D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]

[Elennsar]

Then armor needs to provide enough DR that those who pick "I wear armor" aren't being punished for it, and those who for whatever reason don't pick armor need something to avoid just being too weak.

Since everyone in the game has "needs to survive combat" on their list of "needed abilities", we need to deal with this.

Having some classes be horribly weak at combat is a terrible idea. All classes need to be able to survive combat (including "avoid being targeted to begin with") roughly equally well. The details of what they do for this can vary. But the end result of "how hard is it to take the wizard out" needs to be roughly even with "how hard it is to take the barbarian out".

Similarly, both need to be able to feel useful outside of combat, at least some of the time, too.

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=1801

On that note, when we get around to it, see the above.

"The idea that being awesome in combat makes you useless outside of combat is just trading off when you sleep through the session." - me.

Now, if everyone has a 50-50 split of "total focus" and "total obliviousness" (or 70-30 or whatever), that would work.

Sort of. In theory. In practice, we want no one falling asleep during the session.

And there's no reason that being awesome in combat means you need to be useless outside of combat except to balance people who are the other way around.

Since I don't see anyone in favor of making the rogue suck balls in combat to make up for the fact he's one of the useful classes outside of combat, the fighter should not suck balls outside of combat to "make up" for the fact he's one of the classes that will be useful in combat.

Everyone should be useful in combat, damnit.

[ZeroSum]

Well, let me define what I mean by wizard versus cleric:
Wizard: Think "I am the great illusionist, Marvelo" or "There are some who call me... Tim."
Cleric: "I am the fist of my Lord" or "My light will send shadows of darkness to flight."

So focus Wizards on spells that are wizardly - blasts, teleportation, pyrotechnics, illusions.

Focus Clerics on spells that are clerical - healing, planar travel, undead management, communing with nature.

Overlap should exist but perhaps with minor differences.  Summoning, for example: Wizards can bind outsiders against their will whereas Clerics would call forth their God's allies.

So I see Clerics as having healing -- hitpoints, ability damage, disease, breaking enchantments.
Wizards have direct damage -- single target or area.

Wizards have mind control -- enchantment of all sorts.
Clerics have mental protection -- protection against X.

Clerics see through illusions and can call their God to see the future.
Wizards create illusions and cloud the minds of their enemies.

What I'm saying is reduce the overlap between Cleric and Wizard spells just like you're going to reduce the overlap between schools.  Also, set up Clerics and Wizards as opposing each other in some fundamental ways -- Wizards get Magic Weapon, Clerics get Magic Vestment.  Wizards damage, Clerics heal.

Maybe I'm wrong here but I see a fundamental difference between their flavor and I'm sure we can reflect that in spell selection.

[Elennsar]

That'd do nicely. Maybe not that in particular, but we can refine that.

Good on a glance, but I'm multitasking like an imp in Hell, so ask someone else to give it a better look.

[Kuroimaken]

I really like the domain-based Cleric idea and I think it means the Cleric has to choose a small set of abilities, preventing him from being the Master of All Trades.  However, we need to carefully grant new domains, especially if Clerics become spontaneous casters -- think Rainbow Servant problems.

Could you be more specific? I'm out of the loop on this one.

[Mister_Sinister]

ZeroSum, I agree absolutely. If that were to be implemented, I wouldn't complain at all.

Kuro: Read my posts here and here, as well as Robby's post here. Then it will all make sense.

[ZeroSum]

Robby suggested it: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1887.msg81090#msg81090

Ninja'd.

[veekie]

If we nerf the access to the cleric's spells (either with the domain idea I posted earlier, or just giving them spells known), that will weaken them enough that I'm not worried about a medium BAB and armor.

Also, I have started on the lists a bit, but I wanted to get a bit further before posting them.  For now, I've just been starting with the core domains and I've given them the spells they already have.  Now, I have to find another one or two spells per level to give each domain, and come up with a trimmed cleric list.

I think this wipes out the problem neatly enough, once we divvy up their spell lists into domain lists.

Possibly, if you're nuking their armor proficiencies(BAB, I'm not so sure on, clerics have a pretty small selection of direct offense spells, so they still kinda need it to hit), you could add armor proficiency, as well as AC enhancers on War or Protection domains.

Well, let me define what I mean by wizard versus cleric:
Wizard: Think "I am the great illusionist, Marvelo" or "There are some who call me... Tim."
Cleric: "I am the fist of my Lord" or "My light will send shadows of darkness to flight."

So focus Wizards on spells that are wizardly - blasts, teleportation, pyrotechnics, illusions.

Focus Clerics on spells that are clerical - healing, planar travel, undead management, communing with nature.

Overlap should exist but perhaps with minor differences.  Summoning, for example: Wizards can bind outsiders against their will whereas Clerics would call forth their God's allies.

So I see Clerics as having healing -- hitpoints, ability damage, disease, breaking enchantments.
Wizards have direct damage -- single target or area.

Wizards have mind control -- enchantment of all sorts.
Clerics have mental protection -- protection against X.

Clerics see through illusions and can call their God to see the future.
Wizards create illusions and cloud the minds of their enemies.

