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quick_comment
2009-07-27, 08:15 PM
Here is a thought exercise - what do we need to take away from the wizard to bring them down to tier 3?

1 spell per day per level?

No spells above level 6?

Auto-fail all saves?


I think that T3, which is things like ToB classes and such, are about equal to a wizard with no spells above level 5 or 6 (with the spell progression stretched out to fit 20 levels)


What do you think?

Yukitsu
2009-07-27, 08:31 PM
I'm currently running a wizard that runs off about as many spells per day as she has levels, doesn't roll for saves (avoids them instead) and is beating CR 15 encounters at level 8, and thus with level 4 spells. In addition, my DM has given me 3 schools of magic instead of 8 without the benefits of specialization (illusion, necromancy, conjuration) and has axed both bonus feats, wizard familiar class ability, and bonus feats.

My vote is basically give up on the class, and instead focus on slapping players like me with trout. It's the only way to get at the root of the problem.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-27, 08:34 PM
I'm currently running a wizard that runs off about as many spells per day as she has levels, doesn't roll for saves (avoids them instead) and is beating CR 15 encounters at level 8, and thus with level 4 spells. In addition, my DM has given me 3 schools of magic instead of 8 without the benefits of specialization (illusion, necromancy, conjuration) and has axed both bonus feats, wizard familiar class ability, and bonus feats.

My vote is basically give up on the class, and instead focus on slapping players like me with trout. It's the only way to get at the root of the problem.

WHAT!?

He made you give up Divination! You can't do that! You're crippled without read magic!

:smallwink:

As Yukitsu implied, it's not the wizard, it's the spells. The wizard class consists of a familiar and a few bonus feats. Fix the spells and you can leave the class as-is.

sonofzeal
2009-07-27, 08:40 PM
Isn't the Adept class T3 or T4? You might want to base a homebrew off that, instead of working from Wizard.

Jalor
2009-07-27, 08:41 PM
I've been known to play Svirfineblin Wizards, just to make it fair for the monsters. I've "defeated" encounters at mid- and high levels with a single silent image from a moderately optimized Master Specialist with good save DCs.

It's not the class, it's the fact that arcanists can reshape matter with their thoughts while the rest of the party is left trying to beat people with sticks.

Gaiyamato
2009-07-27, 08:42 PM
Just restrict access to the spells. So the stupid stuff is removed, tailor the enemy to not be to OP.
Essentially flying becomes rare, invisibility becomes rare etc.

If a Wizard wants one of the spells then make him sweat for it. Game altering stuff is not so much of a problem if the players went through hell to get it. Make sure you restrict what the wizard can get for the free spells as well, so powerful stuff must be earned.

Increase the material component costs and make the wizard list what he has for materials. This can get very tedious at high levels however and makes downtime more consuming for the wizard. But really, wizards are meant to have to work hard for spells and power.

Losing Divination completely breaks the Wizard in half, this is a bad idea as he can no longer function in his roles.

Yukitsu
2009-07-27, 08:44 PM
It's OK, as I took the oracle domain via arcane devotion. :smalltongue:

Jalor
2009-07-27, 08:47 PM
In my low-magic world, there are no arcane or divine casters at all. There are only the generic Warrior and Expert classes from UA, and the Shadowcaster from ToM, which is underpowered compared to a normal arcanist.

It's a harsh fix, but it stops Batman from destroying the campaign.

Clementx
2009-07-27, 08:53 PM
Remove/nerf alarm, alter self, antimagic field, blink, contingency, creeping doom, disjunction, dispel chaos/law, elemental swarm, entropic shield, fabricate, flesh to stone, forcecage, foresight, freedom of movement, gate, glitterdust, grease, greater teleport, iron body, magic mouth, Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion, mount, permanency, phantom steed, planar binding, polymorph, polymorph any object, prying eyes, greater prying eyes, ray of enfeeblement, rope trick, shapechange, statue, stone to flesh, Tensor's transformation, time stop, wail of the banshee, and wind wall.

That should take care of core, for the most part. There are some other logical holes to plug up, but that should eliminate the majority of Batman wizards.

EDIT: Added a couple spells which were addressed with less-direct changes. Grease, for instance, is a lot less useful when you aren't flat-footed while balancing, and is merged with Tumble.

DragoonWraith
2009-07-27, 08:54 PM
On a cursory glance, you're missing Grease and Solid Fog.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-07-27, 08:55 PM
Tier three classes are good at one or two things, so we will have to figure out what we want wizards to be good at and then go from there.

jmbrown
2009-07-27, 09:03 PM
Hit the wizard where it hurts. In the pocketbook. Buying scrolls and copying spells isn't cheap from levels 1-10 and then it balances itself off once you start raking in 20k+ per level.

From there, make spells rare. Why is it that Bumbleton, Littleshire has infinite teleportation and plane shift scrolls lying around? For that matter, spells should even be rare in major cities. If a wizard is wealthy enough to buy a level 6 scroll at base price the seller rightfully assumes the wizard can buy it up to 150% of its base price.

Mark items up! Wizards are generally covetous of their knowledge and the generous/good wizards tend to believe that magic is a powerful force of destruction that should only be handled by other trustful wizards. Magic scrolls and spellbooks shouldn't be available at flea markets and bazaars for the base price especially when higher level spells alter physics and kill instantly.

In fact, there should be a ban or license on magic like that. A good empire certainly shouldn't allow civilians to sell POWER WORD KILL in the streets. A lawful empire shouldn't allow plane shift or teleport out of fear that someone might bring back an outsider or infiltrate secret areas. An evil empire could require a heavy tax to fund their own research (150-200% mark up!) or ban magic altogether to keep the secrets to themselves. If I ran an evil empire I certainly wouldn't want potential enemies gaining power.

In short the biggest way to screw wizards is to limit their availability to the 2 spells per level they can freely learn. Magic scrolls above 3rd level should be rare luxury at best.

PId6
2009-07-27, 09:07 PM
Or, you know, just ask the wizard player not to break the game. You don't need 100% balance as long as the wizard isn't Astral Projecting 24/7 or something and the lower tiers are powered up a bit.

Fostire
2009-07-27, 09:12 PM
Suggestion 1: Increase casting times. Instead of casting time being 1 std action, make it lower the wizards initiative count like it worked back in 2e. So if a wizard that rolled 14 on his initiative casted a spell with a casting time of 4, the spell would begin casting in initiative count 14 and go off in initiative count 10 This makes it so that other people have more opportunities of interrupting casting. For example if an enemy goes on initiative count 12 he can attack (maybe even with a full attack) and attempt to break the wiz's concentration.
This of course requires that you change every spell in the game so as to give it an adequate casting time, so it's not a simple solution.

Suggestion 2: increase the time it takes to prepare spells. This too is something I took from 2e. Back in 2e the time it took to prepare a wizards spells wasn't a flat 1 hour, but instead it was 10 minutes per spell level per spell. Thus preparing a single 1st level spell took 10 minutes while a single 9th level spell took an hour and a half. If you use this in 3.5 a 20th level wizard with a low intelligence of 20 would take 1960 minutes to memorize all of his spells (about 32 and a half hours).

With these two suggestions in play, no wizard will dare to go around flinging spells at everything that moves.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-27, 09:12 PM
Or, you know, just ask the wizard player not to break the game. You don't need 100% balance as long as the wizard isn't Astral Projecting 24/7 or something and the lower tiers are powered up a bit.

I definitely agree with that last part--you can't fix the wizard in a vacuum, you need to bring the underpowered classes up to a reasonable level as well, and if you do that less drastic changes will be necessary for the wizard.

Milskidasith
2009-07-27, 09:13 PM
Suggestion 2 wouldn't change anything once a wizard could go to his own demiplane where 32 hours passed in one standard action.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-07-27, 09:15 PM
In short the biggest way to screw wizards is to limit their availability to the 2 spells per level they can freely learn. Magic scrolls above 3rd level should be rare luxury at best.

Giving the wizard the only slightly more spells that the sorcerer only makes them a high tier 2/low tier one class.

The problem isn't so much the wizard having a lot of spells as the spells he has being very, very powerful.

Under your system, a wizard still gets 6 9th level spells, and 4 spells of each level from 2-8th. This is enough under the current rules to wreck major havoc.

aje8
2009-07-27, 09:15 PM
To both of you with the make spells rare/expesnive...... um no.

Timestop is so broken it needs to not exist. It can't be rare..... same with Polymorph, planar binding ect. Because as soon as they get one such spell..... they need almost nothing else.

The three things wizards should be good at: Battlefield control, Buffing, Debuffing but NOT to the point of death.

The 2nd two because they help the whole party and thus are relativley fun.

Leave Glitterdust, Solid Fog because it's basically Wizard's major thing and most of what they do anyways.

Honestly, high level spells that do these 3 things aren't really that good..... how many good 9th level buffs can you name? Shapechange us obviously non-existant as the whole polymorph line has to go.

This is going to mean removing almost all of thier Utility..... no teleport aside from aritfact level magic items for example. It's also going to mean removing thier defense spells....if Wizards have fly, invisability, polymorph line and Summon Monster III they don't need a fighter. Without none of that they do.

The biggest problem with this is you no longer have access to fly and telport with regularity..... maybe make CHARGED Magic Items of those spells realtivley common.

