Look at the conversion of the 3.5 warlock, he can use all of his invocations an unlimited amount of times as SLAs.
Not entirely balanced in my eyes, but probably as close as you're going to get.
Spells are often the most powerful abilities at any given level, and at-will abilities have a lot of value in this game due to how it works. True at-will spellcasting would not work well, and even if it did, you'd have to severely hobble the class to the point where they're just a one-trick pony. Also remember that designing classes is extraordinarily difficult. Even for professional game designers. So this will be a major challenge.
As you suggest, I think a good approach is to:
1) Find a way that they can't truly cast the spells/abilities at-will
2) Personally handpick what spells/abilities they can use
The witch is actually a great example of it done well. Hexes are strong and don't have a limited number of uses. However, they often can't be used on the same target multiple times per day.
I'm not really sure what you mean by 'stopping power" and "staying power." Typically if a class's feature is having at-will abilities, then they'd likely be good at contributing consistently throughout the day.
A power pool, where there's some fairly high power number X/level (algorithm can probably be worked out that is comparable or not that much better than a normal spellcaster), so you could cast 50 CLW/Charm person a day if you want, but higher level spells cost more so you could probably only cast 15 wishes if 20th level?
The balance is all the small stuff you can pretty much do, but if you burn all your points on 8 wishes, 6 Gates, Trap the Souls, 2 Desolation of Smaugs and a Partridge in a pear tree, you probably have enough pool for a couple of magic missiles if you are lucky (for example)
Another way is burning a number of lower level slots you haven't used yet to cast several extra high level spells, but it costs slightly more per Spell Level, say burning 3 first level spell slots gets you a level 2 spell or something more exponential? (you could always put a spell-fail chance in there too)?
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The old Ars Magica game had what I consider to be one of the best magic systems ever published, and it addressed much of your concern in a relatively straightforward way:
* First, it was a fatigue-based system, where there were five or so levels of fatigue followed by five or so levels of body damage.
* Spells cost fatigue levels roughly proportional to the spell level - caster level. An easy way to do this would be to requirea caster level check of 15+twice spell level. Success means the spell is cast without fatigue, failure means a fatigue loss (missing by lots means lots of fatigue lost).
* Regaining fatigue is NOT linear. It takes a few minutes of rest to regain one level; it takes about fifteen minutes of rest to regain the second level, an hour to regain the third, a couple of hours to regain the fourth, and six hours to regain the fifth. So if you're down two levels, you can refresh to full in about twenty minutes, but if you cast a spell that costs you one more level, you're now down three and it takes an hour and a half to get back to full.
The effect is that cantrips and mid-level out-of-combat spells are largely free. If the spell is low enough level, you won't fatigue yourself at all and you can spam the spell on a round-by-round basis. Out of combat, cast a spell, then catch your breath and you're good to go. But you can't spam meteor swarm or gate unless your caster level is astonishing.
*(also makes wands not worth it any more?)
*(also makes wands not worth it any more?)
I don't think so. Wands are useful for when you don't want to waste a spells-memorized (or spells-known) slot on something improbably situational.
Unless (I know that) I'm going into the the Vault of Infinite Ghouls, I don't want to bother with hide from undead. If I don't expect to be going underwater or in airless environments, why waste a slot on air bubble? It's usually easier to carry a real weapon than to memorize refine improvised weapon every day.
I'm not really sure what you mean by 'stopping power" and "staying power." Typically if a class's feature is having at-will abilities, then they'd likely be good at contributing consistently throughout the day.
"Stopping power" is an encounter-ending ability. Most save-or-lose effects fall into this category, especially save-or-lose spells with difficult saves.
"Staying power" is the ability to contribute to, but not necessarily dominate, lots of encounters in a relatively short period.
A wand of magic missile or a cantrip of acid splash have staying power, but little stopping power -- a d3 of damage, even twinked out with all the tricks like focus components and crit fishing feats, is still not going to take out a major foe.
A teleport or dominate monster spell has stopping power. We all teleport out of the dungeon and the encounter is over.
