[D&D] Another try at balancing out mages.

[AbusePuppy]

Because it needs to be done, ya hear?

This idea originally stemmed from a d20 variant of D&D I have been working on for a one-shot campaign, but it seemed like it might be workable elsewhere. The basic idea is that magic is powerful, but slow. Magicians need time and focus to cast their spells- calling upon the might of the universe itself is not an easy thing to do.

Rules

1. All spells take longer to cast than their standard D&D versions. Use the following table for the time for general spells. (Unless otherwise noted, psionics, invocations and other spellish powers should follow these same guidelines.)
All spell casting times are measured in full-round actions. A character casting magic provokes an attack of opportunity from opponents who threaten him each turn on his action while casting a spell. Similarly, Concentration checks (to cast defensively or ignore interruptions from damage) must be made each turn. If a character's focus is ever broken (i.e. fail a concentration check) then the spell is ruined.
Targets for a spell are always chosen when it finishes. The caster may also choose not to finish a spell, which wastes it without effect. At DM discretion, doing this with a high-power spell might be unpredictable or even dangerous...
First and second level spells take one round.
Third, fourth and fifth level spells take two rounds.
Sixth through nineth level spells take three rounds.
Any spell that would normall take a full-round action (instead of a standard action) takes one additional round.
Quick-, free- and immediate-action spells remain the same.
Spontaneous spells enhanced by a metamagic feat (like those of sorcerers, etc) do not change in casting time.
Spells that take more than one round to cast should have their times adjusted by the DM (or not adjusted, as it may be) on a case-by-case basis. In general, any spell that takes more than a minute to cast probably doesn't need to have its time increased.
Spells which grant a temporary "ability" that can be discharged- such as calling a thunderbolt or unleashing a blast of flame- may also need to have the time needed for the ability altered. In general, such abilities should be full-round actions if they were standard actions before.
A spell being used to counter an opposing spell takes one round fewer than normal, to a minimum of one round. Spellcraft rolls to identify a spell can be made at any time during its casting. When the counterspell finishes, it "readies" itself for the spell it is opposing and will go off if the opponent's spell is made that turn; otherwise, it is wasted without effect.


How does this affect gameplay?

Healing is harder to use in combat. More powerful heal spells may not go off in time, so characters may have to rely on weaker ones. Clerics become even more important and must focus more exclusively on keeping others alive.
Encounters are slower. Without high-damage magic flying about, characters cannot down monsters nearly as easily. This means they will suffer more damage over the course of an encounter.
Extrodinary, supernatural and spell-like abilities become much more powerful. You may need to increase their use times as well or decrease their power.
Magic items with activated abilities become much stronger. It is greatly suggested that you limit the presence (or decrease the charges, or increase the activation time) of such items in your game. Note that items with static abilities do not change much.
Several metamagic feats, most noticably Quicken Spell, change greatly in power.
Sorcerer metamagic becomes much more powerful, since it no longer has any penalty for them. It may be nescessary to inflict a "finalizing" standard action when such metamagic is used.
Several of the base and prestige classes, mainly the caster/melee hyrbids, become all but impossible. Significant alterations will have to be made if your players insist on using them.


I would like to note that this system is still in the realm of testing; I haven't actually played out any games with this system, although I intend to eventually. Comments, criticism and suggestions as well as number crunches and random thoughts on the matter would be extremely welcome.
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[Linklegacy77]

I see quite a few problems with this. First, it turns combat into: Protect the Mage! This can lead to the game being a whole hell of a lot less fun. It also makes casters almost unplayable, and makes quicken spell unusable except on 1-3 level spells. Also, you've made metamagic on Sorcerer's almost completely unusable, since it normally makes them take a full round to cast the spell after applying the metamagic.

[Xaden]

I do agree that high level wizards and sorcerers do have the ability to wield vast amounts of power, but I'm not sure that there's a balance issue there. Compaire them to a fighter; okay, in one round an arcane spellcaster can do vast amounts of damage, and probably a good bit more than a fighter (and certainly on a larger scale), but lets flip this a little. If the group gets hit by one of these powerful damage spells, who's better off? The fighter (most likely) has a significantly larger amount of HPs, also, while there's nothing to guarantee this, a fighter is a little more likely to have more Dexterity than the arcane dude and therefore a slightly better Reflex save (and therefore increased chance of taking less damage) and if it's a fort save, then the fighter is doing great!

