Homebrew where anyone can be a wizard?

[harpy]

This is a campaign twist that I've been toying with for awhile, but haven't gone very deep into the crunch. So I guess it makes sense to see if someone else has done something similar.

The basic idea is to remove the wizard class from the game and instead allow any character that qualifies to be able to cast arcane spells as a wizard.

Magic is just a kind of tool use. It's information and if you put in the time to study it then you can then just use that information.

You'd still need to be smart enough to grasp the information, so the Intelligence qualifications for spells would still be in effect, so if you wanted to be able to cast 3rd level spells, then you'd need to have at least a 13 Int.

You'd need a spellbook to prepare the spells. While I dislike Vancian magic, I don't want to modify things too greatly, just to make the campaign run smoother.

In order to cast spells you need to spend feats. A feat for each spell level is required. Unlike a wizard, you wouldn't get the full compliment of spells per day for a wizard. The idea here is that if everyone can cast spells then the group as a whole would have more spells spread out over the party as a whole. So the number of spells per day would be cut back quite a bit.

Casting in armor would need some overhaul. The idea here is to make it so that everyone can do it, if they are smart enough, so the old legacy issue of balancing out the tank versus the blaster doesn't need to be followed so closely. At the very least the arcane armor training feats would have their prerequisites removed.

The overall goal is that magic is just an inherent property of the world to be manipulated. Just as anyone can pick up a sword and swing it around, likewise anyone who can read and process information can cast spells.

Has anyone tried anything like this?

 

[Flatus Maximus]

The feat per spell level cost would be a deal-breaker for me, unless I was playing a fighter which already has lots of feats. If I wanted to cast spells, I'd just play a divine caster and be done with it. The Int requirement will still exclude many classes/builds from gaining spells, or restrict them to 0th or 1st level spells (yay?), and will probably result in a power-up mostly for bards and rogues (high-Int, light armor types).

If you have a small group, maybe just do gestalt with Wizard fixed on one side. Slash spells per day (if you must) and don't allow them to learn more than two spells per level, or maybe one ("my brain hurts!") if you are worried about too much flexibility.

 

[concerro]

This is a campaign twist that I've been toying with for awhile, but haven't gone very deep into the crunch. So I guess it makes sense to see if someone else has done something similar.

The basic idea is to remove the wizard class from the game and instead allow any character that qualifies to be able to cast arcane spells as a wizard.

Magic is just a kind of tool use. It's information and if you put in the time to study it then you can then just use that information.

You'd still need to be smart enough to grasp the information, so the Intelligence qualifications for spells would still be in effect, so if you wanted to be able to cast 3rd level spells, then you'd need to have at least a 13 Int.

You'd need a spellbook to prepare the spells. While I dislike Vancian magic, I don't want to modify things too greatly, just to make the campaign run smoother.

In order to cast spells you need to spend feats. A feat for each spell level is required. Unlike a wizard, you wouldn't get the full compliment of spells per day for a wizard. The idea here is that if everyone can cast spells then the group as a whole would have more spells spread out over the party as a whole. So the number of spells per day would be cut back quite a bit.

Casting in armor would need some overhaul. The idea here is to make it so that everyone can do it, if they are smart enough, so the old legacy issue of balancing out the tank versus the blaster doesn't need to be followed so closely. At the very least the arcane armor training feats would have their prerequisites removed.

The overall goal is that magic is just an inherent property of the world to be manipulated. Just as anyone can pick up a sword and swing it around, likewise anyone who can read and process information can cast spells.

Has anyone tried anything like this?

I have never seen it but there is no reason why everyone(75% at least) including creatures would not be able to cast spells if they can do so without taking class levels. It would really change the balance of the game a lot. Monsters would use it to boost their offense and defense, probably to the point where melee types would have trouble dealing with them. On top of that they would still have SLA's. It would almost force everyone to become a caster to be able to compete unless you can come up with a believable reason as to why the more powerful monsters don't pick up magic also. The average demon/devil is very smart, and they live for a long time so I don't see why they would not do it.

PS:I know there are other smart monsters, but I just used the outsiders as an example.

