Fixing Tier 1 is pointless

[ImperatorK]

What if we limit the Wizard only to one school and make it so wannabe generalist Wizards have to invest quite a bunch of feats to learn spells from other schools? Something like Spell Reprieve, Item Reprieve, Arcane Transfiguration chain?

[NNescio]

What if we limit the Wizard only to one school and make it so wannabe generalist Wizards have to invest quite a bunch of feats to learn spells from other schools? Something like Spell Reprieve, Item Reprieve, Arcane Transfiguration chain?

Straight conjurers and transmuters are still very good.

[erikun]

What if we limit the Wizard only to one school and make it so wannabe generalist Wizards have to invest quite a bunch of feats to learn spells from other schools?

Conjuration, Transmutation, and Illusion are still just as broken, and now even more important. Heaven help the poor wizard attempting Abjuration, Necromancy, or *shudder* Divination.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

What if we limit the Wizard only to one school and make it so wannabe generalist Wizards have to invest quite a bunch of feats to learn spells from other schools? Something like Spell Reprieve, Item Reprieve, Arcane Transfiguration chain?

This is something that I'm trying to do, actually. I'm taking the concept from classes like the Beguiler and Dread Necro, and applying them to other caster archetypes, hopefully making a set of about four or five interesting and useful classes without handing out any 'win' buttons.

I was wanting to do a 'summoner' for the Conjuration/transmutation class, similar in concept to the Pathfinder class of the same name, but having set elementals that they pact with to summon, as they get more powerful. Various elemental pacts grant various abilities to both the elemental in question and the caster.

So basically, he's got a lot of buffing ability, and has strong summons, but he's going to have to expend a large portion of his 'Advanced Learning' abilities to also be good at battlefield control, and his advanced learning explicitly prohibits Instantaneous Conjuration effects, so no Orbs...

Then I was wanting to do an 'oracle' type character for Divination/Abjuration..

[stainboy]

One thought I had with the Cleric was making them able to choose more Domains as they levelled up, eventually capping out at, say, five Domains...and that's it. No other sources of spells.

I really like the idea that clerics use narrow customized spell lists. The 3e cleric class is trying to cover everything from hardass battlepriest to necromancer cultist. Whenever one cleric needs something, every other cleric gets it too. If the battlepriest needs to swing a mace harder, the necromancer gets Divine Power. If the necromancer needs some zombies the battlepriest gets Animate Dead.

There's no such thing as a "generalist cleric," so there's not even a character concept that's served by all that versatility. If you pick a priest of Bacchus you probably want to be forced to look for uses for Rage and Confusion and Charm Monster rather than just preparing whatever works best.

I say cut the cleric spell list down to the bare minimum (probably just Cure Wounds, Restoration, and fluffy stuff like Atonement), scrap domains, and bring back divine spell spheres from AD&D.

What if we limit the Wizard only to one school and make it so wannabe generalist Wizards have to invest quite a bunch of feats to learn spells from other schools? Something like Spell Reprieve, Item Reprieve, Arcane Transfiguration chain?

I like the idea, but we'd need a new way of categorizing spells that made some actual sense. For one thing, it would have to be legal for a spell to be in multiple categories. For another, spells would have to be grouped based on "what kind of wizard casts this" not "how does this fit into my arbitrary rules for how magic works that I never bothered to write down."

There have been three separate attempts at a single-school arcane class (Warmage, Beguiler, Dread Necro) and not one of them stuck to their school. Warmage leans at least as hard on Conjuration as Evocation, Dread Necro uses Conjuration and Transmutation, Beguiler is all over the place. No single school does a good job of reflecting any character concept.

[ImperatorK]

Conjuration, Transmutation, and Illusion are still just as broken, and now even more important. Heaven help the poor wizard attempting Abjuration, Necromancy, or *shudder* Divination.

Of course it would need some tweaking of individual spell placements (school-wise and level-wise), but the basic idea isn't that bad, right?