DragoonWraith
2009-07-27, 09:21 PM
Put a lot of spells on special lists that you can only get if you specialize in that class. So maybe you can get Teleport (which is given a much longer casting time), but Dimension Door and Greater Teleport are for Conjurers only (err. OK, and fix the Schools, because Conjurers will be the only specialists anyone with a brain ever makes if this is the case). You can get Shield, but not Mage Armor. Banishment, but Mind Blank and Prismatic stuff for Abjurer only.

Oh, and make all Wizards ban one school to start, no bonus slots.

Oslecamo
2009-07-27, 09:23 PM
I'm currently running a wizard that runs off about as many spells per day as she has levels, doesn't roll for saves (avoids them instead) and is beating CR 15 encounters at level 8, and thus with level 4 spells. In addition, my DM has given me 3 schools of magic instead of 8 without the benefits of specialization (illusion, necromancy, conjuration) and has axed both bonus feats, wizard familiar class ability, and bonus feats.


So what? I could pick up an 8th level commoner and use it to defeat a CR 15 ecounter, as long as the commoner is optimized and the CR 15 ecounter is not.

Since your DM let you pick that feat to get the oracle domain(wich is actually one of the most imba feats wizards can pick, geting divine spells for free and stuff), then he clearly doesn't have a great suspicion of balance, so I can only guess the CR 15 weren't as dangerous as that.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-07-27, 09:32 PM
To both of you with the make spells rare/expesnive...... um no.

Timestop is so broken it needs to not exist. It can't be rare..... same with Polymorph, planar binding ect. Because as soon as they get one such spell..... they need almost nothing else.

The three things wizards should be good at: Battlefield control, Buffing, Debuffing but NOT to the point of death.

The 2nd two because they help the whole party and thus are relativley fun.

Leave Glitterdust, Solid Fog because it's basically Wizard's major thing and most of what they do anyways.

Honestly, high level spells that do these 3 things aren't really that good..... how many good 9th level buffs can you name? Shapechange us obviously non-existant as the whole polymorph line has to go.

This is going to mean removing almost all of thier Utility..... no teleport aside from aritfact level magic items for example. It's also going to mean removing thier defense spells....if Wizards have fly, invisability, polymorph line and Summon Monster III they don't need a fighter. Without none of that they do.

The biggest problem with this is you no longer have access to fly and telport with regularity..... maybe make CHARGED Magic Items of those spells realtivley common.

Sounds like the 4e wizard. Battlefield control and debuffing, with some light damage, defense and utility effects.

Fostire
2009-07-27, 09:32 PM
Suggestion 2 wouldn't change anything once a wizard could go to his own demiplane where 32 hours passed in one standard action.
I took those rules straight out of 2e AD&D which made wizards really weak at low levels (you had 1 spell per day at first level) and really strong at high levels. Back then if a wizard somehow managed to survive long enough to cast 9th level spells, he deserved those spells.
Also 20th level was (originally) the maximum level, you were supposed to be pretty much a god at that point.

aje8
2009-07-27, 09:36 PM
Sounds like the 4e wizard. Battlefield control and debuffing, with some light damage, defense and utility effects.
Well.... I don't have much experience with 4th edition so I wouldn't know.

I will say that my way does it without making all the classes into the same system and while still using the Vancian spell casting system. Those are some pretty signifcant differences.

Also, I did say NO utility...... i.e no suggestion, no charm person, no teleport, no knock, ect, e

EDIT:

For the record, the school-only thing doesn't work. I only need a few game-breaking spells to be broken..... I don't need a whole list full of them. As long as the rest of my spells are decent I'll still be much better than the fighter.

It also doesn't solve the problem that Wizards can still do ALMOST anything...... honestly I only need the school-only spells from either Conjuration or Transmutation and I'd be broken with tons of utility.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-07-27, 09:36 PM
Take Wizard. Drop-kick it out the door.

Take Psion. Insta-balance. :smallbiggrin:

The big 5 are broken beyond repair. Similar to balancing a fighter, any change severe enough to balance it will leave the class so far from it's original version, you might as well start over. One of the fixes I've heard of is to homebrew more classes in the vein of Beguiler and Dread Necro, making 'Wizards' limited to one or 2 schools, with class features to balance it out(and to make PrCing less vital), but without nearly the spell options(pre-approved spell list, advanced/eclectic learning, and that's it). Seems viable IMHO, and easier in the long run than banning/balancing thousands of spells which still doesn't address required PrCing and the ACFs that are so variable in power and of course the metamagic and...yeah. Homebrewing new classes(or using psionics) is easier.

GoatToucher
2009-07-27, 09:37 PM
Combine these methods.

Categorize the existing spells into Common and Rare lists. Remove the most powerful/broken ones altogether.

The only spells a Wizard can spontaneously learn at level are Common spells and Rare spells in his specialist school (if any, this would take the wind out of a Pathfinder universalist's sails).

In terms of availability, make scrolls of Rare spells (dig this), rare and prohibitively expensive. Hell, all 8th and 9th level spells can be rare, meaning that any casting at that level is going to be difficult to arrange.

The trick is that you can't really make spells unavailable systematically. Twinky DMs will just give their players all the spells, and they'll be broken anyway. It's up to individual DMs to keep their Wizards on par with other characters to prevent them from taking everybody's lunch money.

aje8
2009-07-27, 09:41 PM
The trick is that you can't really make spells unavailable systematically. Twinky DMs will just give their players all the spells, and they'll be broken anyway. It's up to individual DMs to keep their Wizards on par with other characters to prevent them from taking everybody's lunch money.
But..... that's almost saying "houserule it" which is what we're here to do. The rules SHOULD provide for these things..... DMs shouldn't have to nerf.

Doc Roc
2009-07-27, 09:41 PM
Basically, every time the wizard casts, shock his player lightly.

Playing with the wizard's player on valium also helps matters.

aje8
2009-07-27, 09:43 PM
Basically, every time the wizard casts, shock his player lightly.

Playing with the wizard's player on valium also helps matters.
lol........

Wait no better..... Wizards must play very very drunk to show their low wisdom scores!

Yukitsu
2009-07-27, 09:45 PM
So what? I could pick up an 8th level commoner and use it to defeat a CR 15 ecounter, as long as the commoner is optimized and the CR 15 ecounter is not.

Since your DM let you pick that feat to get the oracle domain(wich is actually one of the most imba feats wizards can pick, geting divine spells for free and stuff), then he clearly doesn't have a great suspicion of balance, so I can only guess the CR 15 weren't as dangerous as that.

Actually, I spent a week IRL planning, and spent about 5000GP in expendables.

jmbrown
2009-07-27, 09:46 PM
To both of you with the make spells rare/expesnive...... um no.

Timestop is so broken it needs to not exist. It can't be rare..... same with Polymorph, planar binding ect. Because as soon as they get one such spell..... they need almost nothing else.

If a high level wizard is making the universe his playground the deities should eventually get involved. The inevitables are a race of high level sentient constructs that curb stomp people who screw physics and cheat death. If you're planar binding angels into your service every day Pelor and Heironeous should be pissed.

I loved the Planescape setting for this very reason. Ripping holes in the fabric of the universe? The Lady of Pain is probably right around the corner about to tear you a new hole. Wrecking havoc in another plane? A demigod teleports behind you defend yourself.

The more you use these high powered spells the more attention you should draw to yourself. In gameplay mechanics this should equal to a higher random encounter probability and monsters that equal your power in spell casting prowess.

GoatToucher
2009-07-27, 09:46 PM
But..... that's almost saying "houserule it" which is what we're here to do. The rules SHOULD provide for these things..... DMs shouldn't have to nerf.

Then the short version is to simply remove the most powerful/broken spells. Mechanically, there is nothing wrong with the class. It's all in the unbalanced spells.

Pathfinder has done an okay job of cutting the legs out from under polymorph, and a lot of the SoD's (but mostly by not having three dozen splats, each adding a half dozen broken spells to the list).

Barring the game designers seeing the light, it is up to us to houserule it.

jmbrown
2009-07-27, 09:55 PM
I took those rules straight out of 2e AD&D which made wizards really weak at low levels (you had 1 spell per day at first level) and really strong at high levels. Back then if a wizard somehow managed to survive long enough to cast 9th level spells, he deserved those spells.
Also 20th level was (originally) the maximum level, you were supposed to be pretty much a god at that point.

2E also had major drawbacks to the higher level spells.

Gate: aged you 5 years.
Resurrection: ages the caster 3 years
Time Stop: 1d3 rounds instead of 1d4+1
Energy Drain: 5% chance to permanently lose 1 point of constitution.
Haste: ages everyone by a year
Teleport: only works in your home plane
Permanency: Only affects the wizard or object and you lose 1 point of constitution permanently.
Shape Change: requires you to drop a circlet. If the circlet is smashed before the duration ends then the spell instantly ends.

Swiftblu
2009-07-27, 10:04 PM
Bringing the Wizard down to T3 is only possible by gutting its spell list, plain and simple. Even restricted to Core, the Wizard has too much power and variety in its spells to be anywhere near the level of a ToB character, and the cheese only boils over as you add in more supplements. Any feasible nerf of the 3.5 Wizard involves limiting the class to a small, fixed, and preferably flavorful spell list.

The Beguiler, for example, is a class that a lot of folks are happy with in terms of power level: Effective in its area of expertise, but not able dominate the campaign Batman-style. What's more, the Beguiler is essentially a very limited Illusionist Wizard with some extra goodies thrown on top. So, splitting the Wizard and Sorcerer into several classes with small, carefully chosen spell lists would go a long way to putting the class into Tier 3.

