Quick and Dirty d20 Spellcasting Tweaks

[Crissa]

Okay, while I love various spellcasting routines, none is as quick and simple as picking a few spells, and tossing off the 3x5s at the GM when casting - and that's what d20 is.

So, since we all play d20 at some time or another - which system is so widely known and played? - we all have out little fixes for balancing the system.

There's lots of spells which just need balancing, clarifying, etc. But that's a spell by spell list, which really needs a thread of it's own - like everyone's feat list, it's also very campaign dependent.

But how about just the casting mechanics?

Are they salvagable?

What do you do to live with them?

-Crissa

[Crissa]

I'll go ahead and show what I mean.

I have two basic solutions; tweaking and frobbing.

1. Tweaking:
   
2. Sorcerer: Move chart up a level at 2nd level; give spells at 1st, 3rd, 4th, etc.
   
3. Allow Metamagic to reduce spell level.
   
4. Druid: No longer a spellcaster.
   
5. Use Frank's altered Saving Throw Bonus to keep Saves and Caster Level within the d20.

1. Frobbing:
   
2. Use Tweaking, plus...
3. Introduce Basic Spell Bonus;
   • this is used instead of Caster Level for all casters;
   • this replaces Spell Level for all Casters but Wizards;
   • Warrior, Rogue, Barbarian 0.5/lvl;
   • Cleric, Monk 0.75/lvl;
   • Wizard, Sorcerer, Paladin, Ranger 1/lvl.
4. All casting classes need a mechanic to learn spells; Wizards get an unlimited list, but other casters do not.
   
5. Limited Casters such as Paladin, Ranger are Spontaneous Casters.

Also, I'd love to see what you feel about my tweaks!

-Crissa

[User3]

1121578577[/unixtime]]Druid: No longer a spellcaster.

-Crissa

So explain how someone would actually want to play a druid *before* they get wildshape capability.

[Murtak]

Tweaking

Druid: No longer a spellcaster.

Tweaking??

[Username17]

Yeah, that puzzled me too. The problem with the Druid isn't the spellcasting, it's the wildshape. Druidic Spellcasting is "pretty good". However, the Druid is intimately connected with transformation, and that's the part of D&D that just doesn't work.

Of course, that's also Crissa's favorite thing, so if she had to give up one thing (spellcasting or transformation), she'd obviously give up spellcasting in a heartbeat. But there is not, nor has there ever been, a balanced transforming dude in any 3rd edition anything. Wildshape isn't balancable without ripping out the entire chasis and starting over from scratch.

From lycanthropy to polymorph, nothing that changes your shape is balanced, comprehensible, or functional in Dungeons and Dragons.

-Username17

[Crissa]

1121624975[/unixtime]]So explain how someone would actually want to play a druid *before* they get wildshape capability.

People play Monks and Bards, too. And Clerics who forget they have anything but heals and a mace. Why not?

They still get feats, skills, and a .75 BAB. I did say it was a dirty solution.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

The main transformation problme in D&D is the fact that big things are totally uber. Normally in fantasy a giant is big, strong, but really clumsy. So you can duck under its legs and all kinds of crazy crap, and probably not get hit by it.

In D&D, high strength means you have a high attack rating and a high damage, and that's almost impossible to balance. So whenever you try to make yourself stronger, you become far too powerful in combat.

Until D&D lets you be strong and not totally dominate melee combat, you just can't transform into anything.

[Murtak]

People play Monks and Bards, too. And Clerics who forget they have anything but heals and a mace. Why not?

So because some people play crappy classes we should give them more crappy classes to choose from? Why not at least attempt to have any newly designed classes be at the power level you want people to play at? Do you also recommend your players to take levels in commoner if their background story features life on a farm?

[Murtak]

The main transformation problme in D&D is the fact that big things are totally uber. Normally in fantasy a giant is big, strong, but really clumsy. So you can duck under its legs and all kinds of crazy crap, and probably not get hit by it.