 

[harpy]

The feat per spell level cost would be a deal-breaker for me, unless I was playing a fighter which already has lots of feats. If I wanted to cast spells, I'd just play a divine caster and be done with it. The Int requirement will still exclude many classes/builds from gaining spells, or restrict them to 0th or 1st level spells (yay?), and will probably result in a power-up mostly for bards and rogues (high-Int, light armor types).

If you have a small group, maybe just do gestalt with Wizard fixed on one side. Slash spells per day (if you must) and don't allow them to learn more than two spells per level, or maybe one ("my brain hurts!") if you are worried about too much flexibility.

That's a good point about clerics. This arcane question is kind of a flip side to something I'd asked awhile ago about basically making everyone be able to cast cleric spells by just worshiping gods, much the way you'd imagine the Romans or Egyptians might look at magic or favors from the gods. So rather than having whole professions devoted to maximizing magical effects, instead it was just a medium that everyone taps into.

So I guess I'm just trying to work out what pitfalls there might be. Bards is one that I overlooked, so I'd need to address that. I'd wanted to keep sorcerers as is, with idea that there are people that are latently "magical" and can devote themselves to magic in ways that others can't, but the Bard is a weird mix of effects which needs more attention.

 

[harpy]

I have never seen it but there is no reason why everyone(75% at least) including creatures would not be able to cast spells if they can do so without taking class levels. It would really change the balance of the game a lot. Monsters would use it to boost their offense and defense, probably to the point where melee types would have trouble dealing with them. On top of that they would still have SLA's. It would almost force everyone to become a caster to be able to compete unless you can come up with a believable reason as to why the more powerful monsters don't pick up magic also. The average demon/devil is very smart, and they live for a long time so I don't see why they would not do it.

PS:I know there are other smart monsters, but I just used the outsiders as an example.

That is a good point to raise. The other side and what they'd be using. In part that's fixable simply in that the spells known within the world are restricted to some degree, and that a big part of going out on adventures would in fact to find "lost" knowledge of spells. So things like save-or-die or save-or-suck spells would be something to quest for and not just be assumed to be cataloged away for anyone to use.

In terms of NPCs just stacking up on spells, I guess the thing that I'd be aiming to figure out is how much should each feat be of value to take to go up another spell level. One overall design goal is that if someone took all of the feats needed to get to 9th level spells, they wouldn't be the equivalent of a 17+ level wizard in terms of overall spells per day. The quadratic effect would be getting cut down a bit.

The other controlling factor in terms of NPCs is that as the DM I can just choose what they encounter, which means a lot less intelligent creatures.

 

[concerro]

The other controlling factor in terms of NPCs is that as the DM I can just choose what they encounter, which means a lot less intelligent creatures.

This is true but it is hard to challenge good players with non-intelligent creatures even if the CR is high. You can't really adjust tactics and play them realistically.

Unless you are having issues in your games I would not mess with it, and even then I would ask for advice here or on paizo.com to see if anyone has solution that is less complicated than having to make and balance new rules.

If it is just a thought exercise I would do it on a trial basis and see how the players like it before making it into a permanent rule.
PS:I missed where it was a magic spell per feat. I do agree with the previous poster that I would not be spending a feat on a spell unless it was a high level one, and I could cast it many times per day.

 

[Tovec]

Another option may be....

A system we tried in the past looked something like this.

Scrolls were commonly available but only certain classes could make them. Basically they kind of function like currency if you go with your idea. Or at least they would be very valuable.
In order to cast the scroll you would need a caster. This would be accomplished by another hold homebrew feat which gives you a caster level.
(In our games it was effective caster level 0 for untrained people.) But as far as your games give them a caster level equal to HD/class. Then when they try to cast a spell have them need the scroll. This is an easy way to give anyone spellcasting without screwing people out of their feats.

 

[Madeiner]

There is a system like that in my campaign.
It's basically taken from final fantasy 7.

You have materia, stones that you can put in your armor that give you spellcasting abilities. They give you mana you can spend on specific spells. The more mana you use, the faster your materia improves and gets new spell levels.

Equipping materia also has disadvantages. For each MP you get (1 Mp = cast first level spells, 2mp= cast second level, etc) you also lose one maximum hp.

If you are interested, you can see my materia system by visiting

Materia

and downloading the PDF.