Granted, actually doing that would be hard.

aje8
2009-07-27, 10:09 PM
Pathfinder has done an okay job of cutting the legs out from under polymorph, and a lot of the SoD's (but mostly by not having three dozen splats, each adding a half dozen broken spells to the list).
News Flash: SoDs really aren't that great........

SoDs make you use 1 high-level spell to kill 1 enemy if they fail a save..... but if they happen to roll a 20 or just are good at that save, you've burned a high level spell slot to do ABOSULTLEY NOTHING.(First SoD is 5th level Flesh to Ice.)

Save or sucks aren't the great either..... the best spells are no save ones.... Enervation, Polymorph as a buff spell and the maul them, Lesser Dragonshape(on you), Black Tentacles.... though some save or sucks are pretty good.

Additionally, you have to remember, 1/2 of Wizards power is their versatility. Even without the overpowered stuff, they will never be fair as long as they can do anything. Thus, the lack of splat-books, while it does nerf them, doesn't nerf them for the reason you say it does...... it nerfs them because it lowers their versatility and utility spells.

PId6
2009-07-27, 10:14 PM
Really, some of the suggestions, 1/day spells, expensive components, please no. Reducing spell slots or making spells uncastable is not the solution to fixing it, at least, not if you want the class to remain at all fun. Making them fail saves or giving them only 1 slot a day is just asking for cheese, since they're not going to survive otherwise.

As others have said, if appealing to the player's self control is not enough, then just make like the psion and limit his list. Throw out the most broken spells of all (Celerity, Astral Projection, and such), balance the schools (so Evocation doesn't suck and Transmutation/Conjuration aren't the best at everything), and then just make it so that the best spells of each school can only be assessed if you specialize in that school. He'd still be pretty strong and can do cool things, but it limits the powerful combinations he'd get (Reverse Gravity + Prismatic Sphere) and forces him to specialize and have weakness rather than be able to beat everything.

Yukitsu
2009-07-27, 10:18 PM
I dunno about save or dies being poor. A mighty Balor with buffs has a +24 to will or fort, and I can easily get for instance 18 starting int, 20 with grey elf, 30 with levels and books, 36 after item. 38 with luhix. That's +29 already. On a level 9 spell, that's 38. Balor needs a 14 or higher. Even a slightly less extreme wizard is likely to pull a 50/50. A Balor takes on average 8 enervates, or 4 of the level 9 version. 4 save or dies should kill 2 Balors. 8 could kill 4, if you were the highly optimized wizard. Even if each hit does something, it doesn't mean you're beating the encounter more easily, or more rapidly.

aje8
2009-07-27, 10:43 PM
I dunno about save or dies being poor. A mighty Balor with buffs has a +24 to will or fort, and I can easily get for instance 18 starting int, 20 with grey elf, 30 with levels and books, 36 after item. 38 with luhix. That's +29 already. On a level 9 spell, that's 38. Balor needs a 14 or higher. Even a slightly less extreme wizard is likely to pull a 50/50. A Balor takes on average 8 enervates, or 4 of the level 9 version. 4 save or dies should kill 2 Balors. 8 could kill 4, if you were the highly optimized wizard. Even if each hit does something, it doesn't mean you're beating the encounter more easily, or more rapidly.

First things first, this isn't as true at level 20, it's true for around levels 1-13..... by level 14 or 15 most things can teleport and have SLAs making Solid Fog and Enervation weaker.

Additionally, you don't KILL them with enervation, you just neutralize them to where the Warblade or fighting character can kill them. Actually killing things is a waste of spell slots.

Oh and just for the record, you want to optimize save or dies? Say hello to me little friend, Split Rayed Maximized Empowered Enervation! That's from a metamagic rod of empower and a metamgic rod of maximize. Split Ray is only a plus +2 level increase so.... say hello to 14 negative levels from a 6th level spell slot! That's without stuff like Residual Metamagic, or without making it a 9th level spell slot......

PId6
2009-07-27, 10:56 PM
Oh and just for the record, you want to optimize save or dies? Say hello to me little friend, Split Rayed Maximized Empowered Enervation! That's from a metamagic rod of empower and a metamgic rod of maximize. Split Ray is only a plus +2 level increase so.... say hello to 14 negative levels from a 6th level spell slot! That's without stuff like Residual Metamagic, or without making it a 9th level spell slot......
Actually, empowering doesn't stack into the maximize, so that'd end up as 2x (4 + 1d4 / 2), which is 10.5 on average. But you can only use one rod per spell, so you'll have to get rid of the empower, ending up with only 8 levels per casting.

But if you want to really cheese it up, Arcane Thesis and Metamagic School Focus would do the trick. Maximized (rod) Empowered (0 from Metamagic School Focus) Split Rayed (+1) Invisible (-1) Twinned (+3) Repeated (+2) Enervation, which is 4x ( 4 + 1d4/2 ) instantly, then again next round. That adds up to 21 levels this round, and again next round, with a grand total of 42 levels drained in a single casting. It's awfully feat-intensive, but the results are quite worth it.

Frosty
2009-07-27, 11:47 PM
But the problem with investing so much into one trick is that some enemies will laugh at you. Notably: anyone with Deathward...all undead...all constructs...and anyone with Spell Immunity.

Hat-Trick
2009-07-27, 11:49 PM
Solid fog works wonders on most of those. The wizard, even if he focuses on one trick, has countless others to fall back on.

Frosty
2009-07-28, 12:09 AM
Solid fog works wonders on most of those. The wizard, even if he focuses on one trick, has countless others to fall back on.

True, but I still prefer a more generalist wizard. Because soon the DM will make most of the encounters immune to your auto-win-ray-of-doom lest encounters get too boring and stupid.

With anything overpowered, it always eventually does get stupid.

PId6
2009-07-28, 12:30 AM
But the problem with investing so much into one trick is that some enemies will laugh at you. Notably: anyone with Deathward...all undead...all constructs...and anyone with Spell Immunity.
Of course, but you can still use much of that with other things. Scorching Ray, Disintegrate, Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Exhaustion, Ray of Stupidity, or just general Fireballing.The wizard has enough tricks to never be completely blocked out, and that's the main problem with weaker classes like fighter and rogue. But yeah, you should never actually invest so much into one attack in a real game.

Myrmex
2009-07-28, 12:37 AM
Nerf wizards by turning the wizard into 7 specialist classes, and controlling access to metamagic reducers. There are already three: Beguiler, Dread Necro, and Warmage. Just change them to int based casters.

Give the Warmage more metamagic effects and some better battlefield control. That way he's mostly damage with a touch of "no, please stop moving".

Dread Necro & Beguiler are fine the way they are. Changing Dread Necro to int casting would be a bummer for its frightful presence ability runs of cha. Have to fix that somehow. Add the ability to break fear immunity, like the Dread Witch has, to lighten up the MAD.

Make the Conjurer a master of battlefield control spells OR summoning OR transportation, but not all 3. Maybe have the summoner get the ability to use planar binding/gate effects as Sp abilities once a week, for a limited period of time. That would basically be his class features (in addition to stronger summons, of course).

Go through the spell lists for each class and pull out all the really great, must have wizard spells (black tentacles, teleport, fly, solid fog, glitterdust) and then split them into new schools (put glitterdust in evocation and give it to the warmage, for instance). Then have generic, useful, but not overpowered spells like dispel magic, detect magic, or arcane sight as spells that any class can learn if they find a scroll of it (and then have to prepare in a spell slot like the wizard does now). And of course, get rid of metamagic reducers like rods, feats, and class features (except for weaker classes like the warmage).


Solid fog works wonders on most of those. The wizard, even if he focuses on one trick, has countless others to fall back on.

Not if you have a halfway competent DM. Solid fog is such a go to spell, that pretty much everything I run as a DM has ways around it, such that it comes down to the wizard trading his actions to deny opponents their actions.

shadow_archmagi
2009-07-28, 07:31 AM
Wait, on the first page, why was STONE TO FLESH on the list of things that needed to be nerfed?

PId6
2009-07-28, 08:03 AM
Wait, on the first page, why was STONE TO FLESH on the list of things that needed to be nerfed?
Or Mount, for that matter.

nysisobli
2009-07-28, 08:06 AM
i myself have never had any problems with any of the players in my campaigns using a wizard. I understand why people say they are over powered, but ive seen people make fighters that put alot of wizards to shame.

lesser_minion
2009-07-28, 10:36 AM
Or Mount, for that matter.

Mount does have a problem - its use in cheating horse merchants. If the DM doesn't think quickly enough, you can seriously hurt the in-game economy by selling conjured horses using magic to hide their aura.

Three quick fixes:

You can't sell the horses - everyone who would have bought them was ruined six months ago by a mysterious conman.
OK, he hands you a ticket for your horse and asks you to return in three weeks' time for your payment.
OK, what was your bluff modifier? -1? OK, make a (DC 20) Bluff check.


The last fix fails once the bard gets on the scene, however.

Clementx
2009-07-28, 10:53 AM
Wait, on the first page, why was STONE TO FLESH on the list of things that needed to be nerfed?
Removed, actually, along with Flesh to Stone and all other petrification effects. That is a personal preference. If you dig that status effect, you can save it by readjusting the level, the timing, etc to be in line with the available roster of save-or-dies-with-a-catch that remain.

