I've been looking at using the stamina pool, simplified spellcasting, houseruled version of iterative attacks. I've been taking pages and pages in a "book of houserules/optional subsystems" to try to list all of the changes with these rules, when I decided to run the numbers on using limited magic instead.
Here is a Level 20 Wizard using Limited Magic and a version of Inherent Bonuses. When I put that wizard against an enemy with Target AC: 38 and Target Reflex Save: +24 (roughly CR 22), the average DPR for the Wizard (in a 10 round work day) is 80 DPR. A two-handed fighter using the same version of inherent bonus rules gets 160.9 DPR. So the wizard will need to catch 2 or more enemies in their area blasts to equal a fighter. Sometimes that might not be possible, other times they might get 3 or more. So on average I think it's safe to assume they'll get 2 enemies on average.
This completely equalises fighters and wizards in terms of damage (for those interested, a wizard built using the same inherent bonus rules but with standard spellcasting rules is 200 DPR, and they're not using their level 9 spell slots to get that much damage). The wizard of course still has some benefits. They can buff (although their buffing spells will likewise be nerfed and so instead of always having those buffs on, they'll need to be used at tactical times). They also have their utility spells. IMO this brings them as close to the other classes as they could ever be using the Pathfinder rules.
So here's a question: Would anyone willingly play a Pathfinder game using these rules? And would you be willing to play ANY spellcaster with these rules?
This paradigm (where spells are spent largely on buffs and damage on a miss spells rather than save or die/sucks) is common to those who played AD&D. Fighters and other classes were able to almost always succeed on saving throws and so spellcasters threw around damage on a miss spells and those that aided their team members. It was only when 3rd edition came along that we saw the level of caster supremacy that we do today (that isn't to say there was no caster supremacy pre-3rd ed or that spellcasters aren't still powerful under the Limited Magic rules, it was just lessened compared to 3rd ed/Pathfinder). So I expect plenty of AD&D players would be happy to play with it. But what about Pathfinder players?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I dont Think it is damage that you need to balance the wizard around. The figther should out damage the wizard in single target damage, also in the normal system.
Have you changed anything with summoning spells, and battlefield control spells that change the environment? Those are the two most powerful categories of spells, and they are powerful for reasons other than damage or stacking raw numbers to make attacks and defenses better.
I dont Think it is damage that you need to balance the wizard around. The figther should out damage the wizard in single target damage, also in the normal system.
If you have a handy link to a fighter that is able to do greater than 160 DPR at level 20 I'd be curious to see it. Although of course I'm sure using a "normal" system someone could get a wizard boosted quite easily as well. I suppose my comparison is valid insomuch that I'm equally bad at creating fighters as I am wizards ;) So it is an apples for apples comparison.
For those interested the fighter I'm using is here.
As a player and a dm I would a down for it./QUOTE]Out of interest do you typically DM, play or do both equally as often?
Also I am wondering what your other 2 feats would be for the build you have. But it looks fun.Probably look at trying to buff summoning up to help increase that DPR. In fact summoning in place of blasting could be much more viable.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Blasting is generally less than optimal for wizards anyway, so bringing down their blasting potential isn't exactly new. Besides metamagic, wizards have been doing the same damage forever, while folks have started getting con to HP at all.
The thing that makes wizards able to kill s%+$ so much more effectively (as you've mentioned in passing) are the spells that bypass HP entirely. what are the rules in this sub system for dealing with persistent wail of the banshee, or chain-reach-finger of death? Does it try to limit the number of nukes in wizard's pockets, or does it just make wizards just crappy blasters(eg; 5e)?
Have spells like baleful polymorph, Wall of X, and Ghoul Touch been completely removed, or are you just not using them in this demo?
If it's limited to just buffs/blasts, it's going to get boring *very* quickly for anyone who plays wizards precisely because they dont have to fight head on, Damage vs HP, and you might as well play 5e (Seriously, have a look at that spell list, might be exactly what you're looking for).
If it's not limited to just buffs/blasts, somebody is going to figure out a way to break it. if you can jack your DC up high enough, Silent Image is all you really need to break up a group of enemies and leave them waiting and willing to be killed, no different than a high DC Entangle.
Have you changed anything with summoning spells, and battlefield control spells that change the environment? Those are the two most powerful categories of spells, and they are powerful for reasons other than damage or stacking raw numbers to make attacks and defenses better.
Nope. As I remarked while you were posting limited magic could potentially give a good boost to summoning spells. It's been a while since I looked at a summoning wizard and I doubt I ever did to level 20. I'll look online to see what I can find, although if you have a good link I it'd be helpful to see it.
Battlefield control is definitely good, although is typically only until end of the encounter (unless you can goad or maneuver enemies into the favorable terrain, and if you can, why not be rewarded?) and requires teamwork. Is that something that should really be specifically nerfed or encouraged?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm actually prepping to run Carrion Crown with limited magic, but I'm also sneaking in little alternatives like modified overclock casting and Those fancy materials.
My friends also know I'm biased towards martial characters anyways
what are the rules in this sub system for dealing with persistent wail of the banshee, or chain-reach-finger of death? Does it try to limit the number of nukes in wizard's pockets, or does it just make wizards just crappy blasters(eg; 5e)?
Have spells like baleful polymorph, Wall of X, and Ghoul Touch been completely removed, or are you just not using them in this demo?
If it's limited to just buffs/blasts, it's going to get boring *very* quickly for anyone who plays wizards precisely because they dont have to fight head on, Damage vs HP, and you might as well play 5e (Seriously, have a look at that spell list, might be exactly what you're looking for).
If it's not limited to just buffs/blasts, somebody is going to figure out a way to break it. if you can jack your DC up high enough, Silent Image is all you really need to break up a group of enemies and leave them waiting and willing to be killed, no different than a high DC Entangle.
