Pathfinder 1E Reigning in casters

[Lanefan]

The fibonachi sequence isn't any better. The 10th level 3e wizard has 80 spell points, good enough for 10 5th level spells or 77 1st level spells at the opposite extreme.

That's assuming a direct conversion of available slots to their s.p. equivalent, which we don't do.

A caster in our Fibonacci-based s.p. system rolls* s.p. just like they roll h.p., with the die sizes increasing a bit each level and high Int. giving a small bonus. A 10th-level caster with half a brain tends to have about 50-55 s.p., give or take.
* - the s.p. gained (including bonus) at any level cannot be less than required to cast your highest-level spell once; so if you're bumping to 9th level and your sucky roll only gives you 6 s.p. it gets jumped up to 8 as that's what it takes to cast a 5th-level spell.

Someone mentioned the problem being too much access to damage spells. I always found the problem to be the opposite: too much access to utility spells e.g. Fly, Invisibility, Detect (something), and so on.

Lanefan

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not sure where you got that figure (converting spell slots to points, I'm guessing? There's a reason we don't do that).

Yes, converting spells to points.

But less points is not really better IMO.

The 3e spell point system would kick out a number a little less than 100 (for a wizard, a bit more for a sorcerer). That's only four 5th level spells and you're done (using the square method).

It's also 6 0th, 6 1st, 6 2nd, 5 3rd, and 1 4th and you are basically done. You could accomplish the same nerf by reducing the number of spell slots. In general, I think reducing spell slots ends up gradually moving the player toward a few low level utility spells, and a 15 minute work day built around a collection of your most essential high level spells. If you are avoiding this, it's probably because you are making it unfun to play a spellcaster.

Of course, that's still at least a hundred first level spells in any case, which could admittedly get weird.

Magic missile every round at 10th level isn't game breaking... or even that unusual, since by that level a lot of what you want to cast that's 1st level is on a wand.

It does seem to have had some staying power, but it also has plenty of critics (including the OP).

I used to be one too. Then I got to try the grass on the other side of the fence and found it wasn't greener after all.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

Again one way to look at 4E is your way but another way to look at it is mine which was it made the characters bland, made me feel as if I was playing a video game and ruined my ability to suspend my disbelief.

Just a few nitpicks.

1. I keep seeing how 4e is really video gamey, but no one every actually explains what about it makes it "video gamey."(and last time I asked someone, it just ended with them raging at me for something then putting me on ignore). Only thing that's ever brought up is healing, but that's false(name 1 video game where healign works like 4e does, with something like healing surges and limited healing. Now compare that to the number of games where healing is done by bag of potions, namely pretty much every RPG ever made)

I say this because I like to point out that the 4e video games don't actually use 4e's mechanics because 4e' mechanics actually work fairly poorly for a video game. Then compare that to the 50 or so 3.5 games out that pretty much copy/paste the ruleset into video game form.

2. Suspension of disbelieve is a personal thing. One person being unable to do so for 4e doesn't mean another can't. For example, I find 3.P very immersion breaking for me, where amnesiac casters cast spells then instantly forget how to cast spells if they haven't learned how to cast any more of the spell that morning, where disarming an enemy combatant is easier than killing them, and where Clerics are just as capable of fighting enemies in melee as someone who's dedicated his entire life to fighting(usually better).

 

[Celebrim]

Someone mentioned the problem being too much access to damage spells. I always found the problem to be the opposite: too much access to utility spells e.g. Fly, Invisibility, Detect (something), and so on.

Lanefan

Depends on the edition of the game.

In 3e the utility spells and the direct damage isn't so bad. It's the buffs and the save or sucks you have to worry about.

In 1e the buffs and save or sucks weren't so bad, but the direct damage could be appalling (uncapped fireball versus monsters without con bonuses), and things like illusions or battlefield control without saves could be very bad depending on DM interpretation.

I've never worried to much about utility spells. They mostly serve as 'pick up the breadcrumb' powers. You almost rely on the players having access in the event they miss your three clues.

 

[Ahnehnois]

It's also 6 0th, 6 1st, 6 2nd, 5 3rd, and 1 4th and you are basically done. You could accomplish the same nerf by reducing the number of spell slots.

You could accomplish something, but not the same thing. Spell points, particularly in the kind of implementation I'm pointing towards, force the player to make a choice between casting a bunch of weak spells or a few powerful ones. Spell slots specifically remove that choice; everyone has the same number of high-level and low-level slots, and one slot has no bearing on the next.

The point of my idea is to reduce overall use of the highest-level spells and make them feel more "special", as well as to reduce the overall endurance of spellcasters (which ties into the refresh idea I posted).

