Multiclass Casters are overpowered AND underpowered

[Strill]

Right now the multiclass caster rules are in an awkard place where they simultaneously feel weak, but are actually quite powerful. For example, with just two class feats, you unlock spells up to 3rd level, giving you spells like Haste and Fireball, but at the same time, it doesn't feel like you're playing a proper gish because you only get one spell of each level. I think we can use this observation as a basis to rebalance things so that early level multiclass casters are mechanically weaker in the short-term, but feel better for the person playing them.

For example, what if, instead of getting a spell of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level for your Basic Spellcasting feat, you got three 1st level spells, and one 2nd level spell? Personally, when I go for a Gish character, I'm looking for synergistic buffs, utility spells, and situational attacks to add variety. Getting those extra 1st level spells would give some room for that variety, while at the same time, probably being mechanically weaker than a well-placed fireball that wipes out the room.

The next pain point for multiclass casters is the dead levels. Specifically, the fact that the 8th level Breadth feat gives only a single 1st level spell for four levels, and there's no other progression. This means that you probably don't even take the Breadth feat until much later. This is where 3rd-level spell slots should go. I'd certainly pay a feat to make the jump to 3rd level spells, and it definitely feels better than paying a whole feat for a single 1st-level spell.

In light of these observations, I've created this mockup of an altered multiclass spell progression.

My goals were:

* Same highest-level spell progression
* Get lower-level spells faster, so you can hit the ground running.
* Feat costs shifted closer to the lower-levels to compensate.
* Fewer dead levels
* Close to the same end result at high levels

Criticism welcome.

[BellyBeard]

Is it intentional that in the proposed progression in the mockup, 5th and 6th level spells end with 1 spell, with Master doing nothing to improve that despite the highlights?

[Strill]

BellyBeard wrote:

Is it intentional that in the proposed progression in the mockup, 5th and 6th level spells end with 1 spell, with Master doing nothing to improve that despite the highlights?

Sorry, my mistake. Those should go to 2 spells per day at Master level.

[BellyBeard]

I personally like that breadth is currently optional, as a character who doesn't care about those lower slots doesn't have to spend the extra feat. With your progression breadth gets baked in and mandatory.

Besides that, your low level casters get the same things at the same levels or earlier, plus a bonus first level spell slot, so I don't see how they are "mechanically weaker in the short-term" unless you refer to someone who only takes basic spellcasting and progresses no further at 8.

I do like that you filled that gap between 8 and 12, and I agree that breadth currently does not feel like a worthwhile feat at 8.

[Strill]

BellyBeard wrote:

I personally like that breadth is currently optional, as a character who doesn't care about those lower slots doesn't have to spend the extra feat. With your progression breadth gets baked in and mandatory.

Besides that, your low level casters get the same things at the same levels or earlier, plus a bonus first level spell slot, so I don't see how they are "mechanically weaker in the short-term" unless you refer to someone who only takes basic spellcasting and progresses no further at 8.

That's pretty much it. If you want those 3rd-level spells, you have to cough up an extra feat.

[Temperans]

Okay so just to get it straight your proposal is to make caster dedications better by giving more spells without dead levels (aka making it more consistant)?

What is your plan to make martial dedications more worthwhile?

[Strill]

Temperans wrote:

Okay so just to get it straight your proposal is to make caster dedications better by giving more spells without dead levels (aka making it more consistant)?

My goal was to change multiclass casters' final power level as little as possible. The proposed progression overall gives them one extra 1st-level spell over the book's progression, but that's it. The changes mostly just consist of rearranging the order in which characters gain each spell slot.

Quote:

What is your plan to make martial dedications more worthwhile?

I don't have one. In the case of caster dedications I noticed how I could reorganize the spell progression to feel better without increasing the mechanical power by much. Martial dedications are much different, since casters going martial have different priorities than martials going caster.

Personally, from what I can see, caster feats tend to be less impactful than martial feats. Specifically, martial feats tend to be stackable perks that compound to make the martial character stronger each turn, while caster feats tend to boost utility or flexibility over raw power.

