Would this change a Beguiler, Warmage, or Dread Necro's power significantly?

[HunterOfJello]

If you set the sorcerer variant classes (Beguiler, Warmage, Dread Necromancer) to have the following class spell lists, do you think it would effect their power a great deal?



Beguiler: Every illusion and enchantment spell on the wizard/sorcerer list

Dread Necromancer: Every necromancy spell on the wizard/sorcerer list

Warmage: Every evocation spell on the wizard/sorcerer list

(Note: The classes would still retain the spells that come on their default list. For instance, Dread Necromancer's would still get Dispel Magic).

~

I'm not really considering this for any game at the moment, but the idea occurred to me while I was eating a burrito. Why not just give each of these classes every spell on those lists? The only reason I can think of is that it would be a heck of a lot of paperwork.


*edit*

Oh god please don't turn this into a thread about tier system disbelief and/or complaints. It didn't occur to me that this might set something like that off. I'm just curious about your opinions.

[TopCheese]

If you set the sorcerer variant classes (Beguiler, Warmage, Dread Necromancer) to have the following class spell lists, do you think it would effect their power a great deal?



Beguiler: Every illusion and enchantment spell on the wizard/sorcerer list

Dread Necromancer: Every necromancy spell on the wizard/sorcerer list

Warmage: Every evocation spell on the wizard/sorcerer list

(Note: The classes would still retain the spells that come on their default list. For instance, Dread Necromancer's would still get Dispel Magic).

~

I'm not really considering this for any game at the moment, but the idea occurred to me while I was eating a burrito. Why not just give each of these classes every spell on those lists? The only reason I can think of is that it would be a heck of a lot of paperwork.


*edit*

Oh god please don't turn this into a thread about tier system disbelief and/or complaints. It didn't occur to me that this might set something like that off. I'm just curious about your opinions.

Well ...

Warmage would still suck since it doesn't have scaling class features and since some of the better blasty spells are Orb spells (due how you can play with them). Of course blasting is the worse thing you can do with magic...

Beguiler... Doesn't really need this upgrade but heck it should already have it.... Still fails against a ton of high level monsters (true seeing and immune to mind effects type of monsters..).

Dread Necromancer doesn't need more necromancy spells but some SLA that lets them make undead for free and I think it is one of the "protection" spells so that they can actually play with some binding effects.

But in a nut shell... It wouldn't make them crazy strong... Actually your idea should keep them right where they are at on the tier scale.

[Eonir]

Not really. All of them would still not have access to all the ridiculous stuff.

[eggs]

It would be pretty huge. Dread Necromancer would get some crazy stuff like Animate Dread Warrior, Black Sand, Haunt Shift and Malevolent Tentacles, which would really amp up its options.

With all the Shadow X spells, Beguiler's spell list would explode, as well as granting some gamebreaking stuff like Simulacrum.

Even Warmage would see some pretty drastic improvement. First, just getting a few more of the actually decent blasting spells like Radiant Assault, Combust, Wings of Flurry, Streamers or Moonbow would do make it much better at its own schtick, but it would also get some solid versatility options like that Firestride Exhalation Blast+Teleport deal or Contingency for all its normal hilarity.

On Dread Necromancer and Beguiler in particular, this seems like it would break the balance that makes them appealing to specifically include in the game. On Warmage, I'd need to think about it, but it might be alright.

[limejuicepowder]

It would definitely increase their power, though not by that much. Right now, each of the classes gets a good chunk of those spells anyways; with the new rule, they might get lucky and auto-add a couple of powerful spells from whatever.

This applies to the beguiler and DN only, now that I think about it. Warmage gets the very short end of the evocation stick - not only is evocation one of the weaker schools, warmage doesn't even get the good spells from it. This would help the warmage pretty significantly, especially at higher levels when blasting isn't quite as good. Just adding forcecage is great.

It'd make for a lot more bookkeeping, which is kind of a downer. Rather than getting a finite list, they would be getting an open-ended list that is scattered across roughly 15,000 books (only slightly exaggerating).

[Snowbluff]

Of course blasting is the worse thing you can do with magic...

Mailman Fallacy. 1 save is one to many save for your targets to make. SoD is crap. The BBEGs are immune to SoD if your DM is smart. Mooks are too weak to bother wasting a SoD on. You don't ever let your DM roll anything if you don't have to.

[Spuddles]

It would be a substantial boost to power, even for warmages. With spontaneous access to that many spells, it's pretty likely you would almost always have something available to nearly perfectly solve a given situation.

[Morph Bark]

If you'd give Warmages the elemental Conjuration spells as well (I mean, they already got the Orb spells), it'd be fairer to them, but overall to all of them this would be a pretty big boost, Beguiler especially since they got two full schools.