Mount, Wall of Stone/Iron, and Fabricate are need adjustments to explain why wizards haven't already destroyed the economy by flooding the world with 2-hour horses and building materials without all that pesky mining/quarrying.

Kaiyanwang
2009-07-28, 10:54 AM
I'm currently running a wizard that runs off about as many spells per day as she has levels, doesn't roll for saves (avoids them instead) and is beating CR 15 encounters at level 8, and thus with level 4 spells.


:smallconfused: out of curiosity, could you bring some example, with terrain and so on? Because even if I recognize that Wiz is strong, this seems to a little bit too much.

PId6
2009-07-28, 10:58 AM
Mount does have a problem - it's use in cheating horse merchants. If the DM doesn't think quickly enough, you can seriously hurt the in-game economy by selling conjured horses using magic to hide their aura.
Meh, horses sell for what? 37 gp each? You can only do it a few times before the 2 hour/level duration runs out, and then you'll be chased out of town by a mob of angry merchants. It's not that different from threatening merchants, really. Sure, you can do it, but it's going to have consequences you won't like.

lesser_minion
2009-07-28, 11:11 AM
Six hours, IIRC. You could easily make 370gp or so per day using Mount wisely in conjunction with a couple of other spells - or in conjunction with a friendly bard. Of course, after a few days, you can expect someone to break out the Dispel Magic Wands. But that's where your bard with Glibness comes in ("No, that horse most assuredly did not just disappear.")

A better argument would have been that you can charge someone 30gp a casting at that level, but at that price I think most people would still prefer the horse that doesn't disappear 6 hours later.

PId6
2009-07-28, 11:20 AM
Six hours, IIRC. You could easily make 370gp or so per day using Mount wisely in conjunction with a couple of other spells - or in conjunction with a friendly bard. Of course, after a few days, you can expect someone to break out the Dispel Magic Wands. But that's where your bard with Glibness comes in ("No, that horse most assuredly did not just disappear.")
370 gp per day, for one day. Once the horses start popping, I don't think anyone would be stupid enough to keep buying them from you.

And that's more of a problem with Glibness. With Bluff like that, you may as well tell him his inventory will set on fire if he doesn't hand it over.

lesser_minion
2009-07-28, 11:27 AM
That's where Disguise comes in. You keep going until there is no longer a horse market in town (or the horse merchants have adopted a working countermeasure). Then you move on.

Of course, you could eventually get horses that last more than one day. By that point, you probably have better things to do than swindle horse merchants for (by this point) 1500gp/day, but the problem still exists. And you could just really not like horse merchants.

Saying that, if you go to that kind of effort to scam a horse merchant, you probably deserve the money.

Drakyn
2009-07-28, 11:34 AM
So the wizard needs to be nerfed by removing his ability to run horse-based cons? What's to prevent him from moving on to other domestic species afterwards? Phantasmal chickens? Summon Monster'd celestial cattle? Spectral images of donkeys? Polymorphing cockroaches into sheepdogs?

PId6
2009-07-28, 11:36 AM
That's where Disguise comes in. You keep going until there is no longer a horse market in town (or the horse merchants have adopted a working countermeasure). Then you move on.
Even if you disguise yourself, it wouldn't be hard to notice all these strangers coming in and selling horses that poof; after the first time, the merchants would probably be very wary, and after the second, anyone with an Int score over 7 should know not to buy anymore horses from random strangers coming into town. Do it in two or three towns and word of the scam would spread pretty quickly, ending up with bounties on the PCs' heads and organized search parties looking for them. Any world where magic is so common should have ways to deal with this type of thing; Mount is only a problem if the DM plays stupid NPCs that let the PCs get away with abuse like this.

DragoonWraith
2009-07-28, 11:37 AM
Yeah, in any setting high-magic enough to support Wizards as a class, pretty much all merchants in mundane goods should have access to a Dispel Magic trap or something for exactly this kind of problem. Mount's kind of obvious, but illusions or transmutations can affect other goods as well.

GoatToucher
2009-07-28, 11:57 AM
Okay, in a discussion about how wizards are overpowered and how to fix them, are we really talking about shady horse deals.

Is that really one of the primary problems of the Wizard class?

As for the School Specific classes, that would work better as PrCs when specialists get up in level. The problem remains, however: how do you prevent the wizards from getting all the spells he wants from a lax DM?

grautry
2009-07-28, 11:59 AM
In short the biggest way to screw wizards is to limit their availability to the 2 spells per level they can freely learn. Magic scrolls above 3rd level should be rare luxury at best.

Those suggestions don't really make sense, for two reasons.

1. If spells are super-rare then the player will just pick Collegiate Wizard(and maybe Elven Generalist). Depending on your interpretation that's 5-6 spells per level up. So 8-12 spells per spell level. Good enough.
2. The whole point of Wizard vs. Sorcerer dichotomy is the ability to learn significantly more spells than a Sorcerer. If they can't do that then they're Sorcerers in all but name and you might as well scrap the class and use Sorcerers instead.

As someone said already - trying to balance Wizards is an exercise in futility. To actually balance Wizards you have to go so far from the original concept that they will only be 'Wizards' in name.

If you're so worried about the brokenness then just ban the Big Five(and maybe Tier 2). It's really that simple.

Umael
2009-07-28, 01:20 PM
Could someone please post the definition of T3 please? As well as giving a few examples and explanations why these classes are T3?

Also, if anyone is familiar with Iron Heroes, could you please weigh in on the Arcanist?


Now to give my own answers to the issue at hand...


Casting any spell gives the spellcaster Paradox equal to the level of the spell (as long as you don't mind taking a page from White Wolf's Mage: the Ascension).


Seriously though, the problem is, like others have said, a matter of the spells, not the class itself (actually, the class sucks, if you just look at the class alone - d4 hp? +1/2 BAB? 2 + Int skills? Where are the class features??). Looking at the spells, the problem is twofold:

The wizard gets access to too many spells, having too much diversity.
Too many spells are unbalanced, "breaking" the game.

On the flipside, the wizard class needs some class features to prevent people from going for a full casting Prestige Class ASAP.

As a sidenote, the wizard would probably be easier to "nerf" if there was a little more of a MAD issue instead of a SAO (Single Attribute Only) (you can make a decent wizard with nothing but a high Intelligence - Constitution and Dexterity help, but they aren't necessary).


Between the access to all those spells and the unbalancing nature of some of those spells, the unbalancing part is the real issue. Things like Summon, which seems to work like Instant Meatshield / Meal Ticket / Wish spell, or Timestop, or even Charm Person which becomes Diplomazilla - these are the things which make it difficult for (some of the) other classes to compete and feel like they are contributing. Even if you limited the Wizard to one (and only one) school, it still feels like they can unbalance the game.

So the options seem to be to strip out all the spells and rebuild the spell system, or to cherry pick all the "bad" spells out and/or nerf them.

Neither of which is a quick fix.

PId6
2009-07-28, 01:36 PM
On the flipside, the wizard class needs some class features to prevent people from going for a full casting Prestige Class ASAP.
Pssh, wizard? What about sorcerer? Wizard at least gets bonus feats; sorcerer gets nothing. There's absolutely no reason not to get into Fatespinner, Incantatrix, Archmage, MotAO, Iot7V, or whatever as soon as possible.

AstralFire
2009-07-28, 01:37 PM
Google for JaronK's tier list. It's on brilliant gameologists.

Yukitsu
2009-07-28, 01:38 PM
:smallconfused: out of curiosity, could you bring some example, with terrain and so on? Because even if I recognize that Wiz is strong, this seems to a little bit too much.

Terrain = Dense snow, (difficult terrain) near an abandoned house on a roadside. Target was a caravan with 7 guards total equalling CR 15. They had 3 melee, 3 ranged, and what I think was a caster. I knew about them in advance, did my research on them, and had settled up along there path with a lot of cover, ready to strike.

Combat started with self and a skeleton pelting a pair of them with rocks. The wizard went down from drow sleeping poison. After the surprise round, skeleton with initiative hit another guy with a ranged rock attack, which didn't knock anyone out. Some arrows and struggling of melee to close, which some black tentacles stopped quickly. The skeleton plugged away with his rocks, causing poison unconciousness while the enemy was stuck, and I hit a few with sleet storm and hit anyone that tried to get out of there with phantasmal killer. Since they couldn't do much to hit me (large amount of cover, some concealment, sleet storm) they eventually got worn down.

I had some scrolls, wands and potions as well that were used up during the battle. I can't recall what they were, but they totalled about 5000 GP for the fight. I was taking damage from arrows pretty constantly, but I think I used something like 5 potions of cure moderate. I think I had some scrolls of evards black tentacles as well.

For reference of lower level tomfoolery, my level 3 wizard build (same character) beat a grizzly animal companion with a ghouls touch and a coup de gra.

I plan a lot, and I always ensure terrain is positioned in my favour. A freind once told me that "When your immediate response to a small woodland creature leaving a house is killing it, and this ruins the DMs plans, you know you planned something out too thoroughly."

Umael
2009-07-28, 02:27 PM
Pssh, wizard? What about sorcerer? Wizard at least gets bonus feats; sorcerer gets nothing. There's absolutely no reason not to get into Fatespinner, Incantatrix, Archmage, MotAO, Iot7V, or whatever as soon as possible.

Only too true.