One of the reasons that the witch's slumber hex is often considered overpowered is because it's one of the few effects with both stopping and staying power. It's relatively simple to stack enough penalties to create an unsurpassable Will save DC, and once a foe is asleep, simply kill it out of hand. At the same time, the witch can use this effect on every monster in the dungeon that isn't outright immune. The kineticist's blast can have similar effects (in the hands of a master optimizer) -- one hit, one kill, repeat as often as needed.
The shadowmage from 3.5 had an interesting system.
The spells eventually became spell likes and then supernatural.
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The idea is that the class would have a lot of stopping power, but not a lot of staying power.
This is probably the most difficult part of your request. Unlimited casting should focus on staying power. Limited / slot-based casting has increased stopping power because of the very fact that it is limited. For example, the design theory behind the "balance" between the Wizard and the Fighter is essentially that the Fighter performs at 50% of optimal character performance, all the time. Meanwhile, the Wizard's baseline is at about 25%, but it can spike up to 100% when it uses its limited resources, essentially exercising its "stopping power".
Given that the Fighter has some utility issues but is good at damage, and the Wizard has world-wrecking potential when used to its fullest, you probably want to start by determining where your threshold is. What levels do you typically play at? How are Fighters and Rogues perceived to perform at your table? If you typically play at higher levels and Fighters and Rogues are looked at as subpar classes, you'll probably want to gear your class in so that it runs with something like Sorcerer spell-level progression -1 with a drastically limited number of known/prepared spells. If you play at lower levels and Fighters/Rogues are generally regarded as solid contributors, you'll need to modify that even more.In Pathfinder, you do have some "all day" casting-type characters, both in core and 3pp, so it's probably worth looking at those to get a feel for what an all-day caster should look like. The top two 3pp options are probably Dreamscarred Press' Akashic Mysteries and Drop Dead Studios' Spheres of Power. These both use completely new casting systems designed from the ground up to provide you with "all day" casting options, and are very highly reviewed.
In Paizo's core product line for PF, you have the Kineticist from Occult Adventures, a somewhat controversial class that provides "unlimited" blasting with a certain amount of utility. The Kineticist was built using the 3.5 Warlock as its mechanical base, and you find it shares many of the same controversies. It's damage is unlimited, but relatively low outside of certain options once the group hits a certain level of system mastery, its utility is very focused, and unlike the Warlock, early, low-level choices can actually have an extreme impact on what utility options are available to you, and when. Very much a "high floor, low ceiling" kind of thing.
All three of the above systems have 2 major things in common-
1) Despite being "all day" casters, they still rely on some kind of limited resource to boost or manipulate their effectiveness. Kineticist uses burn, Spheres of Power classes use a limited pool of spell points to boost their powers for best effect, and Akashic Mysteries uses an inexhaustible but set pool of points to boost their various abilities (kind of a "divert power from X systems to weapons/shields/thrusters" sort of thing).
2) They all use a unique set of spells/abilities specifically tailored for an all-day chassis.
Point 1 is what you should consider for stopping power. Maybe they're all day with a few limited spikes, or maybe they work similarly to shadow magic in 3.5, with the lowest level abilities getting easier and easier to use, but the highest level abilities still being gated behind uses/day. So, for example, maybe a 6th level caster has 1 3rd level spell they can use 1/day, 3 + casting mod 2nd level spells, and can use its 1st level spells without limitation.
Point 2 is important because it tells you that a lot of smart people have looked at the Pathfinder soellcastinf system, and decided it was easier to write entire books of new material rather than attempt to adapt the existing spellcasting system to an at-will basis. This is relevant for a number of reasons-
First, the PF spells are written under the assumption that there will be limitations on their use, so they may just not be appropriate if made spammable.
Second, the PF spells themselves aren't terribly well balanced to each other. A spell like arcane lock might be reasonable to spam while a spell like glitterdust could be problematic if given unlimited uses, despite the fact that both are 2nd level spells (or you could find yourself in the City of Endless Doors, and suddenly arcane lock is the OP spell...)
Lastly, the tools you need for an at-will chassis are going to vary somewhat from the tools you need for a burst chassis, and the potency of existing tools changes substantially. Spells that relied on short durations as a balancing factor will be much more powerful, spells that increased duration based on caster level are going to seem less beneficial, essentially a huge part of the way many spells are balanced gets tossed out the window. This means that there's going to need to be a fair chunk of time spent crafting and getting a custom spell list so you can navigate around the issues involved.
