It's common wisdom that wizards are amongst the most powerful classes (at least once the game gets to higher levels. Some believe they're powerful right from the beginning. That's not TOO relevant to the discussion). This thread throws the classes into a tier ranking which sounds pretty spot on for the wizard (people may disagree with some of the other ranking. This conversation isn't really about that). They are considered Tier 1 because:
Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.
So my question is: How do you bring down wizards a tier or 2 and make it so they're less "expert at everything" and can either become "Master at One, or Average at all" without destroying their flavour?
Some common suggestions are:
Limited Magic
Pathfinder Unchained has wizard spells cast all at their minimum caster level with their DCs being the minimum DC possible. This seems to go a bit too far and if you introduce overclocking then they can cast everything but their top 3 spell levels at full capacity.
Limited Spell Slots
Pathfinder Unchained reduces the number of lower level spell slots a wizard gets as they level up. This is quite a drastic change and can be wide sweeping. Given a lot of the early spells are "a bit of gravy" I'm not sure how well that would change their tier or power status (I expect not very well).
Ban Certain Spells
This is the most common houserule and while it stops them from being ridiculous, unless you rip out most of their spells it's not going to stop them from being one of the most powerful classes in the game.
Other Suggestions by me
What about:
* 3.5e banning schools: Wizards cannot learn spells or use magical devices that emulate spells from their banned schools. Honetly though I rarely see wizards casting spells of their banned schools anyway OR
* Reducing Spells Known: Allow wizards to freely learn X spells per level and can only copy spells of their specialised school into their spellbook from srolls or other spellcaster's books. Depending on the value of X they will either be an inferior sorcerer or the limitation will effectively be meaningless.
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Any other suggestions from people?
I enjoy the following as house rules. (Usually in Concert with changing certain game breaking spells into rituals)
Bonus Spell Per Day
Remove this feature, it encourages dumping all your points into a single stat, and makes the extra casting the spontaneous caster gets nearly useless.
Slower Progression
From the Spells per Day chart, change the entry of "1" on 2nd - 9th level spells to "-". This puts their progression of spell level in line with spontaneous casters.
Hard Cap Ability Scores
At character creation each ability score has a hard cap of 16. This includes the racial bonus from a character's chosen race.
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If the problem comes from them having such a wide range of spells, restrict them to a theme or school.
Eg Fire Wizards vs Ice Wizards; or Conjurers who can cast conjuration spells, cannot cast anything from eg Transmutation and need 2 slots for the remaining schools.
Do the same for the other full casters.
If you're looking for casters that are more in line with other classes but are still cool and fun, try Spheres of Power. Casters still gain distinctly magical abilities, but progress in them more like feat chains than traditional spells per day/spell levels.
We avoid magic users because our GM almost always has us in a Dark Sun style campaign with defilers and the characters we play tend to focus on hunting down users of the arcane. :P I played a Sylph Air Wizard through the entirety of this, and came near to blows with the party many times because I had trouble hiding my magic (which wasn't even defiler, I was getting my power from the elemental plane of air). I survived mostly by remaining invisible and helping the party out from the shadows more oft than not. :P
We had aligned goals, and "the enemy you know" and all that. ;)
Use Occultist as the wizard.
Remove 7th thru 9th level spells. Their places can be filled with metamagic spells.
Oh, I love that idea Melkiador. :)
If the problem comes from them having such a wide range of spells, restrict them to a theme or school.
Eg Fire Wizards vs Ice Wizards; or Conjurers who can cast conjuration spells, cannot cast anything from eg Transmutation and need 2 slots for the remaining schools.
Do the same for the other full casters.
This would be a great way to differentiate sorcerers from wizards (although elemental-themed casters would be stepping on the kineticists toes), but for me part of the problem comes from wizards' flavour being that they can learn a wide variety of spells. Which is a problem because this is intrinsically the cause of the problem.
I enjoy the following as house rules. (Usually in Concert with changing certain game breaking spells into rituals)
After checking out how Occult Adventures has Occult rituals this is definitely something I'm working on. The problem I have is that a "healer" is effectively mandatory role in the group (a healer being someone who can cast remove disease/cure blindness or deafness, lesser restoration, restoration, etc) while pretty much every other role can be handled by someone else (healers can often double as the party tank. I've seen a wizard effectively fill both the wizard role and the rogue role of disarming magical traps at the same time. Anyone with high charisma can handle the party face role as well). So I've been looking at ways martial and arcane characters can gain access to the "mandatory healer" spells without diminishing the strengths of a cleric/oracle (so that cleric becomes a flavour choice rather than a mandatory choice). Doing the same with the "problem spells" would also be another way around it too.