Using the favourable rules for Limited Magic the best you can get a DC up to is 27 (+4 from Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus), you can find the rules here. Using a CR+2 monster at level 20 gives the monster (roughly) +24/+19 to their saves. So save or sucks have a 10% to 25% chance of working. Get enough rolls and they'll eventually fail. Or get a debuff to their save (not from a save and negate spell) and they'll have a better chance at failing. But that's likely to require teamwork and assumes they have no other defences to spells. A spellcaster relying on teamwork to be at their optimal effectiveness seems like a good thing.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Have you changed anything with summoning spells, and battlefield control spells that change the environment? Those are the two most powerful categories of spells, and they are powerful for reasons other than damage or stacking raw numbers to make attacks and defenses better.Nope. As I remarked while you were posting limited magic could potentially give a good boost to summoning spells. It's been a while since I looked at a summoning wizard and I doubt I ever did to level 20. I'll look online to see what I can find, although if you have a good link I it'd be helpful to see it.
Battlefield control is definitely good, although is typically only until end of the encounter (unless you can goad or maneuver enemies into the favorable terrain, and if you can, why not be rewarded?) and requires teamwork. Is that something that should really be specifically nerfed or encouraged?
If the wizard manages to lock down the encounter with BFC, the encounter could be mopped up by an animal companion or a couple of beefy summons. None of which are very dependent on CL past level 5 or so(SMIII will last for an encounter, and fog cloud/Sleet Storm doesn't care about CL). Plus buffing is still there, so you can still end up with melee casters that outfight martials. They just end up burning resources a bit faster.
Plus wizards and other full-casters can still do one hundred things that aren't direct offensive abilities. You smack down enchanters and blasters into nigh uselessness, while god wizards and wildshape druids barely get affected. You basically force the most powerful style of gameplay to be the only style of gameplay that is viable.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Have you changed anything with summoning spells, and battlefield control spells that change the environment? Those are the two most powerful categories of spells, and they are powerful for reasons other than damage or stacking raw numbers to make attacks and defenses better.Nope. As I remarked while you were posting limited magic could potentially give a good boost to summoning spells. It's been a while since I looked at a summoning wizard and I doubt I ever did to level 20. I'll look online to see what I can find, although if you have a good link I it'd be helpful to see it.
Battlefield control is definitely good, although is typically only until end of the encounter (unless you can goad or maneuver enemies into the favorable terrain, and if you can, why not be rewarded?) and requires teamwork. Is that something that should really be specifically nerfed or encouraged?
The original guide to God wizards by Treantmonk. It explains why blasts are bad, and battlefield control and summon spells are the best. Very outdated, but people still use this guide as the gold standard.
More recent, complete wizard guide that builds on Treantmonk's philosophy. This guide talks about the Dazing Spell metamagic feat, and how you can use it to turn otherwise poor blast spells into amazing control spells.
Summoning guide. This shows you all of the things you can do with summon monster spells. And you can do a lot. There is a reason why the Master Summoner archetype is so ludicrously powerful despite being a 6/9 caster with a half-powered eidolon.
I would never use limited magic. CL scaling is important to the kinds of spells you claim you want to promote. Lesser slots rapidly become completely useless pushing you from the fifteen minute workday to the fifteen second workday.
Unless, of course, players got out of the mentality of "we must have every buff turned on for every fight. Let's buff up and kick down every single door. Rawer!" and instead went with "we need to conserve our buffs and only use them when we really need them. Let's try to scout without spells whenever possible and try to use terrain to our advantage." So long as the DM rolls back on the arms race, it can be a very old school way of playing,but one that is completely valid. The only question is, can Pathfinder players give up some of their shiny toys in order to make it easier for everyone to contribute and make it easier for the DM to challenge the table.
I also wouldn't play with your houseruled iteratives. Iteratives are a critical patch for d20's bad attack vs AC math. There are other possible mechanics to fix the attack vs AC math, but they aren't well tested in the D&D/PF environment and you don't mention using any of them.
That's cool. Although this thread would have limited magic used in place of houseruled iteratives. If you want to discuss that houserule I'm happy to talk with you about it in the other thread.
I'm actually prepping to run Carrion Crown with limited magic, but I'm also sneaking in little alternatives like modified overclock casting and Those fancy materials.
I'm in favour of ultra rare material components that are so rare as to have no real viable market for them (a Phoenix feather could be used when casting fireball and dramatically increase the damage it deals, or it could be used with raise dead on a living creature and give them an automatic raise dead next time they die). Properly preparing them and researching potential applications would use the downtime rules. This is hardening back to how Ed Greenwood used material components in AD&D.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If I could I would eliminate every class with 7-9th level spells. Nothing much is lost since most of the unique features of those classes can be found in archetypes or feats.
I dont Think it is damage that you need to balance the wizard around. The figther should out damage the wizard in single target damage, also in the normal system.If you have a handy link to a fighter that is able to do greater than 160 DPR at level 20 I'd be curious to see it. Although of course I'm sure using a "normal" system someone could get a wizard boosted quite easily as well. I suppose my comparison is valid insomuch that I'm equally bad at creating fighters as I am wizards ;) So it is an apples for apples comparison.
For those interested the fighter I'm using is here.
As a player and a dm I would a down for it./QUOTE]Out of interest do you typically DM, play or do both equally as often?
Also I am wondering what your other 2 feats would be for the build you have. But it looks fun.Probably look at trying to buff summoning up to help increase that DPR. In fact summoning in place of blasting could be much more viable.The math of the figther is wrong. And if it isent he is killed in one round by a CR 16 monster. The inherent magic rules you use is clearly not in order is a level 20 figther dosent get bonus to more than one stat amd dosent get resistance bonus. Also give him a falchion if you plan on doing crit fishing. And a at least a full plate.
