Has anyone tried reducing the Tier 1-2 classes' spell progressions?

[Firechanter]

I remember this has been discussed years ago: the possibility to balance Wizards, Sorcerers etc by reducing their caster progressions to the (PF) Bard table.
Add the 7th Spell Level at CL 19. Done.

Has anyone ever actually implemented this houserule and played a campaign with it or more? I'd be keen to hear of your experiences.
Did you give the affected classes anything "in exchange" for reducing their God status? Did you use any other houserule elements?

[HouseRules]

The greatest nerf is to make the slots caster level instead of spell level.
Then, they could expand to at least 25 caster level slots (level 49).

Note: fast progression prestige classes are still very powerful.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Expand:
Slots are Caster Level, not Spell Level.
Cantrips, Orisons, Talents, and other equivalent slots are removed -- cannot cast with 0 caster level or equivalent.
The spells are not removed from the game, only their slots.

Since the slots are caster level and not spell level, the minimum caster level rules need to be made explicit with house rules, as well as some scaling rules.

Minimum Caster Level Changes
Cantrips, Orisons, Talents -> Minimum Caster/Manifested Level = 1.
Minimum Caster Level = Spell Level × 2.

Scaling Changes
Spells are scaled to (Spell Level + 1) × 2 for single target spells.
Spells are scaled to Spell Level × 2 for multiple target spells.
Enhance Spell is changed to increase scaling cap by 4.

Note: Slots are caster level, so anything that boost caster level are removed from the game.

Since Full Casters have 9th slots -- they are capped at 9th caster level without extending the slots.
With the minimum caster level change -- they are capped at 4th level spells without extending the slots.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Firechanter]

I'm afraid I don't quite get it. Can you expand?

[heavyfuel]

This doesn't solve anything.

The only thing that solves the caster balance problem is banning/nerfing the problematic spells.

A wizard with bard-like progression can still one-shot dragons with Shivering Touch, spectral hand, and assay resistance, the only difference is now he needs to be a couple levels higher.

Planar Binding still breaks the game hard, but it does so a couple levels later.

Lv 1 encounter ending spells still work at lv 1 (Sleep, Grease, Power Word Pain)

Basically, you just make casters less fun, but you don't make them weaker, you only delay their strength

[liquidformat]

So while similar what we have done at our table is going with no 7th level + spells are available pre epic, however, leaving the spell slots, per day, and spell progression as is. This has done a few things things, the first is now that actual 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells are off the table people have been more willing to try out more interesting prcs that have lesser spell progression. Alternatively other people have gone metamagic heavy filling up those slots with metamagic spells. Finally it has made higher level monsters more unique and powerful which is honestly a nice change from the curb stomping that quite often happened...

We also use epic spell casting feat and spell research to pull in 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells in the beginning of epic levels, it has made epic levels actually function. Also we have employed the use of UA incantations for when 7th-9th level spells are needed pre-epic going as far as having mini quests to find the incantations, materials, and people to use said spells and then deal with the fallout after casting them.

Over all it has been pretty cool and an interesting change. It has also worked well with the campaign world I have created which is god heavy where divine magic is strongly related to worshiping the gods and the gods and there by religion more or less see arcane magic as a challenge to their power and therefor highly restrict magic across the board.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I remember this has been discussed years ago: the possibility to balance Wizards, Sorcerers etc by reducing their caster progressions to the (PF) Bard table.
Add the 7th Spell Level at CL 19. Done.

Has anyone ever actually implemented this houserule and played a campaign with it or more? I'd be keen to hear of your experiences.
Did you give the affected classes anything "in exchange" for reducing their God status? Did you use any other houserule elements?

PF gets you a good chunk of the way with their variety of 2/3 casters. From there you can modify some of the fixed list casters from 3.5 into a 2/3 framework to cover all your bases. IMO you should add class features to avoid blandness and give each 2/3 caster a specialist vibe. If you are dead set on a generalist, maybe give it some versatility-oriented features. Again, if you just took a wizard and pared down its list, why wouldn't someone just take Bard or Summoner? They even get "early" access to certain spells. And more importantly, they're more fun.