Bonus Spell Per Day
Remove this feature, it encourages dumping all your points into a single stat, and makes the extra casting the spontaneous caster gets nearly useless.Slower Progression
From the Spells per Day chart, change the entry of "1" on 2nd - 9th level spells to "-". This puts their progression of spell level in line with spontaneous casters.Hard Cap Ability Scores
At character creation each ability score has a hard cap of 16. This includes the racial bonus from a character's chosen race.
All of this will remove the power of the wizard, but the primary problem with wizards seems to be the breadth of spells they have. The Tier 1 description I linked mentions the number of spells they have being the main problem and the fact they can afford to have a solution to every single problem that arises. While you might not subscribe to the tier system, a post-Paizo video of Sean K Reynolds' describing the problem intrisically being that wizards can effecively change their entire class ability selection every single day while fighters are stuck with the exact same feats every single day. It seemed a fairly succinct way to describe the discrepencay. I'd already been addressing the lack of versatility amongst fighters (and other martials), but it did make me think how you could try to "fix" wizards.
If you're looking for casters that are more in line with other classes but are still cool and fun, try Spheres of Power. Casters still gain distinctly magical abilities, but progress in them more like feat chains than traditional spells per day/spell levels.
I definitely mean to check out Spheres of Power at some point. I believe it's gotten rid of the Vancian spell slot system which is something I want to adapt rather than abandon (to help distinguish it from how I'm developing stamina points), so it's probably going to be going a different route to me. But it's definitely valuable to see how different systems handle the same thing.
We avoid magic users because our GM almost always has us in a Dark Sun style campaign with defilers and the characters we play tend to focus on hunting down users of the arcane. :P I played a Sylph Air Wizard through the entirety of this, and came near to blows with the party many times because I had trouble hiding my magic (which wasn't even defiler, I was getting my power from the elemental plane of air). I survived mostly by remaining invisible and helping the party out from the shadows more oft than not. :P
We had aligned goals, and "the enemy you know" and all that. ;)
Remove 7th thru 9th level spells. Their places can be filled with metamagic spells.
I'd been thinking about reducing everyone down to 6th level casters, but this definitely seems like a good alternative to it. Thanks for the suggestion :)
Use Occultist as the wizard.
I haven't read Occultist in depth but saw it was a 6th level psychic caster with wizard schools themed abilities. Could you expand on further as to how you feel it captures the flavour of a wizard without the versatility of a wizard?
Thanks for the suggestions thus far :)
I had been considering reducing their normal spells per day but adding more school specialisation slots. Should make them more specialised. I had also been considering making one of their casting statistics (spells per day, DCs, etc) based on another mental stat (like CHA for spell DCs instead of INT).
I had been considering reducing their normal spells per day but adding more school specialisation slots. Should make them more specialised.
That's actually a very elegant solution. I don't know if it's one I'll go with, but I like it a lot.
I had also been considering making one of their casting statistics (spells per day, DCs, etc) based on another mental stat (like CHA for spell DCs instead of INT).
You might want to check out the Magician class by Tripod Machine Games. It's an alternate take on the wizard in an effort to get the class to be more MAD than the core wizard is.
Try Sin magic, it completely removes two schools of spells from play and gives a focus into one school (it does give them an extra spell slot on top of the one already given by specialist wizards, but you could house rule that out). You could also force them to prepare all there spells at once when they prepare so there isn't as much "waiting 15 minutes, cast utility spell, move on" and the characters themselves have to think what would be useful every day.
I haven't read Occultist in depth but saw it was a 6th level psychic caster with wizard schools themed abilities. Could you expand on further as to how you feel it captures the flavour of a wizard without the versatility of a wizard?
It's a spellcaster who through intelligent study of magic gains the ability to channel magic through a focus similar to the manner that wizards have arcane bonds to objects, except this class is only about tier 3, only slowly gaining schools rather than having all of them at once and even then never getting problem spells like wish or simulacrum.
Occultist is a fantastic Wizard substitute- although you may need to add Summon Monster I-VI for the Conjuration power to work.
I love removing bonus spells for having a high stat. One suggestion- you still get bonus first-level spells. Otherwise low levels will suck way too much. Also consider if it's everybody getting that nerf. Bards aren't exactly OP, and it makes Paladins/Rangers wait a level for spells.
Occultist is a fantastic Wizard substitute- although you may need to add Summon Monster I-VI for the Conjuration power to work.
Oh yeah, the dev's somehow missed the issue of the conjuration power not working without Summon Monster on the list from the playtest.
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Make most non-instantaneous spells require concentration? Especially summons.
But - hell - that's a LOT of work to rewrite the spells. Still, somehting I've considered, especially for the Summoner class.
Try Sin magic, it completely removes two schools of spells from play and gives a focus into one school (it does give them an extra spell slot on top of the one already given by specialist wizards, but you could house rule that out).
I file this under "3.5e banning schools" as it seems (to me) to be the same thing (except a bit more restrictive in which schools get banned).
