How would you houserule (nerf) magic at high levels.

[ProfessorCirno]

The idea that fighters don't get supernatural stuff is rediculous. Utterly, absolutely wrong in every measure.

When his lord's army was surrounded, Saito Benkei held off a hundred men so that his lord would have time to commit suicide. Despite being shot with dozens of arrows, Benkei continued fighting and holding a critical bridge. Eventually he did succumb to his wounds, but his devotion to his lord was so great that he died standing up, weapon at the ready. The soldiers of the opposing army were so terrified of him that they refused to approach or cross the bridge.

Fionn Mac Cumhaill lived for more than 200 years, could suck his thumb to see the future (because his thumb had been burned when he was cooking the salmon of wisdom), and like every single Fenian he could run through the woods chased by dogs and remove a thorn from his foot without slowing down, could leap over a branch higher than his own head, could recite loads of poetry and declaim philosophy, and could speak the secret language of the Druids and the Bards. He was also a giant who could cross the sea to Wales and the water only came up to his breast. If he brought a wounded man water with his own two hands the wounded man would be healed. Most of the places in Ireland are named after stuff he did.

Fergus Mac Roy had a sword that extended into a rainbow and allowed him to cut the heads off multiple enemies at once. He made a deal with Cu Chulain that if Cu Chulain retreated from him in a duel, the next time they met Fergus would be the one to fall back. When fighting Cu Chulain in a big battle, he remembered his promise, and instead of striking Cu Chulain he lopped the tops off of three mountains. A lot of in Ulster is named after stuff that Cu Chulain or Fergus or one of their bros did.

Achilleus is an obvious one, dipped in the river Styx so that only his heel was vulnerable. Actually all the Greek warriors who sacked Troy, Ajax, Agamemnon, Odysseus, they all could do impossible stuff.

Sigurd ate a dragon's heart and could understand the speech of men and beasts. So that's cool. Sir Cei, King Arthur's Seneschal, could hold something in his hands and his hands were so hot that it would eventually catch on fire if he wanted it to. Cu Roi, whose name means The Hound of the Battlefield which totally owns, gets his head chopped off, picks it up, and just keeps on trucking

So Guttorm went in to Sigurd the next morning as he lay upon his bed, yet durst he not do aught against him, but shrank back out again; yea, and even so he fared a second time, for so bright and eager were the eyes of Sigurd that few durst look upon him. But the third time he went in, and there lay Sigurd asleep; then Guttorm drew his sword and thrust Sigurd through in such wise that the sword point smote into the bed beneath him; then Sigurd awoke with that wound, and Guttorm gat him unto the door; but therewith Sigurd caught up the sword Gram, and cast it after him, and it smote him on the back, and struck him asunder in the midst, so that the feet of him fell one way, and the head and hands back into the chamber.​

No matter where you look, it's almost 100% warriors and fighters doing insane over the top impossible and, yes, supernatural stuff.

Either the game is gritty unsupernatural, or the game is not, but you can't do both. You can't have wizards being flying fantastic high magic wondermachines with fighters limited to being level 1 grunts - unless you actively want an Ars Magicka style game.

Edit: Hell yeah top of page. This should be required reading for any D&D game.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The idea that fighters don't get supernatural stuff is rediculous. Utterly, absolutely wrong in every measure.


Either the game is gritty unsupernatural, or the game is not, but you can't do both. You can't have wizards being flying fantastic high magic wondermachines with fighters limited to being level 1 grunts - unless you actively want an Ars Magicka style game.

Preposterous. I can and do have both every week in my 1e game. The magic users are potentially more powerful, and sometimes are, but the warriors are consistently the most powerful so it evens out. Not that anyone cares. The game is about exploration not combat. Combat is just a cool minigame in the midst of exploration.

 

[garrowolf]

There is a simpler way of dealing with this that is really quick and easy. Figure out how powerful you want the magic users in your game to top out and say that magic above that level doesn't exist in your setting. If you want to take 8th and 9th level out then do so.

Maybe add requirements that cause alot of these levels to not be available until the character is higher or even epic levels. Maybe you have it where you can't go above 4th level magic until much higher then normal. Slow down the progression and it would make magic more impressive and worth more once they finally do get there.

Don't replace it with anything either. Let them go back and take more of the lower level spells and maybe they will get more creative.

Maybe human blood can't take that kind of power at all past a certain level if you want to keep the spells in the game but separate from the players.

Maybe Wizards have to ground themselves out to use that much power so they have to build and work in a Tower. They gain great power but they loose the ability to move around and adventure much (or they can only do lower level spells away from their tower for the same reason).

The other thing I would do is define things as fast or slow actions. Fast Actions are things like using a weapon, movement, etc. Slow actions are things like magic, complex actions. etc. Slow actions occur at the end of the initiative round. Even if they are doing two simple actions but one of them is magic it would go off slowly. The character starts his hand motions once his initiative normally comes up but even a single action spell would be at the end of initiative so anything can try and distract him.

This also means that a character that is doing a complex action like work on a computer or bind a wound wouldn't go before someone who is stabbing someone twice.

 

[Elf Witch]

Even in "D&D" fiction the mage often gets tired after casting spells (Dragonlance was a good example of this, it was stated as one of the biggest vulnerabilities of the mages). But there is no mechanic in 3e/3.5e (and I don't think Pathfinder has one either).

So a mage can go through his entire arsenal like it's a machine gun.

One solution, temporary Con damage: 1 con damage per spell level (recovered after minutes or hours vs. days like real con damage and unconciousness not deat when reaching 0) this means a mage could cast himself unconcious and there is a real risk to rapid high level casting.

I like this idea it is very similar to Shadowrun's rules for mages where they have to resist drain to keep using magic.

