Killing a Wizard is Easy... if you know how.

[Empath Negative]

Whats truky bizarre is that the argument against my "natural talent" limitation hinges on the beluef that if you dont get to play god at the table to everyone elses jobah... Well.. Youll just have to take your ball and go home.

The natural talent limitation is an easy to implement, no frills balancer that still allows the spell caster everything they had access to before... Just in reduced quantity. Thereby making it more strategic and less overpowering (as every other form of casting comes with a relatively heavy cost, from scrolls to reserve feats, to wands and rods..).

 

[Empath Negative]

And enchantments ridiculously long duration spells now improve that schools viability considerably.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

We can have endless "Nerf This" and "Balance That" conversations here but it really all comes down to whatever the DM and players at any particular table discuss and agree upon. The reason why there are so many opinions is because there are so many different people and play styles. What works for one group won't for another, etc.

 

[kitcik]

We can have endless "Nerf This" and "Balance That" conversations here

Yay!

 

[Empath Negative]

We can have endless "Nerf This" and "Balance That" conversations here but it really all comes down to whatever the DM and players at any particular table discuss and agree upon. The reason why there are so many opinions is because there are so many different people and play styles. What works for one group won't for another, etc.

Strange how counciliatory we all get when a reasonable balance for wizards is placed on the table...

Goes from fighters suck, lets just eliminate the class and.. Just give everyone spells to... Well uh.. You know.. All classes are balanced in their own way at the gaming table.

Uh huh.

 

[Greg K]

.
Seriously, who wants to play in a magical fantasy world and not use magic? That's like being in a Star Wars game and not being Force Sensitive.

A lot of people.

 

[Greg K]

Chop off the top two levels of spells (8th and 9th) for Wizards, Sorcs, Clerics and Druids

I'd rather start with

1. Use the bard's progression of Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers,and Wizards t

2. Make Clerics and Druid's Spontaneous divine casters (per Unearthed Arcana) severely limiting the number of spells known (or even removing the druid for a Nature based cleric)

3. Limit the Clerics spells known to their deity's domains and a handful of other spells (e..g, Augury, Bestow Curse, Remove Curse, Mark of Justice, Atonement). If you need your cleric's to be healers give them a few cure spells. For Planar Ally spells, the DM creates a specific Planar Ally for each deity. This ally is what is summoned every time.

4. Limiting Wizards and Sorcerers to spells they find.

5. Maybe, make all wizards specialists with tailored spell lists (DMG variant: Spell Lists). I would bring in other specialists wizards from 2e supplements: Alchemist, Artificer, Geomancer, Song Mage, Wild Mage, Dimensionalist, Elementalist, Force Mage, Mentalist, Shadow Mage.

6. Increase the cost and length of time required for crafting potions and scrolls and not give scribe scroll and remove Scribe Scroll as an automatic ability for wizards

7. Ditch natural spell or place more feat pre-requisites.

8. Go through the spell lists, rewrite, re-level and remove spells.

9. Uncouple extra attacks from BAB and make them feats. Give the Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, and Ranger these feats automatically. No extra attacks for the Cleric or Druid without spending feats.


After that, I would
a. Boost skill points for the fighter and some of the other classes. Add some new skills.
b. Incorporate the Book of Iron Might maneuver system or something similar that allows martial types to inflict ability score penalties, inflict other penalties, daze, stun, knockback, knock prone, temporarily blind or deafen, disable natural attacks, disable certain supernatural attacks (e.g., beholder's eye stalks) with melee and ranged attacks.
c. incorporate a Press the Attack feat that I saw somewhere that allows a character to make an additional five foot step in response to another character (e.g., a spell caster) doing the same.

Again, not a full list of what I would do, but where I would start.

 

[Neonchameleon]

...And I still think the way to balance casters and non-casters is to give non-casters spells.

Seriously, who wants to play in a magical fantasy world and not use magic? That's like being in a Star Wars game and not being Force Sensitive.

Silly people.

I (and many others) think that Han Solo is more fun than Luke Skywalker.

Are wizards powerful? sure. The key is to avoid wizards being the equivalent of Gandalf while the rest of the party is the equivalent of the thirteen dwarves from the Hobbit. And that level of power disparity should not happen if the melee classes and the wizard classes are approximately the same level.

But in 3.X they aren't.

I don't recommend changing the class.