What I'm saying is reduce the overlap between Cleric and Wizard spells just like you're going to reduce the overlap between schools.  Also, set up Clerics and Wizards as opposing each other in some fundamental ways -- Wizards get Magic Weapon, Clerics get Magic Vestment.  Wizards damage, Clerics heal.

Maybe I'm wrong here but I see a fundamental difference between their flavor and I'm sure we can reflect that in spell selection.

One of the issues with that though, Zerosum, is a great deal of passive, RP or reactive abilities, clerics need something Interesting they can do in a fight besides undo other people's actions.

[RobbyPants]

Really, I don't see how not being able to cast arcane spells in armor is that big of a deal.  At low levels, you can use Mage Armor and Shield to pretty good effect.  By 5th or 6th level, you can be running around in a +1 Twilight Mithril shirt.

I can see why you don't like it, but it's really easy to house-rule out if you don't.  I don't want to change the base system that much.  I think getting rid of it falls more under "a specific game" than the system as a whole.

__________

As for the cleric lists, I'm still working on those.  I'm thinking to have the base cleric list have roughly 5-10 spells per level.  I'm not sure how I want to handle the domains.  Some of them are much harder to add spells to than others.  I'm thinking 2-3 spells per level.  They might not be the same domain to domain, as some spells are better than others.  Anyway, that would give the cleric roughly a dozen spells per level to choose from.  The question is: should they get spontaneous access to the list like a begiler, or should they still have to prepare from the smaller list?

Also, I'm strongly considering only giving spells like Raise Dead and Ressurection to the Healing domain.  Thoughts on this?

[veekie]

ASF, agreed, not a big issue to me either, though I'd personally tie spell failure to armor proficiency like some kind of advanced armor check penalty.

Cleric spells, personally I'm in favor of spontaneous off the limited list, but theres a personal bias against prepared spells in my case, so, yeah.

As for the last one, I'd say it should be available, but at a higher spell level than Healing gets em, they're sorta assumed to be available due to the increased level of dying at those points. Though again, for spells like this(besides revivify, which is cast in combat time), I prefer making it a ritual/incantation thing instead of lumped with the regular spells.

[ZeroSum]

One of the issues with that though, Zerosum, is a great deal of passive, RP or reactive abilities, clerics need something Interesting they can do in a fight besides undo other people's actions.

Well, they should still have a lot of debuffs - curse, fear effects, and should be able to smash face.  I think Clerics should be more gishy.

[veekie]

So, role wise, Medium range, buffer/debuffer with a side dish of Melee range direct damage(AKA hitting people with stick) is where you see the cleric?

[Mister_Sinister]

I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree on this, Robby. Ultimately, the situation we have now is an example of 'stealth mechanics' in action, but hey, your call.

As far as the stuff on clerics goes, I believe they should remain prepared casters, but be able to spontcast from one of their domains by the current 'conversion' method used for cure and inflict spells.

[RobbyPants]

As for the last one, I'd say it should be available, but at a higher spell level than Healing gets em, they're sorta assumed to be available due to the increased level of dying at those points. Though again, for spells like this(besides revivify, which is cast in combat time), I prefer making it a ritual/incantation thing instead of lumped with the regular spells.

That might work too.  Perhaps Healing picks up Raise Dead at 5th level, but the general cleric list picks it up at 7th (or maybe 6th).

If we take this approach, I might give Cure Light Wounds out at 1st level to all clerics, but push the others back a level, similar to druids.  Also, I was thinking about changing the domain power for the Healing domain to:

When casting any Cure spell, you roll a d12 in place for each d8 instead.  This also applies to any scrolls, wands, or staves you use with Cure spells.

The idea would be that any of these spells or items in their hands are more potent.  Likewise, if a cleric with the Healing domain crafts a wand of CLW, any other caster who uses it still rolls d8s.

I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree on this, Robby. Ultimately, the situation we have now is an example of 'stealth mechanics' in action, but hey, your call.

What do you mean by "stealth mechanics"?

As far as the stuff on clerics goes, I believe they should remain prepared casters, but be able to spontcast from one of their domains by the current 'conversion' method used for cure and inflict spells.

That could be a possibility too.  I have to see how the lists shape up before I can make any type of informed decision.  Sadly, I was too busy yesterday to sit at my computer.

[RobbyPants]

I've been trying to come up with a list of spells to limit per school, to pull back the awesome versatility of the wizard.  I had a hard time with it, trying to decide which spells the wizard could and could not get.  Basically, any attempt either pulled any useful spell out, or left enough in that it seemed like a waste of time.

So, I thought about slowing the generalist wizard's progression.  At this point, the table I created slows the wizard at three levels: 3, 10, and 17.  This allows him to get 9th level spells at 20th level, providing he doesn't multiclass.  Maybe this is too much.  Maybe it should happen at two levels.  I'm not sure.

I'm curious what you think about this.  The generalist will still have access to all sorcerer/wizard spells, which gives him unsurpased versatility (among arcane casters).  Also, for the first 9 levels, his highest spell level available will be right on par with the spontaneous casters who already advance at even level instead of odd.  At 10th level and beyond he'll start to fall behind.

