Limiting Magic

[Nifft]

A, yeah, but only if you choose to restrict PCs to a max of 10 levels in any spellcasting class, rather than just capping the max spell level they can learn and cast.

B, true, though only clerics and bards get it, IIRC (and the latter only if you don't restrict them to 10th-level). Still, a valid point.

Actually, almost everyone gets it. Paladins, Bards, Clerics and Sorc/Wiz (though I guess the Paladins and Bards would be reading it off a scroll or something).

Like I said, 5th-level is OK too, it just depends a bit on how you handle other stuff. For example, if monsters with spell-like abilities or spellcasting (like dragons or whatnot) aren't capped at being 10th-level effective casters, then Greater Dispelling remains kinda important for trying to overcome their high-caster-level effects.

Yeah, the DM would have to cap them, too, or raise their CR by a chunk. But I suspect that goes hand in hand with the limited magic setting.

In other words, as long as we're house-ruling PCs, I can't see why we'd deliberately screw them by not giving NPCs and monsters the same limitations. Unless of course we wanted to screw the PCs.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Arkhandus]

I forgot that 3.5 made Break Enchantment more widely available. D'oh.

 

[Quartz]

Something for you to consider: at whichever point you stop, allow higher level spells to be constructed using the rules from the ELH. So spellcasters may well have 1 super-spell they can cast.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Something for you to consider: at whichever point you stop, allow higher level spells to be constructed using the rules from the ELH. So spellcasters may well have 1 super-spell they can cast.

May I just add that I think this is excellent advice. I've actually done this before, with a few spells. No problems.

It's quite a neat system, when sticking to just WotC / SRD sources.

 

[Pyrex]

There seem to be two approaches, both of which produce hugely different results:

Given: Your world caps at 5th level spells.

Approach 1: No one can ever take more than 10 levels of Wizard, thereby hitting the cap of 5th level spells.

Approach 2: Dilute the spell table such that a 17th level Wizard (who would ordinarily just be gaining access to 9th level spells) gains 5th level spells.

Just how rare do you want 5th level spells to be?

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm currently thinking about a simple way of limiting magic so my game would not leave the realm of the manageable.

Remove access to highest level spells from casters.

For example: I could say casters will only get 5th level spells in my campaign. They would still have access to higher level spell slots, but they may only use those for metamagic. (Like the Epic Level Slots you can get after level 20)

What would be a good spell level to set as maximum if I did use such a rule? I do not want casters to be weaker than the other classes, I want them more manageable than they are now.

My biggest concern would be, that this is a huge drawback for those kinds of magic that do not benefit from metamagic that much. (Like Summoning)

I think it's nearly impossible to balance properly.

If you want such a harsh restriction, just play the game until 10th level, and after that stop the XP progression.

 

[ed209uardo]

I think it's nearly impossible to balance properly.

If you want such a harsh restriction, just play the game until 10th level, and after that stop the XP progression.

One of the things we're working on for a semi-low powered magic world was scaling back spell advancement. Here's one example:

Level				Spells per Day(druid)									
	0	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3rd	3	2	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th	3	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th	4	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th	4	3	2	0	-	-	-	-	-	-
7th	4	3	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
8th	5	4	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-
9th	5	4	3	2	0	-	-	-	-	-
10th	5	4	3	2	1	-	-	-	-	-
11th	6	5	4	3	2	-	-	-	-	-
12th	6	5	4	3	2	0	-	-	-	-
13th	6	5	4	3	2	1	-	-	-	-
14th	7	6	5	4	3	2	-	-	-	-
15th	7	6	5	4	3	2	0	-	-	-
16th	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	-	-	-
17th	7	6	6	5	4	3	2	-	-	-
18th	7	6	6	5	4	3	2	0	-	-
19th	7	6	6	5	4	3	2	1	-	-
20th	7	6	6	6	5	4	3	2	-	-

21st	7	6	6	6	5	4	3	2	0	-
22nd	7	6	6	6	5	4	3	2	1	-
23rd	7	6	6	6	6	5	4	3	2	-
24th	7	6	6	6	6	5	4	3	2	0
25th	7	6	6	6	6	5	4	3	2	1
26th	7	6	6	6	6	6	5	4	3	2
27th	7	6	6	6	6	6	5	4	3	2
28th	7	6	6	6	6	6	5	4	3	3
29th	7	6	6	6	6	6	6	5	4	3
30th	7	6	6	6	6	6	6	5	4	4

... If you want to scale back further, then I'd suggest at least giving casters rogue BAB, or upping their HP, or something else along those lines...

EDIT: Aha ha! I found the upload button. Here's the preliminary spreadsheet.