In my own experience, the most common balance-related issues for D&D/3.5 games have been (in descending order) players of different optimization levels, weak/trap options, druids, and particular spells/lines of spells. The hardest one to deal with is the first one; the rest have relatively straightforward fixes. I've never had a problem with access to higher level spells in general. Higher level spells change the nature of the game, sure, but that's mostly a reflection of how D&D characters go from "semi-competent regular folks" to "near-demigods." That's true of a Bard, too. It's true that you're slowing down that progression a bit, but you could just as easily slow down XP progression and buff martials. In general it's easier to just fix the most egregious spells and buff martials; that gets you most of the way to where you want to be without the headaches.

[Crichton]

This doesn't solve anything.

100% agree. It's a plan that sounds good in principle, but doesn't do much of anything to actually accomplish its own stated goal -to 'balance' casters. It doesn't do that, or even make much progress in that direction, so it should probably be avoided.

If you're having problems with balance at your table, it's particular spells that are giving you trouble, not entire spell-levels. Nobody's breaking the game with Meteor Swarm, for example.

[Biggus]

This doesn't solve anything.

The only thing that solves the caster balance problem is banning/nerfing the problematic spells.

A wizard with bard-like progression can still one-shot dragons with Shivering Touch, spectral hand, and assay resistance, the only difference is now he needs to be a couple levels higher.

Planar Binding still breaks the game hard, but it does so a couple levels later.

Lv 1 encounter ending spells still work at lv 1 (Sleep, Grease, Power Word Pain)

Basically, you just make casters less fun, but you don't make them weaker, you only delay their strength

Yeah, this is what I do: ban or nerf the most problematic spells. Seems to be working pretty well so far. Casters are still more powerful and versatile than mundanes if played intelligently, but they're not outright game-breaking any more.

[bean illus]

... the possibility to balance Wizards, Sorcerers etc by reducing their caster progressions to the (PF) Bard table.
Add the 7th Spell Level at CL 19. Done.

Has anyone ever actually implemented this houserule and played a campaign with it or more? I'd be keen to hear of your experiences.

No, but we've played different house rule (below).

...
The only thing that solves the caster balance problem is banning/nerfing the problematic spells.

True. But if you still WANT to nerf some/all casters; our house rule for low magic games is:

Reduce spells/day by 1 for each spell level the caster has access to. The caster still gets the same level access, but has slightly less ammo.

Variations of this rule could be:

* 1/day - 1 = 0. So caster gets bonus spell.

* 0/day -1 = 0. Caster still gets bonus.

* 1st level casters do not suffer the penalty.

* Only full casters and rapid advancement casters are affected.

It has worked at our tables.

[liquidformat]

This doesn't solve anything.

The only thing that solves the caster balance problem is banning/nerfing the problematic spells.

A wizard with bard-like progression can still one-shot dragons with Shivering Touch, spectral hand, and assay resistance, the only difference is now he needs to be a couple levels higher.

Planar Binding still breaks the game hard, but it does so a couple levels later.

Lv 1 encounter ending spells still work at lv 1 (Sleep, Grease, Power Word Pain)

Basically, you just make casters less fun, but you don't make them weaker, you only delay their strength

I disagree, sure there are plenty of spells that can break the game and should be flagged for either pulling out completely or adjusting/handling with care. However, if you go through and adjust/remove all those spells all you have done is prevented the players from breaking the game by abusing said spells. You have done nothing to balance tier 1 and 2 classes and bring them closer to tier 3.

On the other hand adjusting allowed spell levels pre epic down does a lot to move those classes to tier 3.

[gogogome]

Games are more fun the more things players can do. You need to do the opposite. You need to ban everything except spellcasters.

I rather DM a game where everyone is unique and gimmicky than a game where everyone does the same thing as NPCs do.

The only reason I haven't banned all mundane classes yet is because some of them are good for dips.

[HeraldOfExius]

PF gets you a good chunk of the way with their variety of 2/3 casters. From there you can modify some of the fixed list casters from 3.5 into a 2/3 framework to cover all your bases. IMO you should add class features to avoid blandness and give each 2/3 caster a specialist vibe. If you are dead set on a generalist, maybe give it some versatility-oriented features. Again, if you just took a wizard and pared down its list, why wouldn't someone just take Bard or Summoner? They even get "early" access to certain spells. And more importantly, they're more fun.

