yikes!
Oh, yeah, that was a stupid suggestion of me!
Perhaps the DC could equal to an enemy's CMD? The big issue with that is that monsters get some very ridiculous CMD values. On the other hand, do you really want to be casting a spell in range of a giant monster without having cast anything to protect you?
I like changing casting defensively to be a flat DC of the threatener's CMD, what happens when he is flanked?
I still want them to have to use some feats though.
The DC would use the highest CMD in that threatened square. I suppose it could increase by 2 if flanked.
I don't think feat taxing spellcasters is necessary. The game was deliberately designed so that mages get fewer feats for the very reasons you describe. Besides, by making concentration checks harder, it makes Combat Casting much more attractive, which was often considered only useful in early game.
Casting defensively is irritating to me. Its so easy for the caster to make their check when they get to the mid levels. Martial currently have lots of feat taxing, why not do the same for casters.
So... Martials being taxed is a bad thing, casters aren't taxed, therefore we should tax casters!
Something... wrong there.
Anyways, Magus will hate you and taxing won't do much to help anything, imo.
How about changing the formula to be based off the foe's BaB? Not their CMD, but their literal skill in fighting represented with BaB. Example formula:
10 + foe's BaB + double spell level.
Wizards have 0 combat training it's time they acted like it.
Yes, the Wizard adventurer who has been through literally hundreds of combats, and has a BAB higher than most town guards and professional soldiers, has zero combat training.
I don't see the point of making up an entirely new feat. Just up the DC of Casting Defensively if you feel it is too easy, using any of the methods already suggested or another of your own devising.
10+enemy BAB+double spell level seems good for your purposes.
Then Combat Casting becomes more valuable, and your desire to feat tax casters comes true.