However, I was trying to address nerfing the wizard, not the sorcerer, which is another thread. Because the sorcerer is, well, yes. The class itself is terrible... and yet, the sorcerer has captured the hearts of the designers. How many feats can you name that have a prerequisite of being Sorcerer 1st level? How many races and racial levels make a point of the importance of being a sorcerer?

Let's not threadjack this. The class wizard is horrible, but it shines oh-so-bright compared to the sorcerer. If we are going to discuss this (and how to get sorcerer to T3 while keeping it distinct from wizard), let's open a new thread.

Swordguy
2009-07-28, 02:35 PM
I've always been partial of making every wizard a specialist by default. You're an evoker, or a conjurer, or an illusionist, etc.

That way, you really only need to get rid of the Orb spells and Shadow Conjuration (to balance out Conjuration) and you've got a reasonable balance. Wizards can no longer do "everything".

(It goes without saying the Polymorph line still needs either banned or massive changes.)

PId6
2009-07-28, 02:43 PM
Let's not threadjack this. The class wizard is horrible, but it shines oh-so-bright compared to the sorcerer. If we are going to discuss this (and how to get sorcerer to T3 while keeping it distinct from wizard), let's open a new thread.
Meh, most of the changes to wizard spell list would apply just as well to sorcerers. I really don't see a need to get either of them all the way down to T3; T4 is balanced enough as far as I'm concerned. Make wizards specialize and not let to break everything at once, but otherwise that's enough balance for me.

I'm partial to this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115170) sorcerer fix myself. It's a bit strong, but I like the flavor. [/threadjack]

Indon
2009-07-28, 02:45 PM
Give any given wizard access to two spell schools: One of their choice, and Evocation.

It's a bit powerful for T3, but even with exploitation of the most powerful spells they can use, they'll still only ever have a couple of them at most.

PId6
2009-07-28, 02:46 PM
Give any given wizard access to two spell schools: One of their choice, and Evocation.

It's a bit powerful for T3, but even with exploitation of the most powerful spells they can use, they'll still only ever have a couple of them at most.
If you don't fix the schools first, they'll all pick Conjuration, with maybe a few Transmutation ones as well.

Zeful
2009-07-28, 02:50 PM
1. If spells are super-rare then the player will just pick Collegiate Wizard(and maybe Elven Generalist). Depending on your interpretation that's 5-6 spells per level up. So 8-12 spells per spell level. Good enough.
Collegiate Wizard, Elven Generalist? Those sound like silly third party feats. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Discontinuity)


As someone said already - trying to balance Wizards is an exercise in futility. To actually balance Wizards you have to go so far from the original concept that they will only be 'Wizards' in name.How is this a bad thing? I'm personally all for rewriting the Wizard so they are about as effective as the fighter.

Indon
2009-07-28, 02:50 PM
If you don't fix the schools first, they'll all pick Conjuration, with maybe a few Transmutation ones as well.

Oh, I'm sure you'd get some illusionists and abjurers.

Conjuration is a good point, though - would it be viable, I wonder, to split the school into its' Creation and Calling subschools?

quick_comment
2009-07-28, 02:54 PM
Mage Armor, Greater mage armor go to Abjuration.
Orbs all go to Evocation, except maybe for acid.
Teleportation goes to universal
Create Magic Tattoo goes to Transmutation or Enchantment

Remove the entire polymorph line and celerity line, along with astral projection.

Zeful
2009-07-28, 02:55 PM
Oh, I'm sure you'd get some illusionists and abjurers.

Conjuration is a good point, though - would it be viable, I wonder, to split the school into its' Creation and Calling subschools?

Nope just rigidly define what each school can do, and then do not deviate from that. Conjuration can only summon things from a couple of miles away (removing the creation subschool entirely) at best. So the planar binding line go away, as does gate (removing most of the calling subschool). Then repeat with all the other schools of magic. If a spell would fall under two definitions simultaneously, then it is of both schools, and you must be able to cast spells from both schools to cast it.

Umael
2009-07-28, 03:03 PM
It would be nice to give class features based on the school the wizard uses (and possibly limit the wizard to just that one school).

For example, the necromancer would get features like that of the Undead, such as d12 hit points, immunity to poison and diseases, and immunity to sneak attacks. However, these would be things that would come with drawbacks (like losing Con bonuses to hit points, taking damage from holy water). Furthermore, the necromancer could only advance as many levels in the class as the necromancer has Constitution (thus preventing Constitution from becoming a dump stat). These class features would be taken once every few levels, but possibly allowing the player to decide which ones ("Let's see, new necromancy feature, and we're about to pay the Thieves' Guild a visit...").

I started something like this, but didn't get too far with it. I suppose the class features should be balanced with the school in question, including figuring out which spells remain and which ones get nerfed and which ones go away.

grautry
2009-07-28, 03:10 PM
Collegiate Wizard, Elven Generalist? Those sound like silly third party feats. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Discontinuity)

Sure, if Races of the Wild and Complete series are third party...

Anyway, the main point still stands. If the fix to wizards is supposed to be limiting them to the spells that they get at level up(or nearly so) then either everyone will pick CW(and maybe EG) or you can just replace Wizards with Sorcerers and call it a day, because that's what you're effectively doing.


How is this a bad thing? I'm personally all for rewriting the Wizard so they are about as effective as the fighter.

It's not a bad thing, per see.

The problem with wizards is their spell list. That's hundreds, maybe thousands of spells. You can't just "fix" something of this magnitude. At least not without a LOT of work.

It's not too hard to ban the worst offenders but to actually balance the entire spell list? The changes would be so massive that I think it would be hard to call the game D&D 3.5 any more.

That's why I think that if you want to 'balance the wizard' then the easiest solution is just to scrap T1 and maybe T2 classes and call it a day.

InkEyes
2009-07-28, 03:53 PM
This has already been mentioned, but it really would just be simplest to just use the psioncs system. The psion even includes some of the stuff other people already mentioned, like automatically forcing a 'wizard' to specialize and significantly altering their 'spell' list. Here's a link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/psion.htm) to the psion, select all and paste it into a word document; then replace every instance of 'psion' with 'wizard' and 'psy' prefix with 'magi' or something to that effect. Psionics have some crazy-abusable stuff but it's few and far between. It's the most balanced system in D&D 3.5 for a good reason.

FMArthur
2009-07-28, 04:03 PM
It's actually kind of funny: most of the changes you guys are proposing involve totally remaking the caster classes, and an enormous amount of work on spells; which to disclude, which to modify, etc. Guys, a group of people already got together and did this, and did it well. See the Expanded Psionics Handbook for details. :smalltongue:

Kompera
2009-07-28, 06:17 PM
Here's how to (try to, no guarantees) balance the D&D Wizard with the other classes. Note first that this can NOT be done in a vacuum. There is little point in nerfing down the Wizard and leaving the Cleric and Druid as the new kings of the hill.


1) Spell DC set to -3 (in other words, whatever the DC would be for level, INT, etc, subtract 3);
2) Remove any means to influence spell DC other than by level and INT;
3) Remove all meta-magic feats, and of course this means also removing all magic items which use meta-magic such as the rod/staff/wand of meta-magic which are such a staple of "My Wizard can beat anything" threads;
4) Eliminate all races which are not in the PHB as candidates for Wizards (hell, eliminate them as candidates for all players, period. No one needs to be a "grey" elf, which is a race invented by the author of a splat book determined to have something in his book which will cause players to want to buy it. "Grey" elf, indeed, what need for that over the PHB Elf I have never seen, but it does allow for some broken chewy goodness for the optimizers. And please, I don't want to hear from anyone how their perfectly valid and infinitely customized grey elf character is just so necessary to their playing enjoyment. Any character concept that needs a grey elf can also be made using an elf, unless of course you're only in it for the stats.);
5) Limit all stats to a cap of 26;
6) Double the EXP required per level for Wizards;
7) Open your 1e books. Note the spells listed there for the Magic-User class, the forerunner of the Wizard. You'll see that there are (roughly) 12 spells of 1st level, and that this list grows shorter as the spell level grows higher. This is a good thing. Remove all spells from your 3.5 campaign which do not share a close naming schema with the 1e spells, being careful to keep the exact number of spells the same. Yes, this does leave Wizards with Time Stop. This is not a bad thing under this system.

This should do it.


I took those rules straight out of 2e AD&D which made wizards really weak at low levels (you had 1 spell per day at first level) and really strong at high levels. Back then if a wizard somehow managed to survive long enough to cast 9th level spells, he deserved those spells.
Also 20th level was (originally) the maximum level, you were supposed to be pretty much a god at that point.
The problem with the "it took work to get here, now I deserve to dominate" theory is that it supports the concept that it's ok to suck fora long while as long as you rock in the end. Many factors make this a poor philosophy, including:
1) Short run campaigns where the Wizard will only see the "suck" part of the progression;
2) Long run campaigns where everyone else will be on the "suck" side of balance for the majority of the time;
3) One-off or scenario play, where unless the level is set at whatever level seems to have parity one class will be better than any other;
4) Etc.

Really, a system which at least plays lip service to balance across levels is the way to go. This ensures that all of the players will enjoy an equal chance at meaningful participation in every game session, regardless of their character class.

olentu
2009-07-28, 06:22 PM
No one needs to be a "grey" elf, which is a race invented by the author of a splat book determined to have something in his book which will cause players to want to buy it.

