For my next campaign I am considering limiting the full caster classes ( anything with 9 spell levels). The draconic method is by completely eliminating them but more realistically I will convert them all to six level progression.
Per the title, what effects will this have on the world and the game that aren't obvious?
The troubles will not come from the reduced max level, but from what spells would still be available.
It's not the amount and power of a caster's spells which creates problems in game, but what those spells are capable of doing.
The best way to limit full casters is to tone down, revise or remove each single spell on their spell list, one by one, to adapt them to the intended power level you want in your campaigns. It's a bit time consuming process, though.
If you also add different ability scores for knowing spells and actually casting them, it's even better, since it forces players to not go all in on a single score to power up their characters and will reduce the amount of characters capable of casting the highest level of spells. For Example, a wizard may learn spells through Int, but cast them through Wis or Cha (whenever you put willpower: I put it in Cha as a homerule).
In both cases, I strongly recommend to change the way DCs for spells are calculated. Instead of basing them on spell level, use half the caster level.
This has two main advantages: first, it's simpler for the DM and the players to calculate them (especially for spell-like abilities, since you do not have to go check the equivalent spell level), and second, it leaves a great deal of usefulness to low level spells even at high levels of play (which is good, but even better, if you have less spell levels anyway).
Scaling casters back to cut out level 7th-, 8th-, and 9th-level spells is a perfectly viable way to tone down casters, but what effect it has on "The World" depends a lot on how you envision your setting to begin with. It's generally accepted that casters of a high enough level to cast 7th+-level spells are really rare anyway, with less than a dozen level 17+ level wizards/clerics/druids in the entire world (not canon, just my guess-timate). So if you want to know what it would change about the world, consider what casters of that power are capable of, and decide how much they'd be affecting things normally.
Honestly, I would say the net change is negligible. Casters who are incredibly powerful are so rare that they don't often affect things in a meaningful way, and if they do (or did, as in the case of the Runelords or pre-deity-Aroden), then they could do those things because they were special and you said so.
If you're asking what it means for your game, that's an entirely different question. Most homebrewers agree that casters start to get out of hand with 4th- and 5th-level spells, relative to non-casters, which is why E6 (which, if you aren't familiar with, you should have a look at) is a popular play option. Mad makes a good point, in that most spells can be abused in a way that they weren't (or were, in some cases) intended to be, but removing the top three spell levels means that there won't be any Wishing or Gate-ing going on.
If none of this was helpful, let me know!
It's generally accepted that casters of a high enough level to cast 7th+-level spells are really rare anyway, with less than a dozen level 17+ level wizards/clerics/druids in the entire world (not canon, just my guess-timate).
Just for those curious, I went to the wiki and found 20 Wizards, 6 Clerics and (oddly) 0 Druids of level 17+. The highest level Druids listed on the wiki are 15th.
So, throughout history, that's at least 26 recorded cases of people casting 7th level spells. Of course, we have to account for characters that the wiki does not list, or that were never written with a specific class/level, but it is an interesting thing to think about.
EDIT: Also something odd I noticed, there's apparently a Chaotic Evil Druid in Mendev. I have to imagine that's an error.
What level are you planning on taking your campaign to?
How relevant will this be?
If you do this, would anyone have any reason to choose any of the "9-level" casting classes over a 6-level casting class? (IE, would it be better to just ban them?)
I quite like the 6-level casting classes, myself, and would have no problem as a player with such a restriction for a single campaign: in fact, I've found that class and race restrictions on a per-campaign basis can have some really fascinating and interesting effects on the game (all positive.)
For Instance, in a survival-themed campaign I ran about ten years ago in 3.5, we heavily restricted the character classes, disallowing any classes that had any kind of healing ability. Race selection was also very limited.
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I think that you will likely just cause issues for your players with such a simplistic solution. Many problem spells (e.g., haste) still exist and are still as viable as ever. However, many spells will be terrible now especially those that were borderline at the outset (e.g., damage spells).
However, some of the unexpected consequences include a direct reduction, across the board, to spell DCs staring at level 3-4 when full casters are not casting 2nd level spells. This means that casters either need to focus resources (feats, class abilities, magic items) on boosting their save DCs or they will quickly start seeing everything saving against their spells. This means damage spells (outside of a few exceptions like scorching ray), debuffing spells, and control spells will all become much more difficult or impossible to use effectively, especially when it matters. Casters will dominate mooks and be worthless against legitimate challenges.
I recommend banning full casters over your option. However, as Mad Master mentioned, it is much more effective (and time consuming) to go through the spell lists and edit troublesome spells. You will likely find that there are actually only a few problem spells. I also recommend limiting to a few core books (CRB and APG initially) then expanding the set very slowly and methodically as you are more comfortable with casters in your party.
TLDR: Directly converting full casters to 6 lvl casting progresion is probably going to kill their viability (and player fun) outside of a few options that will (likely) be minimally affected by the change. Taking the more methodical and time consuming approach mentioned by Mad Master above is a better option. Also, limit source books to a small set (CRB and APG) then expand slowly as you (the DM) grow comfortable with adding options.
You could take a few tips from 5th Edition, where caster-level has been all but removed as a variable and instead peg things to the spell level, e.g. fireball does 6d6 damage as a 3rd-level spell and then increases with the level of spell-slot you use.
That said, I quite like Mad Master's idea of have your spell DC as 10 + half caster level + spell stat and maybe even splitting up the spell stats - Int & Cha for wizards, Wis & Cha for divine casters, Cha & Con for sorcerers, perhaps.
The main thing you'd have with only 6th level casting is condition removal spells coming online later than expected. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it can make some enemies feel like a greater threat than they otherwise would be, and promote smarter tactics from your players.
Side note, I would simply ban 9th level casters if you do decide to do this. Reworking them would be a massive undertaking, and there are enough 6th level casting classes or archetypes to cover their niches.
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For my next campaign I am considering limiting the full caster classes ( anything with 9 spell levels). The draconic method is by completely eliminating them but more realistically I will convert them all to six level progression.
Per the title, what effects will this have on the world and the game that aren't obvious?
I wouldn't try and convert them. There are already Classes with 6-level casting from whatever 9-level list you want, and they get other features as well. So unless you're tossing on a lot of extra Class Features to the new version of Wizard, I'd strongly advise just banning the 9-level casters.
It's also a lot less work.