D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 low magic: spellcasting "advanced classes"

Just curious if anyone has any commentary on this. In my quest to constantly tinker with the rules of D&D (3.5) to bang it into a lower magic, more Sword & sorcery (as opposed to High Fantasy) emulation machine, I've given some thought to only allowing "full time" spellcasting classes to be taken like Advanced Classes from d20 Modern. In other words, I chop them in half, only make them ten levels, convert any other higher than 5th level spells I might possibly ever want to appear in the campaign into Incantations, and have a requirement of four ranks in Knowledge (Arcane) for a Wizard, Knowledge (religion) for a cleric and Knowledge (nature) for a druid. You'd have to buy these cross-class. Another entry requirement, to prevent loopholes, is that you'd have to already have be advancing into at least your fourth character level before you can do it, just like taking levels of the Mage or Adept Advanced Classes in d20 Modern.

I think the inherent spellcasting ability of the sorcerer doesn't really fit flavorwise into this scheme, although if I just wanted to use the mechanics, I'd have the same entry-requirement as a Wizard. I think it'd be easy enough to map any alternate spellcasting classes to that same scheme; i.e., favored soul has same entry requirements as a cleric, wu jen has same entry requirements as a wizard, etc.

As a rule of thumb, although subject to individual review, I think you could also have spellcasting prestige classes replace these advanced classes; i.e., if you wanted to take the Loremaster prestige class, that could be your ten levels of spellcasting class instead of taking some levels of wizard first. In fact, you couldn't do that anyway, because there's a hard stop on having ten levels of a spellcasting class max, no matter which spellcasting class it is. Not that that's likely to matter, since I am unlikely to ever play a game much higher than levels 10-12 anyway.

In this case, you'd have to tweak the entry requirements slightly, make a few spells into incantations that they could gain before entry into the class, etc.

Part time spellcasting classes, like the ranger or the paladin, wouldn't necessarily be problematic, although I'd prefer the non-spellcasting versions of them from Complete Warrior. Although frankly, the paladin doesn't fit this campaign type very well anyway. I also have no use for the bard, so I'd axe it.

Anyway, any thoughts?

Sounds like it would work fine, game-wise. Flavour-wise, I'm not sure if I quite understand. Or, more accurately, whether I like. It just seems strange that anyone who wants to be a spellcaster has to wait 5 levels or so, then suddenly, *bam*, becomes a full-on Wizard, Cleric or whatever. Especially given the starting age adjustments (in the PHB) for those classes. . .

Another way to achieve just about the same end result (assuming a 10th-level 'virtual cap') is to require one level on, one level off for all full spellcasters. IOW, they must multiclass alternatingly with something like, say, Fighter or Rogue.

Gotta say, that way appeals more to me, intuitively.

See, that never appealed to me intuitively. I never could understand why a character would have to alternate from one to another.

On the other hand, the advanced class paragigm made perfect sense to me. You had to "qualify" before you could enter.

To be honest with you, I hadn't thought about starting age adjustments. I've never paid any attention to those. They seem like a nice bit of optional flavor that I imagine I'll continue to ignore.

That's fair enough, too. It probably doesn't help that I don't know much about your campaign setting, exactly what you're wanting to achieve via house rules, etc.

Personally, I wouldn't use either method. I prefer cutting spell levels down to a 1/3 rate, rather than 1/2. So, uniform gains at 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 19th, 22nd, 25th (with no Ranger or Paladin spellcasting at all). Also, no extra spells per day due to ability scores - this is a very simple nerf, but I've found it works wonders, in terms of helping to balance 3e, and match the 'tone' I and my players tend to favour.

Getting to 25th level (which is not 'epic', in this case) takes even longer than usual, as well. The XP scale is totally different from 3e's usual setup.

That's just for starters (way too many house rules to list here. . . ). But, suffice it to say, I would do go about these things rather differently.

Before I “did my own thing” I toyed with the low magic idea myself. I only took it so far, but here is what I came up with:

Spell casters did not have to wait to start and did not have to take other classes to “thin them out”. Virtually all utility type spells became incantations with just a few exceptions. At first level a wizard/sorcerer could use incantations (as long as they had the time and the resources/money) and cantrips to their little hearts’ content. They did not receive 1st level spells until 3rd level and then a new spell level became known every four levels (i.e. 2nd at 7th, 3rd at 11th, 4th at 15th and 5th at 19th. They received a bonus number of spells based on their Intelligence score. I cannot remember the spell progression off the top of my head, but I do remember the number of spells increased a little faster and a little higher than 3.5, but it was not unbalancing since four 1st level spells by 6th level was not all that terrible. I got rid of “fire and forget” and just used spell slots, and there was a limit to how many spells they could know (like the 3.5 sorcerer, though the number may have been slightly different). Familiars became a feat option as the incantations became the class ability.

Clerics were similar though it was prayer rituals instead of incantations and at first level they could use orisons as much as they wanted (with minor changes for create water, cure wound, light and mending). Spell progression was the same as for a wizard. Turn/Rebuke undead was converted into divine channeling and expanded for several options including turning undead; other options were generally added as feats.