As it stands your rules are favoring the wizard so you May as well use the normal ones.
IMOP.
You smack down enchanters and blasters into nigh uselessness, while god wizards and wildshape druids barely get affected. You basically force the most powerful style of gameplay to be the only style of gameplay that is viable.
I don't know if you intended to say this, but you have said in your playstyle being equal to the fighter == nigh uselessness. Do you get many non spellcasters at your tables? When was the last time you were actually challenged at higher levels?
I've played in this playstyle. Things stopped being a challenge at level 9 or so and we were taking the piss by level 12. I've also DM'd under this and it wasn't very fun from level 11 onwards. That isn't to say it's not valid or unenjoyable. But for me, it is these things. I've been solidly working on building up fighters and martials to close the gap with casters. It's a lot of work with a lot of houserules. Limited Magic does the opposite very cleanly without obviating any class. Hence why I'm seriously looking at using the rule.
The original guide to God wizards by Treantmonk. It explains why blasts are bad, and battlefield control and summon spells are the best. Very outdated, but people still use this guide as the gold standard.
I don't see anything ground breaking here (in fairness I've read it before). Save or sucks are great at low levels when spells are limited. But they quickly scale out as wizards get a lot more spells. It doesn't go into summoning at great length. I've seen exactly 0 players complain about effective battlefield control and instead seen the table really appreciate it when the wizard does it.
The math of the figther is wrong. And if it isent he is killed in one round by a CR 16 monster. The inherent magic rules you use is clearly not in order is a level 20 figther dosent get bonus to more than one stat amd dosent get resistance bonus. Also give him a falchion if you plan on doing crit fishing. And a at least a full plate.
As it stands your rules are favoring the wizard so you May as well use the normal ones.
IMOP.
I'll redo the fighter and post up the results using These rules
Huh, turns out I'd already fixed the fighter. I just never uploaded it. Here it is note that the damage output is still the same.
Disclaimer: my above post is a mess disregard and look at this one. I was apperently distractet when i made the first and now i cannot edit:(
I dont Think it is damage that you need to balance the wizard around. The figther should out damage the wizard in single target damage, also in the normal system.If you have a handy link to a fighter that is able to do greater than 160 DPR at level 20 I'd be curious to see it. Although of course I'm sure using a "normal" system someone could get a wizard boosted quite easily as well. I suppose my comparison is valid insomuch that I'm equally bad at creating fighters as I am wizards ;) So it is an apples for apples comparison.
For those interested the fighter I'm using is here.
The math of the figther is wrong. And if it isent he is killed in one round by a CR 16 monster. The inherent magic rules you use is clearly not in order is a level 20 figther dosent get bonus to more than one stat amd dosent get resistance bonus. Also give him a falchion if you plan on doing crit fishing. And a at least a full plate.
As it stands your rules are favoring the wizard so you May as well use the normal ones.IMOP.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just statted up a basic Falchion Fighter. Boots of haste as their only DPR increasing stuff. Typical feats and stuff - - 18 base STR, PA, furious focus, (greater) weapon focus/spec, improved critical and the critical feats (which don't actually increase DPR for a level 20 fighter). If I went fishing for bonuses with the nearly 500k WBL they should have, the numbers would be significantly higher(+1d6 acid damage/hit, +1 competence to attack rolls and +1 morale to attack rolls alongside a bunch of other stuff can all be gotten for a total of about 40K). Not to mention sticking something like gloves of dueling on them.
While the boots are on are on, DPR is sitting at 335.
Your wizard sits at a small fraction of that.
Also, did you also take into account SR and resistances? Most things by that level have some sort of resistances, and virtually everything has SR. Even if you are an admixture wizard, there are a whole bunch of outsiders that have resistances or immunities to 3 or 4 energy types, so you are still getting a big chunk of your damage cut out. Most Demons and Angels have either resist 10 or immunity to all 4 energy types.
Of course, if you just play a god wizard instead you wouldn't really have a problem. You could also spend feats on things other than making a single spell barely adequate for sweeping up total CR=APL-2 groups of mooks i.e. actually be useful in your primary function. 80 damage(but actually much less) is a joke at this level.
If you really want the TSR feel you should make the save DCs static, but use full caster level and increase all blasts and heals by at least two die steps and remove caster level caps.
Classically save DCs are static, but fireball does 1d6 per level with no limit to monsters that don't add their con mod to their hit dice.
Just to be clear, I didn't invent the Limited Magic rule, it comes from Pathfinder Unchained.
I just statted up a basic Falchion Fighter. Boots of haste as their only DPR increasing stuff. Typical feats and stuff - - 18 base STR, PA, furious focus, (greater) weapon focus/spec, improved critical and the critical feats (which don't actually increase DPR for a level 20 fighter). If I went fishing for bonuses with the nearly 500k WBL they should have, the numbers would be significantly higher(+1d6 acid damage/hit, +1 competence to attack rolls and +1 morale to attack rolls alongside a bunch of other stuff can all be gotten for a total of about 40K). Not to mention sticking something like gloves of dueling on them.
While the boots are on are on, DPR is sitting at 335.
Your wizard sits at a small fraction of that.
Also, did you also take into account SR and resistances? Most things by that level have some sort of resistances, and virtually everything has SR. Even if you are an admixture wizard, there are a whole bunch of outsiders that have resistances or immunities to 3 or 4 energy types, so you are still getting a big chunk of your damage cut out. Most Demons and Angels have either resist 10 or immunity to all 4 energy types.
Of course, if you just play a god wizard instead you wouldn't really have a problem. You could also spend feats on things other than making a single spell barely adequate for sweeping up total CR=APL-2 groups of mooks i.e. actually be useful in your primary function. 80 damage(but actually much less) is a joke at this level.