Level  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
______________________________________
1      3  1  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
2      3  2  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
3      4  2  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
4      4  2  1  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
5      4  3  2  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
6      4  3  2  1  -  -  -  -  -  -
7      4  3  3  2  -  -  -  -  -  -
8      4  4  3  2  1  -  -  -  -  -
9      4  4  3  3  2  -  -  -  -  -
10     4  4  4  3  2  -  -  -  -  -
11     4  4  4  3  3  1  -  -  -  -
12     4  4  4  4  3  2  -  -  -  -
13     4  4  4  4  3  2  1  -  -  -
14     4  4  4  4  4  3  2  -  -  -
15     4  4  4  4  4  3  2  1  -  -
16     4  4  4  4  4  3  3  2  -  -
17     4  4  4  4  4  4  3  2  -  -
18     4  4  4  4  4  4  3  3  1  -
19     4  4  4  4  4  4  4  3  2  -
20     4  4  4  4  4  4  4  3  2  1

Also, I'm not sure how I want to handle specialist wizards and sorcerers.  I'm still planning to write up those other three classes (Oracle, Summoner, and Transmuter).  I don't know if those six specilized classes should replace specialist wizards all together or not.  I could always write up an alternate progression for specialists that allows them spells of their school at the old rate, but spells of the other schools at this new rate.

[veekie]

RE: the cleric issue
Why not split the cleric into a full caster priest and a 3/4 or full BAB 'warpriest'(I think 3/4 to keep it distinct from the paladin, unless you're folding the paladin into a full BAB warpriest).  The 'warpriest' would have access to fewer domains(and/or fewer spells per day), but gets along better in melee, while the priest is the cleric with casting most similar to what it is now.

Generalist spell access...looks ok at a glance.

As for specialist wizards, I say keep them, and let them learn spells of their speciality at the better rate while their other spells go at the lower rate. Think of it as degrees of specialisation.

[RobbyPants]

RE: the cleric issue
Why not split the cleric into a full caster priest and a 3/4 or full BAB 'warpriest'(I think 3/4 to keep it distinct from the paladin, unless you're folding the paladin into a full BAB warpriest).  The 'warpriest' would have access to fewer domains(and/or fewer spells per day), but gets along better in melee, while the priest is the cleric with casting most similar to what it is now.

Well, this is sort of how it's done now, with the cleric and the cloistered cleric.  Things could be tweaked a bit, but I think this distinction already exists.

Generalist spell access...looks ok at a glance.

As for specialist wizards, I say keep them, and let them learn spells of their speciality at the better rate while their other spells go at the lower rate. Think of it as degrees of specialisation.

I hope this is a good approach.  I agree that it looks good at a glance.  I imagine some people will love the idea and others will hate it.  I just don't want to penalize generalists to the point of them being useless.  I guess I need to evalutate how this, along with spell changes, puts them in the Tier system.

[bkdubs123]

I guess I'm of the group who hates it. All it really succeeds in doing is making the Wizard even weaker than before at low level. It's still godmode as you get into higher levels because 9th level spells aren't the problem.

[RobbyPants]

I guess I'm of the group who hates it. All it really succeeds in doing is making the Wizard even weaker than before at low level.

I think that can be solved by other means.  One thing I'd put in the spells thread a while back was unlimited cantrips/orisions, and having the damage-dealing cantrips deal 1d6 damage.  It's not a serious power boost, but it has the biggest effect at low levels.  Also, it makes playing a low-level caster more fun as you can contribute more than two rounds per day.

It's still godmode as you get into higher levels because 9th level spells aren't the problem.

Are you saying this compared to all other classes or to specialists?  At this point, the progression is designed to put the wizard closer to par with the specialists.

One thing I don't like is how a generalist wizard is stronger than a specialist.  In about every other aspect of D&D, you're rewarded for specialization.  This is different for the wizard becuase picking up all 8 schools doesn't spread himself thin; it just increases his versatility.  It's be likd playing a fighter 10/rogue 10/cleric 10/wizard 10 all at 10th level, and totally reworking what class features you have available each day.

[Kuroimaken]

I guess I'm of the group who hates it. All it really succeeds in doing is making the Wizard even weaker than before at low level. It's still godmode as you get into higher levels because 9th level spells aren't the problem.

Sufficient planning on the Wizard's part and a little research go a long way. Grease is the most obvious contender here, but Wizards win at nearly all levels unless they're done VERY stupidly.

[RobbyPants]

What if generalists were a full spell level behind specialists?

Although, I wouldn't want to make wizards wait until level 6 to get 2nd level spells.  Perhaps their progression could be stunted for the first 9 levels.  Something like:

Wizard   Max spell
level    level
_______________________
1        1
2        1
3        1
4        2
5        2
6        2
7        3
8        3
9        3
10       4
11       4
12       5
13       5
14       6
15       6
16       7
17       7
18       8
19       8
20       9

This is the same as I suggested earlier, except the wizard takes the three hits early on.  Once he's fallen two levels (one spell level) behind the other casters, his pace matches theirs.  Obviously, this would have no affect on the wizard for the first two levels, but I think this is when it matters the least.