[Gwendol]

Yes, more spells means (much) more versatility. The same argument can be made for other classes, like the Duskblade (all Wiz/Sor touch spells known?).

[Morph Bark]

Yes, more spells means (much) more versatility. The same argument can be made for other classes, like the Duskblade (all Wiz/Sor touch spells known?).

This is why a Duskblade/Sublime Chord is scary.

[darksolitaire]

Each of those three is spontaneous caster that knows every spell in their list. There is also quite many spells for 3,5 from 1st party sources. So yes. They would be quite powerful.

[nedz]

It would be pretty huge. Dread Necromancer would get some crazy stuff like Animate Dread Warrior, Black Sand, Haunt Shift and Malevolent Tentacles, which would really amp up its options.

With all the Shadow X spells, Beguiler's spell list would explode, as well as granting some gamebreaking stuff like Simulacrum.

Even Warmage would see some pretty drastic improvement. First, just getting a few more of the actually decent blasting spells like Radiant Assault, Combust, Wings of Flurry, Streamers or Moonbow would do make it much better at its own schtick, but it would also get some solid versatility options like that Firestride Exhalation Blast+Teleport deal or Contingency for all its normal hilarity.

On Dread Necromancer and Beguiler in particular, this seems like it would break the balance that makes them appealing to specifically include in the game. On Warmage, I'd need to think about it, but it might be alright.

this basically.

I don't think it would lift any of them a Tier, though I could be wrong.

[Gwendol]

This is why a Duskblade/Sublime Chord is scary.

Indeed. And a Duskblade with more spells would be even more so (higher BAB, better HD, full attack channeling).

[sonofzeal]

this basically.

I don't think it would lift any of them a Tier, though I could be wrong.

It almost certainly raises the Warmage a tier. They're ridiculously narrow as-is, but Evocation has a fair amount of utility in it. I mean, yeah it's no Conjuration or Transmutation, but.... Shatter, Floating Disk, pretty much all the Wall spells, pretty much all the non-orb Force spells including the entire Bigby's line, Resilient Sphere, Contingency, Force Cage?

Yeah, that's not T4 material any more.

[nedz]

Well Beguilers with Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation et al, are a lot more powerful but does this take them to Tier 2 ?

They can normally get a limited amount of these with Advanced Learning, but the timing on this class feature is very unfortunate. Advanced Learning becomes completely redundant with this fix.

[JoshuaZ]

The Shadow line of spells would have the most impact for the beguiler, because it gives them effective access to a wide variety of utility spells an other fun stuff.

The dread necromancer will also be getting a substantial power boost this way, especially since there are a lot of utility spells which are on the necromancy list but they don't normally get. Since the dread necromancer's version of advanced learning lets them also pick off the cleric list, that means they will just use their advanced learning for that. One question is whether this is intended to be in addition to the usual spells the classes get or a replacement set (so for example does the DN in this context lost Harm?). Either way, the DN will be at least T2 in this situation and might be its own weird thing outside the tier list.

The warmage will get a definite boost also. How much will depend on whether this is in addition to or instead of their usual thing, since their best blasting is the orb spells which are actually conjuration. Regardless, they'll be picking up a few nice utility spells this way such as sending.

[Snowbluff]

Another scary combo is Duskblade with DN1. Get Versatile Spellcaster to add a bunch of spells to your repertoire at low cost. The same trick could be used between any of these classes.

[kestrel404]

Most of the comments so far have been pretty accurate, so I'll just summarize, by class.

Beguiler - Access to 2 entire schools of magic (and while not the strongest, certainly not the weakest either) plus their existing spell list (which was fairly nice to begin with) will undoubtedly bump the Beguiler up to a tier 2 character - they will be able to win ANY encounter with the appropriate prep work. Yes, they're still weak against a large segment of high-level threats, but the Beguiler has ALWAYS been an indirect combatant - instead of SoDing the boss monsters, they take control over every monster in the dungeon BEFORE the boss monster and use them as cannon fodder against him - generally with fewer and lower level spells than the equivalent wizard would waste in outright killing it (ignoring the spells wasted on eliminating these fodder). So I do not see this as a particular disability.

Dread Necro - Necromancy is a nice and useful school. It has some nice spells, but almost none of them are potentially game breaking (and most of the ones that are were already on their list). With no other upgrades, this just shifts the DN from a mid-range Tier 3 to a high-power Tier 3 (like going from Bard to Binder).