I would not really call the Monster Manual a splat book.

Zeful
2009-07-28, 06:27 PM
Except he doesn't call it a splat book. He states that the purpose of the Grey Elf was to provide material that would be attractive to players, so as to sell more copies.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-28, 06:40 PM
Except he doesn't call it a splat book. He states that the purpose of the Grey Elf was to provide material that would be attractive to players, so as to sell more copies.

I highly doubt that's the reason for its appearance there. For every wizard player drooling over the grey elf there's a dozen cleric, druid, and wizard players drooling over the whole book for its summonable creatures and polymorph/wild shape forms.

olentu
2009-07-28, 06:43 PM
Except he doesn't call it a splat book. He states that the purpose of the Grey Elf was to provide material that would be attractive to players, so as to sell more copies.

Well I suppose that technically he only said that the grey elf was invented by someone who also authored at least one splatbook over the course of his career and that said author wished that his book would have material that would get players to want to buy said book.

However to me that has little bearing on the quality of a elven subrace in the 3.5 monster manual. This is because I fail to see how the fact that an author as published at least one splatbook and desired that his book would attract customers.

So in that case the sentence seems to be completely unnecessary.

Zore
2009-07-28, 06:52 PM
And I'm pretty sure the nerf hits them too hard the other way, I mean I've done a bit of the math and that wizard is going to be nigh on useless after level one or so, the crippling leveling rate alone is harsh. Add the other stuff? Tier 67. I'm reasonably sure I could build a commoner that would destroy it at any xp amount.

EDIT: Ran the numbers thoroughly. Wizard 1/Anything X is better. A class should not be inferior in all ways to commoners. And all the changes do it, not just the XP. The change to save DCs means wizards can't contribute outside of its most broken stuff which barely edges by. All of those just don;t work in 3.X or any d20 system really.

The best way to balance wizards is honestly just not to. Use Beguilers, Dread Necromancers, Warmages and Battle sorcerers, throwing in equivalencies for the other schools.

PId6
2009-07-28, 06:54 PM
Double the EXP required per level for Wizards;
You may as well just ban it altogether then. If you're applying this then it would take extreme cheese just to make the character playable. If you're also removing all the cheese, then there's really no way to play a wizard at all.

Yukitsu
2009-07-28, 09:00 PM
First things first, this isn't as true at level 20, it's true for around levels 1-13..... by level 14 or 15 most things can teleport and have SLAs making Solid Fog and Enervation weaker.

Same wizard had a DC 16 save or die at one, which most people fail about 75% of the time. To compare, it takes 2 magic missiles to kill anything of CR 1, if not more, and you can't effect multiple people. The equivalent to no save/suck, ray of enfeeblement while OK isn't as good as colour spray, as the odds of you missing the attack are about the same as an enemy passing a save vs. colour spray.


Additionally, you don't KILL them with enervation, you just neutralize them to where the Warblade or fighting character can kill them. Actually killing things is a waste of spell slots.

One spell slot to kill the thing is better than a couple to weaken it. :smallconfused:


Oh and just for the record, you want to optimize save or dies? Say hello to me little friend, Split Rayed Maximized Empowered Enervation! That's from a metamagic rod of empower and a metamgic rod of maximize. Split Ray is only a plus +2 level increase so.... say hello to 14 negative levels from a 6th level spell slot! That's without stuff like Residual Metamagic, or without making it a 9th level spell slot......

Rod of chain spell, with repeat spell and metamagic school focus: illusion on a dread witch 4 casting a phantasmal killer as a level 6 spell. The DC is, assuming it's still a level 20 caster, only 2 points lower than the 38 I mentioned earlier (36 on the first target, 32 for everyone else). This forces 20 enemies to make 2 saves vs death (success rate is still about 40% per, and since they each have to make it twice...). To compare, your split ray affects two different targets, killing neither of them, unless it's a low CR mob, which the chained phantasmal killer deals with better. If you add fearful empower, the DC is essentially increased by 2 once per day. (Note, this is not optimized.)

GoatToucher
2009-07-28, 09:51 PM
So:

1: Eliminate broken spells. A Large Job.
2: Eliminate free metamagic (from feats, items, PrCs, etc...)
3: Eliminate their ability to hose the hardworking horse traders of your campaign setting.

What else is necessary?

arguskos
2009-07-28, 10:05 PM
So:

1: Eliminate broken spells. A Large Job.
2: Eliminate free metamagic (from feats, items, PrCs, etc...)
3: Eliminate their ability to hose the hardworking horse traders of your campaign setting.

What else is necessary?
Nothing. Really, nothing. There, you fixed the Wizard, congratulations! :smallsmile:

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-07-28, 10:11 PM
So:

1: Eliminate broken spells. A Large Job.
2: Eliminate free metamagic (from feats, items, PrCs, etc...)
3: Eliminate their ability to hose the hardworking horse traders of your campaign setting.

What else is necessary?Fix the PRC out at Wizard 2 problem, the non-broken spells that still break the game, eliminate/rebalance PrCs to take into account the new changes, make the familiar worthwhile without the investment of further resources, and make these changes to the Sorcerer, Cleric, and similar classes so they don't replace the Wizard at the top of the pile.

And then release the game for profit, since you've either lost your job at this point or it's 30 years from now and retro D&D will be making a comeback after the failure of 8th edition(Prime).

Hat-Trick
2009-07-28, 10:12 PM
To be honest, I don't mind the Wizard's potential brokenness. If the player plays it in a broken way, it's the player that needs to be taken care of. It's the DMs job to balance the game, if this comes down to saying, "Dude, no." then it's the steps needed. To be honest, I don't know anyone who'd gate and bind Solars unless the games Epic already. If the player breaks the game by playing the wizard in a broken way, it's not he wizards fault anymore than the kobolds for Pun-Pun. Fix the wizard the same way people fix Pun-Pun, tell your players you'll have no shenanigans.

Kaihaku
2009-07-28, 10:23 PM
Retard spell progression. Gain all spells later in progression; level 9 spells at level 20.
Increase casting time. Highest and second highest spell levels require +1 tier (standard to full round action, etc) casting time.
Prestige Class Limitation. Wizards must take all levels of a Prestige Class before taking another. A Wizard who breaks this restriction suffers all of the penalties of multiclassing.
Spell Exhaustion Wizards must roll a Fortitude Save (DC 15 + spell level) when casting spells with a duration of instantaneous (including those modified by metamagic). If they fail this save they become fatigued and if already fatigued exhausted.
Spellbook Cost Wizards must pay 10 experience points per spell level in order to scribe additional spells in their spellbooks.

Umael
2009-07-28, 10:32 PM
New rule mechanic - ability tap.

This works like ability damage and ability drain, only the character recovers lost ability at the rate of one per hour (instead of one per day).

All arcane spells do Strength tap equal to the level of the spell.

(For the record, I know this won't work, but it's a concept that might help fix the problem.)

AstralFire
2009-07-28, 10:33 PM
So:

1: Eliminate broken spells. A Large Job.
2: Eliminate free metamagic (from feats, items, PrCs, etc...)
3: Eliminate their ability to hose the hardworking horse traders of your campaign setting.

What else is necessary?

4: Eliminate ducks. Their foul schemes have blemished this world for far too long.

Hat-Trick
2009-07-28, 10:43 PM
Damn Ducks, takin' our Jerbs!

Lert, A.
2009-07-28, 10:51 PM
Increase casting time. Highest and second highest spell levels require +1 tier (standard to full round action, etc) casting time.

Tried this with a 4 tiered system. Worked surprisingly well.

1st Tier: 0 level spells; cast at 1 speed level less move>swift, etc.
2nd Tier: 1-3 level spells; unchanged
3rd Tier: 4-6 level spells; cast at 1 speed level greater, full round action requires 2 rounds, etc.
4th Tier: 7-9 level spells; cast at 2 speed levels greater, minimum 1 full round

aje8
2009-07-28, 10:54 PM
1: Eliminate broken spells. A Large Job.
2: Eliminate free metamagic (from feats, items, PrCs, etc...)
3: Eliminate their ability to hose the hardworking horse traders of your campaign setting.

Um.... alot actually.

Look, few people actually play wizards who use all the broken tricks. Look, ban every unfair spell. No contigency, no polymorph, no celerity, no timestop, no evard's, no enervation, no planar binding ect.

Now...... wait so what can the fighter do:
1. Hit things with a stick.
2. Trip things with a chian.

What can a wizard do?
1. Diplomacy (Charm person, detect thoughts, the list goes on and on)
2. Buffs
3. Defbuffs
3. Deal with flying enemies well (Fly)
4. Teleport
5. Control the battlefield (A billion differnet spells)
6. Summon Help
..... And about a billion other things.

Nice job! The wizard, while now being not broken, is still about 1000x times better than the fighter...... and probably the Warblade. This makes them maybe Tier 2....... perhaps tier 2.5 but I doubt it.

And to all you auto-specalizers:
Won't work.

Optimzed Wizards were mostly Focused Specalists(Banning 3 schools! Honestly, you only really need Conjuration, Transumtation and Illusion. The rest are gravy. You can even get away without illusiion..... but then you have few defensive manuevers and Inviability/Mirror Image are some of the best of those), anyhow..... so all you've really done is taken away their two bonus spell slots.

So.... you're saying -2 spell slots per level is enough to balance Wizard?! I sincererly doubt that.