Look at Quick Shield Block, Combat Reflexes, and Paragon's Guard giving extra actions and reactions, or look at Quick Reversal and Sudden Charge giving you more actions than they cost, or look at Reflexive shield or Aggressive block tacking on extra bonuses without any additional action cost. You could conceivably have a martial character who could wind up using almost all of those feats each turn.

Now contrast that to caster feats. You get Focus spells, metamagic like Reach Spell, a familiar, or extra spells like with Scroll Savant. Those are all good, but they're different from martial feats in that they're mostly providing more tools to your toolbox, rather than adding raw power like Martial feats tend to do. I'll admit there's Quickened Casting and Effortless Concentration, but those feats for casters tend to be much higher level or more restricted than similar martial options.

Given this distinction, I would say that caster feats are less powerful than martial feats. In other words, a caster with no feats is stronger than a martial with no feats. Therefore, I would expect a caster multiclassing to martial to have more room for picking up multiclass feats, than a martial multiclassing to caster. This in itself is one balancing factor in favor of casters multiclassing to martial. It's not necessarily fair that martial feats are more impactful than caster feats, but it's built into the game system too deeply to really uproot without redesigning everything.

Then of course, there's the question of how you're trying to build your character. Do you want your character to be striking and casting each turn? Do you want to just be at the front lines casting touch spells? Casters have almost all the martial feats to select from, while martials are mainly interested in the basic, expert, and master spellcasting feats. That means that analyzing caster to martial multiclass options is inherently more complex, and class-specific.

In other words, fixing martial dedications is a more complex topic that I'm not adequately prepared to solve.

[Temperans]

Thank you for responding.

I see your point and was not expecting such a long post explaining it. Also I meant to ask it more as a curiosity, but reading my post again I clearly failed.

I am sorry for the way I phrased my question.

Again thx for the response.

[Opustus]

You could go really crazy and just invent a whole new class with a proper Gith spellbook progression.

In simple maths the full spellcaster progression is Spell Level = Class Level / 2 rounded up. Level 1 / 2 = Spell Level 1; Level 2 / 2 = Spell Level 1; Level 3 / 2 = Spell Level 2 ...

The spellcasting archetype spellbook progression is pretty simple; follows the same progression except it starts 3 levels later, and it weirdly cuts off for 2 levels at level 10 as your table clearly shows.

The purpose for this has clearly been that Class Feats are gained at even levels, and if the progression were Level X / 3 instead, you would gain spell progression at uneven levels i.e. not the levels you take the archetype casting class feat.

With a Gish class this might be less of a problem, however, since the spellbook progression wouldn't be tied to class feats. This of course opens a can of worms: How do you make the Gish Archetype Casting work, especially since it can't follow the same progression as other Archetype Casting?

Anyway, you could just make a Gish class by having a spellbook progression of Level X / 3 rounded up = Spell Level.

1/3 = 0
2/3 = 1
3/3 = 1
4/3 = 1
5/3 = 2
6/3 = 2
...

Dunno if this google spreadsheet clarifies anything(don't have much time so it's ugly!)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LHDQ3MQ7jAMp_zEAMNOgiSAeOJmPDuA2e7B vleMcF78/edit#gid=0

This is probably something that the designers considered when coming up with the casting systems. I really like the way they did it, but there are lots of cool alternatives for Gith classes for homebrew!

Edit: link bugged out, fix'd

[Indi523]

Temperans wrote:

Okay so just to get it straight your proposal is to make caster dedications better by giving more spells without dead levels (aka making it more consistant)?

What is your plan to make martial dedications more worthwhile?

Why does one need a plan for changing Martial Characters just becaue he wants to retool how the Wizard works?

Honestly take some advice from an old school gamer. Tabletop does not and cannot work like a video game. WOTC tried that with DnD and ruined the game. Paizo exists because of that mistake. Get out of your head that there has to be some mythical balance to the game or that you can even effectively create one. You can't.

Casters will always end up powerful in any game. Even if you start out with what you think is a nerfed version that balances it out after four or five additions and rule supplements the players will find ways to cheese the game and the casters will always have more options to do this.

No offense to you but I have seen enough of this whining "casters need to be nerfed" argument that is being forced into this discussion and ultimately it is pointless. First off it fails miserably to understand that fighters have had a unique role as the frontline since the game began and trust me you could always have a party of nothing but fighters but a party of wizards at any level was dead on arrival. Just because the wizard could do flashier things did not make them more powerful.