In D&D, high strength means you have a high attack rating and a high damage, and that's almost impossible to balance. So whenever you try to make yourself stronger, you become far too powerful in combat.

Until D&D lets you be strong and not totally dominate melee combat, you just can't transform into anything.

I see a lot more problems than just being able to jack up your strength sky-high. Replacing stats for one thing. Giving up nothing to gain something (a caster does not lose his mental stats when running around as a giant for example). Gaining bonuses that are meant to make up for a lack of equipment (say, outsider natural AC). Natural attack / monk attacks interaction. Changing your creature type. Gaining power, which is measured in CR or ECL, based on HD or size.

And that is not even going into the real crazy applications like ice runes, free wishes and the likes. Polymorphing into a Firbolg, while making the half-orcs and goliaths in your party cry, seems pretty tame compared to the potential of the various shapechanging abilities.

[RandomCasualty]

1121639928[/unixtime]]
I see a lot more problems than just being able to jack up your strength sky-high. Replacing stats for one thing. Giving up nothing to gain something (a caster does not lose his mental stats when running around as a giant for example). Gaining bonuses that are meant to make up for a lack of equipment (say, outsider natural AC). Natural attack / monk attacks interaction. Changing your creature type. Gaining power, which is measured in CR or ECL, based on HD or size.

And that is not even going into the real crazy applications like ice runes, free wishes and the likes. Polymorphing into a Firbolg, while making the half-orcs and goliaths in your party cry, seems pretty tame compared to the potential of the various shapechanging abilities.

Well, natural armor is just a joke how it's arranged, but that's a problem with monster design more so than the D20 system itself. Similarly handing off monster abilities like wishes is more a problem with shapechange and individual monsters than it is with any fundamentals of D20.

If the designers wanted to make polymorphing valid, monsters would get the same types of bonuses PCs do. And instead of a dragon being +30 natural armor and nothing else ,it would be +12 armor, +5 natural armor enhancement, +3 natural armor, +5 deflection, +3 insight and so on, exactly as a PC would look like. The AC problem is fixable, it's not easy, since it involves rewriting the MM, but it is fixable.

Giving out free wishes and crazy abilities can be fixed too by either changing shapechange or making another category of non-transferable supernatural abilities.

The main thing however which can't be fixed is the affects of getting super high strength on combat, and that's basically what breaks the druid at the lowest levels. Strength and natural weapon routines. You're getting massive strength scores and a better iterative attack sequence than a fighter, and that's why the druid dominates.

But the issue of high strength things isn't necessarily fixable by D20, because if bigger=stronger, which it generally should, you instantly get a crazy melee monster.

[Josh_Kablack]

For the Druid "frob" go with this version

1. Druids no longer cast spells other than summon monster.

Give them Augment Summon for free, up the durations at low level, and they are probably just barely still playable pre-wildshape.

And I was about to contradict Frank's blanket assertion by pointing to a single monster with a decent Change Shape ability - but upon rereading I noticed that Araneas get to move at 50' while appearing as a small humanoid for no good reason - At least Barghest Change Shape is still workable.

[Crissa]

Geez, you'd think I'd gutted the class. How is a spell-less Druid now less powerful than a Ranger or Monk or Fighter? They all get abilities every level.

Anyhow, that's not the point. The point was 'how do you deal with spellcasting?'

-Crissa

[Username17]

Geez, you'd think I'd gutted the class.

It's a primary spellcaster. You suggested removing the spellcasting. That's completely gutting the class. By definition.

And yet, it's still not enough to keep the game from getting stupid at high levels with their inclusion. A high level Druid can still grant wishes to all her friends. A much better solution is to simply remove Wildshape from the game altogether. It's not elegant, but that change alone puts the Druid back into the realm where other classes can deal and compete.

-Username17

[Murtak]

Geez, you'd think I'd gutted the class. How is a spell-less Druid now less powerful than a Ranger or Monk or Fighter? They all get abilities every level.

1. You did.
2. You left the most abusive ability of the class in.
3. "An ability every level" is not necessarily the same as "an ability every level". Far from it.
4. You left the other casters unchanged!

Anyhow, that's not the point. The point was 'how do you deal with spellcasting?'

By letting and/or encouraging the fighter types to never take an empty level, by handing out high stats, by having ample cash available, by kicking any "hey, look at me I am a fighter" type buffs of the caster's lists and by the occassional power up, such as giving classes like the Kensai full BAB.

And if anything the casters are still more useful than the fighter types.

[RandomCasualty]

Handling casters versus fighters pretty much involves taking out a few super combos.

Mainly controlling buff whoring and controlling those few broken spells that can get blatantly abused to destroy the game, like the polymorph tree, caster level abuse with holy word and stuff like that.

For the most part a mage just casting save or dies or direct damage isn't going to be all that powerful. So long as you don't allow them to get ahold of some cheese power combos.

[Crissa]

So, to make a long post short, take all the fun out of casters, and then they'll be balanced.

If you take all the casting out of a class, then it's obviously terrible.

Do you guys play any class other than Cleric and Wizard? Sheesh.

And lastly, no one has any rule tweaks which don't primarily rely on changing the spell list. Check.

-Crissa

[User3]

And lastly, no one has any rule tweaks which don't primarily rely on changing the spell list. Check.

The Sorcerer is a good class, even being one level behind the Wizard, but only if you restrict the spell list to only the good spells. Take out the crap one-shot spells like Arcane Lock or Floating Disk, and make his list full of spells like Polymorph and Blink and he can be on par with a Wizard who doesn't have the spellbooks of 60 different Wizards.

[Crissa]

K: Change the spell list, and these classes balance.

Okay, okay. So no one has any other suggestions aside from changing the spell lists? (And some spells themselves)

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

The easiest way to balance sorcerer and wizard IMO is just to say that spells refresh at the end of the adventure, not at the end of each day. Then the extra spells per day may actually be useful for something.

I really find that that solution alone is usually sufficient to balance out the majority of caster problems.

It doesn't tend to make much sense from a story standpoint, but it works great for running a game.

[Username17]

Wizards and Sorcerers don't really have any mechanics except for their spells. There really isn't any class there except for a pointer to the spell system. There's no "tweaks" that are available to the class that will make them balanced, because there's a giant red arrow that goes directly to several hundreds of pages of spell descriptions that in turn are collectively game destroying in literally dozens of ways, many of which are subtle.

Balancing a system requires that you find a balance point to put it against. Even assuming that you found such a point that you liked, there is no subtle tweak that you can make to any of the spellcasting classes that will put them on par with any selected balance point. It's just not a reasonable demand.

---

But let's assume that we had a balance point, and the balance point we had decided upon was of a straight Rogue who got themselves a Ring of Blinking at the first available opportunity and fought with thrown acid and alchemist's fire. So at 9th level, you have a character who is throwing 3 vials a round which are automatically sneak attacks against pretty much everyone (because as a Blinking character she is treated as an invisible attacker at range even against creatures that can perceive invisible opponents, and as a ranged attack user she bypasses blind-fighting). And you have just enough character wealth to get a token of Gravestrike and such, so that your character can sneak attack all that bullshit that's for unknown reasons immune to sneak attacks.

That's a reasonable character to take as a balance point. She's effective against most enemies, she can take out a CR 9 foe in just a few rounds, and she can contribute to a surprisingly large number of non-combat challenges that the party is expected to face.

So what needs to be done to get other people on board? Lots.

Barbarians: The straight classed Barbarian has by this point fallen horribly behind. She hasn't gotten a real class feature since level 5 (when she got the ability to not be flanked, an ability that she loses if she ever multiclasses out of Barbarian). There isn't an available easy tweak to get her up to speed, because there isn't anything here. But something that remotely resembles an easy tweak might be to make Rage be unlimited in uses/day at level 3, drop Improved Uncanny Dodge down to level 4, and then simply replace the level abilities from level 5-14 with that of the Frenzied Berserker class (giving out Righteous Wrath as a bonus feat at level 3). That doesn't go 1-20, and it doesn't solve all of the multiclass problems the class has, but it covers most levels that people actually play at for the single classed Barbarian.

Bard: OMG, has the 3.5 Bard been molestered. The Bard doesn't keep up with the Rogue in this analysis if she stays single classed, and loses everything if she multiclasses. She can be helped a lot by using the 3rd edition rules for Perform. And by making Bardic Music not require concentration actions/allow magic actions while in use. But that's only the beginning. She still needs save DCs that keep up with her level, so all of her magic should have the Save DCs set by her character level, not by the spell level (which after all, grows slower than a real caster's spell level or a standard ability's save modifier from hit dice).

That's a start, but her songs are still ass, so you'll need to scavenge some new ones and put them in somewhere. And this still doesn't fix the multiclass Bard.

Cleric The Cleric has two class features: bonus domains (which are frontloaded and unbalanced at first level, but largely irrelevent by 4th level), and Turn Undead (which by itself is meaningless past about level 2). Other than that, they are a pointer to a spell system that is honestly beyond repair. There is no fix for this class that is describable in less than a 50 post flame-war.

Druid: At high levels, the spells she gets are going to destroy time and space. But right now at 9th level she's already destroying the game balance just by transforming into shit. Wildshape doesn't work and isn't salvageable. It's interactivity with basic assumptions of statistic management and bonus accumulation are inherently unworkable. This class is not fixable without declaring a new design intent for transformation, building rules that actually correspond to that design intent, and then building an entirley new class around those rules. If you want a quick fix, you have to just put a big red X through this class.

Fighter Sigh. The Fighter should get a Bonus Feat every level. She shouldn't have to qualify for those feats. Her class features should be to get Perfect Multiweapon Weapon Fighting or Elusive Target, not Dodge or Power Attack. Even then the Fighter is tragically unable to actually participate in the adventure. For starters, you could up her skills/level to 4. And then give her a class list. Since it's a build-your-own-class class, she should probably have every skill on her class list. That might get her up to where she needs to be.

Monk Her entire class feature list is that she is almost as good as the Rogue is when she has her short sword and short bow even when unarmed. That's not acceptable. There's a class ability or three listed at every level, but that's all smoke and mirrors - there are no class features in this class. The quick fix is to give this class the big red X and move on as if it had never happened. D&D has never had a satisfactory unarmed combat system, and writing one is a prerequisite for this class even existing. Whatever form it then took would be with respect to the decent unarmed combat system you had written, and I have no idea what that would even look like.

Paladin: Paladins keep up fairly well for about 5 levels, after which they stop getting abilities. First of all, Turn Undead needs to be based on your whole character level, because otherwise Paladin turning is a sick joke. Also, Paladins should have the Sun Domain for free. Secondly, extra Remove Diseases every week isn't a class feature. Remove Disease should just be at will at level 4. Third, the Mount should scale to your power level. That means that your mount should pick up 1 CR worth of powers or hit dice every level. And that shouldn't cost you a damned thing, because you already had the class feature "Mount that's about 2 or 3 CR less than your level" at level 5. Abilities for levels 6-15 would be nice, a quick list might be:
6: Mettle, War Domain
7: Burst of Speed, Ride Bonus
8: Planar Turning
9: Deadly Charge 1/Foe/day, Weapon Specialization
10: Leadership
11: True Death, Sealed Life
12: Nonlethal Strike, Fiendslaying
13: Defensive Stance +/- BAB, Rallying Cry, Final Stand
14: Continuous Magic Circle Against Evil, Exorcism.
15: Holy Aura, Sacred Defense, Continuous Sacrifice.

