(PF) Making casting riskier

[raspberrybadger]

I'm trying to put together some houserules on top of Pathfinder (though they would be easy enough to fit into 3.5) that would make casting take more resources or risk. I'm getting close to the point of testing them out in PBP here, and I'd like comment on how the proposed houserules might work (or not work).

1st and 2nd level casting would be unaltered.

3rd and up casting (and manifesting) would need to be 'shielded' to be entirely safe.

Unshielded casting (and manifesting) would alert many types of magical creatures, as well as anyone using detect magic (for arcane), detect evil/good/law/chaos (for divine), and detect psionics (for psionics), or similar spells. The range on that would be hundreds of miles, and it would give information on the caster and the spell cast. That would be especially problematic for divine casters, because it gives opposite aligned outsiders to intervene without breaking various agreements. The range on this is 100 miles for every 20 the casting is unshielded by.

Also, unshielded casting of arcane spells would have additional consequences.: spellblights, different spell comes out, summoning creatures from other realities, damaging the caster, a small zone where another plane bleeds through. That kind of thing. So the effects aren't always bad, but they could be rather inconvenient. The risk is worse the more unshielded the casting is.

Shielding would for the most part require prior preparation.
Anyone can use Knowledge: Arcana for preparation.
Divine casters can substitute Knowledge: Religion, druids can substitute Knowledge: Nature, and manifesters must substitute Knowledge: Psionics.

To shield level 3 spells requires a shielding value of 20
level 4, 45
level 5, 75
level 6, 110

Shielding can be obtained by drawing protective symbols on one square of the ground with chalk. The shielding produced is the result of a Knowledge Arcana check (or whatever was substituted). Retries and taking 20 are possible, but only the best roll applies. Of course, creatures or spells doing stuff in a square could easily destroy the chalk symbols, destroying the protection.

There are several other methods that provide protection which stacks with the above, or may be used instead, making their own Knowledge rolls to see how much shielding is produced.

10 gp alchemical chalk, +2 bonus on the check.
25 gp holy water (cleric or paladin only), +15 bonus on the check
freshly collected spring water (druid or ranger only), +0 bonus on the check
50 gp magical chalk, +20 bonus on the check and difficult to destroy
250 gp enchanted chalk, +35 bonus on the check and permanent
100 gp incense, +5 bonus and it can work in midair until blown away
500 gp magic incense, +30 bonus and it can work in midair until blown away
Casting blessing, +0 bonus on the check, works in midair
Casting pass without trace, +0 bonus on the check, protection goes with you
Casting protection from evil, etc. +5 bonus on the check, works in midair, protects a square.
Casting magic circle against evil, etc. +10 bonus on the check, protects both that square and goes with you, works in midair.
Casting hallow/unhallow, +50 and it is permanent. Works only for those of your faith, divine spells only.
Casting lesser globe of invulnerability, +20 on the check, protects its AOE
Casting mage's private sanctum, +40 on the check, protects its AOE
Casting globe of invulnerability, +40 on the check, protects its AOE
Some items or locations might provide positive or negative amounts of shielding.

Psionics has a different but parallel system. Manifesters do not shield an area, they shield their minds. This shielding lasts as long as they maintain their focus. A standard action (retries and taking 20 possible) gives shielding equal to a Knowledge: Psionics check. This may be stacked with checks upon manifesting Empty Mind (+5 bonus +1/pp augmented) and or Thought Shield (+10 bonus, +1/pp augmented). Mind blank gives a flat +40 shielding while it is up, and does not disappear when focus is lost. Also, I'm putting Mind Blank back in as a 7th level psion/wilder power, 6th level Psionic Warrior power.

Example: A 5th level wizard with 18 int casts fireball. First, he takes a standard action to draw protection with chalk. With 18 int, 5 ranks in Knowledge Arcana, and a +3 bonus from class skills, this nets him 1d20+16 in shielding. Should he roll 4 or higher, he is now safe to cast any 3rd level spells he wishes until someone destroys his chalk circle.

Example: A 9th level cleric with 14 int and 9 ranks of Knowledge: religion wants to be able to cast freely. He uses chalk shielding to prebuff with Magic Circle against Evil, providing 1d20+24 shielding to anyone in its AOE while it lasts. That allows him to freely use 3rd level spells, and has an even chance of allowing him to freely use 4th level spells (or better chances if he invests in feats, items, or points of int). If he wants to use 5th level spells, he'll need a total of 75 shielding. If he wants to spend only one round preparing before casting, he'd best use holy water to make his protection (+15 bonus on the check, so he'll have a total of 1d20+24+1d20+29, which fairly reliably gets you to 75).

Example: A wizard forgoes any shielding and casts a 5th level spell. A tentacled horror appears from another reality and does whatever a tentacled horror would do in that situation.

Comments?

[Glimbur]

The problem with making spellcasting harder is that you either

a) Make it too much bother, so people don't play spellcasters or
b) Make it not too hard, which defeats the purpose.

At a glance, I would get UMD on any caster so I could use a wand of pass without trace. Then I just need to get my knowledge check high enough in the beginning of the day, which is feasible because Spells Do It Better (TM).

What is the purpose of this rule change? I know you say that you want it to take more resources or risk, but is this for game balance reasons? Game-world lore reasons? Just for fun?

[raspberrybadger]

All 3. Game-world lore, balance, and fun. And a fourth - if the world works that way, it's going to impact how NPC spellcasters do things, and how people respond.