Druids used druidic rites instead of incantations and orisons were called something else that escapes me at the moment but spells otherwise worked like the cleric and magic user.

No doubt you have questions concerning unlimited cantrips, orisons and the druid equivalent, and possibly for incantations, prayer rituals and druidic rites, and I will try to answer some now. The wizard being able to use a damaging cantrip every round was popular and posed no threat to the game. The damage they inflicted were on par with their normal weapons anyway (i.e. dagger, crossbow, etc.). They were ranged touch attacks to hit. I also created a feat that they could obtain later that allowed them to add their Intelligence modifier to the damage dealt. The 0 level spells like light, mend and create water and perhaps a few others were made into low level incantations/rituals/rites so they required time and money, and the ones like cure wound and the one that gives a temporary hit point were limited in that you could use them as often as you like, but only once per person in an hour’s time (or something like that).

Sorry, I know this was lengthy, but if any of it is useful to you I guess it was worth it.

Happy Gaming!

No, that was useful and thought-provoking.

For my tastes, it sounds like a lot of work. My thought was that chopping spellcasting classes in half and treating them d20 Modern Advanced Classes was an easy fix. The more I think about it, the more I'm not 100% sure, though. In fact, due to some discussion I had on a cross-posted version of this thread, I'm actually leaning towards not converting D&D spellcasting classes into d20 Modern-like classes when I can just use the d20 Modern Mage and Acolyte almost exactly as is. That's even less work, and arguably a bit more balanced; they've been slightly beefed up and get class features a little bit quicker to account for the fact that they never become the spell-slinging powerhouses that they do in D&D.

Of course, I'm also thinking that if I'm going to go that route, then why not go even further on the lower magic spectrum and instead of using the "Urban Arcana" campaign model, use the "Shadowchasers" campaign model, which has the Occultist---a class that doesn't really cast spells at all, but who can make wands, rods and scrolls, and has Use Magic Device as a class skill?

So, the discussion has been useful in causing me to re-evaluate what exactly it is that I want. My basic idea, though, was to get a much lower magic variant of D&D but while still using as many "regular" D&D rules as possible instead of reinventing the wheel. Or re-kitbashing the wheel, as the case may be.

But now I'm leaning a bit more towards kitbashing D&D and d20 Modern more thoroughly after all with a few D&D like non-magical classes and d20 Modern Advanced Classes exactly as is for F/X.

I've already adopted Action Points, Defense Bonus, and Treat Injury instead of Heal, so at this point, I might as well go all out and make it a total hybrid.

Hobo said:

Just curious if anyone has any commentary on this. In my quest to constantly tinker with the rules of D&D (3.5) to bang it into a lower magic, more Sword & sorcery (as opposed to High Fantasy) emulation machine, I've given some thought to only allowing "full time" spellcasting classes to be taken like Advanced Classes from d20 Modern. In other words, I chop them in half, only make them ten levels, convert any other higher than 5th level spells I might possibly ever want to appear in the campaign into Incantations, and have a requirement of four ranks in Knowledge (Arcane) for a Wizard, Knowledge (religion) for a cleric and Knowledge (nature) for a druid. You'd have to buy these cross-class. Another entry requirement, to prevent loopholes, is that you'd have to already have be advancing into at least your fourth character level before you can do it, just like taking levels of the Mage or Adept Advanced Classes in d20 Modern.

I think the inherent spellcasting ability of the sorcerer doesn't really fit flavorwise into this scheme, although if I just wanted to use the mechanics, I'd have the same entry-requirement as a Wizard. I think it'd be easy enough to map any alternate spellcasting classes to that same scheme; i.e., favored soul has same entry requirements as a cleric, wu jen has same entry requirements as a wizard, etc.

As a rule of thumb, although subject to individual review, I think you could also have spellcasting prestige classes replace these advanced classes; i.e., if you wanted to take the Loremaster prestige class, that could be your ten levels of spellcasting class instead of taking some levels of wizard first. In fact, you couldn't do that anyway, because there's a hard stop on having ten levels of a spellcasting class max, no matter which spellcasting class it is. Not that that's likely to matter, since I am unlikely to ever play a game much higher than levels 10-12 anyway.

In this case, you'd have to tweak the entry requirements slightly, make a few spells into incantations that they could gain before entry into the class, etc.

Part time spellcasting classes, like the ranger or the paladin, wouldn't necessarily be problematic, although I'd prefer the non-spellcasting versions of them from Complete Warrior. Although frankly, the paladin doesn't fit this campaign type very well anyway. I also have no use for the bard, so I'd axe it.

Anyway, any thoughts?

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If you are using the monsters at full strength and the rules assume you are this is not a good idea, unless you dont mind fudging dice for your players. Casters dont generally cause to much trouble until they get 7th level spells. One thing to remember is that even if the game stops with the PC between 10-12th level the boss character will be at least a CR 14 generally. That is a pretty tough fight to be in without a full caster. However I dont know the other parameters of your game so I will stop at that point.

I get that a lot, and I don't understand it. I've played plenty of even lower magic games and it works just fine without any fudging required. But for some reason, everyone's worried in my behalf that it won't. :shrug: