Trailblazer: Caster Changes

[Sylrae]

Some things I've been wondering about with Trailblazer, specifically with regard to the single spell table.

I like the Idea of a shared spell table, but there are some things that would require, some you dealt with, others I don't think you did. I was wondering if you had any suggestions on how I might deal with them. I like your Idea but feel I need to address these things to have a unified spell table. Maybe some comments on the issues I'm seeing would helpe me either see things your way, or see what I want to do differently.

1. Spell Gain Rates: What levels you gain spells at of each spell level. (You covered this well)

2. Caster Level: Caster levels get nerfed. I think this makes a big difference. Like the bard, got dropped. Dropping caster levels makes alot of creatures who are of the appropriate level now immune to your spells.

2. Spell Per Day Rates: This doesn't seem as well dealt with.
You assumed everyone gains spells at a wizard rate.

That means that as a bard, Since I cap out at 6th level spells, I now only have 2 or 3 spells per day of my highest level (6) by level 20, instead of the 5 I'd have as a regular bard.

As a Sorcerer I have 4 instead of 6.

If you were to extend it to the Duskblade (Fighter Mage) it gets even wonkier cause they get 6 level 5 spells by 20, but they have 10 of levels 1-3.

3. Spells Known: You just assumed everyone has all spells in their list. That is a pretty big power boost to the wizard, and sorcerer, particularly.
The sorcerer gets a very limited amount normally, and now has the whole list. He has less per day, but knows hundreds of spells now instead of the like 30-40 he had before.
Wizards more so. They just dropped a huge tax on their income (buying scrolls to learn more spells) and gave them hundreds of spells for free.
Bards get more spells too, but now their spells only work 2/3 as well as before, so theyre overall less effective.

4. Spontaneous Spells: Sorcerers lose these.

These seem like problems to me. Could you explain how theyre dealt with, why they don't make a big dent in the game, etc?

Thanks Wulf;

~Sylrae

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Some things I've been wondering about with Trailblazer, specifically with regard to the single spell table.

I'm happy to answer your questions, though this should probably be asked in the Bad Axe Games forum.

And I can't help but observe that you don't seem to have given Trailblazer a very careful read. I gather from your other posts that you're certainly capable of sorting these questions out so that conclusion on my part is inescapable.

2. Caster Level: Caster levels get nerfed. I think this makes a big difference. Like the bard, got dropped. Dropping caster levels makes alot of creatures who are of the appropriate level now immune to your spells.

The bard's arcane forte class feature brings his caster level back equal to his class level for all Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, and Illusion spells (ie, almost every spell on his spell list, with the exception of a couple of sonic-based evocations).

2. Spell Per Day Rates: This doesn't seem as well dealt with.
You assumed everyone gains spells at a wizard rate.

That means that as a bard, Since I cap out at 6th level spells, I now only have 2 or 3 spells per day of my highest level (6) by level 20, instead of the 5 I'd have as a regular bard.

Bards don't cap out at 6th level spells. A 20th level bard has a BMB of +13 which means he'll get 7th level spells. As a regular bard you'd have 4 spells of your highest level (we don't count ability score bonuses as those are available regardless of the advancement rate-- let's compare table-to-table.)

So a RAW bard has 4x4th, 4x5th, and 4x6th level spells and a TB bard has 4x4th, 3x5th, 2x6th, and 1x7th level spells. I think one 5th level spell and two 6th level spells is probably a bit better than one 7th level spell-- but it's close and I know there are many players who would rather have access to those 7th level spells.

As a Sorcerer I have 4 instead of 6.

No, as a sorcerer, you have six. The sorcerer has a class feature that gives him bonus spell slots as he advances in sorcerer class levels. Every sorcerer level gives you a bonus spell slot, added to what you get from the table.

The sorcerer ALSO gains his spells a level sooner (on the odd-numbered levels, just like a wizard, rather than the even-numbered levels) and he has a pretty nice capstone at 20th level with one bonus spell slot of ANY level which means, potentially, seven 9th level spells.

If you were to extend it to the Duskblade (Fighter Mage) it gets even wonkier cause they get 6 level 5 spells by 20, but they have 10 of levels 1-3.

No comment on non-core, non-OGL classes.

3. Spells Known: You just assumed everyone has all spells in their list. That is a pretty big power boost to the wizard, and sorcerer, particularly.
The sorcerer gets a very limited amount normally, and now has the whole list. He has less per day, but knows hundreds of spells now instead of the like 30-40 he had before.