Pathfinder even did something like this with the Warpriest class (and various archetypes that added spellcasting to otherwise mundane classes). Instead of having a class-specific spell list, you just get levels 1-6 of the Cleric list (some of the archetypes I previously alluded to do this for the Wizard list instead). In exchange for spell levels 7-9, you get more class features than a full caster. My understanding is that this is generally accepted as tier 3.

[heavyfuel]

To expand more on my previous post, what I personally do is pick a few spells whose power I think is just right for their level.

My personal list is: 1st- Magic Missile, 2nd- Shatter, 3rd- Fireball, 4th- Freedom of Movement, 5th- Raise Dead, 6th- AMF, 7th- Insanity, 8th- Mind Blank, 9th- Time Stop

Any time a player wants to pick a spell, I compare the spell to the ones on the list. For example, Slow I feel is stronger than Fireball, despite both being lv 3. So in my games, Slow is a 5th level spell, the level I think is appropriate for it. Gate, however, is banned, because it would be higher than 9th level spell, which doesn't exist.

Other spells have levels I'd never be comfortable with (Shivering Touch, for example) because they are so binary (either the target is immune to ability damage, or he's dead) so I nerf them in other ways. (ST is Fort negate in my games)

I have a list available for my players to see with all spells from PHB, PHB2, and SC whose levels I've changed. But I make it clear that the list is passive of change at any moment I feel like

[liquidformat]

To expand more on my previous post, what I personally do is pick a few spells whose power I think is just right for their level.

My personal list is: 1st- Magic Missile, 2nd- Shatter, 3rd- Fireball, 4th- Freedom of Movement, 5th- Raise Dead, 6th- AMF, 7th- Insanity, 8th- Mind Blank, 9th- Time Stop

Any time a player wants to pick a spell, I compare the spell to the ones on the list. For example, Slow I feel is stronger than Fireball, despite both being lv 3. So in my games, Slow is a 5th level spell, the level I think is appropriate for it. Gate, however, is banned, because it would be higher than 9th level spell, which doesn't exist.

Other spells have levels I'd never be comfortable with (Shivering Touch, for example) because they are so binary (either the target is immune to ability damage, or he's dead) so I nerf them in other ways. (ST is Fort negate in my games)

I have a list available for my players to see with all spells from PHB, PHB2, and SC whose levels I've changed. But I make it clear that the list is passive of change at any moment I feel like

Slow honestly seems to me to be equivalent in power level as Freedom of Movement, why the bump up to 5th?

[Tvtyrant]

One I have toyed with is to take all the gold standard spells and remove them, then make them feats.

alter self-polymorph-Shapechange feat chain.
Lesser Planar Binding-Planar Binding-Greater Planar Binding
Glitterdust-Solid Fog
Etc.

They are actually stronger then most feats in the game, which is hilariously bad game design based on how many spells and how few feats you get.

[Troacctid]

If I were nerfing everyone's casting progression, I would use mystic ranger as the model, not bard. I mean, I don't think nerfing everyone's casting is necessarily the right choice, but if you're gonna do it, then the mystic ranger progression just makes more sense.

[heavyfuel]

Slow honestly seems to me to be equivalent in power level as Freedom of Movement, why the bump up to 5th?

Multi-target, so someone is bound to fail; no friendly-fire; no descriptor such as Mind Affecting to restrict its targets; can target non-living creatures; no multi save (like Hold Person); any non-caster that fails the save is pretty much out of the combat.

It's a very strong spell.

FOM is also very strong, but it's pretty situational and it's touch (so it's difficult to help allies inside crowd controlled areas).

It's not a huge difference in power, but Slow is a bit too strong to be 4th level for me.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The easiest way to "balance" the T1s is just to ban them outright. Everything they do can either be done by some other class further down the list or forces the game to bend around them.

For the T2s, force the sorcerer and favored soul to pick a different list to draw from since the wizard and cleric lists -are- the problem. Obviously, you want them to pick an arcane list for the sorc and a divine for the FS. There's no easy fix for the psion, I'm afraid. Gotta just prune the list of the action-economy breakers.

