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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kerrick" data-source="post: 4603684" data-attributes="member: 4722"><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> But seriously. There are several discussions on the PF forums about reducing spellcasters' strength in combat, mostly centered around defensive casting. A few people have come close to figuring out why spellcasters became so powerful in d20, but no one's actually hit on it.But I have. I looked through my 2E PHB the other night trying to find a rule I vaguely recalled (that if you took damage in a round, you couldn't cast a spell). Either I misremembered or it was a house rule, but I DID find out that in previous editions, spellcasters couldn't cast at all if they weren't almost completely still. It specifically spelled out that you couldn't cast from the back of a mount that was moving faster than a walk, if you're riding on a wagon bouncing along a road, or on the deck of a storm-tossed ship. It even says that you couldn't cast while riding in a chariot (!), unless your friends held you steady. Oh yeah, and here's a good one - while casting, you're flat-footed. Try THAT in your d20 game and wait for the uproar!D20 changed all that with the introduction of the Concentration check. Now, all of a sudden, spellcasters could make a simple check to cast a spell. I mean, come on - DC 10? A L1 novice could make that!And then we have defensive casting. If you cast defensively, you don't provoke AoOs, even if the ogre is looming right over you. Instead, you get to make a Concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to get it off successfully. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/ponder.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":hmm:" title="Hmmm    :hmm:" data-shortname=":hmm:" />Now don't get me wrong - I love spellcasters (mages in particular), but they've got too much going for them here. So here are some proposed fixes:1) Ditch defensive casting. If someone wants to cast spells in combat, he can take the AoO. His Concentration check should be more than high enough to handle it. This would keep the squishies out of (melee) combat and make things like Quicken Spell more important.2) Casters are flat-footed while casting, unless they take the Combat Casting feat (which, of course, would be changed to do so instead of that piddling +4 to Concentration checks).3) Boost the DCs for casting under hazardous conditions by 5-10 points (vigorous motion is 15, violent motion is 20, etc.)4) Use the Rule of 3. Yes, I know, I shouldn't spam my variant rules, but it would fix a lot of the problems here - if the spellcaster's Concentration score isn't uber-high, you can keep all the existing numbers and have things work just fine.Comments? Further ideas?</blockquote>

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