New spellcaster class idea needs help

[tecnowraith]

Hi all I have an idea for spellcaster class I am wanting to but not sure the best way to do it. The idea for the for concept is make a base class or variant or alternate class feature cast spells both arcane and divine directly from a spellbook with out preparing them or memorizing. The only for him to learn spells is find them, searching for scrolls and spellbooks. if you say he can just go to shop buy them? Sure he could but how many, really good written adventures or DMs actually have shops that a has bunch of spells and tomes for sell? Not many.

The benefit for this would be to have a large amount spells in his spells and cast them anytime. One of the drawbacks would be that if loose his spellbook, he cannot cast any spells until he retrieves his book back. The thing I need figure out the balance to this concept other than loosing his spellbook.

Any ideas on this? Thanks

 

[rgard]

Hi all I have an idea for spellcaster class I am wanting to but not sure the best way to do it. The idea for the for concept is make a base class or variant or alternate class feature cast spells both arcane and divine directly from a spellbook with out preparing them or memorizing. The only for him to learn spells is find them, searching for scrolls and spellbooks. if you say he can just go to shop buy them? Sure he could but how many, really good written adventures or DMs actually have shops that a has bunch of spells and tomes for sell? Not many.

The benefit for this would be to have a large amount spells in his spells and cast them anytime. One of the drawbacks would be that if loose his spellbook, he cannot cast any spells until he retrieves his book back. The thing I need figure out the balance to this concept other than loosing his spellbook.

Any ideas on this? Thanks

Probably not what you are looking for, but there are existing classes you could use to accomplish this partially:

Archivist and Wizard then Mystic Theurge.

With the above combination you would still need to prepare spells in advance.

The Archivist is on line at the Wizards site and uses Int as it's spell casting attribute.

 

[Thanee]

The thing I need figure out the balance to this concept other than loosing his spellbook.

I don't know if that is possible.

Having access to a huge amount of spells, from multiple classes even, and being able to cast them all spontaneously is just way overpowered.

And losing the spellbook isn't really a good balancing factor either, since it's so all or nothing. Either the character can do everything, or sits there and is entirely useless. There is no in-between. It's bad either way.

Bye
Thanee

 

[IcyCool]

A suggestion on balance might be to limit the number of spells per day severely. So maybe a maximum of 2-3 spells of a given spell level per day (plus bonus spells for high attributes).

 

[tecnowraith]

Well I had several ideas like one was to limit the the spell level he could cast per class level or roll a concentration check. Mana level/points or spell points are too unpredictable where you can not figure out the right number to set.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Perhaps you could use a mechanic like the Erudite's "Unique Powers". Teh yamy know hundreds of spells, but can only cast a small number of each type per day. like 3-10 arcane and 3-10 divine perday. That would require thinking, planning nad would help balance it out.

Antoehr good way to balance it is to require different spellcasting stats fo the spells.