Also, you'd have to fix the mounted combat and charge rules so that they actually work. I suggest just using the 3rd edition rules. But allowing everyone to have the Halfling Outrider abilities as standard uses for the Ride skill would be another partial solution. And no, this doesn't address the basic inequities of multiclassed Paladins particularly.

Ranger: The Ranger's "Fighting Style" ability is that her fighting style only gets a little worse as she rises in level instead of a lot worse. Her Animal Companion should follow the full Druidic advancement for her character level and get some additional bonuses as her level rises in order to keep it from falling so far behind. The 2nd level combat style ability should allow you to select Perfect Two Wepaon Fighting or Uncanny Accuracy. The Ranger then needs real spellcasting or real class features or both. Right now, the Ranger could just get Druidic Spellcasting starting at level 4 and that wouldn't be a big deal except that she'd still need a hit die based save DC. Or she could get all the Horizon Walker's abilities on top of everything she normally gets from levels 3-12.

Sorcerer: Go crazy with the nerf stick for a while getting rid of every spell that breaks the game. Then the Sorcerer should be able to restructure her spell list at the rate of one spell known per day. Then do something to all the many many spells that aren't nearly powerful enough. Call me in like three years when you're done.

Wizard: Like Sorcerer really. Once you've balanced the hundreds of pages of spellcasting source material, the class is balanced by definition because there isn't anything else left. At that point, the Wizard will still probably kick the Sorcerer in the nuts, but maybe not depending upon how you've restructured the spells.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I've been waiting to kick this rant out of Frank for ages, but...

...How do we play the game today?

1. Make new spell lists.
2. Make abilities scale with level.
3. Make each fighting class special, remembering that they have to compete with the spell list.
4. Throw out tonnes of stuff.

I see that, but... We need to play today, and we want to play D&D.

How do we do that, Frank? New thread?

-Crissa

[Murtak]

1. Go through the spell list and kick out the most obvious offenders. The kick out all spells that let the caster mimic class abilities (gain to hit bonuses, damage bonus, BAB, skill bonuses, etc).
2. Be ready to kick out more spells as you go.
3. Encourage, no, force the melee characters to multiclass the second their old class does not give them a decent ability. Along the way get rid of exp penalties for multiclassing and kick out PrC requirements that have you take weak feats or skills.
4. While you are at it, let them take a look at templates.
5. Hand out a lot of stat points.
6. Hand out a lot of gear.
7. More encounters and no easy resting. If the casters do not run dry every other day squeeze in more encounters.

That will probably still not balance your games. But with a little luck it may come close. Oh, and of course it only works for hack and slash games with some sort of time limit.

[dbb]

The best and simplest way to play D&D today without letting spellcasters dominate the game utterly is, in my opinion:

0) Don't play at high levels.
1) Play with core-only spells and primary caster prestige classes.
2) Give noncasters much freer rein in what they're allowed to bring in.
3) Hit the player of any spellcaster who tries to Fabricate/Major Creation/Planar Bind/Gate/etc. herself into Ultimate Power in the head with a mallet.
4) For Druids abusing Wild Shape or anyone abusing Polymorph, see #3.

That's really not perfect or even close; well-played primary spellcasters will still be amazing good and noncasters who aren't well-built will fall drastically behind at middle and higher levels, and there's just no way to avoid that without falling into a situation where you end up nerfing stuff at the table constantly, aggravating yourself and infuriating your players.

But it's probably the most livable combination short of performing a major rewrite on the game system. The mechanics aren't balanced and there aren't any quick and dirty fixes to make them balanced; but the good news is that many players don't know or care where the system's breaking points are and don't expect to be allowed to exploit them if they do.

--d.

[Crissa]

Why does everyone's suggestions always delve into 'remove all the fun stuff, give all the toys to the fighter'?