I'm aware that it won't entirely balance casters. If anything, I wanted to err on the side of keeping casters playable, while scaling how much they get balanced with how imbalanced their spells are.

I hadn't thought of the UMD pass without trace option, thanks for spotting that. It doesn't look too bad. Sorcerers were getting the raw end of this deal, and that mitigates it somewhat. It would mean that not too long after 6th level, for 12.5 gold per hour, sorcerers can fairly reliably cast 3rd level spells. That, combined with magic circle against evil, should allow sorcerers to cast fairly well at mid levels. Getting 110 points of shielding for 6th level spells on the fly would still be rather impossible until high level though.

Oh, I forgot to mention - potions, wands, and staves don't need to be shielded. So, hopefully they will see more use. I suppose I'd have them be unshielded upon unsuccessful UMD attempts.

[Durazno]

Is the Spring Water a +0 bonus, or was that supposed to be 10?

Will you be codifying a system to determine what goes wrong with an unshielded spell, or will it be GM's discretion?

[raspberrybadger]

Spring water is a +0 bonus. It's free, after all. But, it stacks with other attempts at shielding. Given pass without trace, I'm not worried that druids will lack options for shielding.

I'm still tinkering with what goes wrong with unshielded arcane casting. Calling creatures from another reality is one of the more likely and more nasty options - CR about equal to the minimum level of caster required to cast a spell of the level you just cast. Or, +2 CR for failing to be shielded by more than 25. Though, in principle it could attack your enemies, or both you and your enemies, or even become an ally if negotiated with somehow.

As for what responds to the knowledge that someone is casting unshielded, that's definitely GM discretion, and would totally depend on the campaign world.


I'm concerned that the system may be too complex for actual use, and may need to be replaced with something like shield for 1 round to protect 3rd-6th level spells, 2 rounds to protect 7th-9th level spells. Either that or be somewhere already shielded. Then just have a number of methods of shielding, all equivalent except that if you say cast bless, you shield and cast bless at the same time.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

3rd and up casting (and manifesting) would need to be 'shielded' to be entirely safe.

Warning lights go off: we're sticking a system on top of another already complex system. Even more bookkeeping for the caster players.


Unshielded casting (and manifesting) would alert many types of magical creatures, as well as anyone using detect magic (for arcane), detect evil/good/law/chaos (for divine), and detect psionics (for psionics), or similar spells. The range on that would be hundreds of miles, and it would give information on the caster and the spell cast. That would be especially problematic for divine casters, because it gives opposite aligned outsiders to intervene without breaking various agreements. The range on this is 100 miles for every 20 the casting is unshielded by.

O_o

That's quite a range there, and makes any sort of hidden spellcasting entirely impossible. The same with Illusionists and deception-based Enchanters, as a simple Detect Magic spell can make your master charade known to the whole world.

Looking at the rest of the post: Casters get nerfed, and HARD. They either have to spend inordinate amounts of time and money on preparation for even the slightest level-appropriate combat, or they're limited to level 1-2 spells. If they actually have to cast higher level spells without rounds of preparation, they're actually going to make the encounter HARDER, not easier.

I would never play a caster with this system in place. With it, the game becomes "abuse the ways to get long-duration shielding that travels with me, then ignore shielding rules forever" or "never cast a spell because casting spells unshielded makes spellcasting a bookkeeping nightmare and also has terrible consequences."

If you're looking to make casting riskier, go for it. I'd explore other options though: this one becomes a min-maxing game, and those who don't wish to abuse the system are penalized by having their casting be either incredibly dangerous, or to little and to late.

[Kane0]

Have you considered ways of making counterspelling more viable?
It may make magic harder to pull off without introducing new mechanics to heap on top of caster which already have more to keep track of than most.

[raspberrybadger]

I hadn't thought of that, but it doesn't really work for the setting. I'm trying to make shielding simpler - less dependent on optimization, and requiring fewer rolls.

What I've got right now is this:

3rd-6th level spells: shield for one round to be safe, no matter how you do it, no rolling to see if you succeed.

7th-9th level spells: shield for two rounds.

Or, alternatively, cast your spell silent and stilled. Then it's safe. Enchanter/illusionist types had reasons to do that anyway, and people pay costs in spell slots instead of rounds.

Different methods of shielding would have different costs and benefits (bless, for instance, would also bless the party while giving a round of shielding), but would all do the same thing.

[Kane0]

How about when you cast a spell, you make the spellcraft check or know:(Arcana/Religion/Nature) to keep it unnoticed, DC= 10 + (5 * Spell level).

Then give certain feats, items and metamagic all give bonuses to this roll.
Thats a DC 15 for level 1 spells, easy enough to do when you start off at level 1, and DC 55 for 9th level spells when you could be stacking god knows what onto that skill.

Should you fail, everyone you stated above within 5 miles or so per spell level notices.

[raspberrybadger]

Something like that could work. I'd still want to give level 1 and 2 spells a pass, even if metamagicked up. And I'd let shielding take 20 off the DC per round. Giving a bonus for various metamagics would work too (perhaps 20 each for silent, stilled, selective, consecrate) - plus, the DC would be based on the spell level unadjusted by metamagic.

That's DC 25 for 3rd level spells. For a wizard 5, 5 ranks, 3 class skill, 5 int, perhaps a few other bonuses, that's still a pretty good chance of failure. Letting people have a chance to succeed while risking detection is great for the setting. Just so long as the cautious have a way of taking time to be safe. Also, this way level 5 wizards find level 3 casting to be risky, but level 10 ones can do it rather safely. Seems fair enough.