Alternative magic ideas

[fred_jaboobi]

Since magic seems "broken" or overpowered in 3.0 or 3.5 D&D here are some Ideas I have been kicking around to try to fix the differences between the fighters and spellcasters.

1) limit spells to 6th level

2) "corrosive magic" - for every spell level the magic user casts he looses that many hit points. Specialist may get one free casting of one spell from each spell level in their specialist class or they can cast spells from their specialized school normally. For example, if the chracter casts a 3rd level spell he looses 3 hit points that can be recovered normally. This option would used for a setting with very few clerics and druids

3) moderate sanity rules from unearthed arcana. Wisdom and intelligence both factor into the starting sanity score.

 

[XanthorDrathos]

There are a number of issues with level of magic in the "standard" game as well as with spell caster abilities. There is no band-aid fix that is fair I've seen or found to date. I've looked at many game systems for a fix with no decent middle ground. I want D&D, but with less emphasis on magic. Other games systems while nice are not the same.

In regards to limiting magic (level, corrosive effects, sanity, etc), do you limit clerics, druids, and psionicists as well (and bards, rangers, paladins, spell casting prestige classes etc)? Seems only fair, but you'll get arguments about spells from gods and mental abilities not affected by magic rules. If you don't limit the other classes, then the mage (wizard/sorcerer) gets the shaft (in addition to poor HP, weapon use, Fort/Ref saves) and everyone plays the other classes, perhaps this is desired? Arcane casters need handling, but no more so than divine or mental ones.

What about high level spells needed to make magic items? I'm of the opinion that there is too much magic the standard setting and limiting this wouldn't break my heart.

I've debated about altering the progression of spells slightly slower for all and making magic more costly to cast or perhaps needing groups of spell casters to cast high level spells or making many spells longer ritual spells to limit quick in game use. Another idea is to make metamagic more expensive.

Some things to ask your self while altering rules is what are you trying to accomplish with the change? I've found it's usually the evocation spells that tend to cause unbalance, besides the ability modifying spells, which I personally abhor.

If you find any good working solutions, please feel free to share them. I've been looking for years for a good solution with little success and would love to have a better way. I love the way 3/3.5E has balanced the game, but the magic is still not quite there in my opinion.

 

[Fyrestryke]

Material Components?

I was sitting here thinking about the "broken-ness" of the magic system in DND/d20. Y'know what? It's not actually broken. It's just that no one uses it properly. Maybe 'uses' is the wrong word. Enforces is the proper term.

Material Components... I think if this was enforced, it would even out the playing field. Without any books in front of me, I'm not sure. It's just a thought.

Xanthor... Do you enforce this in your games?

I know that in Inzeladun, this has never been enforced. I believe Vince stopped worrying about material components because someone complained about them at one point in time.

There's only one active Inzeladun game right now and it doesn't have any mages for me to test this out on...

 

[fred_jaboobi]

In regards to limiting magic (level, corrosive effects, sanity, etc), do you limit clerics, druids, and psionicists as well (and bards, rangers, paladins, spell casting prestige classes etc)? Seems only fair, but you'll get arguments about spells from gods and mental abilities not affected by magic rules. If you don't limit the other classes, then the mage (wizard/sorcerer) gets the shaft (in addition to poor HP, weapon use, Fort/Ref saves) and everyone plays the other classes, perhaps this is desired? Arcane casters need handling, but no more so than divine or mental ones.

What about high level spells needed to make magic items? I'm of the opinion that there is too much magic the standard setting and limiting this wouldn't break my heart.

I've debated about altering the progression of spells slightly slower for all and making magic more costly to cast or perhaps needing groups of spell casters to cast high level spells or making many spells longer ritual spells to limit quick in game use. Another idea is to make metamagic more expensive.

Some things to ask your self while altering rules is what are you trying to accomplish with the change? I've found it's usually the evocation spells that tend to cause unbalance, besides the ability modifying spells, which I personally abhor.

If you find any good working solutions, please feel free to share them. I've been looking for years for a good solution with little success and would love to have a better way. I love the way 3/3.5E has balanced the game, but the magic is still not quite there in my opinion.

Yes, I was thinking about putting the "corrosive" and othe restrictions on all spell casters.

