toning down spellcasters

[Urrdaarka]

I have played in a few different level campaigns as a spell caster and very seldom did I overshadow the non-casters. I think the important thing was that we played day by day, not encounter by encounter. Depending on where we were we could expect up to 6 encounters during a day & night cycle. Sure we might only have one, but I couldn't simply unload, because I never knew if that was the last encounter of the day.
Casters in D&D are limited by what spells they have available to them, try to keep the encounters balanced so that a variety of spells are required, to keep the casters on thier feet. Sure they can load up on combat spells, but then they are out of luck when they need divination or travel or other non-combat spells. Also run some adventures that have a time limit : a portal that is only open during certain conjunctions, a quest that must be completed before a marriage, a mission to prevent a war - even as the armies are marching to the battlefield! A wizard is very powerful if they are allowed to bring thier whole arsenal of abilities into play, but by making the players play on your field rather than setting up the fight to thier design you can make the wizard the important but not dominant member of the party that he should be.
Another concern is spell availability, in an already running game this is a little hard to control, but if you are just starting a game you can restrict what spells are lying around and force the wizard to use their new spells per level to gain the spells they want/need. Even there you can change restrict that and make the player research all their spells, then it becomes a matter of balancing the money in the game vs the cost to research a spell.
A few ideas for balancing wizards (and to a degree other casters) without changing the whole game system.

 

[Goolpsy]

Cheiromancer...'

Bad idea... somewhere in the DMG, it suggest giving xp after each Quest.. and if your quest is long and last .. 100 days? are you either level -96 or just haven't slept for 96 Days?

 

[Evilboy]

Try some small stuff first

I'm really concerned as a GM about game balance, so I feel your pain about how powerful a spellcaster can be. That said, until players hit really high levels, I've always found that spellcasters look far more dangerous than they actually are.

Perhaps part of the problem is the way you're throwing attacks at your party? Most GMs I've played with tend to have encounters focus on combat with a medium-to-large group of low-dex low-wisdom melee mobs. The ideal situation for a spellcaster to deal with.

Nothing wrong with this, of course, everyone should get a chance to shine, but if a wizard is getting a bit cocky in combat, try throwing in something a bit different. A high level monk as a villain might not scare a tank fighter, but that monk could have +10 or higher in every save, evasion, bonuses against mental magic and massive potential damage against low AC targets. If that doesn't give your party's wizard a nightmare, I really don't know what will. Perhaps an entire order of angry monks? Rogue archers are sure to ruin a spellcaster's day as well (can you say "readied action?"). A Paladin with resistance magic and high charisma? If nothing else, try reading the rules on "grappling" and attack your party with a team of angry half-orc professional wrestlers.

This isn't to suggest that you tailor every combat to destroy a spellcaster, but sometimes a class is balanced with a varied encounter set in mind. Sometimes the wizard gets to show off, sometimes the wizard gets to run and hide.

The other non-combat spells I've always found to be even less useful than they seem to be. Most players tend to cast them at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or at the wrong target. They're useful, but don't read over the spell list and get yourself worried, there isn't anything there much scarier than a high sense motive check. Again, sometimes having the ability to read ancient runes with a simple spell will give you all the information you need to kill the big baddie, and sometimes it'll just let you read really crap amateur romantic fiction from a civilization dead for thousands of years.

 

[S'mon]

I have always held that the spelcasters shouldn't nesesarily have the same power curve as other classes. The fact that they are more powerful in later levels is ofset by the fact that they are underpowered at lowerlevels.

In 3e they're not underpowered at lower levels, though. They start out more powerful & they just get better and better. And balancing with 4 encounters/day doesn't work because once the casters run out of spells they make the group rest. Which is in the group's interest to do, because the non-casters want to have the casters at full power too.
Really I think now after 5 years that 3e totally ballsed up the full-progression caster classes (except possibly Sorcerer, the weakest), they need to be wholly rewritten if they're to balance with the non-casting classes.

 

[S'mon]

I kinda like the idea of capping spellcasters at a certain level, like 10th, or requiring they alternate classes after that. One problem though is integrating it with published materials that assume single-class unlimited advancement. Altering spell lists and eliminating free spells/level are much easier to implement.

Things I do:

1. Alter spells, usually to tone down the OTT ones - usually the ones created for 3e; the old 1e/2e spells are rarely a problem.

2. Clerics cast spontaneously from a limited spell list.

3. Wizards have to pay for all the spells they put in their books, including the level-up ones. I think I may reduce the number of new 'free' spells they get, too. Maybe keep it at 2/level levels 1-10, 1/level 11-20, none 21+? I have 1 campaign with a Wiz-18 PC, another with a Wiz-4 PC. Both are played by the same player, both are significantly more powerful than other PCs - and this is a fairly non-munchkin player, he min-maxes in PC creation but not really in play. His Wiz-4 is loaded down with lvl 1 Sleep scrolls though - at 12.5gp & 1 XP they're ridiculously cheap to craft.