In general, I think reducing spell slots ends up gradually moving the player toward a few low level utility spells, and a 15 minute work day built around a collection of your most essential high level spells. If you are avoiding this, it's probably because you are making it unfun to play a spellcaster.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, but yes, the idea is to create something along the lines of a 15 minute workday. Again, it's about making the RAW match the RAI. In my estimation, spell slots are supposed to be a limiting factor, but at high levels, urgent situations are infrequent and escape routes are so plentiful and spell slots are so numerous that this no longer holds.

I like to think that every now and then a 15th level wizard ought to pull out a crossbow. That's what wizards do in D&D.

Now, whether the end result is going to be enjoyable and how it compares to the existing system, those outcomes are going to vary as opinions. I'd argue that by making the cost of spellcasting "quadratic", but leaving the outcomes (i.e. the cool stuff, the reason you're playing a caster), one can change the effectiveness of the classes while keeping their souls intact and without going the route of dumbing them down or giving everyone magic to compensate. That's what the OP was asking us to do.

Magic missile every round at 10th level isn't game breaking... or even that unusual, since by that level a lot of what you want to cast that's 1st level is on a wand.

I don't think it is either. But something could be, maybe.

I used to be one too. Then I got to try the grass on the other side of the fence and found it wasn't greener after all.

Pretty lush where I'm sitting. I've monkeyed with the magic system a lot of ways, sometimes making it more powerful, sometimes less powerful, but almost invariably simpler. The results have usually been positive. I've certainly never dreamt of going back to the pre-UA spellcasting environment.

 

[Lanefan]

Depends on the edition of the game.

In 3e the utility spells and the direct damage isn't so bad. It's the buffs and the save or sucks you have to worry about.

In 1e the buffs and save or sucks weren't so bad, but the direct damage could be appalling (uncapped fireball versus monsters without con bonuses), and things like illusions or battlefield control without saves could be very bad depending on DM interpretation.

I'm talking 1e, and the later-edition 10-dice cap on fireball is mostly irrelevant as our games have yet to ever see a PC Magic-user get above 10th. That said, dropping 15-dice fireballs on the party as the evil overlord bad guy is just plain fun, you have to admit!

That said, in the 3e game I was in I played a Wizard - banned from evoking, trying to replicate a 1e Illusionist. Despite pouring everything I could into her illusion-casting capabilities her main use always seemed to be utility stuff - detections, invisibility, fly, some buffs (we never really abused buffs in that game for some reason; in hindsight, we probably should have), identify, etc. I had some save-or-suck spells but they never seemed to come off all that well, the enemies' saving throws always seemed to come through for them and given what I've seen of the math, I can see why.

As a stark contrast, in the same party we had an Evoker - she could blow things up real good but in 3e everything has so many h.p. that she wasn't nearly as effective as she might have been; we often ended up just using her for utility stuff as well.

Lanefan

 

[n00bdragon]

Depends on the edition of the game.

In 3e the utility spells and the direct damage isn't so bad. It's the buffs and the save or sucks you have to worry about.

This isn't exactly correct. Buff stacking is not really a problem in 3e. Sure, you can use buffs to get more powerful than any mundane but this still chains you to the world of solving problems by hitting them really hard. Save or sucks likewise lose their appeal later in the game when monsters gain tremendous saving throw bonuses to all saves and you can be better served by any number of spells that don't allow saves at all. Why even bother with spells that have a chance of failure however small? Not that save or sucks every truly go away, but not even the 9th level spell Implosion is as useful or game breaking as the 2nd level Invisibility or 3rd level Fly. Various divination magics and Teleport alone can flip a campaign world upside down. Bad spells injure monsters or prevent injury. Okay spells kill them or make injury impossible. Good spells end combat entirely. The best spells make combat irrelevant.

 

[Sadrik]

One thing you might try is allowing your casters to gain new spell levels ever three character levels instead of every two character levels. To make it work though you give them a similar number of slots that they would have normally had to begin with.

For instance:
1 4/3
2 4/4
3 4/4/2
4 4/4/3
5 4/4/4
6 4/4/4/2

So what the table above means is your 0-level and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells and the levels you get them. So the spell levels you get them would be: 1st for 1st, 3rd for 2nd, 6th for 3rd, 9th for 4th, 12th for 5th, 15th for 6th, 18th for 7th, (21st for 8th, and 24th for 9th).

I would not do it this way though however exactly I would merge 6th and 7th level spells together and call them 6th, and I would merge 8th and 9th level spells together and call them 7th. In this way you still get all of the spells in your 20 standard levels and they come at the typical character level for spells of that power level.