GoatToucher
2009-07-28, 10:59 PM
4: Eliminate ducks. Their foul schemes have blemished this world for far too long.

Of course! How can we have missed it?!?

GoatToucher
2009-07-28, 11:05 PM
Um.... alot actually.

Look, few people actually play wizards who use all the broken tricks. Look, ban every unfair spell. No contigency, no polymorph, no celerity, no timestop, no evard's, no enervation, no planar binding ect.

Pardon me. I should have said "Eliminate all broken or overpowered spells."


Now...... wait so what can the fighter do:
1. Hit things with a stick.
2. Trip things with a chian.

What can a wizard do?
1. Diplomacy (Charm person, detect thoughts, the list goes on and on)
2. Buffs
3. Defbuffs
3. Deal with flying enemies well (Fly)
4. Teleport
5. Control the battlefield (A billion differnet spells)
6. Summon Help
..... And about a billion other things.

What about the idea suggested last page: Limit wizards to three or four schools (dividing conjuration into two schools: conjuration and summoning)? That way, a wizard can do four things, several times a day, while a fighter can do pretty much one thing, but all day long.

Zore
2009-07-28, 11:15 PM
Because the Fighter sucks at that one thing? If we're going to try for wizard to be tier three balance it with the Warblade and Crusader, not the Fighter who's a whole two tiers lower.

Zeful
2009-07-28, 11:35 PM
Because the Fighter sucks at that one thing? If we're going to try for wizard to be tier three balance it with the Warblade and Crusader, not the Fighter who's a whole two tiers lower.

Actually fighters are decent at one thing. Exactly one thing. They suck at everything else.

A wizard on the other hand will suck at one thing. Exactly one thing. They are awesome at everything else.

Zore
2009-07-28, 11:47 PM
I know, I was unclear in what I typed. I meant people should not be looking for this rebalanced wizard to be equivalent to the Fighter if the goal is tier three. And a lot of the suggested nerfs hit it harder than taking it to Warblade level.

Kaihaku
2009-07-29, 12:49 AM
Tried this with a 4 tiered system. Worked surprisingly well.

1st Tier: 0 level spells; cast at 1 speed level less move>swift, etc.
2nd Tier: 1-3 level spells; unchanged
3rd Tier: 4-6 level spells; cast at 1 speed level greater, full round action requires 2 rounds, etc.
4th Tier: 7-9 level spells; cast at 2 speed levels greater, minimum 1 full round

Interesting... I might have to try something like that.

lesser_minion
2009-07-29, 04:10 AM
So:

3: Eliminate their ability to hose the hardworking horse traders of your campaign setting.

What else is necessary?

I suggested at least three ways to fix the horse trading issue when I mentioned it (none of which involved any kind of magic). It isn't a particularly broken rule and only ever comes up if the player works out that it's possible before the DM.

However, I wouldn't mind cutting the spell that hides magic auras from the spell list simply because it falls into the realm of 'no weaknesses'.

A fix for the wizard I considered using was to break each school of magic down into something between three and six 'arts' and then limit the wizard to choosing only a limited number of arts. You would still have to be very careful with the spells placed in any given group, but it would at least be a start.

This combines the idea of limiting wizards to only half their spell list with the idea of banning a large number of spells. For added fixing, you could also block combos by requiring that any spell cast by the wizard be from the same discipline as any spells he currently has active.

It would take a lot of work to group all of the spells, however. Non-core spells would have to be made approval-only.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-29, 08:10 AM
A fix for the wizard I considered using was to break each school of magic down into something between three and six 'arts' and then limit the wizard to choosing only a limited number of arts. You would still have to be very careful with the spells placed in any given group, but it would at least be a start.

I did something like that a while back in combination with a 2e-ish divine spheres system. Depending on where you studied and/or who you apprenticed with, you learned more or less of the theory behind certain schools or thematic spell groupings, so you wouldn't be "Joe, the Conjurer" you'd be "Joe, wizard of the Aerithian Academy with a Journeyman's degree in Fire and Creation magic and a Master's in Summoning." An Apprentice's degree got you access to 1st-3rd level spells (everyone knowing all cantrips by default), Journeyman's access to 4th-5th level spells, Master's access to 6th-7th level spells, and Magister's access to 8th-9th level spells.

You chose a certain set of ratings at character creation and could improve them later with practice and certain PrCs. It worked out fairly well mechanically, the players liked it, and it introduced plenty of flavor for academic rivalries, secret traditions, and so on.

Indon
2009-07-29, 08:35 AM
What about the idea suggested last page: Limit wizards to three or four schools (dividing conjuration into two schools: conjuration and summoning)? That way, a wizard can do four things, several times a day, while a fighter can do pretty much one thing, but all day long.

Upon more detailed reading, Conjuration actually has like 5 subschools (Wizards can only access 4 of them), each just about powerful enough to create a Tier 3 character.

I think a one-school-and-Evocation approach would work with a bit of tinkering with the schools.

-Divide Conjuration into each of its' component subschools, treat each as a distinct school.
-Split Patterns and Phantasms out of Illusion to create two Illusion schools (the new school being kind of a semi-enchantment school).
-Merge Divination, Necromancy, and Abjuration into a pseudo-divine themed school.

So now all Wizards can cast Evocation spells and spells from one and only one of the other following schools:

-Pseudo-Divine (Divination, Necromancy, Abjuration)
-Enchantment
-Glamer Illusions (Figment, Glamer, Shadow subschools of Illusion)
-Mental Illusions (Pattern, Phantasm subschools of Illusion)
-Transmutation
-Calling (Calling subschool of Conjuration)
-Summoning (Summoning subschool of Conjuration)
-Creation (Creation subschool of Conjuration)
-Teleportation (Teleportation subschool of Conjuration)

Illusion/Enchantment are not so clearly defined as I would like, but I'd rather not try to roll them up together.

This leaves Transmutation, in my view, as the remaining problematic school. Thoughts?

PId6
2009-07-29, 10:46 AM
-Pseudo-Divine (Divination, Necromancy, Abjuration)
Far too strong compared to the rest. Abjuration alone is quite good; I see over 50% of wizards choosing this one, assuming you break up Transmutation more.


-Glamer Illusions (Figment, Glamer, Shadow subschools of Illusion)
-Mental Illusions (Pattern, Phantasm subschools of Illusion)
The first one has pretty much all the best illusion spells; Mental Illusions seem like it'd go well with Enchantment.


-Transmutation
If you want any sort of balance, this would have to be sliced.


-Calling (Calling subschool of Conjuration)
There aren't enough spells here to make it worthwhile; the Planar Binding spells are nice, but are nearly worthless without a lot of other wizard goodies in support (Magic Circle against Evil for one). Shouldn't be too bad mixing this with Summoning.


-Teleportation (Teleportation subschool of Conjuration)
Only really dedicated Evocationists would take this. Teleportation spells are nice, but you're sacrificing a LOT of versatility for them. It's almost always better to just leave this for the Travel domain cleric. Maybe just make teleportation spells universal?

Zeful
2009-07-29, 10:50 AM
Only really dedicated Evocationists would take this. Teleportation spells are nice, but you're sacrificing a LOT of versatility for them. It's almost always better to just leave this for the Travel domain cleric. Maybe just make teleportation spells universal?

I agree, there is no way to define conjuration and still have it include teleportation. But then the spell schools only exist for thematic differences otherwise Mage Hand and Telekinesis would be in the school they belong in (evocation) rather than transmutation and the Orb of X line of spells wouldn't exist.

Melamoto
2009-07-29, 10:55 AM
Try removing the broken spells, and then allow Wizards access to only 2 schools of magic, and every 2 levels (1, 3, 5, etc) they get Eclectic Learning (As the Warmage variant).
Take away most of Batman's utility belt, and he doesn't have much else to do. Limit it to one school or count them as specialised in both of the schools as you see fit for balance purposes.

DragoonWraith
2009-07-29, 10:59 AM
Oooh, that might be interesting. Something like this, perhaps:
{table=head]Wizard Level | Number of schools available
1 | 2
2 | 2
3 | 2
4 | 2
5 | 3
6 | 3
7 | 3
8 | 3
9 | 4
10 | 4
11 | 4
12 | 4
13 | 5
14 | 5
15 | 5
16 | 5
18 | 6
19 | 6
20 | 7[/table]
Certainly makes PrCing far more questionable. Doesn't do an awful lot to the end-game Wizard, though.

Eldariel
2009-07-29, 11:06 AM
Oooh, that might be interesting. Something like this, perhaps:
{table=head]Wizard Level | Number of schools available
1 | 2
2 | 2
3 | 2
4 | 2
5 | 3
6 | 3
7 | 3
8 | 3
9 | 4
10 | 4
11 | 4
12 | 4
13 | 5
14 | 5
15 | 5
16 | 5
18 | 6
19 | 6
20 | 7[/table]
Certainly makes PrCing far more questionable. Doesn't do an awful lot to the end-game Wizard, though.

Eh, you need to balance out the schools for this to be rational. Basically the only good way for a Wizard to play in an environment like this is to pick up Conjuration and Illusion first (they have the strongest low-level effects) followed by Transmutation (and its insane mid-level effects) and then Necromancy or Divination (Divination has picked up in power by then, while Necromancy's debuffs also begin to shine; in fact, Necromancy could be a solid first school instead of Illusion if you don't mind lacking defenses that much) and then Abjuration.