I'd strongly suggest looking at one of the existing all day options and playing with that for a while before spending too much time on a project with so many potential pitfalls. If nothing else, it will give you a chance to identify what it is you do and don't like about those options so you've got a clearly defined goal of exactly what your new class is supposed to be capable of.
Ah, yeah, as Orfamay Quest says, at-will encounter-ending effects doesn't really fly in this game.
I've been thinking of non vancian spellcasting.
Ritualistic Caster.
Chance of successfully casting the spell is 10+ Dex bonus + mental bonus(Wisdom for clerical, Intelligence for Arcane, or Charisma for performance based) + 5 for a focus or material component.
Cantrips/orisons have a casting DC of 10. very easy. Can cast as an acolyte.
1st level is DC 15. Can cast at first level.
2nd level DC 17. Can cast at 4th level.
3rd is DC 19. Can cast at 6th level.
4th is DC 21. Can cast at 8th level.
5th is DC 23. Can cast at 10th level.
6th is DC 25. Can cast at 12th level.
7th is DC 27. Can cast at 14th level.
8th is DC 29. Can cast at 16th level.
9th is DC 31. Can cast at 18th level.
Damage to the character is subtracted from chance of success. A failed concentration check means the spell fails and the consequences happen.
Other minuses include, armor check penalties, possibly a -4 to casting during combat, ect.
Failure results in a backlash instead of the spell. Spell Level appropriate results.
Necromancy turns the nearest remains or death site into a hostile undead. Thus anyone who can't be animated might become a shadow.
Conjuration/Summoning will summon a monster of an alignment opposite to you. Thus a good aligned caster might be beset by hell hounds.
Healing failure results in 1D4 per spell level damage to the caster.
Evocation or any damaging spell results in the spell targeting the caster. If it's a touch spell, congratulations, you both suffer. :)
This is a work in progress and you can take parts for your system, suggest changes(I think the DCs might be low), or anything civil.
I will read the rest of the topic and probably make more changes or even bow out of the topic if I totally misunderstood the OP's intent.
How about this:
You know how to cast every spell that your character level has access to, but all spells take 1 minute to cast via ritual magic. You can precast and store up to intelligence bonus number of spells and then spend a standard action (subject to meta magic effects) to activate.
So if you have 20 intelligence you can store 5 combat spells (that you have precast at the start of they day) that you can use in a hurry, but out of combat you can cast any spell you want (it just takes 1 minute). If that same character is level 10 they can cast quickened magic missile but they can't cast anti magic shell, quickened or otherwise.
Number stored based on level works just as well.
Ritual casting should be a thing. Time to start reverse-porting 5e into PF!
They kinda are in. Occult book had some goodies dealing with ley lines and casting.
Lets see every option.
- Gaining fatique. Can't cast maximum spells while fatigued and casts only cantrips when exhausted.
- Can cast spells only from patron, bloodline, school or domain.
- Can affect each target only 1 spell per day (including him/herself).
- Change of Spellburn, can't cast any more spell until full rested.
- Only 1 spell active at time (neither can wear any active items when casting).
- Can have only 1 memorized spell at time.
- Delay on delivery. Instant spells will activate d6 rounds after casting. Ather will activate d6 minutes after casting.
- Character must be convince the patron/deity/demon/etc each time when he cast spell by services and gifts.
- Difficult spells. Needs spellcraft rolls to create & activate.
- Really difficult spells:
Player: "I throw the torch carrying orc with FIREball. It should be possible because it is FIREday."
GM: "The fire surrounds orc harmlessly. He rages and charges you. Now roll the damage for both of you."
Player: "WTF!"
GM: "The raging orc is emotionally, racially and horoscopically more attuned with the fire than you."
What about combining?
HOT POTATO
Each caster can have only one spell active at time (items do not counts). When he cast a spell, it has delay of 1d6 turns rolled by GM and each target can try at his own turn to send it to another target by saving or rolling spell DC at spellcraft.
I've used a system before where I could cast pretty much any spell I wanted, but each spell had a limited number of uses (like wands). Once those were used up, I permanently lost the spell (there was some more nuance to it than that, but that was the gist of it -- the extra details don't really fit here though so I'm not mentioning them and they were rather complex). Something like that could be adapted to what OP wants I think.