Why not. They aren't approximately the same power level - which you say is a bad thing. So why not change it?

I prefer in game solutions.

My role-playing suggestions:
1)If one player is dominating combat, make the other players the focus of role-playing. Involve them in the role-playing by making them related to an NPC or the center of the quest.

In short the DM needs to make up the system shortfall.

2) If a combat is over fast, that means more time for role-playing.

If you aren't roleplaying in combat, why not?

3) If wizards mass-producing magical items is an issue, control the amount of time available in the adventure for item creation.

It takes one day to make a wand of Cure Light Wounds (or almost any scroll). You need to set things up such that the wizard doesn't get a single day of downtime. And certainly never two in a row. At this rate roleplaying will end up with PTSD.

My tactical suggestions:
1) After every rest, ask the wizard player for a copy of his written list of memorized spells. You'll have a copy behind the DM screen. That will reduce the wizard's versatility.
2) Enforce spell components, verbal, and somatic gestures. No spell casting while swimming, bound and tied, silenced, etc.

You mean that this will prevent cheating. Well, yes. Not having players that cheat helps. But the balance problems are even with this in place. (And the fighter's screwed while bound and has problems swimming in his armour and fighting at the same time).

3) If the NPCs know that the wizard is the most powerful member of the party, have them target the wizard. Imagine this is american football, the wizard is the quarterback, and the defense wants to sack the quarterback.

1: This is normal.
2: This means that combat revolves even harder around the wizard.
3: In 3.X there are very few means to help the fighter prevent this.

4) Use anti-magic field (Beholders), spell immune creatures (golems), and spell resistance creatures (DRAGONS).

Anti magic fields are annoying but there are very few monsters with one. Especially that the wizard should let get close enough. As for Spell Resitance and Spell Immunity, all the spell resitance in the world isn't going to save you from glitterdust (or any of dozens of other spells). And Spell Immunity "works exactly like [URL="http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Spell_Resistance"]spell resistance, except that it cannot be overcome"[/url]. Meaning you can still glitterdust a golem quite happily. These are tools in an arms race - the wizard has plenty of ways of beating them. (Walls of Iron have no time for SR or Magic Immunity. Once there they are there).

5) Throw more powerful opponents at the party (EL+4, etc.).

Making the non-casters completely irrelevant.

6) Use outer planar adventures with different planar qualities.

And? The wizard is versatile enough to get round this. Especially if he knows what to expect.

7) Use opponents who are even more powerful than EL+4, but have a special weakness. i.e. an EL+10 opponent, who can be defeated by a special weapon wielded by one of the non-wizard characters. The other party members have to help distract and defend the wielder while the wielder destroys the BBEG.

Ah. The farmboy with a mcguffin. Because this doesn't look at all patronising.

8) Worst case scenario: use Wizards (possibly with templates) as BBEGs

And that's the problem. The answer to magic is more magic in 3.X.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

In the campaign that I am currently running, I have done a few things to make the non-caster classes more powerful and versatile in relation to the caster classes.

1. Players choose the attributes for their characters, rather than rolling for them or applying some point buy limitation. Spellcasting classes usually require only one (or two) good stats to be effective, while non-casters usually require all (or nearly all) of them to be good for full effectiveness.

2. All types of characters can create magic items on their own, without need for a spellcaster. Spellcasting characters usually require fewer magic items to be fully effective, while non-casters are much more reliant on 'the big six' items to do a good job.

3. All characters gain a feat at each character level. Spellcasters get to use a (nearly) limitless number of spells to break the normal game rules, while non-spellcasters are dependent upon feats to accomplish this. Giving everyone more opportunities to break the rules makes everyone more versatile.

4. All characters gain max ranks in one of each of the craft, knowledge, perform, and profession skills. This ties in a bit with the magic item creation rules I'm using, but also gives all of the characters an opportunity to make some use of role-playing skills a bit without a need to sacrifice their combat ability.

 

[Empath Negative]

Seriously guys. My solution may be the best ever.

Just take away any base slots the characters get from classes.

This means a cleric would still have a second lvl domain spell slot at lvl 3, but no class based spell slots. Only if his wisdom is high enough may he cast other spells of that level.

Im telling you, this is one of the best balances for spell vs. Melee in pkay ever. Youll still have issues with some problematic spells byt those issues will be nowhere near as pronounced.