There are other issues to consider though, like AC. A fighter can don heavy armors (and there are genearlly few reasons not to, except for a high dexterity which means he's doing great in light armor anyways), and arcane guys generally won't since it can really limit, if not cripple, their spellcasting abilities. Maybe the wizard is wearing Bracers of Armor +whatever, well why won't the fighter then have +whatever armor and probably +whatever shield. +5 Full plate (+13 AC) is better than Bracers of Armor +8, where they generally max out. And even if the fighter is wearing a chain shirt +5 (because he has a high Dex and prefers the mobility it allows) he's still got +9 AC from the armor and a high dex bonus to AC (and any possible shield bonuses he might have).

The arcane guys have only a high Will save, which doesn't really protect against many damaging effects (not fireballs, dragon breath, colapsing ceilings, etc.). Okay, you can't take control of his mind, not a big deal if you take away all his HPs, who wants mental control of a dead unanimated corpse anyways? There's also the issue of anti-magic fields which bring an aracnist to his knees, while warrior types don't really care much (their magic items don't work, but they can ususally get by in those situations (or the DM created an impossible situation in which case none of this matters)). You might argue that if you take away a fighter's toys, okay then it's the arcanist's time to shine, but I think anit-magic fields are slightly more common and "easy to come by" then a group losing all its weapons and armors (anti-magic from items, spells, the central eye of a beholder; while no toys when you're captured and they're taken away, but if you're really captured that often, why hasen't someone just killed you yet?). I would mention Spell Resistance, but there's also Damage Reduction, and they kind of balance eachother out (not really though, 'cause SR is hit or miss, and even on a hit there's generally still a saving throw, while DR there's usually still a decent chance of damage by a good fighter type, but close enough).

There's also the point that an arcanist's spells can be disrupted. If the enemies have some cognative and reasoning ability and they notice a powerful spellcaster (or know of him/her) one or more of these guys should be holding actions to hit that spellcaster when he/she starts casting spells, force them to make concentration checks to cast their spells (a group I was playing with once did this on an enemy caster, but with several group members, that guy never stood a chance! Bam!). You can't do this with fighters and other such types, there is no disrupting really (there are some ways, such as the right spell, or maybe tripping them, but that just doesn't have quite the same effect).

So arcanists are easier to hurt, have less life, can be rendered fairly unhelpful (especially at the higher levels when they start getting those really nice, delicious, uber-good spells... mmmmmm...) with the right creature or enemy spellcaster (no, this shouldn't be done all the time, but I still think it's a valid point), and their main force can be disrupted. These guys have thier weaknesses, their balances and checks are in place, I don't really think they need to be rendered more unhelpful. Maybe I'm the only one, but I think arcanists are fine.

Now divine spellcasters, maybe a different story. Generally speaking, they have pretty good HP, average BAB, genearlly a couple of good saves, can wear some (if not all) armor and shields. About the only thing going against them is that their spells can still be disrupted with well-timed attacks, and their spells tend to not be quite as impressive are arcane magic (okay, they still have some really good spells, especially at the higher levels, but still not quite as good as arcane spells, at least not with sheer devistational raw power). And the other thing going against them is at least some restrictions on their actions (due to their diety) lest they be stripped of their spells and other "spiffy" abilities, but is that really enough? ...Maybe?:worry:

[Mercutio]

Actually, strangely AbusePuppy and I are in some agreement here. I haven't actually tried to playtest my thoughts, but I'm hugely in favor of increasing casting times. I'm not sure I'd do it so arbitrarily as to designate spell levels and casting times.

I actually haven't sat down to write down my ideas, but things like Quicken Spell would work as written (at least in my head), or you could have to option to cast a spell at a weaker level so that it's quicker. Say a fireball takes one full round to cast. Or you could cast a weak fireball at cost of a 2nd level spell that takes a regular standard action and only does 3d6 damage. Or you could cast it as a free action, using up a 1st level spell slot, and it does 1d6 damage.

Again, just thoughts and brainstorms. I definitely think things like Miracle and Wish and Time Stop should take more time to cast.

[akiko]

Sorcerer metamagic becomes much more powerful, since it no longer has any penalty for them. It may be nescessary to inflict a "finalizing" standard action when such metamagic is used.
Several of the base and prestige classes, mainly the caster/melee hyrbids, become all but impossible. Significant alterations will have to be made if your players insist on using them.

For the sorcerer I don't think the boost in power is a problem. I think they were so weak before the difference is negligible.

For the combo classes I guess you are saying gish builds are a no-no. I think they would be less viable but still cool if not even more so. They would go with quickened lesser buffs than the better ones.

For the time adjustment based on level I assumed that is metamagic adjusted level (if the spell is). So a 6 level heightened 3rd level spell takes as long as a ninth level spell.