The caster could work on a charge-based system on top of a sorcerer chassis. Casting a spell burns up 1 charge (whether or not it succeeded), and they cannot cast spells unless they have enough charges to do so. Learning a new spell confers an initial amount of charges to use that spell, and additional charges can be earned from a scroll. You mention they should be bursty and not have a lot of utility, so perhaps the number of charges is simply fixed instead of being based on spell level -- that would make it not very worthwhile from a time and money standpoint to accumulate a lot of charges in mediocre spells, making their effort focused on the heavyweight spells instead. For the sake of pulling numbers out of thin air, let's say initially learning the spell nets 15 charges, each scroll consumed adds 5 charges, and there's a cap at 50. You'd use the sorcerer max spells known table, but disregard the spells per day (they can cast anything as long as they have charges left for it).
Things that effect charges (such as wands) do not effect spell charges for this class, however things that reduce spell slots (such as spellcrash) burn that number of charges for a spell of the appropriate level instead (to prevent exploits, charges can only ever be lost this way, never gained).
The class would then have an ability like
Recharge Spell (Su) - This class can spend one hour of uninterrupted study on a previously-identified scroll for a spell they know to regain 5 charges for that spell, up to a maximum of 50 charges. The scroll is consumed upon any number of charges being regained. If the character is interrupted during this study, all progress is lost and they must start over, but the scroll is not consumed.
I think this meets OP's criteria:
1. A charge-based system lets you unload everything you got when it really matters, but you need to be conservative with your charges. In other words, lots of stopping power but not a lot of staying power.
2. Charges cost both time and money to recoup, making it not super feasible to keep adding new charges all the time (reduces staying power by making the class pick and choose what really needs the spells and what doesn't).
3. Charges are capped so that long downtimes between stuff happening can't be abused to get tons of them.
While storing a spell in their mind would bring it back to Vancian, the other ideas have some merit.
How about protective spells can only be set one each on a person or object. The spell activates when needed.
Spell success is determined by rolling a D20. 1 is spell failure and consequences. 20 is auto success. Sure, the true strike might reverse causing the next attack against the caster to be at +20, but I think having an ally throw a sock ball at them for no damage should be allowed.
Working out the angles and loopholes is just good roleplaying in my book. Either never cast a disintegrate spell, or find a way to survive it if it ever rebounds on you.
With some of the spells causing damage to the caster, their health is a limiting factor. If the Paladin or Cleric insist on trading away all their healing capability, now is not the time to try out this class.
How about this:
You know how to cast every spell that your character level has access to, but all spells take 1 minute to cast via ritual magic. You can precast and store up to intelligence bonus number of spells and then spend a standard action (subject to meta magic effects) to activate.
So if you have 20 intelligence you can store 5 combat spells (that you have precast at the start of they day) that you can use in a hurry, but out of combat you can cast any spell you want (it just takes 1 minute). If that same character is level 10 they can cast quickened magic missile but they can't cast anti magic shell, quickened or otherwise.
Ritual casting should be a thing. Time to start reverse-porting 5e into PF!
Although INT modifier spells "stored" really favors uber-INT, much more so than it does with, say, a Wizard. The number of spells stored would probably have to be fixed, based on the level. Perhaps:
Spell DC: Always 10+1/2 level+(casting stat?)
Spells stored: 1 at 1st, 2 at 5th, 3 at 10th, 4 at 15th, 5 at 20th? Or perhaps 2 at level 1, 3 at 6th, 4 at 12th, 5 at 18th?
Spell level: As Sorcerer.I like your idea.
This is the ritual system I and a few others homebrewed. Go to Rituals.
I only bought the Players handbook for 5e because it's expensive. I also do not have access to occult adventures.
I'm going to back off. The OP seems not interested in going non Vancian.
If casting a spell causes subdual damage to the caster instead of removing it from memory, that might work.
Generally, save the best for the big encounter. When the casters run out of the small stuff, the martials get to really shine.
Basically, you are saving enough spell points or whatever to cast that Mary Jane spell once. The riddle written in undercommon is usually next to the front door anyway.
The Mary Jane spell is that one spell you max out and use every trick to make sure it goes through.