Meh, it'll weaken the Wizard (at the point where he's at his weakest; won't touch the peak of power at all though), but it also forces basically every Wizard to be the same, which I think sucks.

DragoonWraith
2009-07-29, 11:58 AM
Oh, I was taking the school rebalancing of previous posts for granted with something like this.

But I do agree, you're not doing enough to the high-end Wizard. It does more for the Wizard-gets-nothing bit than it does for actual balance.

Though I wouldn't say Wizards are exactly weak at low levels. Weaker, sure, but they can still eliminate enemies from combat pretty trivially.

GoatToucher
2009-07-29, 02:11 PM
I would actually reverse this process. Lower level spells would be easier for everyone to learn, so a wizard might have access to 6 schools. Mid levels are more difficult to master, so the wizard would have to specialize down to four schools for 4th through 6th level spells. Spells of levels 7 - 9 would be so difficult, a Wizard might only be able to master two schools.

As it stands with the numeric progression described in previous posts, 20th level wizards are still pretty broken/overpowered.

Kallisti
2009-07-29, 02:26 PM
Just restrict access to the spells. So the stupid stuff is removed, tailor the enemy to not be to OP.
Essentially flying becomes rare, invisibility becomes rare etc.

If a Wizard wants one of the spells then make him sweat for it. Game altering stuff is not so much of a problem if the players went through hell to get it. Make sure you restrict what the wizard can get for the free spells as well, so powerful stuff must be earned.

Increase the material component costs and make the wizard list what he has for materials. This can get very tedious at high levels however and makes downtime more consuming for the wizard. But really, wizards are meant to have to work hard for spells and power.

Losing Divination completely breaks the Wizard in half, this is a bad idea as he can no longer function in his roles.

The whole "keeping track of components" thing is just plain too much bookkeeping, but the rest of it is good. Whoever recommended bringing back the 2.0 casting time systems, that could work if you removed broken things like Celerity and Time Stop.

Whoever said that replacing wizards with psions is insta-balance, you do know that Psionic powers have no level cap on their damage dice, allow things like Reality Revision and Time Hop, etc., right? Psionics is no more balanced than regular magic, it's just less common so fewer people know how to break it. Also, there's an eighth level psionic power that basically says, "Become a lich for free." It's called Astral Seed, and it should not exist:smallyuk:.

DISCLAIMER: I am not incredibly familiar with the psionics rules, though I do know them. If it was just that I've witnessed some really overly broken psions, present your counter-arguments, and if I'm wrong I'll apologize.


I did something like that a while back in combination with a 2e-ish divine spheres system. Depending on where you studied and/or who you apprenticed with, you learned more or less of the theory behind certain schools or thematic spell groupings, so you wouldn't be "Joe, the Conjurer" you'd be "Joe, wizard of the Aerithian Academy with a Journeyman's degree in Fire and Creation magic and a Master's in Summoning." An Apprentice's degree got you access to 1st-3rd level spells (everyone knowing all cantrips by default), Journeyman's access to 4th-5th level spells, Master's access to 6th-7th level spells, and Magister's access to 8th-9th level spells.

You chose a certain set of ratings at character creation and could improve them later with practice and certain PrCs. It worked out fairly well mechanically, the players liked it, and it introduced plenty of flavor for academic rivalries, secret traditions, and so on.

Now, that could work. I might have to try that myself...

Zeful
2009-07-29, 02:35 PM
DISCLAIMER: I am not incredibly familiar with the psionics rules, though I do know them. If it was just that I've witnessed some really overly broken psions, present your counter-arguments, and if I'm wrong I'll apologize.

Actually Psionics has a built in level cap for every power. It's the character's manifester level (plus bonuses like Overchannel). In order to have stronger powers you have to spend more power points to get the effect. So the 20d6 Crystal Shard is a 20PP (1pp cost+19pp augment) cost available at level 14 (or 16, I can't remember the bonus from Overchannel off-hand) with a specific feat and taking ability damage, or level 20.

Psionics is more balanced than magic, but it still has many of the same problems.

AstralFire
2009-07-29, 02:38 PM
Psionics' biggest problem is that DMs running low combat games or games with low amounts of combats per day run into the issue that Psionics was, in fact, designed for 4 encounters a day and they can go crazy nova at mid levels with less because Power Points are more modular than spell slots.

Prepared casters still beat them out handily for the most part once you get to 7th level spells or so.

Eldariel
2009-07-29, 02:51 PM
Oh, I was taking the school rebalancing of previous posts for granted with something like this.

But I do agree, you're not doing enough to the high-end Wizard. It does more for the Wizard-gets-nothing bit than it does for actual balance.

Though I wouldn't say Wizards are exactly weak at low levels. Weaker, sure, but they can still eliminate enemies from combat pretty trivially.

"Weakest" =/= "Weak" - a Wizard is at his weakest on the low levels, but that doesn't make him weak, just squishy (his offense is unparalleled).

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-29, 03:12 PM
As has already been mentioned, the "no level cap on damage" thing is a myth; also:


Also, there's an eighth level psionic power that basically says, "Become a lich for free." It's called Astral Seed, and it should not exist:smallyuk:.

Astral seed works once and sticks you on the Astral Plane, vulnerable while you try to create a new body. A phylactery works over and over again and you can hide it wherever you want. And this doesn't even take into account the lich benefits beyond the phylactery.

Halna LeGavilk
2009-07-29, 03:46 PM
Okay, I really hope we've abandoned the 'limiting wizards to one school of magic' idea. That doesn't just nerf the wizard, it makes it a sucky class. Instead, cut about half of all spells right out.

Or, better yet, as I've noticed, don't play with people who use broken spells. If broken spells ruin your day, take the person aside and talk to them. There's no need to ruin a class because some players are idiots.

Gnaeus
2009-07-29, 04:19 PM
Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psionic Warrior

So you don't need to nerf broken spells (Beguiler has Timestop, the Ranger goes MoMF and has effects similar to polymorph, etc.)

My suggestion for a quick fix to Tier 3.
1. Switch the levels where wizards get new spell levels, to 4, 6, etc. In other words, they don't get new spells before the Sorcerer.

2. Generalist wizards can't cast spells above level 7.

3. Specialists cast all spells outside their specialization school and divination as if it were 2 levels higher. If you are a conjurer, Alter Self is a 4th level spell, Polymorph 6th, Shapechange unavailable before epic.

Bam. No stronger than the Beguiler, no weaker than the Swordsage.

DragoonWraith
2009-07-29, 04:20 PM
I think that's a pretty solid fix.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-29, 11:51 PM
My suggestion for a quick fix to Tier 3.
1. Switch the levels where wizards get new spell levels, to 4, 6, etc. In other words, they don't get new spells before the Sorcerer.

I don't know if delaying spell progression from the get-go is the right way to go; getting those 2nd and 3rd level spells can be important for survival. Instead, I'd take a page from 2e and put the level delay in the mid-level range--possibly two delays, to be on the safe side. The wizard would still get 1st level spells at 1st, 2nds at 3rd, and 3rds at 5th, but then things get bumped back one level, giving 4ths at 8th, 5ths at 10th, and 6ths at 12th, like the sorcerer. Then there's another delay level, so you get 7th levels at 15th, 8th levels at 17, and 9ths at 19th.

This pushing back of the highest levels of spells, combined with the non-specialist 2-level penalty, should cut down on the abuse of the highest levels of spells. It might be a bit much, but it's better than flat-out cutting schools of magic in their entirety.

Melamoto
2009-07-30, 03:33 AM
I don't know if delaying spell progression from the get-go is the right way to go; getting those 2nd and 3rd level spells can be important for survival. Instead, I'd take a page from 2e and put the level delay in the mid-level range--possibly two delays, to be on the safe side. The wizard would still get 1st level spells at 1st, 2nds at 3rd, and 3rds at 5th, but then things get bumped back one level, giving 4ths at 8th, 5ths at 10th, and 6ths at 12th, like the sorcerer. Then there's another delay level, so you get 7th levels at 15th, 8th levels at 17, and 9ths at 19th.

This pushing back of the highest levels of spells, combined with the non-specialist 2-level penalty, should cut down on the abuse of the highest levels of spells. It might be a bit much, but it's better than flat-out cutting schools of magic in their entirety.

Sorcerers can manage without those spells; even more so, since they don't even have all of them, and they are no less squishy than the wizard. I think Wizards can manage.

Also, I'd nerf or remove the Shadow <School> spells. Otherwise they just make it the same old specialisation choices.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-30, 07:42 AM
Sorcerers can manage without those spells; even more so, since they don't even have all of them, and they are no less squishy than the wizard. I think Wizards can manage.

Well, they can manage, but power-wise they're mostly inferior to wizards because of that gap; since melee types tend to be better than casters in general at the lower levels, it would be a good idea to keep them on the same progression then, particularly since most of the overpowered spells at those levels are being removed. Since wizard power starts ramping up in the middle levels, getting a big boost with 5th and 8th level spells, slowing them down before getting each makes sense.

Gnaeus
2009-07-31, 07:48 AM
Well, part of the point was weakening the wizard to no more or a little less powerful than the sorcerer and favored soul, who are both tier 2.

Thinking about it further, I would allow the generalists to have their 8th and 9th level spell slots, just not to learn any spells of that level. They could still metamagic.

I would also probably reduce the level penalty to one level for evocation. That might be enough to keep people from taking it as a banned school.