@Link: I don't know about you but many of our combats are this now. We protect our mage and I don't see anything too different here. I love the idea of a protect the mage where he is actually vulnerable. But then again different strokes for different folks. Are your combats different?

Adidtion: I think with this system a spellcaster may need to get Skill focus(Concentration) for free to counter the fact that we will be rolling a whole lot more of them and even more of them with his higher level spells. Maybe some new feats that allow him to ignore X amount of damage a round when making concentration checks. Start at 2 and have it tree up to like 6 or something.

Oh, if it isn't obvious I like this idea. I think it fits in line more with the high fantasy the way I see it. Anyone read the manga Negima? The wizards in there are useless without partners because they can just have their nose flicked and the spell disrupted.

[Linklegacy77]

Akiko:

Yeah, our battles usually are different. Most of the time, the mage makes sure to keep himself protected, so that nobody else has to, or only one person does. And the few times it has been "Protect the mage," only the mage had any fun, as everybody was pretty PO'ed about having to babysit him instead of doing what their characters were built to do.

[AbusePuppy]

Link:

First off, this doesn't increase the caster's power level any (quite the opposite), so there's no more incentive to "protect the caster," only more of a need if he begins casting powerful spells. With the overall encounter difficulty lowered, it favors the non-magic classes more, as they have a chance to be able to kill a monster on their own. What you'll likely see is the mage opening with some weak spells to avoid getting attention and then using something powerful (Fireball, Cone of Cold, etc) as a finishing touch. Certainly, you can spend all your time protecting the mage (and hence letting him use his strongest spells), but I don't think it's nescessary by these rules.

Basically, the casters need to learn to be self-sufficient no matter what the game. "Protect the mage" as a standard combat tactic is boring but an occasional battle with "oh noes we have to hold off the big bad monstar long enough for our mage to cast a spell" can be intersting, especially if it decides to ignore the fighter and go straight for him, forcing them to use wacky combat maneuvers like bull rush and such. My point is that the fighter doesn't assume he's going to get a free Cure Critical every round, nor should the mage assume he's never going to be attacked.

Also, I specifically note that metamagic-enhanced sorcerer spells do not have increased casting times unless your DM thinks they should.

Quicken Spell, as printed and with these rules, is nonfunctional. I think it could be workable by making it more literally a "quickened" spell, increasing the spell level by a variable amount to decrease the casting time. I'm thinking a straight one-level-is-one-round might not work, but that could take some testing. As I said, this is far from complete and upsets many of the existing feats and abilities.

Xaden:
The problem is that in addition to their offensive spells wizards (and other casters) get many excellent defensive spells as well. From simply taking themselves out out of range (Fly) to disappearing (Invisibility, Mirror Image) to outright immunity (Globe of Minor Invulnerability) and more, casters have plenty of defenses to keep themselves safe even without the aid of the fighter-types. Clerics are even worse in this regard because they have better defensive spells and can wear full armor without penalty.

Frankly, armor is overrated. At high CRs monsters very nearly auto-hit with their main attacks and often with secondary as well. (Dragons get up to +42 attack bonuses in some cases. Even on a natural 1 that hits +5 full plate with max dex and some other stuff.) It certainly has its uses but a bit of metal doesn't do nearly as much as you might think.

Mercutio:
I do like the idea of "weakened" spells being castable faster. It might make in interesting metamagic feat to play around with.

Akkiko:
The sorcerer idea was presented as an option and something to keep in mind about what the system does. Sorcerers are a bit weak in normal D&D, so I don't really feel bad about tweaking them up in power with this.

I don't think it's that melee/caster builds can't work, just that the existing prestige classes need to be messed with to do so. Changing Quicken Spell, as I mentioned above, would go a long ways towards doing that. It does make such prestige classes more impressive, however, as casting spells and fighting at the same time could be quite powerful (comparatively speaking; right now they're ridiculously weak).

It might be nescessary to tweak Concentration a bit, but note that your ranks in the skill go up faster than the DC does, which eventually gets to the point where you auto-succeed your "cast on the defensive" roll, which sort of takes away the point. From some quick calculations it seems like everything should still work okay (remember, low level spells don't give much chance to be disrupted), although perhaps adding a 1st level spell that gives bonuses to Concentration checks might be nice.

>.> Negima... Go get yourself some manga with a plot. No, I kid, but I'm really not a fan of his work. That was the basic concept, though: magic is powerful but fragile. A mage by his lonesome is in for some really bad times. (Gold Digger was also part of my inspiration for the idea, as the magic users in it often have to use weaker, quicker spells when engaged in combat.)
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