But this has to be balanced some how with giving the wizard something else to do in combat. In Shadowrun my mage is also very good with handguns so if I get to the point that casting more spells is going to knock me out or the minuses make it impossible to really do any kind of damage I pull out my handgun and start shooting.

My mage shoots as well as most streetsams do with a handgun. The balance here is that with a streetsam's wired reflexes they are going to get to go more in a combat round than I am.

I can see nerfing higher level spells making them harder to cast. But you also have to be careful that you don't put the player who is playing a wizard in the position to not be able to do anything in combat for round after round.

 

[Bluenose]

Preposterous. I can and do have both every week in my 1e game. The magic users are potentially more powerful, and sometimes are, but the warriors are consistently the most powerful so it evens out. Not that anyone cares. The game is about exploration not combat. Combat is just a cool minigame in the midst of exploration.

The magic user has better tools for exploration than the fighter, doesn't he? Fly, Scry, Invisibility, Alter Self or Polymorph to blend in with the environment, Charm Person for interrogations, divinations to solve puzzles, and no doubt other things I haven't thought of. What does the fighter class have mechanically that helps in exploration?

 

[Herremann the Wise]

No matter where you look, it's almost 100% warriors and fighters doing insane over the top impossible and, yes, supernatural stuff.

Interesting point and examples - if you dig that sort of stuff.

Either the game is gritty unsupernatural, or the game is not, but you can't do both. You can't have wizards being flying fantastic high magic wondermachines with fighters limited to being level 1 grunts - unless you actively want an Ars Magicka style game.

For what it's worth I disagree. If you have ever read David Gemmell, Druss the Legend epitomises for me the "mundane" warrior who is as powerful (or perhaps influential is the more accurate word) as most powerful wizards. His ability to survive combined with the effect he has on an army of men and on an enemy horde is literally "Legendary". As a leader of men, Druss is exactly what a high level fighter should look like. While he cannot conventionally attack multiple enemies (as the wizard), he can get the most out of his allies when they are down, and he can defeat an entire group of enemies before a sword has been swung.

Now in D&D, I think a lot could be done to accomplish this (that really hasn't been so far). I think it is an important goal for any new edition (as if this will ever happen given the trend thus far) to mundanely increase the power of the fighter while keeping the mystery and power of the wizard (but getting rid of spells that serve no more purpose than to tread on the toes of other classes abilities). If supernatural abilities get added or folded into the mix, the so be it but a high level mundane fighter should be able to control a battlefield by their presence alone. It is up to the designers though to do this.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Preposterous. I can and do have both every week in my 1e game. The magic users are potentially more powerful, and sometimes are, but the warriors are consistently the most powerful so it evens out. Not that anyone cares. The game is about exploration not combat. Combat is just a cool minigame in the midst of exploration.

Who's talking combat? The wizard has all the narrative tools.

Let's hear how your fighter helps in the exploration without using combat. Tell us what the fighter brings to the table while exploring. Remember, combat is just a cool minigame!

 

[Elf Witch]

Personally, I'd go for longer casting time on most of the higher level spells - a whole round for 4th-6th, one additional round for each spell level past that for 7th to 9th (so 2 rounds for 7th, 3 rounds for 8th, 4 rounds for 9th). Of course, you'd have some spells that would be the exception (power words, for example), but they'd need some sort of drawback (damage to or a condition placed on the caster to make up for quicker casting time). Semi-Faustian magic has always been the way I wished D&D magic had been implemented. (Great power demands an equal cost - it'd open up so many adventure plots to cast say, Finger of Death so it doesn't take you out in the process as well).

The issue I see with making it take more rounds to cast spells is that you take the player out of the actual game play for large amounts of time during combat. In essence the wizard's player is just sitting there watching the other players play.

In game time each round consists of 6 seconds but in real life time it takes more than that to go through each round. I will be generous and say for example it only takes 5 minutes to get through a round. That means for 15 minutes the wizard's player is doing nothing.

In my one group with 5 players it took about 10 to 15 minutes to get through a round. If that was in play the wizard would be sitting out play for 45 minutes.

I have been in the situation whee my character has been disabled for x amount of rounds and those combat rounds are very boring. But it does not happen every combat session. So I accept it as a consequence of the game.

I can see limits on spellcasters where they pay a price for casting magic if its limited and recovery from it does not take overly long. Otherwise the old 15 minute adventuring day will be the only way to play because it will be to dangerous for the wizard to take a chance in combat.

The trick in nerfing magic users abilities is to it without making the class a chore to play or making the negatives so bad that it is simply not that much fun to play.

Some of the ways I would limit magic would be to make it harder to have magic items that allow you to cast more spells.

Limit the amount of spell slots available to cast magic each day.

Get rid of metamagic that allows you to make spells more powerful.

Remove the spells that seem to be the most game breaking.

Make every offensive spell a roll to hit . In area effect spells you have to roll to hit to put the spell where you want it.

Require concentration checks for different spell situations for example you cannot be flying and then casting other spells with a concentration check to be able to cast the second spell.

 

[Elf Witch]

Who's talking combat? The wizard has all the narrative tools.

Let's hear how your fighter helps in the exploration without using combat. Tell us what the fighter brings to the table while exploring. Remember, combat is just a cool minigame!

This seems more like an issue that is related to the fighter and hardly the wizard's fault.

The fix here is how to go about giving fighters more to do outside of combat. How do you go about giving them more narrative tools?

 

[ProfessorCirno]

This seems more like an issue that is related to the fighter and hardly the wizard's fault.

The fix here is how to go about giving fighters more to do outside of combat. How do you go about giving them more narrative tools?

Because the wizards still outshine everyone. The problem has dual layered - fighters are only one part.