 

[Selenim]

So I'm the GM - so if my PCs fight 2 fights then camp, I am obliged to hit them with 2 more battles? Every single frigging time? That's stupid. I like a gameworld that's moderately plausible, not a monster conveyor belt.

I also agree that there is not necessarily an army of monsters after the party every day. In my experience even the fighting classes would prefer resting after an challenging encounter or two and they do their part of the killing without any problems. In the higher levels a full attack can often cripple a spellcaster. Sure it can get tricky to get there but you need only one shot.....

Every campaign is different so if you need to try some stuff here's a few ideas. If the issue is the durability of the characters then you could add some hit points (saves are also a good idea indeed) to the fighting classes. If it's the offensive capabilities just add some equipment since non-casters depend more on their gear for their damage output. Looks like magic components are easily accessed so getting or making magic weapons should be an easy task.

Cutting back on spell progression would probably cripple a caster's offensive capabilities (being multiclassed would make it even worse) in the higher levels unless you are light on the magic weapons as well. Adjusting or eliminating problematic spells is probably a safer bet.

 

[Sadrik]

I agree with you and I dont agree with you.

I think spell casters are powerful and in some ways dificult to play and bog down the game. Bad for the game from that stand point. That said though, I think it is cool to have high level casters who can really move and shake things especially as villains...

I think playing another system would be your best option because d&d is super-heroes with swords. Really. If you want a game where that is not the case play another system that functions better at lower power levels.

I understand the problem that players only want to play d&d. Everybody plays it and nobody wants to try anything different. So, you wind up either altering d20 or are lucky enough to have players who are willing to play something different. If you are that lucky try something else. Go for it. Otherwise, d&d is d&d and has its problems and advantages.

Before, I slam too hard on d&d it does have lots of advantages. Just to have the option of playing a very powerful arch-wizard and then to even attempt to balance them against a fighter-type is a feat in itself. Also, to have things like dragon-slayers as opposed to people who just run from them is pretty cool.

So, deal with it. Play a different system or attempt to alter it. If you have to alter it because you or your players are opposed to trying anything different then here is what I do imc:

I know that the pc's will rest and heal after an encounter. So, I pump them up and and make fewer encounters and as a side effect it make them more memorable. My party of 6th level PC's might face one EL 9 instead of four EL 6 encounters.

Here is another alteration for you limit characters to level 10. All characters. Anything after level 10 is epic.

Sadrik

 

[S'mon]

I like super-heroes with swords - heck, my AD&D campaign was the inspiration for Upper_Krust's Immortals Handbook (the first part of which is now available!). I never had a problem with spellcasters in 1e, Clerics lacked offensive power and Magic-Users' power was matched by their vulnerability. In 3e they both have plenty of offensive power, Wizards can be at least as tough as Fighters, and they seem to get a lot more spell slots. Plus the "can't move & full attack" rule means that at higher levels Fighters etc just can't deal out anything like the same amount of damage.

Capping character level - I have already restored explicit 1e-style demographics to my campaign (1-3 low, 4-6 medium, 7-9 high, 10-12 very high) and future campaigns I'll likely cap at 12th. I'll prob use Castles & Crusades too, its Clerics & Wizards seem toned back down again.

 

[Ringmereth]

My two cents: restrict how many spells a caster regains each night. Instead of recieving their full arsenal of spells every time they rest, restrict them to 1/4th or 1/3rd of their spells, their caster level in spells or CLx2 or x3 in spell levels, or one or two spells of each level per night. Combine this with time-sensitive situations in which they can't rest in the wilderness for days after each little fight, and spellcasters will be forced to conserve their spells. Sure, a high-level caster CAN cast some divinations and use a couple teleport, fly, and disintegrate to get somewhere fast, but it'll be a few days before they can fully recharge all the spells they wasted-and if there's an encounter waiting for them, the caster will be significantly limited in his options.

 

[Sadrik]

Capping character level - I have already restored explicit 1e-style demographics to my campaign (1-3 low, 4-6 medium, 7-9 high, 10-12 very high) and future campaigns I'll likely cap at 12th. I'll prob use Castles & Crusades too, its Clerics & Wizards seem toned back down again.

Here is something that I was toying around with. I thought of this because of video games but it could work in this case too. You know how in video games you go to 40th or evr 80th level. Though obviously on power level with your average 20th level d&d character. I was thinking of a rules variant that you split all of the classes level benefits in half. So, take a cleric they would get a d4 hit die and split the number of spells they get in half. skill points and Bab would be reduced by half everything gets split. In your case if you wanted to stop at 12th level. This would actually be 24th level using this, players would go-wow i'm high level!

There are a couple of things you would have to resolve con to hp and int to skill points. You could reduce them by half or just say sure you get them for both.

Sadrik