Warmage - This is probably the class that balances the best with this tweek. While the power increase definitely increases the Warmage to a Tier 3 (instead of a Tier 4), it does not in any way unbalance them. They merely get options now, instead of having a very clear 'use blast spell X on creature type Y' methodology. Also, they can do things that are not (strictly) combat, which is the reason they shift up to Tier 3.

Overall, I'd recommend making the change ONLY for the Warmage.

What the Dread Necro needs is a choice between higher damage on their touch attack (+1d8 at 3rd level, +1d8/3 class levels above 3rd) for those who want to play 'frontline' style necromages, or free undead related feats (1/4 class levels, starting at 4th) for those who are more horde oriented. If the character is caster-focused, then maybe let them choose an additional spell that is thematically appropriate (necromancy, acid, darkness, etc.) on every odd level.

The beguiler...is pretty much perfect as-is. If you really want to make the class better at being a beguiler, give them a handful of new class features to play with - I'd suggest:
1st level: False Mind - 1/day/class level, the beguiler may as a standard action make a mid-range mental attack (10+1/2 class level+Int vs Will save) against any creature whose creature type renders them immune to mind-affecting abilities. On a failed save, they lose that immunity for the Beguiler's class level in rounds. This ability may only be used against a specific creature once every 24 hours, whether they fail their save or not.
5th level: Innocent Spellcasting: With a bluff check opposed by either a sense motive or spellcraft check (whichever is higher), the Beguiler can disguise the casting of a spell as some innocuous or innocent action (such as sneezing). The Beguiler has a circumstance penalty to this check equal to the level of the spell squared (1 for 1st level, 4 for 2nd, etc.), including metamagic modifiers, with the exception of Still, Silent and Invisible Spell metamagics (which do not increase the level of the spel for determining this penalty, and which each add a +5 circumstance bonus to this check).
10th level: The False Mind class feature will now work on any creature with immunity to mind affecting for any reason (including spells, magic items, class features, etc). The effect now lasts for minutes instead of rounds.
15th level: Illusion made real - 1/day When casting an illusion spell, the Beguiler may choose to make the illusion semi-real. While not physically present, the illusion actually changes the physical world in the same way that a physical manifestation that is real would (that is, an illusion of a tree would reflect all of the photons that the tree would if it was there, exert a gravitational pull as a tree of the same mass, etc.) rendering it completely indistinguishable from a real object. This negates the effects of any form of divination which allows the detection and bypassing of illusions, up to and including True Seeing. Detect magic and other spells sensing the presence of magic will only detect the presence of a weak abjuration effect.

Hope that helps.

[MesiDoomstalker]

5th level: Innocent Spellcasting: With a bluff check opposed by either a sense motive or spellcraft check (whichever is higher), the Beguiler can disguise the casting of a spell as some innocuous or innocent action (such as sneezing). The Beguiler has a circumstance penalty to this check equal to the level of the spell squared (1 for 1st level, 4 for 2nd, etc.), including metamagic modifiers, with the exception of Still, Silent and Invisible Spell metamagics (which do not increase the level of the spel for determining this penalty, and which each add a +5 circumstance bonus to this check).

I assume the point of the squaring is to make the DC scale upwards with level. However, this quickly makes casting higher level spells near impossible with this technique. A fifth level spell is -25 penalty, which without Bluff cheese, is hard to pass (and Glibness, being a spell itself, isn't particularly helpful if your trying to be inconspicuous as thats another chance of failure.) From there the DC becomes harder to -36 to near impossible -49. I wouldn't sqaure, I would do something far less drastic. Like Doubling. 1 for level 1, 2 for level 2, 4 for level 3, etc. Maybe starting with a higher base.

[kestrel404]

I assume the point of the squaring is to make the DC scale upwards with level. However, this quickly makes casting higher level spells near impossible with this technique. A fifth level spell is -25 penalty, which without Bluff cheese, is hard to pass (and Glibness, being a spell itself, isn't particularly helpful if your trying to be inconspicuous as thats another chance of failure.) From there the DC becomes harder to -36 to near impossible -49. I wouldn't sqaure, I would do something far less drastic. Like Doubling. 1 for level 1, 2 for level 2, 4 for level 3, etc. Maybe starting with a higher base.

Yeah, squaring is a bit harsh. But this is what you get from homebrew somebody writes on the fly.

[Torvon]

Your idea should keep them right where they are at on the tier scale.

Don't understand how anyone can possibly argue that a character that has access to an extremely tiny spell list, vs. a character that has access to a massively huge spell list, stays on the same tier.

It would make them much more powerful. However, it would most certainly still not make them as powerful as many many other classes. I like the suggested changes.

Then again, the whole idea of these classes is: get spontaneous casting for massively increased flexibility, counter it by much smaller spell selection.
An idea I generally like a lot and find fair.