Another shot at nerfing casters for balance

[kitcik]

EDIT: Adding an intro.

The main thrust of these changes is to re-introduce casting times (a la 1E), which effectively reduced the power of casters. I tried to do it in a way that changes 3E mechanics as little as possible and does not require re-thinking every spell and determining a casting time.

All changes OTHER than the casting time change are suggested to simply make the casting time change more effective.

CASTING TIMES

Any spells that take 1 standard action must be declared prior to the start of a round.

A caster begins casting a standard action spell at the start of the round and completes it after the standard action portion of their turn. They may take a 5' step during their turn, prior to the completion of casting the spell, at no penalty. They may take a move action during their turn, prior to the completion of casting the spell, but this requires a Concentration check for "vigorous motion." Any free, swift, immediate or move equivalent actions taken during their turn, prior to the completion of casting, may require a Concentration check at the discretion of the DM. If the caster completes the spell at the begining of their turn, they may use their remaining actions (move, swift, free) without penalty.

Any successful attacks (or other interference) on the caster which occur during the round prior to the caster's initiative (or as a result of readied actions or AoEs, as per existing rules) force a Concentration check.

ANCILLARY CHANGES TO MAKE THIS MORE EFFECTIVE

When casting a standard action spell, a caster acts as if their initiative roll were 5 lower than the actual result (this does not "carry over" to later rounds in which they do not cast). For instance, caster gets an adjusted roll of 23. They cast only a swift action spell in round one and act on 23. In round 2, they cast a standard action spell and act on 18 (23-5). In round 3, they do not cast a spell and act on 23 again.

The DC of all Concentration checks is increased by 5.

The caster is considered flat-footed while casting. For purposes of grappling and tripping (only), they are considered one size category smaller while casting.

Unlike most skill checks, Concentration checks made to avoid spell failure automatically succeed on a natural roll of 20. On a natural roll of 1, they result in an automatic failure and a mishap, similar to a scroll mishap.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The initiative changes seem annoying to track and with some savvy, easy to render irrelevant. And a problem with making concentration super hard is as a side effect you make healing spells and the like tougher to get off as well. The other changes are just really arbitrary and seem like they'd be a pain to keep track of and were just a laundry list of "let me think of anything I can to make casters more vulnerable and throw it up on the idea board."



I need to go back to my old idea and try and flesh it out, meta-gamey as it may be. My idea was that you couldn't use higher level spells until several rounds into the combat. Something like 2 spell levels per round of combat (surprise round doesn't count as a round, you're limited to 0 and 1st level spell during that), so 1st-2nd on round 1, 3rd-4th on round 2, etc... Something like that to delay the big guns. Probably more complex, with the rate starting out more 1:1 for spell level : combat round and gradually getting better as you reach character level (NOT caster level; no reason to make things better for full casters than fighter/mages) 20. I don't know, it feels really metagamey, is still potentially easy to get around if the casters just initiate combat and then turtle up / hide until a few rounds go by, and it would still require nerfing the bejesus out of uber powerful low and midlevel spells like glitterdust and enervation. And it kinda hurts metamagic feat usage but does nothing to metamagic rod usage, when in reality the latter is already plenty more appealing than the former and I'd hate to make the comparison worse.

 

[Sekhmet]

The easiest method of nerfing casters is what was done in AD&D, introduce casting times.
If you can't perform most spells in one round, casters lose a lot of their on-the-fly utility, forcing them to consider each spell more carefully and reducing the number of spells they can throw per encounter.
It is a harsh method, and it rewards casters that want to just deal damage (lower cast times) or summon (more bang for the buck), but those aren't the most ridiculous kind of casters we can be.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hmm, I just had another idea...

A videogame I really like, Baten Kaitos Origins, has MP for magic/technique use. Each fight it starts at 0, and just about any combat action at all adds to it. The entire group shares the MP meter, both building it up and using it. Magic is basically unlimited use, aside from needing the MP (like D&D, it's organized by level, requiring an amount of MP equal to the level) and only being able to know so many different spells/techniques at a time.

Something like that might be pretty awesome, albeit a lot of work to implement. That way noncasters contribute to the casting (especially if each attack added say...+1/2 point to MP or whatever; slightly less than a typical standard action but close enough that a TWF or AoO machine would be uber MP fuel for a party, figuring out exact numbers can come later) and having a lot of casters means more drains on the precious shared resource. All spellcasters would be spontaneous and choose a certain number of spells known from their class list, but I'd let them change the selections daily (iirc, that's how it works in Arcana Evolved). In addition to the MP-costing spells, they'd get some infinite use at-will abilities similar in power to a 1st level spell like magic missle or a lesser orb spell or silent image, whatever that can be used to build up the MP gauge.