Great. Now that we've established how awful my math is, you could take a look at the Limited Magic rules and discuss those, which is intended to be the main crux of this thread. Although I understand how my bad math did derail the thread. Also at 335 DPR the DM might as well pack up and go home. Who needs a wizard when you can one-shot anything that moves?
Being a Paizo optional rule doesn't make it not a bad rule and if your goal is magic more like AD&D you should come up with a house rule that's actually designed with that goal in mind rather than grab a Paizo optional rule that doesn't do what you want.
The goal is a game that's playable at anything greater than level 11. It appears with 335 DPR machines roaming the landscape that's not possible.
Apologies if this comes across as hostile. It's more frustration. The arms race drove me away from Pathfinder and I was hoping Pathfinder Unchained would help curb it and make the game enjoyable beyond level 10. I do appreciate people taking the time to point out my errors and offer advice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thing is that generally, play above 11 isn't hindered by damage as much as by high-DC save-or-suck spells delivered by hard-to-counter mages. There's loads and loads of ways for many enemies to minimize damage; preventing a high-DC persistant Flesh to Stone is much harder.
Part of the issue is that the things that make the game so much more complicated at levels above 10 are the very things that you get that are unique to play above level 10. If you want to play above that point, I think you need to consider exactly what it is you want from levels 10+, and what it is that breaks the game for you at levels 10+.
To my mind, what happens at somewhere around 10 is that full casters enter the power area of "demigod", being able to change how the game is played to a much larger extent through easy access to stuff like teleportation, long-term flight, planar bindings, contact outer plane, et cetera et cetera.
That the numbers grow larger isn't the real problem for me, especially not strict DPR, as unlike lower levels enemies are very likely to be able to counter specific attack types. There might be specific exceptions in super-optimized builds, but since those rely on a select few abilities I find it better to target those specific abilities (for example, in my game, you cannot ever have more than one ability that affects metamagic that isn't a metamagic feat affect a single spell; no stacking spell perfection and wayang spell hunter and a metamagic rod et cetera).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Great. Now that we've established how awful my math is, you could take a look at the Limited Magic rules and discuss those, which is intended to be the main crux of this thread. Although I understand how my bad math did derail the thread. Also at 335 DPR the DM might as well pack up and go home. Who needs a wizard when you can one-shot anything that moves?I just statted up a basic Falchion Fighter. Boots of haste as their only DPR increasing stuff. Typical feats and stuff - - 18 base STR, PA, furious focus, (greater) weapon focus/spec, improved critical and the critical feats (which don't actually increase DPR for a level 20 fighter). If I went fishing for bonuses with the nearly 500k WBL they should have, the numbers would be significantly higher(+1d6 acid damage/hit, +1 competence to attack rolls and +1 morale to attack rolls alongside a bunch of other stuff can all be gotten for a total of about 40K). Not to mention sticking something like gloves of dueling on them.
While the boots are on are on, DPR is sitting at 335.
Your wizard sits at a small fraction of that.
Also, did you also take into account SR and resistances? Most things by that level have some sort of resistances, and virtually everything has SR. Even if you are an admixture wizard, there are a whole bunch of outsiders that have resistances or immunities to 3 or 4 energy types, so you are still getting a big chunk of your damage cut out. Most Demons and Angels have either resist 10 or immunity to all 4 energy types.
Of course, if you just play a god wizard instead you wouldn't really have a problem. You could also spend feats on things other than making a single spell barely adequate for sweeping up total CR=APL-2 groups of mooks i.e. actually be useful in your primary function. 80 damage(but actually much less) is a joke at this level.
My second part of the post did talk about the limited magic rules. Rather, it talked about how your attempt to build a viable non-god caster failed miserably under the rules, while a god caster wouldn't have had a problem. I note that you didn't actually respond to that bit. Let me reiterate - your absurdly specialized wizard is incapable of contributing meaningfully to their job. The build is useless at what it claims to be designed for. That's what limited magic is doing. On top of that, it's not much of a power down for wizards as a whole, since the best options for wizards are barely even weakened. The system shoots down the more niche builds, while leaving God wizard style play the One True Casting Tactic - Buffs, a large chunk of BFC, summoning and the majority of utility are only weakened by a small amount. Is this what you are looking for in the limited magic system? I doubt it's what most people are looking for.
Second of all, average HP for a CR20 is 370HP. The fighter is barely managing to 1 shot an equal level opponent if they get a full attack off, which requires that the enemy is nice enough to not do something like spam Greater Teleport and laugh. The damage would be respectable if the fighter didn't lose a round moving up or was also capable of anything else useful(maneuvers don't count unless you are talking about highly specific builds, since outside those builds combat maneuvers suck by this level). Besides, the fighter will almost always take 2 turns to kill one enemy due to needing to move up to full attack, so that sounds pretty much spot on for the expected kill rate. A barbarian would do a little less, but gets pounce so they can kill CR18 or even some CR19 enemies on a charge, while the fighter *still* has to go through the move+standard hit routine. Unless the GM is silly enough to have enemies with enormous piles of SLAs and spellcasting walk up to the dude with the sword and slug it out.
The game is more likely to become unplayable for lack of 335 DPR machines than their presence. Individual turns tend to take longer at higher levels. You don't want fights to also require more of them because player damage isn't keeping pace with monster HP. Remember that high level monsters often have inflated con scores because of the size modifiers as well as more hit dice than their CR. That level 20 fighter would be expected to trivially handle two ancient red dragons with 25 d12 hit dice and 27 con each in a party.
