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

[ProfessorCirno]

I think I had more fun in WFRP when my spells DID fail than when they didn't.

That's because WFRP is best played as a Raimi/Gilliam -esque dark comedy, where everything is really gross and really gory and really horrible and absolutely hilarious and the entire game is just one long journey of everyone's lives getting worse and yet you can't stop laughing at the latest Horrible Thing Gone Terrible Wrong.

 

[Mort]

I like many of the suggestions above but one that has not been mentioned:

make scrolls much more difficult to create - something akin to pre 3e days when you needed special materials that were essentially a quest unto themselves.

The ridiculously easy (and relatively cheap) access to scrolls takes the already versatile caster and cranks it off the scale.

The mage rarely has to "dilute" his memorized spells because he has a scroll for the "you don't need them often, but when you need them boy do you need them" spells: comprehend languages (or tongues), knock, water breathing, passwall etc.


This in turn leaves the mage that much more space to memorize all of the flashy combat stuff - so the mage has a win-win situation.

I truly believe that scribe scroll (free at first level!) is one of the biggest culprits to making the wizard even higher on the ladder with 3e/3.5e.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

IT is too easy o cherry pick the 5% of really powerful spells.

All you need to do there is bring back the rule from earlier editions where, when you leveled, you had to roll to determine whether you learned the spell you wanted or not. If you failed to learn the one you wanted, you kept rolling again until you determined which spell you actually did learn.

 

[I'm A Banana]

All you need to do there is bring back the rule from earlier editions where, when you leveled, you had to roll to determine whether you learned the spell you wanted or not. If you failed to learn the one you wanted, you kept rolling again until you determined which spell you actually did learn.

Or a slight variant:

Wish is not a spell you can learn. It is treasure you are awarded. Just like a +5 vorpal sword is not a thing you can forge. It is something you are awarded.

These concepts were dropped in favor of greater player customizability, but there are benefits to them.

 

[amnuxoll]

I've completely revamped the d20 spells and spellcasting and am really happy with the result. Steps I took:

• I changed the way that saving throws work. A character can actively resist a spell and even be aided in that resistance by allies. This makes spells uncertainly effective without making spellcasting disappointing the way that a failure chance does.
• I adjusted (and sometimes outright removed) spells people complain about that tended to unbalance play:
  • Spells that allow the caster to fight better than a fighter or find traps better than a rogue
  • "Save or suck" and "Save or die" effects.
  • Divination spells that tend to spoil intrigue. (Detect Evil, I'm looking at you!)
  • I made buff spells something that has to be cast during combat. No more "guess when the next fight will be" metagaming.
  • Most buff spells and heal spells are a swift action so you're not forced to choose whether to help your comrade or do something awesome.
  • Polymorph...
• I removed or replaced frustrating (and distracting) "spell tax" mechanics that annoy players rather than aid immersion: spell resistance, concentration checks, miss chance...
• I removed the extra action requirements from metamagic casting but also brought the power level in line.
• Last, but not least: I made martial characters multi-faceted and fun to play without giving them "martial spellcasting".

 

[Dausuul]

That's your opinion and one not everyone shares. I don't want my fighters to have supernatural abilities. But being very good with a sword is not very mundane imo. But it has to be in the realm of normal human possibility - or at least not exceed it by much or there's no reason to play a fighter. Otherwise, I'm just a mage with a sword.

I agree that fighters should not have supernatural powers (that's the paladin's job), but as I said above, the fact that the wizard does get supernatural powers should not be regarded as carte blanche for the wizard to do anything under the sun. Wizards need defined limits.

The bane of balance is the idea we see sometimes that "Wizards can break the laws of physics, so of course they're better than fighters!" No. Nobody can break the laws of physics. Wizards just play by a different set of physical laws from what we're used to. We don't need a fantasy physics textbook to define exactly what those laws are, but we do need some general guidelines on what their powers enable wizards to do (where those guidelines are not "Anything they damn well please").

 

[Victim]

I agree that fighters should not have supernatural powers (that's the paladin's job), but as I said above, the fact that the wizard does get supernatural powers should not be regarded as carte blanche for the wizard to do anything under the sun. Wizards need defined limits.