That'll get you about 90% of the way to where you want to go, if you want to stick to the quick-and-dirty methods for "fixing the problem."

The real answer is exactly as others have said; go over the lists and prune the problem spells.

[magicalmagicman]

Switch to 5th edition.

[Troacctid]

Multi-target, so someone is bound to fail; no friendly-fire; no descriptor such as Mind Affecting to restrict its targets; can target non-living creatures; no multi save (like Hold Person); any non-caster that fails the save is pretty much out of the combat.

Fireball is also multi-target, has no targeting restrictions, has a relevant effect even if they pass the save (very important), and on a failed save, it's about as lethal to casters and minions as slow is to brutes. I would usually take fireball over slow, tbh.

[tiercel]

Part of the question here is what one wants to fix about the Tier 1-2 classes:

If the problem is seen to be “Tier 1 has access to many ways to shatter the game and Tier 2 has not-as-many-ways to shatter the game, but can still launch their own specific nukes over and over,” then fixing/restricting/banning the problematic “nukes the game” spells seems necessary.

If the problem is instead seen to be “Tier 1 has the flexibility to say ‘whatever the challenge is, I can always have the exact spell to utterly trivialize it’ and Tier 2, while not quite as flexible, has sufficient spell tools that whatever challenges arise they can wield a hammer that turns every problem into a nail—and succeed,” then lessening spell access generally—in terms of total number of spells and speed of progression— seems necessary.

If these two are combined, then the simplest solution really does seem to be Kelb_Panthera’s (simply ban T1-2, let people play less powerful/less flexible classes instead) or even magicalmagicman’s (if balance matters above all, maybe this isn’t the right kind of game and 5th or even 4th edition is a better match). —or even just play something like E6, where levels are literally or de facto limited to the degree that primary casters just never get whatever is “too high” on the power curve for a given group.

[Crichton]

If these two are combined, [snip] (if balance matters above all, maybe this isn’t the right kind of game and 5th or even 4th edition is a better match). —or even just play something like E6, where levels are literally or de facto limited to the degree that primary casters just never get whatever is “too high” on the power curve for a given group.

This is both very much true, and (along with the rest of your post) very well put. There are plenty of ways in 3.5 to play a particular campaign at various balance/power levels, and some have been brought up here, but really, if enforcing balance between all character types is your goal, this system doesn't lend itself to that nearly as well as others do.

[heavyfuel]

Fireball is also multi-target, has no targeting restrictions, has a relevant effect even if they pass the save (very important), and on a failed save, it's about as lethal to casters and minions as slow is to brutes. I would usually take fireball over slow, tbh.

An average of 17.5 points of easily resistable energy dmg is deadly to whom, exactly? A Wizard with 14 Con has 24hp, and that's assuming pretty low PB and straight single die rolls for HD, which is not exactly common.

If the Wizard has 16 Con and rolls 3hp/hd, then 17.5 is just above half, which is not lethal by any measure.

Vs monsters it's even worse because of high HP and resistances

[Troacctid]

An average of 17.5 points of easily resistable energy dmg is deadly to whom, exactly? A Wizard with 14 Con has 24hp, and that's assuming pretty low PB and straight single die rolls for HD, which is not exactly common.

If the Wizard has 16 Con and rolls 3hp/hd, then 17.5 is just above half, which is not lethal by any measure.

Vs monsters it's even worse because of high HP and resistances

We don't need to speculate—the DMG has sample NPCs, and the wizard and sorcerer both have 19 HP at level 5. That means your 5d6 damage fireball has about a 40% chance of dealing enough damage to KO them in one hit if they fail their save (they have +3 Reflex). Their HP scales at 3.5 per level, same as the fireball's damage.

And unlike slow, it actually gets better the longer the fight goes on. If the wizard has already taken 9 damage, suddenly there's a ~30% chance she'll drop even if she saves, and a ~96% chance if she fails!

[Firechanter]

Alright folks, thanks already for all the input. I'll try to address all the major suggestions:

- pruning spell lists: I once tried that, but quickly faltered at the task of going through literally three thousand spells to decide if they were gamebreaking.