Pit Fiend loses initiative to 2 archer fighters (who presumably deal similar damage to a two handed fighter, if not better) with +5 bows (or equivalent) and the pit fiend dies without dealing any damage. Pit fiends have 350 HP. Or a single fighter solos it and takes 1 hit for some damage and then (using feats to remove AoOs) finishes the Pit Fiend in the second round. At CR = 1/4 resources for a party of 4. It barely equals 1/4 resources of 1 character. Using Limited Magic the fighter worries very little about those spells the creature has. Under normal rules 2 characters beating a Pit Fiends initiative roll finish it with no resources expended.
a god caster wouldn't have had a problem.
Save or sucks pose a minor threat. Delaying or negating monsters (without requiring saves which can be hard to get) are good when they work, which will be rare for save required effects. Which leaves summoning. Yes, I get it. Summoning is good. I had spoken to that point in an earlier post.
As for a full attack: Archer. I've always seen them out damage two handed fighters so I can only assume they're getting very close DPR. Yet another reason to love archers.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm currently playing in a Giantslayer limited magic campaign. It's an interesting change up. We're using several rules from Unchained to offset the loss of magic.
I'm currently playing in a Giantslayer limited magic campaign. It's an interesting change up. We're using several rules from Unchained to offset the loss of magic.
I'd be interested hearing what rules and how they're effecting the spellcasters and the level range you're playing.
what i did is i implemented, wildmagic, limited magic, overclocking and esoteric materials. you have a 10% chance per spell level to create a wild magic effect, this effect can be changed if the GM has a more thematic choice,l but they still roll to determine if the effect should be net neutral, net positive or net negative. really shakes things up. your clone? yeah it's trying to kill you. :3 or maybe he got lucky and this clone has +2 to con. summoned monsters? yeah they're out of control. or maybe they're hasted.
makes magic less paint by the numbers.
a god caster wouldn't have had a problem.Save or sucks pose a minor threat. Delaying or negating monsters (without requiring saves which can be hard to get) are good when they work, which will be rare for save required effects. Which leaves summoning. Yes, I get it. Summoning is good. I had spoken to that point in an earlier post.
I've always found summoning to be variably effective: in a non-over-optimised party, it works but once the PCs are regularly capable of handling CR+4 and the GM compensates by increasing the enemies in terms of AC or saving throws, SR and hit points, summons get ignored since they tend to only hit on a 20.
Conversely, to me God Wizard means battlefield control, not blasting or summoning. Walls of Force to split up enemies, etc.
If, instead of making blasting even weaker, you made it more effective wizards become less of a problem to a game. It's easy to plan for your bad guys to be taking damage, rather than having the battlefield remodelled. Why would a wizard choose to blast? If it's just as effective, then it will happen - if only because it's more fun than watching the fighters do all the killing.
I would be willing to play a caster using limited magic, but I feel like it overly addresses the high DC save or suck/die problem, while ignoring several other problems.
First of all, by making spell casters equal to a wand, you REALLY punish most kinds of offensive magic that relies on saves, while spells that don't allow saves are unaffected. In my opinion it isn't a solution that is focused on the problem. I would be inclined to limit all characters starting stats to 16 after racial adjustments.
I'm not really sure what your iterative attack system will be but I would recommend making the highest level spells full round actions. Some have suggested making save or suck/die spells full round, or 1 round actions as well. Also, I would limit most spells to hours/level rather then days/level, and clamp down hard on clones, simulacrums, planar binding, etc. In essence, you don't get benefit from spells you cast yesterday or last week. You can only have a single summon spell active at a time. I would also remove spells like blindness, hold person, and dominate person from the game. Take a good look at meta magic, and probably get rid of quicken spell. Garbage like dazing spell is right out, and bouncing spell type stuff should also get the boot.
Finally, I'm not sure if you will be using normal WBL and item crafting rules, but those are another way casters get far ahead. I recommend removing all financial benefit from crafting. Even scrolls cost 25gp X spell level to make.
PS Most full BAB characters operate just fine in the CR system. They don't need much change. Casters who are not focused on save or suck seem to be fine until about 10th level, so focus on making higher level casters work within the CR system.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pit Fiend loses initiative to 2 archer fighters (who presumably deal similar damage to a two handed fighter, if not better) with +5 bows (or equivalent) and the pit fiend dies without dealing any damage. Pit fiends have 350 HP. Or a single fighter solos it and takes 1 hit for some damage and then (using feats to remove AoOs) finishes the Pit Fiend in the second round. At CR = 1/4 resources for a party of 4. It barely equals 1/4 resources of 1 character. Using Limited Magic the fighter worries very little about those spells the creature has. Under normal rules 2 characters beating a Pit Fiends initiative roll finish it with no resources expended.
This is what I was talking about: there are so many ways to prevent damage for that Pit Fiend. And I mean, it's not like the pit fiend would make a random attack against that single fighter.
If the characters manage to catch an Int 26 Pit Fiend with at will Greater Scrying and +33 Sense Motive and 134k GP of treasure off-guard, well done for them and they deserved that victory. What do you think two 1st level fighters will do to a single Gnoll they catch off-guard?
Unlike the gnoll however, the pit fiend has loads of ways to protect itself, and is unlikely to be caught off-guard. Few creatures get as powerful as those PC's or that Pit Fiend, and so the Pit Fiend have no reasons to hold back against them. It is very likely that when they actually encounter the Pit Fiend, it will already have summoned a Puragaus or Horned Devil or something, as well as covered the whole area in dozens of persistant images. And of course they're both invisible and hiding a fair bit from the images, out of reach of Darkvision/See Invisibility in complete darkness. With a treasure of 134k GP, also count on quite a few cheap consumables such as Potion of Mage Armor and a Scroll of Fickle Winds, and a number of other items such as rings of protection and headband of alluring charisma.
