D&D General Reinterpreting Fullcasters as Halfcasters, while preserving the Fullcaster feeling. (+)

I don't think most players would go along with the idea of weakening full casters at all.

My idea to deal with this alleged imbalance is kind of the opposite - eliminate the non-casters completely. Give all martials some amount of spells to provide a boost.

I think that will be a much easier sell at most tables.
 

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I don't think most players would go along with the idea of weakening full casters at all.

My idea to deal with this alleged imbalance is kind of the opposite - eliminate the non-casters completely. Give all martials some amount of spells to provide a boost.

I think that will be a much easier sell at most tables.

A wizard without fireball is like a fighter without a +1 full plate with some damage resistance. :)
 


.... what if the fullcasters were redesigned as halfcasters while still trying to preserve as much of the feeling of playing a fullcaster as possible with them? how would it be done and what changes would need to be made? could we make the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer and wizard into halfcasters and still feel like powerful magic users?

You just described 5e. Go look at 3e, 2e, 1e. Those casters could have multiple 9th level spells ready to go, didn't have to worry about concentration and got auto-scaling of spells (i.e. 10d6 fireball for a 3rd level slot). Those earlier levels had different opportunity costs for preparation & the time it took and susceptibility to spell interruption, but at full power they were just far more powerful.

5e, with infinite cantrips that scale with character level and some caster pain points removed, was how you turned a <4e full caster into something with a fraction of the power while keeping the feel of a full caster.

Now, if you want to talk about getting to a quarter caster.....
 


I don't think most players would go along with the idea of weakening full casters at all.

My idea to deal with this alleged imbalance is kind of the opposite - eliminate the non-casters completely. Give all martials some amount of spells to provide a boost.
Depends on the players I guess. As far as being a DM willing to homebrew their own system is concerned, your approach fails right at the start by veering off in a direction I have not the least bit of interest ending up in, and I assume the same is true for the OP
 

Depends on the players I guess. As far as being a DM willing to homebrew their own system is concerned, your approach fails right at the start by veering off in a direction I have not the least bit of interest ending up in, and I assume the same is true for the OP
i was going to make a response to them commenting about needing to double check i marked this as a plus thread but i didn't think it would help, i know that user massively favours casters far over martials.
 

I'm not averse to further balancing martials & casters. There is a floor at which point a "caster" doesn't feel much like a caster. You clearly don't want to get to the point where casters use crossbows for most of their damage output (which happened a lot in older editions before decent cantrips).

So...what about keeping the 5e full casters almost as they are....but bringing back Vancian spell preparation, where each spell slot has to be assigned at the time of preparation? This keeps the "power" but returns to a pre-3e opportunity cost process. Sorcerers get the flexibility of using metamagic to cast "unprepared" spells.
 

Could my thief still use a scroll of Wish or would high level spells not exist?
Do you want a setting where higher level spells used to exist? Is magic on the decline? Are there other worlds where magic is still stronger? Can Gods make magic items that mortals can not make?
 

I define full vs half caster based primarily on the maximum spell levels they get (warlock is full caster because of mystic progression), and secondarily on when they get access to the next spell level (generally every second level for full casters). Other people define it differently, and they are wrong...er I mean, it's discussing apples and oranges to not clarify their definition.

Making full casters into half casters as defined above would necessitate giving them very castery feeling features that are mechanically balanced with the non-casting features of the existing half casters.

Artificer already sort of does that.

If you want something that feels like a wizard or sorcerer you would probably need to give them a lot more oomph. Taking a page from 2024 monster design, you should increase the damage of their at-will cantrips to be competitive with their slotted spells (maybe they get a feature that just says their cantrips do double damage or otherwise have double effect). Leave their limited spell slots for increased utility (combat and non-combat) and let them having excellent DPR with cantrips. Instead of buffing cantrips (or as a supplement, since otherwise you would obsolete cantrips), you might just give them unique damage blasts features, like the NPC casters in revised monster design.

Giving them more lower level slots would be okay, if you don't mind fundamentally changing mostly standardized tables. If you want to keep with the general design though, you should avoid that and instead give them other ways to get more spells. I'd recommend allowing certain 1st-level spells (and possibly 2nd-level) to become at-will.

Also play around with rituals to make them more easily available. Maybe full casters don't have to prepare them, and wizards have the added benefit of being able to cast them faster and/or cast certain prepared non-rituals as rituals.

If you want them to have access to higher level non-combat utility magic, like teleporting, plane-shifting, etc (which to me is fundamental to what a D&D wizard is all about), you need to give them unique rituals allowing them to access that stuff, like 4e, but restrict those to the full caster classes, and probably certain levels. Make them require expensive consumables. You need a full caster to be able to use them, but they fundamentally switch from a character power to a party ability at that point.

Finally, you want to give them some special abilities that are evocative of their focus on magic. You need different ones for each class to fit the theme. Make sure they still feel like they are much more focused on magic than a paladin or ranger. They keep worse HD and armor/weapon proficiencies.

Overall, you need more quantity and power in spells as well as alternative damage scaling and additional features, and optionally a way to access higher level magical utility abilities, if you are cutting them down to half caster and still want them to maintain a full-caster relative feel.
 

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