- banning T1/T2 classes: yeah, might in fact do that. It's just that I'm not entirely happy with the selection of 6-level classes, and the general theme of these classes might not scratch all players' itch. But it's an option.

- adjusting spell levels: as with pruning, way too much work. Also, apparently the mileage varies here. I don't consider Slow a top pick for level 3, for instance -- sure it nerfs martials hard, but leaves spellcasters entirely unimpressed.

- switching editions is out. I want to play either 3.5 or PF. If I want to host a car race and am unhappy about some contestants bringing a rocket, hosting a tricycle race instead is not a satisfactory solution. :p
(5E is not too bad and definitely easier on the DM than 3E, but I played it before and kinda grew tired of it because it's pretty samey in the long run.)
I also did consider playing Legend D20 instead, but I don't like some of the mechanics, and changing them turned out to be not trivial.

--

I would generally prefer to keep things simple, but I also am toying with the idea of making some deeper changes to the core mechanics to make spellcasters less dominant.
For instance, replicate some of the methods of AD&D2, concerning Initiative and action economy. Roughly like this:

- Casting a spell that normally takes a Standard Action now takes a Full-Round Action
- Initiative is re-rolled every round. Before rolling, the controller (player/DM) has to announce what the character wants to do: cast a spell, attack or something else.
- Spells infer a penalty to the Initiative roll equal to the spell level.
- The casting of a spell starts at the moment of announcement, and is completed when the Initiative has reached the spellcaster's turn.
- If the spellcaster takes damage or is otherwise interrupted before the spell is completed, a Concentration check has to be made to avoid losing the spell.

The latter is a major difference to AD&D2: there, _any_ damage, even if it's just one point, automatically results in losing the spell. Makes Melf's Acid Arrow a great caster-shutdown spell.
As a side note, this would also make Slow a lot more useful, since it would also prohibit casting spells while Slowed.
Attacks of Opportunity against spellcasters would need to be resolved somewhat differently.

[Tvtyrant]

The best spells are cast out of combat though, it doesn't help with binding/polymorph/crafting/buffs.

If you want to really simply prune, I would immediately cut any spell that has its own handbook or guide first. Then follow that with a cap on the number of spells they can have going at a time, say 1/3 levels. Casters will still be strong but not overwhelming.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

- banning T1/T2 classes: yeah, might in fact do that. It's just that I'm not entirely happy with the selection of 6-level classes, and the general theme of these classes might not scratch all players' itch. But it's an option.

There are quite a few specialist full casters out there. Beguiler and Dread Necromancer are the most powerful and are probably T2... but with fixed lists it should be a lot easier to prune/modify problem spells (and require DM approval for their handful of Advanced Learning choices).

[Psychoalpha]

Games are more fun the more things players can do. You need to do the opposite. You need to ban everything except spellcasters.

I rather DM a game where everyone is unique and gimmicky than a game where everyone does the same thing as NPCs do.

The only reason I haven't banned all mundane classes yet is because some of them are good for dips.

Literally this, every time.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Alright folks, thanks already for all the input. I'll try to address all the major suggestions:

And I'll answer those addresses

- pruning spell lists: I once tried that, but quickly faltered at the task of going through literally three thousand spells to decide if they were gamebreaking.

It looks a -lot- worse than it is. *90% of spells are crap, 7% is where you really want to be, and 3% are the stuff you really want to cut unless you're prerpared to deal with them. Pick up a wizard and a cleric handbook, cut anything rated as extraordinarily good. If the handbook says stuff like "in a class of its own," "best in level," "absolute must have" then that's what you're looking for. Err on the side of caution if you're not sure. That'll get you very nearly all the problem spells but I'll throw out a special mention to the entire conjuration school of calling. Just axe 'em all and don't give it another thought.

- banning T1/T2 classes: yeah, might in fact do that. It's just that I'm not entirely happy with the selection of 6-level classes, and the general theme of these classes might not scratch all players' itch. But it's an option.

I'd be a bit more hesitant to chop the T2s than the T1s. Psion, sure. Sorcerer and Favored soul can both be brought in line with a simple change of list. A sorcerer drawing from the wu-jen list is substantially less problematic than a sorcerer drawing from the sorc/wiz list and a favored soul limited to, say, all the spells offered in his deitiy's domains might struggle to even make T3. The level and number of spells aren't the biggest problems. Nobody's game was ever broken by a meteor swarm or five.