While the unbuffed AC of a pit fiend caught unprepared is 38, you can count on it being in the 42-46 range if given the opportunity to prepare. Which having a high DPR doesn't prevent - world-changing spells such as Contact Other Plane and similar does.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pit Fiend loses initiative to 2 archer fighters (who presumably deal similar damage to a two handed fighter, if not better) with +5 bows (or equivalent) and the pit fiend dies without dealing any damage. Pit fiends have 350 HP. Or a single fighter solos it and takes 1 hit for some damage and then (using feats to remove AoOs) finishes the Pit Fiend in the second round. At CR = 1/4 resources for a party of 4. It barely equals 1/4 resources of 1 character. Using Limited Magic the fighter worries very little about those spells the creature has. Under normal rules 2 characters beating a Pit Fiends initiative roll finish it with no resources expended.The game is more likely to become unplayable for lack of 335 DPR machines than their presence. Individual turns tend to take longer at higher levels. You don't want fights to also require more of them because player damage isn't keeping pace with monster HP. Remember that high level monsters often have inflated con scores because of the size modifiers as well as more hit dice than their CR. That level 20 fighter would be expected to trivially handle two ancient red dragons with 25 d12 hit dice and 27 con each in a party.
The Pit fiend has greater scrying at will. He ambushes the PC's with minions and opens with mass hold monster will save DC 27, what's the will save of that fighter archer duo? -edit- because he ambushed the PC's he gets a surprise round if the PC's aren't just asleep.
Remember the pit fiend is a caster not a brute. It's int is 26 and it ties for it's lowest ability score. I feel from everything you've been saying is that you are in a Paradigm where HP damage or nothing (also low system mastery no offense) HP damage is necessary, but becomes less important as you go higher in levels, because enemies get more efficient problem solvers like mass hold monster. Also mass hold monster is not the greatest in it's category, not by a long shot.
He ambushes the PC's with minions and opens with mass hold monster will save DC 27, what's the will save of that fighter archer duo?
DC 23 actually. Although it does demonstrate spells aren't completely borked with Limited Magic as the wisdom 10 fighter only has a 45% chance of failing which is still respectable.
Remember the pit fiend is a caster not a brute. It's int is 26 and it ties for it's lowest ability score. I feel from everything you've been saying is that you are in a Paradigm where HP damage or nothing (also low system mastery no offense) HP damage is necessary, but becomes less important as you go higher in levels, because enemies get more efficient problem solvers like mass hold monster. Also mass hold monster is not the greatest in it's category, not by a long shot.
Fair comment. I was operating under "no-one can fail saves" with limited magic because of set DCs. You've demonstrated at least on the player end that isn't true. I'll admit being able to reliably deal damage equal to 96% of an at CR's creature's HP was a bit of a shock. Although that's what I get for choosing a random creature. I've had a look and there seem to be no non casters at that level so quick and dirty checks simply won't work.
I'll admit being able to reliably deal damage equal to 96% of an at CR's creature's HP was a bit of a shock.
You aren't, though. The thing is that making full attacks against enemies with no other defenses than AC is not reliable at level 20. Most CR20 enemies have ways to outmaneuver that.
Though again, an optimized offensive caster will also have at least a 95% chance to kill it with a save-or-die. Looking at the CR20 monsters, here are some defenses they have that will reduce this damage or make it not reliable:
Pleroma: Crit Immunity (this lowers damage a lot), superior vision, wish, summons.
Asurena: Time Stop, Deflect Arrows
Bandersnatch: Anti-magic Aura. Granted, this one has low AC and hit points and would likely be killed quickly.
Thalassic Behemoth: DR 15/epic, which unless they have specifically +5 Magical Beastbane weapons can't be bypassed.
Olethrodaemon: Wall of Force, Wall of Ice, summons
Balor: Summons
Akvan: Prot. from Good, Summons w/Deeper Darkness+Invisibility
Agathion: With Elemental Body III, Magic Vestment and Shield of Faith it has AC 46 and is immune to crit
And so it continues, and this is without taking into account treasure. Yes, there's some creatures that would be pretty easy to take down like the Balor and Magebane Bandesnartch, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.
That said, to any optimized character most things of equal CR will look easy - it's not like an optimized level 1 character will have a hard time against a Gnoll, which is the appropriate comparison here. If your players optimize a lot, so will you have to. That Balor looks pretty easy as is for an optimized archer, but thrown on a +1 Mithril Kikko Armor (~5500 gp) and a +1 Arrow Deflecting Buckler (~9200 gp), well within reasonable treasure range (it has a 41k budget after it's weapons), and that AC jumps from 36 to 43 with Deflect Arrows. Add a few scrolls (it has Use Magic Device +31, so you know, that'd be a waste if it didn't actually have magic items) and it gets even higher.
I'm currently playing in a Giantslayer limited magic campaign. It's an interesting change up. We're using several rules from Unchained to offset the loss of magic.I'd be interested hearing what rules and how they're effecting the spellcasters and the level range you're playing.
Here are the GM's guidelines:
Background Skills
Alternate Crafting and Profession Rules
Skill Unlocks
Variant Multiclassing
Diseases and Poisons
Limited Magic
Auto Bonus Progression (With limited/No magic Treasure(+3))
Characters, Houserules & 3PP Information:
This campaign uses Unchained Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue in place of the core classes.
No classes with full (9th lvl) Spell progression allowed (6th level Spell classes are ok)
Path of War and Path of War Expanded material is allowed. Ultimate Psionics allowed, but only classes with maximum power level known of 6 or less. Save DCs will be modified in a manner consistent with Limited Magic.
