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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1557802" data-attributes="member: 3051">I've used a drain-based caster type for a homebrew, using a magic system my friends and I developed.  It's lots of fun when balanced right; the ability to go beyond spell slots is big, and by tying it to health it's possible to go indefinitely (i.e., cast a few spells, heal yourself, repeat)... this isn't a bad thing, it's just something you need to keep in mind, because it means that the casters won't hold back as much.  There's no need to save that 9th-level spell until the next fight, and you'll never catch your casters with the wrong spells memorized.It also skews other things.  For instance, one caster can heal the entire party between battles given enough time with no resources expended.  It's like the old "I want an item that casts Cure Light Wounds at will for 2000gp" threads; it changes the balance of the game drastically.  A competent DM can keep this in mind when planning an adventure, but it's not just a question of replacing one class with another in the module design.Bad idea, IMO.  If it scales with caster level, then effectively the spell will always take the same fraction of your HP, unless you deliberately low-ball the spell.  Allowing the caster to pick a level is a bad idea for other reasons, too; for some spells this'd make it useless, while for others it'd be way too strong.  Cure Light Wounds and True Strike would cost the same at CL 1, but you'd need CLW to scale up while TS wouldn't.  So, at high level, spells that cure or damage would be very expensive, while those with set effects would be dirt cheap.While this'd be okay for certain game systems, D&D really assumes that your character will become more capable as he goes up.  Besides, do the math: if your HD is a d4 and you have no CON bonus, one max-CL third-level spell would knock you out.  You'd never see a 9th-level spell used, unless it was one you could REALLY drop the caster level on.My suggestion: in our system we used a flat 4 damage per spell level (cantrips as level 1/2, of course), with a new skill added that had you attempt to reduce this; any damage that wasn't prevented forced a Concentration check as if continuing damage.  Basically, you made a check versus DC 10, and each point of success reduced the damage by 1.  On average, if you kept the skill capped, you'd be able to reduce about half the damage on your best spells, and the low spells would be practically free.(And before you ask, no spells, items, etc. could improve this skill.)Actually, we did it as 4 Lethal damage per level, with the each point of success changing 2 Lethal into 1 Mental damage (like subdual but with slightly different rules and slower healing) until there was only Mental damage left, and points after that remove 1 Mental damage to a minimum of 1 point; it's easier to explain if you have a table to look at.  One key element was that Mental damage is NOT healed by normal cure spells; there's a separate line of mental spells, called Clarity (yes, EQ reference) that slowly repairs Mental damage.  This helped eliminate any nasty combinations that'd allow people to throw 9th-level spells endlessly.Only if you always used Caster Level 1.  Otherwise, even a low-level spell would be prohibitive.No, that's not necessarily true.  There's plenty of room for multiple kinds of magic; Psions, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Clerics all share many elements, but no one is automatically obsolete because of the others; in practice you'll want to pick two or three kinds for your campaign, but I've played a campaign with Psions, Sorcerers, and Clerics as the three magic types (no Wizards).  For example, the Sorcerer could do one thing the drain-based types can't: throw all his big spells up front without knocking himself out.Anyway, one last point I want to make: the big headache for drain-based systems is multiclassing.  If the "Channeler" class was your drain-based one, what can a Channeler 20 do that a Channeler 1/Barbarian 19 can't do better with his higher HP?  Okay, he can't go higher than Caster Level 1, but for many spells that's not a problem, and under your drain math that'd actually be a preferred thing anyway.  So, you need something else; some skill that is required, some level-based cap on spell level, etc.One of these days I'll post the full version of my Channeler class, but it's a bit too dependent on our other changes (replacing the core classes with six based on the d20Modern set, for instance).</blockquote>

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