- adjusting spell levels: as with pruning, way too much work. Also, apparently the mileage varies here. I don't consider Slow a top pick for level 3, for instance -- sure it nerfs martials hard, but leaves spellcasters entirely unimpressed.

Yeah, I tend to agree with you here. The spells that break games do so as a matter of function rather than the level they come online.

- switching editions is out. I want to play either 3.5 or PF. If I want to host a car race and am unhappy about some contestants bringing a rocket, hosting a tricycle race instead is not a satisfactory solution. :p
(5E is not too bad and definitely easier on the DM than 3E, but I played it before and kinda grew tired of it because it's pretty samey in the long run.)
I also did consider playing Legend D20 instead, but I don't like some of the mechanics, and changing them turned out to be not trivial.

Interesting analogy. Again, I pretty much agree with you here. 3e does take some work to make it do what you want but there's nothing else quite like it except pathfinder, which is basically just a mod-pack to 3e's minecraft.

On to the house rules.

I would generally prefer to keep things simple, but I also am toying with the idea of making some deeper changes to the core mechanics to make spellcasters less dominant.
For instance, replicate some of the methods of AD&D2, concerning Initiative and action economy. Roughly like this:

Never played 2e so grain of salt.

- Casting a spell that normally takes a Standard Action now takes a Full-Round Action

Minor caster nerf. Kinda hurts the half-casters but all in all not too onerous.

- Initiative is re-rolled every round. Before rolling, the controller (player/DM) has to announce what the character wants to do: cast a spell, attack or something else

I can't help think this is just gonna create a -lot- of headache. Not all of 3e's streamlining was bad and this feels like one of the spots they got right. At worst, just go with rerolling without the declaration bit.
.

- Spells infer a penalty to the Initiative roll equal to the spell level

"Incur." That aside, this doesn't mean much if initiative is rerolled every round unless the penalty holds until the end of the encounter. In that case it's going to run into a potential issue from the fact that maxing inititative and using the most effective spell possible are suddenly even more incentivized than they already are. If that wasn't already a problem, I'll have to ask why you're engaging in this exercise to begin with.

- The casting of a spell starts at the moment of announcement, and is completed when the Initiative has reached the spellcaster's turn.

Seems excessive when they're already spending whole rounds casting. Also redundant.

- If the spellcaster takes damage or is otherwise interrupted before the spell is completed, a Concentration check has to be made to avoid losing the spell.

That's already the rule. Are you changing the DC in some way?

The latter is a major difference to AD&D2: there, _any_ damage, even if it's just one point, automatically results in losing the spell. Makes Melf's Acid Arrow a great caster-shutdown spell.

I'd heard about that. If you're really concerned about casters, that one's not necessarily the worst thing to bring back.

As a side note, this would also make Slow a lot more useful, since it would also prohibit casting spells while Slowed.
Attacks of Opportunity against spellcasters would need to be resolved somewhat differently.

Not so. One of the bits of the rules that tends to go forgotten is that you can break up a full round action into two standard actions on this turn and the turn that follows, including the casting of spells. Being slowed just means it now takes two rounds to cast instead of one. Twice the opportunity to interrupt though.


I understand the concern when it comes to dealing with high-level, high-op casters but you want to be careful you don't overcompensate and make low-level, low-op classes effectively unplayable.

Maybe consider this as a houserule: a spell that normally takes a standard action will, instead, take half as many rounds as its spell level to cast. L1 = standard action, L2 = full round, L3+4 = 2 rounds, L5+6 = 3 rounds, L7+8 = 4 rounds, and L9 = 5 rounds. Doesn't mean jack for out of combat spells but those tend to be less of a problem in the overall, especially if you take my advice about cutting the T1s and access to their spell lists for the T2s.

[Endarire]

Being a fan of full casters and manifesters, I'm more pro-empowering other classes. Also, in play, the problems are less frequent and prevalent. (If you're playing at level 15+, then, yes, you'll notice casters generally doing a lot better than noncasters.)

Refer also to my signature.