Fighters have the following modifications: At 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter, a Fighter gains additional bonus feats from the following list. He must meet the prerequisites for any bonus feats from this list: Acrobatic, Athletic, Dodge, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Martial Power, Martial Training I, II, III, IV, V, & VI, Shield Focus, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Weapon Versatility, and all Combat Style Feats. Add Acrobatics, Knowledge (Martial), and Perception to their Class Skills, and bump their Skill Points to 4+Int/ Level.(players wishing to play this modified class with Hero Lab can email a request for the Fighter (PoW) file I created for Hero Lab.)
Other 3rd Party Classes that have Hero Lab support will be considered, provided they follow the general restrictions on casting/manifesting above.
Magic Item Crafting is only allowed for potions, wands, and scrolls. There will be some magic items, but they will be found, not crafted/bought.
Just say NO: Guns, Leadership, Magic Shops
Races: Humanoid only. If you want to make your own race, you can make a humanoid with up to 10 RP.
Alignments: LG, NG, CG, LN
Stats: use one of the following arrays: 16/16/14/13/12/10, 16/15/14/14/13/10, or 16/16/15/13/10/10 before racial adjustments, or use a 25 point buy with no sell-down of stats.
2 Traits, 1 must be from Player's Guide, below
Hit Points: Max, every level
Wound Thresholds: rather than the debilitating Wound Thresholds from Unchained, we will be using Wound Thresholds to help with limited healing resources.
75% max HP Grazed: The creature has taken no real injuries, expending a reserve of energy and skill. He can recover to full Hit Points with a minute's rest/light activity. All healing magic is maximized.
50% max HP Wounded: The creature has been injured, but the injuries are minor and heal quickly. Double the normal natural healing rates. Magical healing has a minimum effect of half of its maximized amount.
25% max HP Critical: The creature has been injured severely and heals at the normal rates.
Round Down. If a creature is at or below the listed Wound Thresholds and still alive, he heals at the rates suggested.
This campaign will be following the storyline of Giantslayer, with the NPCs modified with most of the rules above (Racial and Alignment restrictions obviously not followed, standard/elite arrays for stats, you get the idea.) so you won't be facing any wizards, clerics, oracles, etc.
Though again, an optimized offensive caster will also have at least a 95% chance to kill it with a save-or-die.
Completely understand that and that is of course the go to in 3.5e/Pathfinder which is directly what the Limited Magic rules are trying to counter.
Looking at the CR20 monsters, here are some defenses they have that will reduce this damage or make it not reliable
The fact they use spells also makes an attempt at a "quick" comparison difficult which I was trying to get away with.
That Balor looks pretty easy as is for an optimized archer, but thrown on a +1 Mithril Kikko Armor (~5500 gp) and a +1 Arrow Deflecting Buckler (~9200 gp), well within reasonable treasure range (it has a 41k budget after it's weapons), and that AC jumps from 36 to 43 with Deflect Arrows. Add a few scrolls (it has Use Magic Device +31, so you know, that'd be a waste if it didn't actually have magic items)...
Althouggh it's been a while since I've DM'd pathfinder, I don't think it ever occurred to me to the use treasure of a bestiary creature that has no class levels to deck them out with magical hardware to use in combat (as opposed to gems and such in the surrounding environment). That's a trick I'll need to remember.
Here are the GM's guidelines:
** spoiler omitted **...
Thats some very extensive houserules. Good to hear that at least one table is happy to play under those rules though.
by making spell casters equal to a wand, you REALLY punish most kinds of offensive magic that relies on saves, while spells that don't allow saves are unaffected.
There aren't too many spells that are "cast and just kill/harm/suck an enemy" (summoning being a notable exception, although there attack rolls would presumably be used). Also by making spell casters equal a wand than any class can take the magic user's nice things and use them just as well as a spellcaster. That's a bit of turn about on those darn pesky magic users ;)
I'm not really sure what your iterative attack system
Limited Magic would be in place of any extensive houserules that boost up weapon users (outside of inherent bonuses).
clamp down hard on clones, simulacrums, planar binding, etc. In essence, you don't get benefit from spells you cast yesterday or last week. You can only have a single summon spell active at a time. I would also remove spells like blindness, hold person, and dominate person from the game. Take a good look at meta magic, and probably get rid of quicken spell. Garbage like dazing spell is right out, and bouncing spell type stuff should also get the boot.
I understand this as what you would do in place of using Limited Magic. This is of course standard operating procedure under every single DM I've played under. Not those exact spells/feats, but the general idea. Ideally some of these spells would be less problematic with Limited Magic and so by using Limited Magic you can ease up on the list of banned spells.
Finally, I'm not sure if you will be using normal WBL and item crafting rules, but those are another way casters get far ahead. I recommend removing all financial benefit from crafting. Even scrolls cost 25gp X spell level to make.
I'll be using the "half WBL" with an eye kept on casters so that if somehow I've nerfed them too much, I can throw some items their way that are suited specifically to them. My understanding (and I'm sure i've even read it in an offical Pathfinder book) is that magic item crafting feats provide a nominal increase in WBL (to compensate for the sacrifice in losing a feat). This is wholly under the control of the DM who dictates how much (and how little) treasure the players receive. I'll be running magic item availability "by the book" in that magic items are limited in how many can be sold and bought. Ye Olde Magic Shoppe quickly craps out in usefulness at higher levels if you run it by the book and so the benefit of those feats doesn't come from being able to increase WBL but instead choose which magic items you get.
PS Most full BAB characters operate just fine in the CR system. They don't need much change. Casters who are not focused on save or suck seem to be fine until about 10th level, so focus on making higher level casters work within the CR system.