On Clerics: I would just restrict them to spells that are themed to the god/concept they're worshiping. It would be more like Rule 0'ing or DM fiat'ing it, but meh, whatever works.

[erikun]

Of course it would need some tweaking of individual spell placements (school-wise and level-wise), but the basic idea isn't that bad, right?

We could, but by the time we're done re-writing spells and making new ones, we've probably solved the issue for generalist Wizards as well.

[Rogue Shadows]

On Clerics: I would just restrict them to spells that are themed to the god/concept they're worshiping. It would be more like Rule 0'ing or DM fiat'ing it, but meh, whatever works.

Hmm. Deities become super-domains, kinda'?

Of course it would need some tweaking of individual spell placements (school-wise and level-wise), but the basic idea isn't that bad, right?

Hmm.

Bear with me for a moment.

What if each school has two "allied" and one "enemy" school?

Spoiler

Show

In the above, "allied" schools are schools that are close to each other (Evocation is allied to Transmutation and Conjuration), and the "enemy" school is directly opposite (Evocation is enemies with Abjuration).

Here's how this would work:
- You specialize in one school. You learn a bonus spell of that school each time you level up, and you can cast one extra spell per day as long as the extra spell is from that school.
- You can learn and cast spells freely from your focused school and any allied schools.
- You cannot learn spells from non-allied, non-enemy schools without taking a special feat, once for each school. An Evoker, for example, has to take a feat to learn Necromancy spells, another feat to learn Enchantment spells, and so on (or more likely, the same feat multiple times)
- You can never learn spells from your enemy school.

Combine this with, say, the specialist wizard variant from Unearthed Arcana, and a complete overhaul of the spell system to re-balance it...

And, of course, you could always choose to remain a Universalist, in which case you can learn any spell, but get somewhat less spells per day, and don't get the nifty UA benefits for specializing.

[RPGuru1331]

Conjuration, Transmutation, and Illusion are still just as broken, and now even more important. Heaven help the poor wizard attempting Abjuration, Necromancy, or *shudder* Divination.

Out of curiosity, since I know you'll have more knowledge of the rules than me, what happens when you kill the spells that mimic other schools (Melf's Acid Arrow, Shadow Evocation or whatever it's called)?

I'm aware Conjuration will remain powerful, as it will retain versatility and Gate, but I'm curious about Transmutation and Illusion. The former should remain strong, but...

[erikun]

Out of curiosity, since I know you'll have more knowledge of the rules than me, what happens when you kill the spells that mimic other schools (Melf's Acid Arrow, Shadow Evocation or whatever it's called)?

I'm aware Conjuration will remain powerful, as it will retain versatility and Gate, but I'm curious about Transmutation and Illusion. The former should remain strong, but...

Well, you kill the Shadow Conjuration/Shadow Evocation line, which means Illusion takes a pretty major hit. It can still be useful with imagination, but only a little DM fiat can ruin absolutely anything the Illusionist can cast.

Conjuration loses its ability to act as super-Evocation, which kills the most damaging builds. Beyond that, not much. You can still summon walls, you can still summon Web/Black Tentacles/Solid Fog, you can still summon/gate in creatures and use their SLAs.

Transmutation's strongest spells are the Polymorph line, which are completely unchanged. Fly and teleportation are strong as ever. I don't think Transmutation even loses anything.

I think Necromancy might even take a hit, as you'd be removing the Summon Undead, Speak with Dead, Hide from Undead, and so on. Some of those might already be in another school, though, but Necromancy would be pretty bad off from the exchange.

[NNescio]

Well, you kill the Shadow Conjuration/Shadow Evocation line, which means Illusion takes a pretty major hit. It can still be useful with imagination, but only a little DM fiat can ruin absolutely anything the Illusionist can cast.

Conjuration loses its ability to act as super-Evocation, which kills the most damaging builds. Beyond that, not much. You can still summon walls, you can still summon Web/Black Tentacles/Solid Fog, you can still summon/gate in creatures and use their SLAs.