I was also thinking of using the non-spell casting alternates for the Paladin and Ranger.

While I have been thinking about it some more I am tossing around the idea to limit the major spell casting classes to the same progression as the bard. This would push the higher level spells into the epic levels.

Another idea would be to push the item creation feats off until epic level. This should greatly reduce the amount of magic items and it would keep the 12th-20th level character from just making any item they need to get past a situation.

 

[XanthorDrathos]

In regards to material components enforcement, I track them in detail in one setting, Ghelspad, that I run "by the book" with no house rules. In my other setting, which is a 3.5E variant, I only worry with the strange or costly components, like pearls for Identify, diamonds for Raise Dead/Resurrection, etc. In Inzeladun in the days of Xanthor (2E), components didn't matter as much, so no need to track them.

Several spells lost their draw backs in conversion to 3E, some of which I really objected to. I liked when fireball was unreliable in dungeons because of it's expanding nature. I liked lightning bolts that reflected back if the corridor was too short. They made these spells too reliable when they dropped the need for planning them and thus could use them with no recourse. Add to this mess no consequence buff spells, and I'm not surprised at how the system lends itself to over-magic. I think more spells, especially all evocation/buff, should have drawbacks. If you want +6 to STR, then -6 to WIS for the duration or some other worse effect.

I think the highest level spell castable by any caster should impose some kind of penalty to cast like automatic exhaustion or some crazy save to resist. Maybe fatigue or subdual damage from spell casting equal to spell level.

Now, you just can nerf spell casting without impacting the availability of magic items. I tend to prefer fewer, but more powerful (and potentially corrupting), magic items. If magic is so difficult to do and supposedly rare, then it would be less available or risky to make items. So items would only be made that really made an impact or come from questionable sources. Another kind of cursed item that someone would leave in treasure piles and not use for a reason. Doesn't have to be real bad, but inconvenient to use.

Then there is the golf bag syndrome in 3.5E. Carry several weapons made of different materials to hit things with nastier DR's. I want to keep the +1 or +2 sword I found or made and make it better over time. Having to change from a favorite weapon to some other weapon made of X just to hit is silly in my opinion unless in rare cases like the classic silver and werewolf stuff. This would exclude the obvious missile vs. melee reasons.

3E also made resistances and immunities much easier to obtain, throw some gold at it and you'll get it, is now the mantra. I'm not a fan of the excessive magic in items running around unless it is made by the party or commissioned specifically. They high level of wealth and magic items are what is dragging things down to me as well as it lend to buying stats, immunities, and cheaper powers. I agree that item creation feats need put off, but maybe only 3-5 levels longer to create items and not make items so readily available outside of creation, except were warranted. Also, it shouldn't be so easy to make items. Perhaps some risk in making the items that might drain a caster of spell casting ability for a while or some strange effect for good while that lingers on the caster. I'd like to see the DC's pumped up to make some items to put a challenge to beginning artificers.

Pushing too many things off to epic levels may only delay the issue, but would help mid to high-level game. It's still has to be fun to play or people won't want to play a mage or the like for that reason. I struggled with this issue when trying to make my own system (prior to and similar to 3E). No one wanted to play a spell caster because it was restricted and unknown. So some prudence is in order. Whatever changes happens to PC's should also impact NPC's in the system/setting.

One of the reasons I enjoyed Xanthor for so long is that his struggle to not become evil even though he was undead. I like the challenge of temptation and trying (at times futile) to resist. I loved his immunities, but also had to learn of his weaknesses, which Vince seemed to glee at exploiting. It was a role-playing issue and not an equipment or spell issue usually. I'd like to see the game get back to that. I've struggled with it in my own and other settings. It's just not the game it was anymore and I'd love to see it return.

 

[Fyrestryke]

I don't necessarily think that doing level adjustment (pushing things to epic) of the magic system would be a good thing.

I do however think that Donald's idea of hit point damage has merit. Maybe 1 hp per spell level or maybe 1/2 rounded up? This type of system could even apply to the psionic characters. Plus, the damage must be healed naturally and cannot be magically healed in any way.

