D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] An experiment to nerf the full casters

[Dandu]

Bards already suck.

Bards are a well balanced, versatile class in core and become better out of core.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Obviously this would weaken damage-based casters the most, but that's the point. With the 1/2 level solution, the evokers would be able to do something other than fireball, maybe even pick up a weapon.

Give 'em the duskblade class chasis, then maybe. Otherwise...you REALLY don't understand what casters can and can't do, huh?

I recall when I was looking to balance things, I nerfed druid and cleric classes, such as dropping them to a d6 HD (bard and rogue went to d8). A friend of mine whose favorite class was cleric complained, "How come you didn't nerf wizards?!" To which I replied...what can really be nerfed? They already get the absolute worst BAB, HD, skill points, and arguably saves (in the sense that one good save is the worst a PC class gets; I'd still take Will over the Rogue's Reflex save given a choice). Really, what's left to take away? I told him nerfing abusive spells on a case by case basis was the more practical way to nerf arcanists (not that I don't do the same for divine casters when needed). Anyway, back to what I was saying...

A sorc or wizard needs buff spells to fight. The class chasis itself is godawful horrible. But a lot of complaints involved Wizards turning into War Trolls and outfighting the fighter, and your solution to making blast spells literally UNPLAYABLE is to have the casters recourse themselves to using the spells thatp eople actually consider overpowered? Or do you expect them to spend all 20 levels firing a crossbow for 1d8 damage like that's at all useful? In either case, WTF?

 

[Croesus]

Replace Cleric with Healer

Ban Druids

Allow only spells of the school of illusion for Wizards and Sorcerors.

Assuming we are using core classes only (well except for the Healer), would this work to stop the full-casters from dominating high-level play?

I'm curious - are these intended to address specific issues your group has encountered, or just based on what others have complained of? For example, my group never had a problem with druids and clerics being overpowered. We never had an issue with scry-buff-teleport. So all the "fixes" intended to correct those problems didn't help us at all.

A few things we did try out were:
-All casters use sorcerer spell progression (in other words, new spell levels gained at every even level). So wizards, clerics, druids, etc. gain 2nd level spells at 4th level, 3rd level at 6th level, and so on. Makes a surprising difference in the relative power of casters and non-casters.
-Remove stat bonuses from spell saves. Casters with a high (18+) primary stat can too often cast spells that are difficult, even effectively impossible, to resist. Removing the bonus to spell saves significantly limits the effectiveness of "save or die" spells, while not removing them entirely. It also tends to reduce the overwhelming desire casters have for stat-boosting items.
-Limit the number of buffs active at any one time, whether per target or per caster. I recommend this one only if the party is using buffs so much that it makes encounter planning difficult (an encounter either kills the party or is a walkover, depending on if the party is buffed). BTW, my group actually went much further and used a spell point system, so every buff reduced the number of points currently available to the caster while the buff was active. That created interesting choices - was the buff more valuable than the flexibility to cast something else in the middle of combat.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

-Remove stat bonuses from spell saves. Casters with a high (18+) primary stat can too often cast spells that are difficult, even effectively impossible, to resist. Removing the bonus to spell saves significantly limits the effectiveness of "save or die" spells, while not removing them entirely. It also tends to reduce the overwhelming desire casters have for stat-boosting items.

This complaint always surprises me. I have never seen save DCs get out of hand, except at very early levels. Later on, between save progression and cheap cloaks of resistance (for those with class levels) or massive wads of HD (if no class levels), save DCs always seemed pitiful. When I play a caster, I try to avoid all-or-nothing spells dependent on a save, because there's very low chance of it working. And that's assuming I'm using my highest level spells for the effort, lower level ones fall WAY behind in DC after a while. Maybe it's just my experiences, but then again... spells that don't give saves are VERY VERY popular on character optimization boards. If save DCs really were easy to make impossibly hard, that would not be the case, right?

 

[Particle_Man]

I'm curious - are these intended to address specific issues your group has encountered, or just based on what others have complained of? For example, my group never had a problem with druids and clerics being overpowered. We never had an issue with scry-buff-teleport. So all the "fixes" intended to correct those problems didn't help us at all.

Based on what others on the net have complained of, mainly. My games tend to be quite low-level so it is not usually an issue.

One minor idea is someday running with the "magic starts as not real and becomes more real as one gets more powerful" so that leads into the "illusions only" idea too, flavour-wise.

Anyhow, this is very much at the "early theorizing" stage. I am not intending to inflict this upon players as of yet.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Maybe a separate issue, but OP...have you considered giving the "big six" boost type magic item effects -- + hit/damage, +stats, +saves, etc... -- to characters for "free" as part of the levelling progression (And reducing the wealth per level accordingly)? Might not help the power disparity, but would go a long long long way towards making noncasters less item dependent, which I think is part of the issue as well.

 

[Croesus]

This complaint always surprises me. I have never seen save DCs get out of hand, except at very early levels. Later on, between save progression and cheap cloaks of resistance (for those with class levels) or massive wads of HD (if no class levels), save DCs always seemed pitiful. When I play a caster, I try to avoid all-or-nothing spells dependent on a save, because there's very low chance of it working. And that's assuming I'm using my highest level spells for the effort, lower level ones fall WAY behind in DC after a while. Maybe it's just my experiences, but then again... spells that don't give saves are VERY VERY popular on character optimization boards. If save DCs really were easy to make impossibly hard, that would not be the case, right?

Interesting. When my group went through Monte's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (3.0), we had big problems with save or die, save or held, etc. Perhaps part of that was because Monte gave the enemy casters additional bonuses due to the Madness domain, perhaps it's just too easy to target a character's weak save (huge difference between a good and a weak save). We also tend to play with characters who have better than average stats, which can also skew the results.

This is a good example of my question to Particle Man - each group seems to have different experiences, and something that's a problem on these boards likely isn't an issue with many groups.

 

[rgard]

Alternate idea for nerfing...sorry if anybody already mentioned this.

Stretch out the spell progression.

Instead of getting:

9th level spells at 17th
8th level spells at 15th
7th level spells at 13th

Space the progression out to:

9th level spells at 21th
8th level spells at 19th
7th level spells at 17th

I'd keep the progression from 1st level caster through 11th level caster the same. Then spread out the spells gained and at what level gained starting with 12th level.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I'm in the camp that nerfing the arcane spells is the best way to bring down out of control arcane spellcasters. Limiting spells to the school of Illusion is along this same line

I played at too many tables (my primary play amount with 3.x was in Living Greyhawk tables) where spellcasters abused raising their spell's DC, grabbing every feat or item possible to raise it. Authors of LG adventures returned the favor with enemy spellcasters. I believe limiting save DC's could be considered where it's a problem, limiting stacking of buffs has promise.

Prior to 3.x, spellcasters could have their spell disrupted far easier than post-3.0. A DM could dabble with methods to increase ways to disrupt spellcasting.

Give characters a number of action points that refresh when they level that they can spend on things (Trailblazer has a nice short list) like adding a 1d6 or 1d8 to a saving throw before the DM tells them the result, or spend a point to reroll a Save after the DM tells them it failed. Give monsters an action point or two for the same use.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I played at too many tables (my primary play amount with 3.x was in Living Greyhawk tables) where spellcasters abused raising their spell's DC, grabbing every feat or item possible to raise it. Authors of LG adventures returned the favor with enemy spellcasters.

It saddens me to think that there are people (not saying you're one, Eric, you just made me think of it) who have formed an opinion of 3.x generally based on RPGA play specifically. I mean, the RPGA adventures I've played are so totally different from my home games that they can barely be considered the same system.