How come no one has ideas like making Paladin spellcasting stack with Sorcerer?

-Crissa

[Essence]

...How do we play the game today?

Seven Steps:

Step one: Find a copy of Chonjurer's Problematic Spell List for 3.5. Throw out every spell labled "Game Breaking", and be prepared to deal with the other problems on the fly.

Step two: Throw out the Barbarian, the Druid, and the Monk.

Step three: deal with the Fighter classes.
[*]Drop the Ranger's BAB to middle, and give him the Druid's spellcasting ability and a fully functional animal companion.
[*]Combine the Barbarian and the Fighter. Give the class a d12 HD, access to both skill lists, and have it gain both a feat every level and all of the barbarian class features. Call it the Fighter so that it can gain access to Weapon Specialization. Add a special class feature at levels 5, 11, and 17 that allow it to cast Dispel Magic, Greater Dispelling, and Mage's Disjunction respectively once per day per point of Charisma as a melee attack action with the range of whatever weapon they’re wielding and a CL equal to their character level. Call it “Mystic Strike” or some such crap. Finally, give them Spell Resistance 11+class level at 1st level.
[*]Make the Paladin a PrC, with the first 5 class levels only, accessible by any Lawful Good character with a +4 BAB, and give him a spell level every level for those 5 levels, as per Ur-Priest or Divine Crusader, with Cleric spellcasting.

Step four: Deal with the Rogue-types.
[*] Rogues need a class features that allows them to take feats with a “+1 BAB” prerequisite at 1st level.
[*] Give Bards a high BAB and allow them to cast spells from the entire Wizard and Cleric spell lists. Let them cast while they do their Bardic Music thing.

Step five: Deal with the Caster-types.
[*] Clerics, once their spell list is gutted, probably deserve an additional Domain at levels 7, 13, and 19.
[*] Sorcerers can be left exactly as they are in the 3.5 PHB, except to give them a medium BAB and to let them Quicken.
[*] Wizards should probably have a Bonus Feat at first level instead of being forced to take Scribe Scroll.

Step six: Deal with the fact that Skills suck bantha anus.
[*] Climb, Jump, and Swim need to be a single skill called Athletics.
[*] Balance, Escape Artist, and Tumble need to be a single skill called Acrobatics.
[*] Forgery and Appraise should be part of Craft.
[*] Open Lock should be a special function of Disable Device that uses Dex instead of Int
[*] Profession and Knowledge should be merged into a skill called Background
[*] Handle Animal should be a Charisma check
[*] Use Rope should be a Dex check
[*] Now that the skill list is much smaller, give Rogues 10+Int skills, Bards 8+Int skills, Rangers and Fighters 6+Int skills, and absolutely everyone else 4+Int skills.

Step Seven: Deal with the fact that Money is Not a Good Resource past about level 5.
[*] Make a general rule: magical items, in addition to their money cost, have a cost in Bonding Points.
[*] Every item’s BP cost is equal to it’s GP cost.
[*] Every character has a number of BP equal to the Wealth Per Level Guidelines in the DMG.
[*] Bonding to (or Debonding from) an item takes (or gives) a number of BP equal to it’s BP cost, and takes an hour-long ritual per item in either direction.


That should leave you with a game that’s playable. Not unbreakable, but solidly playable.

The Bard is still the all-arounder, but with a high BAB and real spells, he’s not going to be the suck all the time.
The Cleric is still a solid class.
The Fighter is still going to be a little weak, but not until 15th level or so, when Maze still unstoppably removes them from any fight.
The Ranger is on par with the Cleric, but with more of a combat focus and less spellcasting.
The Rogue, now able to take Weapon Finesse at level one, doesn’t ever have to suck.
The Sorcerer is basically a ranged-touch-attack machine with his middle BAB and decent ranged-touch attack spells.
The Wizard is still strong, even with the game-breaking spells removed from his book.