It's an options boost, which is almost definitely a power boost[/i]. This varies, of course, depending on how optimized the sorcerers in your campaign were under the RAW. A typical sorcerer runs through pretty much the same list of spells and so the "lack of options" is a meaningless restriction.

Now without question, it adds considerable utility to the bard and sorcerer and any other class that previously had a limited list of spells known. You can take haste on one occasion and then perhaps swap it out for remove curse later, but the number of spells that you have access to in any one encounter does not increase.

Of course it is unwise to analyze the spells known/spontaneous/spell slots mechanic without taking into full consideration the entire READY spells mechanic, which turns all casters into "spontaneous casters."

And the wizard maintains his perch at the top of the Utility Caster heap because of his class feature that adds bonus Ready spells.

Wizards more so. They just dropped a huge tax on their income (buying scrolls to learn more spells) and gave them hundreds of spells for free.

The wizard already had access to every spell on their list, limited only by wealth-- ie, not much at all. Wealth is a terrible balancing mechanism.

Bards get more spells too, but now their spells only work 2/3 as well as before, so theyre overall less effective.

See above, not the case.

4. Spontaneous Spells: Sorcerers lose these.

No, they didn't. Read and digest the Ready spell mechanic, which effectively turns ALL casters into spontaneous casters. Page 27-28 or so.

Hope that helps.

 

[Sylrae]

I'm happy to answer your questions, though this should probably be asked in the Bad Axe Games forum.

And I can't help but observe that you don't seem to have given Trailblazer a very careful read. I gather from your other posts that you're certainly capable of sorting these questions out so that conclusion on my part is inescapable.

After reading your replies, it seems I must not have read it carefully enough, because I missed alot of this stuff. Most of my concerns (and my thoughts that you would need multiple tables for different spell gain rates) seem to have been covered!

The bard's arcane forte class feature brings his caster level back equal to his class level for all Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, and Illusion spells (ie, almost every spell on his spell list, with the exception of a couple of sonic-based evocations).

Hmm. Yeah, I didn't read over the caster classes as carefully as I should have, I was mostly looking at the table. Having the classes provide bonuses to the table wasn't something I had considered as even an option in that sense so I wasn't looking for it.

As a sorcerer, you have six. The sorcerer has a class feature that gives him bonus spell slots as he advances in sorcerer class levels. Every sorcerer level gives you a bonus spell slot, added to what you get from the table.

So I see. Moved the quote, to show that I pulled a stupid and while I read sections of the pdf carefully, did not read the whole thing cover to cover that way.

Bards don't cap out at 6th level spells. A 20th level bard has a BMB of +13 which means he'll get 7th level spells. As a regular bard you'd have 4 spells of your highest level (we don't count ability score bonuses as those are available regardless of the advancement rate-- let's compare table-to-table.)

So a RAW bard has 4x4th, 4x5th, and 4x6th level spells and a TB bard has 4x4th, 3x5th, 2x6th, and 1x7th level spells. I think one 5th level spell and two 6th level spells is probably a bit better than one 7th level spell-- but it's close and I know there are many players who would rather have access to those 7th level spells.

That is pretty close, and I probably would have taken the two 6 and a 5 over a 7, but you're right, some people would definitely choose the 7. I got the 6 spells per rest from my pathfinder book, not 3.5 core, cause the pathfinder book was in front of me, and I hadn't realized that was something that changed (so I didn't bother to dig out my 3.5 players to look up that number).

The sorcerer ALSO gains his spells a level sooner (on the odd-numbered levels, just like a wizard, rather than the even-numbered levels) and he has a pretty nice capstone at 20th level with one bonus spell slot of ANY level which means, potentially, seven 9th level spells.

Which classes gain their spells on the even numbered levels? The casters are all gaining on the odd BMB numbers.

No comment on non-core, non-OGL classes.

Fair enough; it was just to point out the same thing I though was not converting over to your system. I think it's mostly a non-issue now though, and I could probably make it work now.

Now without question, it adds considerable utility to the bard and sorcerer and any other class that previously had a limited list of spells known. You can take haste on one occasion and then perhaps swap it out for remove curse later, but the number of spells that you have access to in any one encounter does not increase.

