Nerfing the Strike Witch (Tier 3 here we come!)

[CrazyYanmega]

I was thinking of nerfing one of my Homebrew projects, and wanted to get some opinions without performing thread necromancy.

The main problem is that they are full casters, and that's pretty powerful. However, I noticed that the strike witches tend to get physically drained when they use too much magic. So I had an idea: Whenever a Strike Witch casts a spell, ANY spell, they take non-lethal recoil damage equal to the spell's level. Double that if they use metamagic without taking a full round.

This, combined with the Strike Witch's inherent low HP, should prevent spell spamming.

Thoughts?

[Network]

I dunno, I think the greatest issue with strike witches is that they get full sorcerer casting, a better chassis than a sorcerer, and class features. So the class itself is, by definition a buffed Tier 2. There is no easy step to climb down the tier ladder, but I'd suggest actually nerfing the spellcasting. I mean, it's not like a little bit of nonlethal damage is going to make any difference, really; nonlethal damage is scrappy enough, plus immunity to nonlethal damage is moderately easy to obtain (especially if you can afford to lose your Constitution score). I would rather suggest you do a nerf based on the following criterias:
-Reduce the number of spells per day or spells known (it appears I made a mistake earlier. They get 2 less spells per day than a sorcerer. Still not a big difference). That would limit their versatility somewhat, and thus, power level.
-Limit the ability to learn higher level spells (like a bard).
-Reduce the selection of spells they can learn from. Maybe they can't learn Conjuration (Teleportation) spells. Maybe they can only take Evocation spells and those from an approved list. Or maybe they have their own class list, like a dread necromancer, warmage or beguiler (in which case you may or may not let them automatically know all spells from their list).

The last two suggestions are probably your best bet to make the strike witch a tier 3 class. The first will mostly reduce its power level; while tier=/=power level, your class is more likely to be accepted in a game if its power level is lower or equal to that of a sorcerer.

[Tacitus]

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[CrazyYanmega]

Thanks for the tip. I recently discovered that the Warmage spell list is perfect for the Strike Witch.