Throwing down the Tyranny of the Spellcaster.

[Gryph]

I never in all the years I have been playing seen a wizard with 30+ spells a level. To get that many they would have had to be finding dozens of scrolls with new spells and have access to other wizard spellbooks. Not to mention making the all the spellcraft rolls to transfer them into their spellbook. Not to mention have the gold to buy all the special ink and spellbooks to hold that many spells plus the downtime it would take to scribe that many spells into your spellbooks.


It is not a house rule at all it is managing treasure and what your players find. It is managing how much downtime you give them. If you limit how much downtime a party has you control just how many scrolls and magic items a wizard can make.

I play a wizard in the adventure path Age of Worms and we have been on the go since day 1 with only a few breaks here and there so while I have copied some spells and made one or two magic items and we are 12 level. I am not angry about it. I don't expect the bad guys to sit around for weeks and months on end to wait while I make magic items or transcribe spells into my book.

OK, so you have no issue with a wizard knowing every spell, you just don't expect it to happen.

Costs of spells and expected treasure are ways to limit spell availability which is all I expressed as a voted preference. I'm not real tied to any method of limiting. As I stated upthread, I prefer the method to be left in the hands of players and DMs working together.

So I guess I agree with your expanded explanation and I'm not sure why you said you disagreed with me in the first place? (maybe, I'm not really sure)

 

[Elf Witch]

OK, so you have no issue with a wizard knowing every spell, you just don't expect it to happen.

Costs of spells and expected treasure are ways to limit spell availability which is all I expressed as a voted preference. I'm not real tied to any method of limiting. As I stated upthread, I prefer the method to be left in the hands of players and DMs working together.

So I guess I agree with your expanded explanation and I'm not sure why you said you disagreed with me in the first place? (maybe, I'm not really sure)

Exactly, unless of course we are talking about a 50 level epic wizard.

I guess we do agree.

I just object to hard fast rule that limits how many spells a wizard can know. Every wizard should be allowed to dream of one day knowing every spell there is and maybe creating a few.

 

[Gryph]

Well, I went and looked it up.

If you run the game the way Elf Witch and I clearly do, and wizards have to get their new spells from scrolls, then the cost is quadratic - (25gp x spell level x caster level) which, while small, is non-trivial at high levels. A single fifth level spell costs over 1000 gp.

The actual scribing cost is linear, though - 100 gp/spell level, and for some reason, the RAW has the cost of spell books and borrowing spell books as linear as well - 50 gp/spell level. So it's possible that some people's games make it easy for players to get their hands on other wizard's books without a sizeable expenditure.

But that's a DM control issue, again.

That does seem substantial for a 9th level PC. Do you remember the expected wealth for that level?

But also see my last response to Elf Witch. Limiting spells through treasure mechanisms is fine with me too. I'm pretty agnostic as to the method as long as its clear to the players up front.

I freely admit I played more high level 1e/2e than 3e. It was pretty common in our games of those versions for MUs to have more than 75% of the spell list in their spell books.

My bigger problems with spellcaster in 3e were with the expanded nature of the kind of spells available (scaling all day stat buffs are a particularly problematic to balance), uncapped level scaling and the difficulty of actually interrupting spellcasting. And the addition of spells like Tenser's Transformation that turned a caster into a kick ass fighter. Knock is one thing but that was just stupid (imho and all that).

 

[Savage Wombat]

A 9th level character should have 36,000 in magic. So he could have several extra 5th level spells, if he's willing to spend over 20% of his total wealth at that point. If he's not expected to pay scroll costs, though, that's 750 per 5th level spell, obviously a different matter.

A 20th level character would have 760,000 gp. Scrolls of 9th level spells would be 3,825 each. Again, a small cost, but it would add up fast. Without scroll costs, though, we're only at 1,350 per spell.

 

[Stormonu]

I would agree with this for Wizards as a whole, but not for every individual wizard.

That's why I voted to limit spell selection. Any given wizard should be able to do 6 impossible things before breakfast; but it shouldn't be 6 of the 600 impossible things he knows how to do.

I'd prefer if he was capable of only doing one such thing before breakfast, but wasn't crippled from holding his own weight otherwise. One spell and done is as about as unfun as the fighter being forced to watch the wizard make him obsolete encounter after encounter.

 

[amerigoV]

I voted "quit yur bitchin and get back in the Line you lazy fighters!"

 

[TimA]

I would prefer limited power along flavorful lines.

Make all mages be specialist mages. Heres how i would work it.

All cantrips are free for all wizards.

Wizards pick 1 maybe 2 schools. These are their top schools. You get full spell progression in the top school.

They pick as many weak schools as they have top schools. Those schools have 1/3 speed spell progression and the mage cant learn spells higher then 3rd level in weak schools.

All other schools are in the middle. 1/2 spell progression for those and you max out at 6th level knowledge.

Multiclassing doesnt allow you to change your chosen schools or ad to them. Thats the flavor of your magical soul so to speak and it cant be altered.


If you wanted to nerf them more make your spells of your maximum level available take 3 turns to cast. Spells 1 lower then max take 2 turns, spells 2 lower then max take a full turn (only partial move with spell) and everything else take 1 normal action.