Of course it is unwise to analyze the spells known/spontaneous/spell slots mechanic without taking into full consideration the entire READY spells mechanic, which turns all casters into "spontaneous casters."

And the wizard maintains his perch at the top of the Utility Caster heap because of his class feature that adds bonus Ready spells.

The wizard already had access to every spell on their list, limited only by wealth-- ie, not much at all. Wealth is a terrible balancing mechanism.

Alright all of that makes sense.

No, they didn't. Read and digest the Ready spell mechanic, which effectively turns ALL casters into spontaneous casters. Page 27-28 or so.

Hmm. When readying spells, does what you meant by having higher level spells power lower level ones grant the ability to ready spells in higher level slots if necessary, and not justapply to the 'powering' when youre doing the actual casting? Because if yes then if you think you might need more selection of spells of a given level than you have slots to ready you could use a higher slot, and I could see that being useful.

Can you tell me if I'm understanding it right? It makes them essentially all preparation casters in that they use almost the same preparation mechanic, but the spell slots are not held up by the spells prepared anymore, and so you don't need to prepare multiple copies of the same spell.

Hope that helps.

Yep It made me re-read more carefully, and you pointed out all the things I was trying to find.

I like your druid nerf btw. It was quite overpowered by RAW. I use Kerrick's wildshape-less druid now, but having seen this druid, If someone wanted a wildshape druid instead of the other types, this is where I'd send them.

You don't seem to have changed the cleric, just set it up to be readably used with the revised spellcasting. I think the cleric is kindof beefy like the druid. Not as bad as the full-casting Dire Bear with a grizzly animal companion, but still pretty superhero compared to other classes. I think for the cleric it depends on if clerics are always dedicated healers though. If they choose to be healers they are ok balance wise, but if they are evil or go the "I'm a neutral cleric, following the god of war (takes appropriate domains) Why would I need to heal the party! I can be a Battle-God!" then theyre similarly imbalanced.

I like the good/evil paladin slant, it makes me consider actually allowing them into my game.

One of the things that I really like about this variant, is that it works well with how I've been redesigning a bunch of monsters.
If monsters were not HD+LA, but instead Base Race+Racial Levels (where each level is as good as a class level), than I can convert many of the SLAs into caster class progressions, and just give them a custom spell-list, then if they take caster levels, they don't suck! (See the Succubus Wizard/Cleric).

I do have a question about these changes now that I understand how they were built a bit better:
Could you give me advice on how to deal with updating caster classes to this system, for caster classes that both had access to their entire spell-list, AND spontaneous casting? There are some which are quite useful which my players will want to play. And with those, instead of having them choose spells, they just limited the spell-lists. For those ones, the readied spells system would put a big limit on the number of spells they would have for options in a given encounter. Some of them are quite good in terms of power AND utility, and I wouldnt want to just banhammer the class. I'm assuming you don't want to discuss the specifics of non-OGL classes from what you said above, but answering it for one of these such classes will answer it for all of them, so I'm just asking generically.

Thanks again, these changes make alot more sense now (they already seemed like the right Idea, I just couldnt figure out if all the details worked out, but it appears they do).

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Which classes gain their spells on the even numbered levels? The casters are all gaining on the odd BMB numbers.

In RAW, the sorcerer does not get 2nd level spell until 4th level (the wizard got his at 3rd), 3rd level spells until 6th level (the wizard got his at 5th), etc.

Hmm. When readying spells, does what you meant by having higher level spells power lower level ones...

It means you can use a 5th level spell slot to cast a lower level spell. (Kind of a waste unless it's really important.)

Can you tell me if I'm understanding it right? It makes them essentially all preparation casters in that they use almost the same preparation mechanic, but the spell slots are not held up by the spells prepared anymore, and so you don't need to prepare multiple copies of the same spell.

Correct.

Tell me the name of that other class you are referring to.

Off the top of my head, you'd just have all spells on the class list "ready."

You don't seem to have changed the cleric, just set it up to be readably used with the revised spellcasting.

Clerics (and druids) have fewer spell slots than they had before. (5+1 for clerics, 5 for druids-- 4 in TB.)

 

[Sylrae]

War Mage is the main one I'm thinking of.

though the next in line would be duskblade.

and the archivist casts from the cleric list (and mayhaps druid dont have it in front of me), but casts them like a wizard.

there are others, but the necromancer isnt particularly good, the beguiler either sucks or is godly depending on the situation, and I cant even remember what the third one was.