You could also force them to prepare all there spells at once when they prepare so there isn't as much "waiting 15 minutes, cast utility spell, move on" and the characters themselves have to think what would be useful every day.
This would definitely be a possible solution. Although I'd worry that it would simply overvalue divination magic more than it already is.
So you want to nerf the wizard? Well that's okay, I'll just play a sorcerer or arcanist instead.
Going a bit further afield (I was aiming to limit this to wizards as for me the flavour of the wizard is innately tied to the "problematic" mechanic of the wizard) but whatever changes are made to the wizard would naturally trickle down to the sorcerer and arcanist (assuming it was necessary to keep the arcanist around).
It's a spellcaster who through intelligent study of magic gains the ability to channel magic through a focus similar to the manner that wizards have arcane bonds to objects, except this class is only about tier 3, only slowly gaining schools rather than having all of them at once and even then never getting problem spells like wish or simulacrum.
I'll definitely have to have a closer look at the Occultist then. Thanks!
Make most non-instantaneous spells require concentration? Especially summons.
But - hell - that's a LOT of work to rewrite the spells. Still, somehting I've considered, especially for the Summoner class.
You might want to check out D&D 5th edition as that's part of the solution it went with to help balance out casters.
Check out the kineticist. I think it can definitely get that feeling of a hidden elementalist who is NOT a caster but is likely to be confused with one if others saw her abilities.Sphynx wrote:
We avoid magic users because our GM almost always has us in a Dark Sun style campaign with defilers and the characters we play tend to focus on hunting down users of the arcane. :P I played a Sylph Air Wizard through the entirety of this, and came near to blows with the party many times because I had trouble hiding my magic (which wasn't even defiler, I was getting my power from the elemental plane of air). I survived mostly by remaining invisible and helping the party out from the shadows more oft than not. :P
We had aligned goals, and "the enemy you know" and all that. ;)
You realize that I've been the biggest raver/fan of the kineticist class on these boards, right? :P Yes, best class ever, and the only class I'll ever pick to play (just as sylph is the only race I'll ever pick to play) ;)
Sorry if this has become like a broken record, but I get some of the wizard threads mixed up. Here are my ideas for smoothing out the classes...
- 1) When making characters, no starting ability scores above 16, or below 10 after racial adjustment.
That fixes half the problems of class power imbalance.
- 2) Remove hold person and dominate person from the game. (If you want to keep hold/dominate monster, at least they are higher level spells.)
- 3) 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells take at least a full round action to cast. Optionally, all save or suck/die spells take 1 round to cast. Removing these spells from the game, and using the slots for metamagiced lower level spells (heighten spell feat free?) is a final option.
- 4) Spells with a duration of days/level get changed to hours/level. Some permanent spells might have their duration reduced.
- 5) Remove quicken spell from the game, or make it apply only to spells with a range of personal.
- 6) Remove or rewrite known problems like dazing spell meta-magic, witches slumber hex, and other obviously broken stuff.
- 7)Consider crafted items the same as purchased when determining Wealth By Level. I would also make master craftsman into a more useful feat. To take it a step further, you could make crafted items cost market price to craft.
- 8)It should be noted that many aspects of casters are intended to be limited by the GM. Access to new spells, planar binding/ally, divination magic, etc. are not blank checks or guaranteed success.
- 9)Many intelligent foes will ready actions to disrupt spell casting. While it should be done rarely and only by appropriate foes, things like targeting a casters component pouch, wands, familiar and even spell books are not out of the question.
- 10) I would sit down with the players and explain that I don't like to play with a lot of action denial techniques. RPG-Tag is not a fun way to play. This applies on both sides of the screen. I don't want to consistently take a player out of action with save-or-suck and for similar reasons, I don't want players using those tactics on my named NPC/monsters.
You could also force them to prepare all there spells at once when they prepare so there isn't as much "waiting 15 minutes, cast utility spell, move on" and the characters themselves have to think what would be useful every day.This would definitely be a possible solution. Although I'd worry that it would simply overvalue divination magic more than it already is.
How so; do you mean that they would use the spells to find out what they should prepare or as in the spells themselves would just be prepared more for their specific purpose?
Also could you explain the banning schools, when you first said it I thought you meant as in the school no longer exists in the game while sin magic just prevents a wizard from accessing it without a scroll/wand/staff.
7)Consider crafted items the same as purchased when determining Wealth By Level. I would also make master craftsman into a more useful feat. To take it a step further, you could make crafted items cost market price to craft.
The economy is already broken as is so half priced crafting would be changed along with a bunch of other stuff related to magic, personally I would say maybe do it at 90% price market value and turn the Hedge Magician trait into a feat that lowers the cost by an additional 10%. In this case they could also only have the items at a lower price if their character is the one making the item, not another party member.