Issues: How things work out of combat would require thought; I certainly don't want to do a 4E thing where you need rituals for most out-of-combat spellcasting. I'd only worry about actual utility spells, though; I'm perfectly fine with requiring combat to use any buff spell, even the ones that are currently "all day." Spell levels would need to be re-assessed (direct damage evocations should probably be relegated to the low/mid levels and have damage not cap, such as at CL 10 like fireball currently is, for example). Mass combat / war battles would simply be unmanageable using the system. But 3E combat rules are already pretty unwieldy to use unmodified in war battles anyway.

Baten Kaitos Origins also has a cap to how far you can charge your MP (level 5; and the max spell level in the game is 4) but has an "MP Burst" option to have infinite MP to blow for a single round by the entire party...but then it goes back to 0 and doesn't refill at all for a while and does so more slowly afterwards. It adds a lot of excitement to pull off the super combos while wtill requiring caution and waiting to use since it leaves you in a bad spot if the foes are still standing, but I'm not sure such a feature would translate well into D&D.

But yeah, I think that could be cool.

 

[dagger]

This is how we currently do it in AD&D 1e, but it can work in other editions.

1) Spell casters must declare if they are casting spells before init is rolled.

2) One d6 is rolled PER side, high die goes first. If its a tie we re roll or sometimes if we feel like it we do everything simultaneous.

3) If your side goes first, no problem. If your side lost initiative and a caster takes damage the spell is disrupted.

Wizard suck it long and suck it hard.

 

[kitcik]

The easiest method of nerfing casters is what was done in AD&D, introduce casting times.
If you can't perform most spells in one round, casters lose a lot of their on-the-fly utility, forcing them to consider each spell more carefully and reducing the number of spells they can throw per encounter.
It is a harsh method, and it rewards casters that want to just deal damage (lower cast times) or summon (more bang for the buck), but those aren't the most ridiculous kind of casters we can be.

But... that's exactly what my suggestion is.

Even in 1E, most spells' casting times were measured in segments (partial rounds), the difference being that someone could attack you before your spell segment occurred - as opposed to 3E where all your actions occur on your turn.

My suggestion is to reintroduce casting times, but rather than go through every spell and try to differentiate them, just let everybody with a higher inititative have a whack at you before the spell goes off.

 

[kitcik]

The initiative changes seem annoying to track and with some savvy, easy to render irrelevant. And a problem with making concentration super hard is as a side effect you make healing spells and the like tougher to get off as well. The other changes are just really arbitrary and seem like they'd be a pain to keep track of and were just a laundry list of "let me think of anything I can to make casters more vulnerable and throw it up on the idea board."

I think the bold is an unfair characterization as "the other changes" are the meat of the suggestion and not a laundry list - to whit, the effective re-introduction of casting times, a tried and true form of nerfing casters.

The flat-footed and size category things do, admittedly, kind of fall into the "laundry list" category, but were included (along with the init change and the Concentration nerf) to make the casting time change more effective.

I guess maybe this wasn't clear, so let me go back and edit.

EDIT: Upon further review, I have to say my original post was very unclear. I think I have cleaned it up now. Thanks for pointing this out.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Your solution incentivizes wizards to use whatever means necessary to increase their Initiative modifier. Since many wizards already increase their Dexterity to 14 or 16, and many also opt for the Unearthed Arcana alternate class feature that swaps Scribe Scroll for Fighter feats (namely Improved Initiative), coupled with Nerveskitter, there is already a likely chance that a -5 to their modifier when casting a standard action spell will be effectively meaningless.

A quick perusal of the SRD showed most monsters with Initiative modifiers around +0 to +3, a handful at +6, and the Pit Find at +12. Given the competing modifiers, I'm not sure that your solution will have a significant impact on the game.

 

[kitcik]

Your solution incentivizes wizards to use whatever means necessary to increase their Initiative modifier. Since many wizards already increase their Dexterity to 14 or 16, and many also opt for the Unearthed Arcana alternate class feature that swaps Scribe Scroll for Fighter feats (namely Improved Initiative), coupled with Nerveskitter, there is already a likely chance that a -5 to their modifier when casting a standard action spell will be effectively meaningless.

A quick perusal of the SRD showed most monsters with Initiative modifiers around +0 to +3, a handful at +6, and the Pit Find at +12. Given the competing modifiers, I'm not sure that your solution will have a significant impact on the game.

Yes, I believe this is the weakest link in the chain. The -5 was really a placeholder to gauge people's reactions. The question is how to let people have a chance to interrupt the spell without being heavy-handed and saying "casters can't improve their init like everyone else." I am open to suggestions. Maybe using 1/2 init (rounded down) when casting [rather than -5] is a thought?

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Make the caster have to concentrate for the rest of the round to make sure a spell fully goes off. If someone hits the caster during the round and the caster fails the Concentration check, the spell poofs even if it was already cast.

For instance, caster casts glitterdust on monster A. Monster B doesn't like that, and smacks caster. Caster fails the check, and the glitterdust is spoiled.