The advantage this gives is it stretches out the mid levels. 1st and 2nd level spells come at the exact same character levels then 3rd level come at 6th (instead of 5th) and 4th come at 9th instead of 7th and 12th for 5th level spells. You get a lot more mid level utility from casters, and so long as you provide players with enough spell slots to account for the lost spell slots they should be happy enough. If you tell them you are merging the upper level spell levels too. They might be downright excited. Certainly the non-casters will be happy with this change.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm talking 1e, and the later-edition 10-dice cap on fireball is mostly irrelevant as our games have yet to ever see a PC Magic-user get above 10th. That said, dropping 15-dice fireballs on the party as the evil overlord bad guy is just plain fun, you have to admit!

That said, in the 3e game I was in I played a Wizard - banned from evoking, trying to replicate a 1e Illusionist. Despite pouring everything I could into her illusion-casting capabilities her main use always seemed to be utility stuff - detections, invisibility, fly, some buffs (we never really abused buffs in that game for some reason; in hindsight, we probably should have), identify, etc. I had some save-or-suck spells but they never seemed to come off all that well, the enemies' saving throws always seemed to come through for them and given what I've seen of the math, I can see why.

As a stark contrast, in the same party we had an Evoker - she could blow things up real good but in 3e everything has so many h.p. that she wasn't nearly as effective as she might have been; we often ended up just using her for utility stuff as well.

Both the Illusionist and the Evoker could have been quite effective in 3e, but 3e had a tendency to overreact to known issues with 1e. So they did more than a good enough job of containing the Evocation and Illusionist problems. The highlight of Illusionist is color spray at 1st level. However, Conjuration is good to overpowered, (grease, glitterdust, web, stinking cloud, etc. at low level, calling spells at high level). Transmutation is practically busted especially in 3.5 (alter self, haste, slow, polymorph, flesh to stone, disentigrate). Enchantment is really good as well, but its easy to shut down.

 

[Elf Witch]

Just a few nitpicks.

1. I keep seeing how 4e is really video gamey, but no one every actually explains what about it makes it "video gamey."(and last time I asked someone, it just ended with them raging at me for something then putting me on ignore). Only thing that's ever brought up is healing, but that's false(name 1 video game where healign works like 4e does, with something like healing surges and limited healing. Now compare that to the number of games where healing is done by bag of potions, namely pretty much every RPG ever made)

I say this because I like to point out that the 4e video games don't actually use 4e's mechanics because 4e' mechanics actually work fairly poorly for a video game. Then compare that to the 50 or so 3.5 games out that pretty much copy/paste the ruleset into video game form.

2. Suspension of disbelieve is a personal thing. One person being unable to do so for 4e doesn't mean another can't. For example, I find 3.P very immersion breaking for me, where amnesiac casters cast spells then instantly forget how to cast spells if they haven't learned how to cast any more of the spell that morning, where disarming an enemy combatant is easier than killing them, and where Clerics are just as capable of fighting enemies in melee as someone who's dedicated his entire life to fighting(usually better).

To me having fighting abilities you can only use once per encounter or once a day is to gamey for me. What you forgot the rest of the day how to that maneuver. The whole I shout at you and you are healed hate that. But then part of that is the whole weird disconnect of just what hit points are. And why can't any strong willed commanding character do it? The whole minion I stub my toe and tale one hit point of damage and die. I don't like the mechanics of 4E. There was just so much about it that just drove me crazy.

Of course suspension of disbelief is a personal thing. I have no issue with vancian magic because I read the books they were based on long before I ever played DnD. Though I have always felt that wizards should never have to memorize cantrips they should just know them. The fact that a wizard can know hundreds of spells is one reason they can't remember all of them. It is like baking I have made hundreds of chocolate chip cookies in my life but I have to look up the recipe every time. St least this is how I look at it. I do understand that for a lot of gamers is something they don't like.

I don't like how clerics are done in 3.5. I hate the fact that they become a cookie cutter class regardless of the god they worship. To me a cleric of say a warrior god should fight better then a cleric of a healing god.

But I don't see why they can't be as good or better fighters than a fighter. It is not like they spend hours pouring over ancient tomes like wizards. Their spells come from their gods and should not really take that long to learn how to pray and use a gesture and their holy symbol as a focus.

Though I will admit that I think fighters need more to their class to make them shine more.

I don't think 4E is a bad game I think it is a game I don't enjoy. I enjoy 3.5 the best so far of the DnD editions yet I know that it is not for everybody. I also don't think DnD is the perfect system for every fantasy game that it does not always do certain things as well as other systems.