Transmutation's strongest spells are the Polymorph line, which are completely unchanged. Fly and teleportation are strong as ever. I don't think Transmutation even loses anything.

I think Necromancy might even take a hit, as you'd be removing the Summon Undead, Speak with Dead, Hide from Undead, and so on. Some of those might already be in another school, though, but Necromancy would be pretty bad off from the exchange.

Summon Undead is normally Conjuration.

[erikun]

Summon Undead is normally Conjuration.

Figured. I knew one of those wasn't Necromancy anyways. (Yet another reason why solo-Necro is a bad idea!)

The same idea also heavily nerfs Evocation. Wall of Force? Nope, walls are a Conjuration effect. Forcecage? Resilient Sphere? Nope again, single-target monster restraints are a Conjuration effect as well. That takes most of the point of Evocation right out of the school, unless you are ignoring that part and keeping them around. (For that matter, give Evo the orbs and give Necro the Summon Undead line.)

[ImperatorK]

Hm...
Then maybe we could leave the less powerful schools, but disallow the rest and make the Wizard pick just one? For example every Wizard has Evocation, Abjuration and Divination + pick one more.

[Rogue Shadows]

Hm...
Then maybe we could leave the less powerful schools, but disallow the rest and make the Wizard pick just one? For example every Wizard has Evocation, Abjuration and Divination + pick one more.

That seems...arbitrary, though.

[Hiro Protagonest]

What if every specialist wizard can pick two schools other than the one they specialize in, and a generalist could pick five schools? That gives specialist three schools, compared to seven, and generalists five schools, compared to eight.

[stainboy]

That seems...arbitrary, though.

Divination and Abjuration give you Read Magic and Dispel Magic, and part of Conjuration doesn't function without Circle of Protection.

[Rogue Shadows]

What if every specialist wizard can pick two schools other than the one they specialize in, and a generalist could pick five schools? That gives specialist three schools, compared to seven, and generalists five schools, compared to eight.

As a generalist, I pick Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Transmutation

[The Glyphstone]

All three of those schools include general non-thematic spells, or spells other schools expect you to have:

Divination - Read Magic
Evocation - Mage Armor, Contingency
Abjuration - Dispel Magic, Circle of Protection

It doesn't make sense for any wizard not to have at least some access to those three schools. I guess you could cut Evocation if you put Mage Armor in Abjuration where it belongs.

Mage Armor is Conjuration, actually.

[stainboy]

Bah, you're right, caught me editing.

[Rogue Shadows]

Divination and Abjuration give you Read Magic and Dispel Magic, and part of Conjuration doesn't function without Circle of Protection.

I've always felt Read Magic should be Universal, personally.

[ImperatorK]

All three of those schools include general non-thematic spells, or spells other schools expect you to have:

Divination - Read Magic
Evocation - Mage Armor, Contingency
Abjuration - Dispel Magic, Circle of Protection

It doesn't make sense for any wizard not to have at least some access to those three schools. I guess you could cut Evocation if you put Mage Armor in Abjuration where it belongs.

I was thinking more like something straightforward for: attack (Evocation), defense (Abjuration) and knowledge/learning (Divination).

[Larpus]

Well, since we're messing around with the very ink that describes a class, why don't we go ahead and change some spells' schools (Mage Armor never really made sense as Conjuration, especially when Shield is not and both are basically the same).

And/or introduce multi-school spells, for example Summon Undead is clearly Conjuration, since you're summoning an already existing undead, however it also finds a warm nest in Necromancy, since while it's not straight-up necro, it's obviously more than related (fluff-wise you can say that you can summon undeads due to your knowledge of the energies that command them, but you're unable to summon any other thing).

[Gnaeus]

Druid gets full casting, good skill selection, no dead levels, and an excellent selection of spells.