Definitely the track I'm currently working on. It's simply a matter of finding the right balance.
what i did is i implemented, wildmagic, limited magic, overclocking and esoteric materials. you have a 10% chance per spell level to create a wild magic effect, this effect can be changed if the GM has a more thematic choice,l but they still roll to determine if the effect should be net neutral, net positive or net negative. really shakes things up. your clone? yeah it's trying to kill you. :3 or maybe he got lucky and this clone has +2 to con. summoned monsters? yeah they're out of control. or maybe they're hasted.
makes magic less paint by the numbers.
I really like the flavour of this. Although I've checked Pathfinder Unchained and am not seeing the 10% per spell level to createa wild magic effect anywhere. Is that a house rule or am I simply missing it? My initial reaction to the combination of overclocking + limited magic was effectively they cancelled each other out. Running the numbers I'm instead seeing, making some reasonable assumptions on spellcasting modifier (starts out at +4 and then increases by +1 every 2 levels after level 3) is that there is roughly a 40% chance of success at your highest spell level (or 55% chance of success with a circlet of persuasion). If anyone see's those values are incorrect please correct me. Based on those values, and the price of failure being a wild magic effect (which has a 30% chance of being bad towards the caster) I see it as a gamble that has a non-negligent chance of backlashing against the caster. That alone should stop it from being used TOO much.
Throwing in esoteric components (using the optional rules) can give you the same benefits of overclocking with no wild magic risk (wild magic zones appear on a failed concentration check. Esoteric components require a spellcraft check) at a price. This is a cool reward for spellcasters that can be handed out more often or less often depending on how well the spellcaster is handling the limited magic rules. I like it. Thanks for the suggestions.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If I were to play a wizard at such high levels with limited magic I'd be looking into ways of counteracting it; including but not limited to persistent spell, spell perfection, resilient illusions, debuffs which affect saves but don't themselves offer saves, and spells which don't require saves or for which a failed save still has an effect.
Also I wouldn't choose to play an even weaker style of wizard because wizards had been nerfed; that's nonsensical. I might if that was requested by the GM, but that's a separate matter.
You can find some examples of high-damage martial characters in PF at level 20 here
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Though again, an optimized offensive caster will also have at least a 95% chance to kill it with a save-or-die.Completely understand that and that is of course the go to in 3.5e/Pathfinder which is directly what the Limited Magic rules are trying to counter.
Thing is, it still doesn't prevent a wizard from flying in with Greater Invisibility and Mind Blank and casting a Limited Wish>Geas on the thing.
I think limited magic can be a valid approach. However, I think you also need to go through some of the most problematic spells and combos and fix them. These include:
Using Wish/Limited Wish/Miracle to reduce casting time of spells - I suggest making them allow you to cast spells as if you had it prepared, rather than copying the effects.
Planar Ally and Planar Binding - I suggest forcing the caller to pay the creature at least as much as the GP component price of the spell version of anything you want them to cast (you want a bound djinn to cast Wish? You pay for a wish.)
Simulacrum - I suggest either removing it, as the easy solution, or having the abilities it grants the copy be limited to those of the appropriate Polymorph spell of 7th spell level or lower (so if you create a simulacrum Dragon, it has no abilities stronger than those provided by Form of the Dragon II)
Blood Money - I suggest banning it, or limiting it to components with no cost (basically eschew materials in spell form)
Stacking Explosive Runes - I suggest simply saying that you can't have more than one explosive runes spell active at a time.
Teleport et al being so unrestricted - I suggest making all teleportation and most divination effects be blocked as if they where scrying (1 foot of stone or a thin line of lead)
Mind Blank - I suggest it making you immune to thought reading and things like Locate Creature, but do nothing against direct detection spells such as See Invisible, True Seeing and Detect Evil.
Spells that replace skills - Things like Spider Climb, Knock, Jump et cetera. I suggest making them grant a bonus equal twice the targets' skill ranks, or +3. Some individual spells might need fixing.
These are the worst offenders, IMO, and I think they need to be addressed.
Thing is, it still doesn't prevent a wizard from flying in with Greater Invisibility and Mind Blank and casting a Limited Wish>Geas on the thing.I think limited magic can be a valid approach.
This would still be required, although hopefully lessened then otherwise would be needed.
I'm playing in three different campaigns. This is the only limited magic campaign. Like I said, it's an interesting change of pace.
Always thought a campaign with all full casters off-limits for PC's would be a lot of fun to play.
Unfortunately you are trying to shoe horn in a concept that the game mechanics are built to not work as. At its core, the game is built on being fantasy (even high fantasy by some standards) and the understanding that magic is around readily. Even in your examples you are using monsters that effective do what you are preventing your characters from doing. That isn't a "limited magic" setting, that is PC restrictions.
You would be truly better off finding a low magic system that can better portray the feeling you want, or even a premade campaign setting that has all this stuff already hashed out and fixes for things you didn't even consider. I would honestly rather learn a new system versus be frustrated trying to make the system I'm used to do what it wasn't built for.
By no means am I saying playing low magic game cannot be fun, but that there are better ways to do it than tossing a half dozen optional rules at a high fantasy game. It's like putting Band-Aids on gaping chest wound. You are just masking it. And as you play you'll get constant reminders of what you were trying to get away from. Best to actually play a low magic game in a system designed for that purpose (or at least one capable of doing it remotely properly).
I want to say there was one made awhile ago (The Black Company or something? 3.5), I looked at it because of the weapon rules to see if there was anything we could use for our home game. We play high fantasy as a rule (we tried Monte Cook's game for few sessions and it fell apart as only the person GMing had any real interest). But those are two places you may want to look for what we seem to be interested in.
Unfortunately you are trying to shoe horn in a concept that the game mechanics are built to not work as.....By no means am I saying playing low magic game cannot be fun
Your labouring under the false pretense that I'm looking to play a low magic game. I'm not. I think it's safe to assume, in answer to the thread's question, that you would not play Pathfinder with the Limited Magic rules ;)