The "Christmas Tree Syndrome" - This one bothers me too. Plus, it's not very realistic to carry ALL of your magic items around, but we do. Maybe the magic items just need to be more unique. I had a character one time and the DM gave me a nice weapon after a battle with a monster. The battle ended in a draw (simultaneous kill), but I got the weapon. However, each time I used this sword, tiny needles would stick into my hand. What was unknown to the character at the time is that this weapon dealt 1hp of damage per round, but also healed a small amount of damage with each strike. (This value was never told to me.) There were many a time when I was AFRAID to use that weapon because I was low on HP and had to pull out a normal weapon of some sort. That's the kind of magic weapons you need.

I think for us to have the perfect system (if there's such a thing), EVERYTHING has to have a cost.

Let's do some hashing and maybe over time we'll be able to get this stuff figured out.

I also like the idea about buff spells. Perhaps if you use say Bull's Strength on someone, you take the amount you buff as damage to your main stat. (Wis - Divine, Int - Wizard, Cha - Sorc, Choice - Multiclass). However, if you buff yourself, it's only half damage rounded down.

But, we'd have to go through every spell and make sure there's some restriction (material component, physical cost, sanity loss, etc.)

Sanity loss across the board (and corruption/taint) would be a nice across the board/no other changes needed system. Add the hp system into that and you've got some dangerous magic. The hp system could also apply to magic items used by fighters/etc.

For example - a wand of fireballs cost 3hp to use. A flaming sword costs around 2 hp to use the flaming option. I forget which spell is part of that.

 

[Odovacar's Ghost]

Okay, do both wizards and sorcerors or whatnot require spell books?
Do these weapons, spell books, marerial components weigh anything?
Do you guys even use the encumbrance rules?
Do you guys bring along carts and carts of magical items with you? If so, then I'm sure those carts would be a great target, instead of the character. How can you keep all your weapons on you while in a battle? Isn't that bag of 5 million gold in your pocket going to mess up your swing? Hell, how can you walk with all that stuff?

 

[Fyrestryke]

Okay, do both wizards and sorcerors or whatnot require spell books?
Do these weapons, spell books, marerial components weigh anything?
Do you guys even use the encumbrance rules?
Do you guys bring along carts and carts of magical items with you? If so, then I'm sure those carts would be a great target, instead of the character. How can you keep all your weapons on you while in a battle? Isn't that bag of 5 million gold in your pocket going to mess up your swing? Hell, how can you walk with all that stuff?

Bingo. That's yet another rule that MUST be enforced for DND to remain balanced. Armor check penalties, etc. It's all important.

 

[XanthorDrathos]

Okay, do both wizards and sorcerors or whatnot require spell books?
Do these weapons, spell books, marerial components weigh anything?
Do you guys even use the encumbrance rules?
Do you guys bring along carts and carts of magical items with you? If so, then I'm sure those carts would be a great target, instead of the character. How can you keep all your weapons on you while in a battle? Isn't that bag of 5 million gold in your pocket going to mess up your swing? Hell, how can you walk with all that stuff?

Sorcerors do not require spell books, but wizards do.

We follow all the emcumbrance rules for my games.

As to carts of magical gear, I try not to hand that kind of quantity of magic or other normal gear out despite player's from time to time whining about that they don't match up to typical levels of gear. Unfortunately, the system allows for a certain amount of gear (unless they have a really low STR) to be on different parts of the body. In the wake of the "golf bag" syndrome, I simply don't give out that many magical weapons. Other items are smaller in 3E like potion vials which aides the armory process of taking lots of potions along if found/bought. I don't hand out that amount of gold/gear either. Then there are a few magic items like bags of holding, heward's handy haversack, etc that magically aide in carrying stuff when necessary (although I try to discourage).

My issue is the game rules lend themselves to this if you don't track all the details of encumbrance and spell components and everything else under the sun. It shouldn't be this way.

I did find some interesting rules Monte Cook had on his site about letting some higher +enhanced weapons be able to penetrate some DR's which I like. I think it's under DM's Only section, but have it copied to a local file for anyone interested, I can post.

 

[Fyrestryke]

I did find some interesting rules Monte Cook had on his site about letting some higher +enhanced weapons be able to penetrate some DR's which I like. I think it's under DM's Only section, but have it copied to a local file for anyone interested, I can post.

I saw that. It was very well done. That would be a good system to adopt and is better than the current system.