Of course it's too powerful! Look at it! there are other classes in the PHB that get a mixture of spells and class features: The bard, the ranger, and the paladin. But none of them get full casting! And of the classes in the PHB that get no or few dead levels, three of them can't cast spells at all! (barbarian, monk and rogue)

Yes, Druid is more powerful than those classes. So is Cleric. So is Wizard. A druid with Natural Spell is not clearly stronger than a DMM Cleric. It is not clearly stronger than an Artificer, or an Archivist, or a Wizard. Most people believe that Wizards have the strongest spell lists of the big 3, and are therefore the most powerful. Clerics don't get to summon a pet, but they can animate any giant monster they fight and have armies of undead that are stronger than any AC, and they can walk around with persisted buffs that make them comparable to a WS druid in a fight. Archivists also get good class features, and the best spell list in the game (assuming scroll availability). Artificers can pull off most of the brokenness of the other T1s 2 levels earlier. There are individual levels where druids top out the big 3/big 5, but there are also levels (17+) where they are the weakest of the T1s.

If you removed the druid's spellcasting entirely, you'd still have a pretty decent class, at least as compared to the other classes in the core rulebook, if a little weak at low levels prior to being able to shapeshift. It'd no longer be Tier 1 at all but I'd be immensely surprised if it dropped down to Tier 4 or lower..

Druid without wildshape is still tier 1. The defining feature of tier 1 is an open ended versatile spell list from which the caster can pick the best spells for any given day. Druids still have that. A druid without wildshape is simply...much weaker than a cleric, which can be done while still being in tier 1. Spirit Shaman is a modified druid with selectable spont casting, without WS OR AC, and it is the bottom of T1/top of T2.

You know what's weird?

You don't really ever have to worry about this happening with Warmages and Healers.

Just sayin'.

Sure, because the spotlight will never actually reach the Healer, who spends most of his time off stage, in the bathroom, crying.

[Erloas]

Make clear you have a spotlight to shine on each member. Make clear that if he/she wants to go around and ninja every sparkle of spotlight-light and deform your intentions and campaign through his abilities, there is no place for him/her in the campaign.

That solves the issue for me pretty much allways and calls for banning/adjusting of only the most obvious few things.

The problem with these sorts of agreements with players is that everyone has their own idea of what is stealing the spot light and what is trying to break the game.
The party ranger might not even care that they aren't getting to track the enemy because the wizard can just divine the location, but they might go through a good portion of the game before they realize their "time to shine" was given to someone else and at that point its a little hard to say "lets go back to my slower and less effective means of doing the same thing."
Then there is the question of how much of the spotlight is it ok to have, they might only take it for 10% of each session which leaves 90% for the other 3 players, but if they take the key 10% every time and fix all of the big problems and leave everyone else with the trivial ones they are still doing what you asked and kind of messing up things at the same time.

And obviously as a DM you have complete control over what spells some classes can learn. If the player never finds a place to learn Spell X, no scrolls, no enemy spellbooks with it, no mage center in town that can teach them, then they don't have access to that spell and can't break the game with it. But the problem with a lot of those solutions is that they pretty much seem completely arbitrarily picked by the DM.
And both as a player and as a DM its much easier to go into a game knowing what to expect, from the stated rules of the game, rather then having to find out or make it up as you go.

[Rogue Shadows]

Druid without wildshape is still tier 1. The defining feature of tier 1 is an open ended versatile spell list from which the caster can pick the best spells for any given day. Druids still have that. A druid without wildshape is simply...much weaker than a cleric, which can be done while still being in tier 1. Spirit Shaman is a modified druid with selectable spont casting, without WS OR AC, and it is the bottom of T1/top of T2.

If you'll notice, in that responce I was saying how if you removed a druid's spellcasting, the resultant class would still be good - not a druid's wildshape.

Sure, because the spotlight will never actually reach the Healer, who spends most of his time off stage, in the bathroom, crying.

Kind of my point.

If the player never finds a place to learn Spell X, no scrolls, no enemy spellbooks with it, no mage center in town that can teach them, then they don't have access to that spell and can't break the game with it. But the problem with a lot of those solutions is that they pretty much seem completely arbitrarily picked by the DM.

Also there's the problem that this solution doesnt work with Clerics, Druids, or Sorcerers.

