An alternative to the dreaded haste

[Bauglir]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rs/20030429a

The new version of haste for 3.5 has been released; a lot of people like it, a lot of people don't.

The problem as I see it; as levels climb, arcane casters need the additional spell per round to keep up damagewise with the fighter types gaining iterative attacks. If they can't keep up in damage then they will fall to other options, most notably save or die spells, something I'd like NOT to encourage in a game.

However, Haste works independent of spell level, meaning that while it is active, a character can cast 2 max level spells per round, leading to claims that it is overpowered. Quicken spell is offered as the altenative to haste by the anti-haste camp, and while I feel it is balanced in effect, it is much too costly. (Magic Missile in a 5th level slot? Urgh, and you have to take a feat for the priviledge)

So my proposed alternative: Iterative casting, as a class feature for arcane casters, at a step of 4 levels.

So, using a full-round action the arcane caster can cast a normal spell, and extra iterative spells, maximum 4 levels lower.

It's easiest explained by examples:

Under this system a 10th level Wizard could cast, using a FRA, one spell of up to 5th level, and one spell of up to 1st level

A 20th level Wizard could cast (up to) a 9th, 5th, 1st

Comments?

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Originally posted by Bauglir [B/]

However, Haste works independent of spell level, meaning that while it is active, a character can cast 2 max level spells per round, leading to claims that it is overpowered. Quicken spell is offered as the altenative to haste by the anti-haste camp, and while I feel it is balanced in effect, it is much too costly. (Magic Missile in a 5th level slot? Urgh, and you have to take a feat for the priviledge)[/B]

I was just getting an idea. What if one got rid of metamagic feats? So any caster could choose to quicken Magic Missile as a 5th lvl spell, but without the need for a feat. As it is, the 4 lvl increase is steep enough, IMO

But I like your alternative. Don't think it would be overpowering, but maybe there's some consequenses that we are overlooking?

 

[DreamChaser]

Cone of cold, delayed blast fireball, and meteor swarm don't keep up w/ fighter types in damage? what are you fighters doing?

 

[Technik4]

Seems unnecessary. If a 20th level wizard wants to cast Shield, Improved Invisibility, and Shapechange all in 1 round he should have to cast Time Stop first.

Incidentally, setting something like this would be a good idea if it was built with this in mind from the ground up. I would give sorcerors a better Spells Per Round progression than wizards.

Technik

 

[Bauglir]

Those spells always SOUND impressive due to the masses of dice used to generate the damage, but if you sit down and work with averages you'll find a full attacking fighter with appropriate gear will be dealing about the same at most levels.

Now taking into account the wizard's weaknesses (low hp, armour, very limited supply of spells) their spells SHOULD be doing more to compensate, although doubling their effect (as haste) is clearly overpowering.

 

[Rel]

I'm very intrigued by the Iterative Casting idea. Some of the implications are obvious and others are probably less so. I'm sure I won't be able to see some of the far-reaching consequences since our campaigns rarely make it to 10th level.

First, it seems a bit arbitrary to limit this to Arcane casters. I don't see why it shouldn't be extended to the Divine casters and Psions as well.

It obviously encourages characters to stick with a single class (or take a PrC with full spell progression) in order to get those iterative castings quicker. People who multi-class to any significant degree will never get these benefits. Then again, they weren't getting much benefit out of the Metamagic feats anyway.

The more I think about it the more I come to this conclusion: If you felt the game was pretty well balanced with the 3E version of Haste then you shouldn't feel that it is unbalanced with Iterative Casting.

With 3E Haste, you can (at very high level) cast two 9th level spells and a 5th (Quickened as a 9th level slot) in a single round AND still move. If you go with Iterative Casting, you max out at 9th, 5th, 1st and you can take a 5 foot step.

The obvious argument against Iterative Casting is that it would overpower the spellcasters compared to the warrior types. Considering that 3.5E Haste gives a juicy bonus to the fighter types and very little benefit to the spellcasters that argument suffers a bit. The real question is whether there will be other large scale changes in 3.5 that rebalance spellcasters and fighter types.

I guess we'll see soon enough.

 

[Bauglir]

The only reason I really specify arcane casters is because of the approach as a substitute to haste, which is ofc an arcane spell.

I don't see any reason why it couldn't apply to other casting classes equally.

 

[Unseenlibrarian]

Heroic Surge

With 3.5e Haste, and the Sorcerer's inability to use Quicken Spell without taking Spell Preparation, I'm considering a slightly different approach: Porting over the Heroic Surge feat, as presented in d20 modern, Star Wars d20, and Wheel of Time d20.

A certain number of times per day based on character level (One per 4 levels, IIRC) your character can declare a heroic surge and get an extra partial action for a single round. (Or whatever the 3.5e terminology becomes.) This allows the character with the feat to, when it's important, get off a second spell without quickening it, or a partial charge+Full attack, etc. I like it as a compromise; those tactics won't be an every round trick, but hopefully reserved for when it's really important.

Iterative casting strikes me as problematic; a more detailed analysis will have to wait until I'm slightly more awake.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Whatever happened to "wizards are ridiculously overpowered at high levels, there's no reason to be a fighter past level 10?" Fighters are SUPPOSED to be the heavy damage dealers, if you take that away, you make silly arguments like "wizards are too powerful" actually true.

 

[Someone]

If you want to encourage evocation big boom high level spells rather than save or die spells, why don´t you simply increase the damage die of spells like cone of cold, delayed blast fireball, chain lightning, horrid wilting... rather than the iterative casting rule? Keep in mind that a high level wizard could perfectly cast Polymorph other and a Power Word with that system, and seems that you won´t like it.