The bane of balance is the idea we see sometimes that "Wizards can break the laws of physics, so of course they're better than fighters!" No. Nobody can break the laws of physics. Wizards just play by a different set of physical laws from what we're used to. We don't need a fantasy physics textbook to define exactly what those laws are, but we do need some general guidelines on what their powers enable wizards to do (where those guidelines are not "Anything they damn well please").

Similarly, giving the fighter a limited subset of mundane skills, while giving spellcasters potential mastery of almost all magic. While missing specific spells - other really good specific spells - there was a lot of overlap in the types of spells they have.

When you look at the casters from 3.x supplements, a lot of them are way more limited than the basic casters. A dread necromancer or warmage is more strongly defined by the types of spells the class lacks, than by its advantages in their areas of specialty. You can make basically complete class from subsets of wizard or druid, so the starting scope of the basic casting classes seems way too broad.

 

[Mage of Spellford]

How about an alternate take. In looking back at the older (iere 3.0 editions) one thing stands out. Different classes needed different amounts of xp to advance.

What if the Wizard required a lot more xp to advance in levels than other classes.

My reasoning is thus, a wizard's options are dependent upon his spells, rather than the gaining of new feats/powers. Each time a wizard gains a level they get a hand-full of spells and the rest they are supposed to accumulate through study, trade, or buy from other wizards.

In the present systems wizards rarely even get a chance to use most spells before they are already up a level. This would make the wizard more reliant on his fellow party members. And magic spell power has never really scaled with the xp levels of the other party members very well.

M

 

[billd91]

How about an alternate take. In looking back at the older (iere 3.0 editions) one thing stands out. Different classes needed different amounts of xp to advance.

What if the Wizard required a lot more xp to advance in levels than other classes.

I can't say I ever really liked that system. But, ultimately, it's as arbitrary as having characters level all at the same time. There is some mechanism in play that, when characters are equal, they are expected to be sufficiently balanced. Whether it's a certain number of XPs, as you had when everyone leveled at different rates, or a certain class level doesn't matter all that much. You pick the mechanism and try to build around it so it works out reasonably well.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

An interesting idea which I think I saw proposed by Colonel Hardisson some years ago was a campaign were magic power was less available - nobody could be a single classed caster. All casters had to be multiclassed, and couldn't have more caster levels than non-caster levels.

This is quite an interesting idea for a 3e campaign where the most epic wizards at 20th level are Ftr10/Wiz10 or Ftr10/Cleric10 or Rog10/Wiz10 etc. It means that the really powerful 5th level spells (teleport, raise dead, magic jar) only enter the scene when PCs are about 18th level (9/9 multiclasses), and everything 6th level+ is just unavailable. Fireballs or Fly don't appear until 10th level at the earliest.

This could be an interesting campaign specific way of limiting the power of wizardry or clericism in a campaign.

Cheers

Another mechanical means to a similar end in d20 is to throw out all casting classes except the bard, but let the new "bard" get wizard, druid, etc. spells. If your class is Bard (Wizard), you still cast mechanically as a bard, but your spell selection can include things like fireball--eventually. With a bit more work, you can even keep the mechanics but impose tighter limits by theme--for example, have a group consensus that if bard(enchanter) means a small subset of cleric and wizard spells. Since the 3.* bard is already locking into spells, a certain amount of thematic picks are already likely, if only as an emergent property.

This works even better in 3E than it does in 3.5 or other later variants, because the 3E bard being so weak is not at all hurt by getting a boost via a (potentially) better spell set. You still have a "sweet spot" where the bard eventually dominates, but it is so much later than standard as to be a non issue in many campaigns.

Personally, if I were to run a 3E campaign like that (and I sort of did a variant of it with Arcana Evolved, briefly), I'd bring in the 3E bard (or tack the 3E bard spell progression onto a similar class) in Arcana Evolved, and ban the rest of the casting classes. I'd use AE because, while not perfect in this respect, Cook went to a great deal of trouble to make spells that boosted other capabilities instead of taking over. The low-level charm, for example, make the Diplomacy skill better, instead of replacing it. With only "bard" casting, and even with the extra flexibility of the AE magic system, you could run that kind of AE game up to about 15th level or so before it started to break down.