[Tyndmyr]

And obviously as a DM you have complete control over what spells some classes can learn. If the player never finds a place to learn Spell X, no scrolls, no enemy spellbooks with it, no mage center in town that can teach them, then they don't have access to that spell and can't break the game with it.

Really? Because the divine casters automatically know their whole spellbook, spont casters have no such restriction, and wizards automatically get free spells on level up.

I don't see how this is complete control at all.

[Erloas]

Really? Because the divine casters automatically know their whole spellbook, spont casters have no such restriction, and wizards automatically get free spells on level up.

Well in the end the DM always has complete control, and if they simply want to say Spell X doesn't exist in their world then thats up to them.
And if you are going to homebrew a complete rework of spell lists and class mechanics anyway you are essentially doing the same thing.

And it doesn't seem to be too uncommon of a house rule that someone has to have a place to learn the spells from, even the "free" ones per level, so you can learn them without the spellcraft checks, the time and the gold costs, but you still have to have had some method of learning said spell.

[stainboy]

Well, since we're messing around with the very ink that describes a class, why don't we go ahead and change some spells' schools (Mage Armor never really made sense as Conjuration, especially when Shield is not and both are basically the same).

And/or introduce multi-school spells, for example Summon Undead is clearly Conjuration, since you're summoning an already existing undead, however it also finds a warm nest in Necromancy, since while it's not straight-up necro, it's obviously more than related (fluff-wise you can say that you can summon undeads due to your knowledge of the energies that command them, but you're unable to summon any other thing).

I think this would just as much work as just coming up with an entire new categorization system.

If you write out a one-sentence description of a spell in verb-noun form:

I create an explosion!
I summon a wight!
I change my appearance!

...it's easy to see how most spells belong in two schools. Conjuration, Transmutation, Enchantment, and Abjuration refer to the verb part of the sentence. Illusion, Evocation, and Necromancy refer to the noun.
And then we get problems because there's a school for every verb, but not for every noun. "I summon a vrock!" is Conj and only Conj because there's no school specific to cover vulture demons. Conj and Trans would still be the best schools. They'd each include half of Illusion, Evoc, and Necro, plus a bunch more stuff.

You'd have to recategorize almost every spell in the game. And even after all this work, you'd still have problems like Illusion and Enchantment each being half of a character concept, and summoners who can't draw their own binding circles.

[Gnaeus]

I think this would just as much work as just coming up with an entire new categorization system.

If you write out a one-sentence description of a spell in verb-noun form:

I create an explosion!
I summon a wight!
I change my appearance!

...it's easy to see how most spells belong in two schools. Conjuration, Transmutation, Enchantment, and Abjuration refer to the verb part of the sentence. Illusion, Evocation, and Necromancy refer to the noun.
And then we get problems because there's a school for every verb, but not for every noun. "I summon a vrock!" is Conj and only Conj because there's no school specific to cover vulture demons. Conj and Trans would still be the best schools. They'd each include half of Illusion, Evoc, and Necro, plus a bunch more stuff.

You'd have to recategorize almost every spell in the game. And even after all this work, you'd still have problems like Illusion and Enchantment each being half of a character concept, and summoners who can't draw their own binding circles.

That is essentially the Ars Magica spell system. You buy ranks in verbs (in latin for flavor, but basically, I create, I learn about, I destroy, I control, or I change) and nouns (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Body, Mind, Animal, Plant, Image, Magic).

[stainboy]

That is essentially the Ars Magica spell system. You buy ranks in verbs (in latin for flavor, but basically, I create, I learn about, I destroy, I control, or I change) and nouns (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Body, Mind, Animal, Plant, Image, Magic).

I was hoping someone would bring up Ars Magica. Changeling: the Dreaming also uses verb-noun magic, if anyone wants another example.

As proposed in this thread though every wizard would get either one set of verbs or one set of nouns though, so not quite the same thing. (And that's good. The whole point of verb-noun magic is that your options grow quadratically. If we're trying to nerf D&D wizards that's the last thing we want.)