The only reason they seemed powerful in 3rd on was that they removed the restriction that a caster who took damage when casting his spell lost the spell, no concentration check, gone. Spell fizzled and used up as well.

Back in first addition ADnD it was the most difficult. Spells had casting times. A fireball was three segments. There were 10 segments in a round. If a Wizard got and initiative of say 3 he began casting on segment three but the spell did not complete until segment 6 when it went off at the end of the segment. If an ememy swang at the caster and hit him on segment 3, 4, 5 or 6 then no fireball. Play style usually was three fighters in front of the caster making damn sure no one had line of sight and certainly never got close so that those spells could go off.

Yeah having the cool power abilities was fun but good DM's playing smart monsters always targeted that weak caster first because a dead wizard can't cast spells.

This lessoned a great deal in 3.0 with the concentration check rules which were cheesed out with specializations and other adds. It was amazing how many wizards had better abilities to meditate than the monks.

Table top is not a video game. There are way fewer actions. Video game fights that go on can have 50 or more attacks. Ten rounds of tabletop is your entire evening. It would take you three days without sleep to match the level of combat strikes in a video game. Also the notion that your character can go on their own or has to have similar balance to make the fights seem even is not there. Tabletop requires team effort and cooperation. A wizard needing to line up enemies for a lightning bolt requires the fighters maneuvering the enemy on the table to do so. Because most fights will not have more than 10 actions you can't just wing it like you do in a video game and wait for the lightning bolt to recharge.

I am not really aiming this at you specifically just that I find this video game balance argument really annoying (and yes that is where it comes from) because it makes the game roll playing and not role playing. And this is my beef with it.

For instance I was playing an Oracle star revelation and one of his cantrips was mage hand. I was playing a gnome so not a strong hand to hand and relied on spells and abilities. Party was I think 2nd level and fighting a wild boar near the edge of a cliff. As it turned out the boar turned to attack the rogue and missed and was five feet from the cliff edge. On his initiative the rogue sidestepped. Other characters were in hand to hand behind it and it was difficult for me to get to attack it and not very wise. We were all woefully out of spells from other fights and many wounded.

So having nothing useful to do I get creative. I told the DM that I use my mage hand which does 5lbs of force to squeeze the boar's gonads. Everyone was WTF our you doing. I explained. I can't actually do enough force to harm the boar even grabbing there but I should be able to apply a pressure the animal will notice given the nerve endings in that area. My goal is to startle the boar in the hopes that it moves forward which if it does may cause the animal to jump off the cliff. I admitted I have no idea what the rules are for that but given the description of the spell I should be able to try it whatever it does.

DM said Ok first you make a ranged touch attack to see if you can localize your spell in that area. I made this easily. Then he gave the boar a will save which it passed and a perception check which it also passed. Next round it turned and charged me however I was told had the will check failed it would have jumped off the cliff so it was not in his view a useless idea and that had it failed the perception check it would have spent a round "confused".

Now if I was playing with the kind of rules lawyering "nerf the mage3s" and "balance the game" and that is not in the rules so you should not allow your unseen servant to trigger pressure traps people that are making these arguments I would have been told you can't do that and the group would not have had the many days of joy reminiscing at the ridiculousness of that happening.

In conclusion the different classes have different roles. The trick is not to try and balance out every combat so that no one class ever shines. The trick is to make sure you have challenges that require every classes abilities. That is what people should be focusing on but that takes ROLEPLAYING and not ROLLPLAYING.

I get off the soap box before the half orc barbarian cleaves it in two!

[Temperans]

Indi523 wrote:

...

*Maintenace ate up my post so I'll make it brief.

I think you misunderstood my post. I was just curious if OP had a way to deal with martial dedications being a feat tax. At no point did I say "Casters need to be nerfed" or "the game must be perfectly balanced" (that's impossible to do). In fact I am one of those that thinks Casters may have been overnerfed.

Also, I agree with you that a TRPG cannot be balanced and written to function like a CRPG, that will just be too confusing and ruin the game for players. That's not to say a TRPG cannot be made into a CRPG, I mean look at the Pathfinder Kingmaker CRPG and Pathfinder Online.