he says spells are unbalanced and overpower casters

There we have it

No, they are just as strong and versatile, just more tedious now

This is a smug anime girls accompanied by greentext forum user.

Imagine playing a wizard who used Summon Monster and Prestidigitation to conjure anime girls and display greentext in-game.

Or any number of fantasy RPGs, really. While most seem to have some degree of imbalance, most don't even come close to D&D's level.

>Shorter spell list
>No good damage spells

I love them, but you should know I use both druids and clerics as more melee orientated warriors then casters

>anime girls are monsters
No, 3D girls are the monsters.

If you're using damage spells with literally anyone else around you're doing it wrong.

Nevermind that shit. The stupidly ironic thing is their argument always boils down to the flexibility and openness for interpretation of the game while being oblivious to the existence of house rules and homebrew changes.

>I cast Fireball!
>When was the last time you went looking for bat shit, user?

>house rules and homebrew changes.
If you have to fix something, that means it's broken.

I remember running a pathfinder campaign where one of the characters was a power gaming tierfag, picked a wizard and kept referring to himself as 'god'.

Needless to say he spent much of the campaign grappled so he couldn't cast somatic spells, having his tongue cut out so he couldn't cast verbal spells, attacked at night so he couldn't replenish his spells , having his spellbooks stolen , having his materials stolen, not being able to find the materials he needed and constantly being saved by the fighter.

He was basically the group gimp. The only games casters dominate in are ones run by shit tier dms

>shitthatneverhappened.txt

I had druid in a prison before, they had a sock in there maw and haldcufs on there arms.
So tying up the caster is a valid option.

If they're too stupid to remember a core feature that requires neither of those, that's their fault.

Because that's not a real way to balance them. If the caster can still do crazy shit, but you just make it take a lot of effort to do it, the game STILL revolves around the spellcaster getting their magic components and spells ready.

Consider a class that has incredible power, such as being able to cast a wish once per level up. You could argue this class is "balanced" because their power curve is so limited, but it's not good balance. The same is for casters, just because they have limited uses per day or per resource doesn't mean they still don't make every other class irrelevant when they do.

The actual best way to balance casters is to make them a support class. Their niche is most represented there; with spells that buff or heal, or sometimes casting debuffs. But the other classes are still required to actually fight or bypass obstacles.

>The actual best way to balance casters is to make them a support class.
You might as well not have casters in your game. I don't imagine a lot of people are going to be interested in being goosestepped into a cheerleader role if they want to play a magician, so they'll probably just play one of the fun classes who get to actually do things. Since casters would be so niche, you couldn't actually make them important when it turns out the party doesn't have one, which would be a pretty common occurrence when you have casters at 1/6th of the narrative and mechanical versatility that they have in DnD.

Then you have to consider, what about classes who aren't casters, but still get spells? What are you going to do about Paladins? Are they only going to have buffs and debuffs as well? What about Rangers? Are they just not going to have spells?

>You might as well not have casters in your game.

I disagree. In a highly focused, team based game it draws all types. People are already interested in classes like warlords, clerics, and other support-y classes. Mages would just be the same, except they may get some fun stuff like debuffs or being the best at identifying magic items and potions for example. Still clearly a support character.

>What about classes who aren't casters, but still get spells?
In this hypothetical scenario, this wouldn't be a thing. If you're a caster, you have support magic spells. If you aren't a caster, maybe you have a supernatural power but it's very limited. The reason why Wizards are consistently OP in every game is because they can do shit like research teleportation spells that bypass an entire campaign, or create dumb looping bullshit spells like cloning themselves and having the clones make more clones.

Nerfing the Wizard's spells is the best and only real way to balance them with other classes. Making them a hassle to play by individual tracking grams of bat shit is only tedious, and still doesn't stop them from ruining the campaign.

>Ignores the fact that components have been basically neutered since 2000

Also, if you need to houserule something, you are admitting that it is a problem.

>Screw over a player specifically
>Thinks the shit GMs are the others

Take a good look in the mirror

>Pathfinder
Nvm.

Warlords and clerics can still be active, and take direct action. Even Bards can. Casters are also already the best at identifying magic items and potions. You wouldn't just be nerfing the Wizard - you'd be cutting them out of the game and diluting the Bard class. You would also be cutting Warlocks and Sorcerers. You would also be taking away a lot of capabilities from casters that are support-y, as I already said. Clerics can still attack with magic. RPGs aren't MMOs or online team games like Overwatch, where people file nicely into whatever roles that are needed for maximum efficiency. You're taking away more than half the potential of magic and telling people to make characters out of what's left.

So kindly go back to /v/ and stop pretending like you know what you're talking about. Everybody who actually knows how 5e works knows that all the classes are already decently balanced against each other anyway, barring little munchkins who deliberately aim to create the most broken characters ever. There's no need to stop Wizards from "ruining the campaign".

>Play WoW and be that autistic guy who dropped everything for a copper node.
>Play DnD and be that autistic guy whose Wizard returns from the forest covered in a mixture of batshit, dryer lint, and various colorful mysterious stains.

Am I doing it right?

My GM allowed a player to use a special gunslinger class. Basically a ranger with a overpowered gun. The downsides were supposed to be that the ammo is rare and expensive, and the gun is supposed to reload slowly. The problems were that the GM DOESN'T TRACK GOLD OR ITEM COUNT, the class by level 4 ignores the reload speed, and even without the gun the class could fight better than every other person in the party.

It's like, since he can solo every fight why the fuck are we even playing?

The proper way to balance the magic classes in my opinion is to

1. Get rid of the "mundane classes"

2. Divide up the types of magic by base class, And have the casting mechanics differ as well.

Instead of having a "fighter", have a "Vanguard" who uses say, transmutation spells to boost his combat potential.

Instead of "barbarian", have Skald, who uses enchantment spells to bolster his allies into acts of courage and daring, or send everyone into frenzies.

Instead of "Rogue", have "Trickster", who uses illusion magics to beguile their marks into a daze.

Wizard becomes "Auspex" and can gaze into the secrets of the universe to learn the truth, but never can they have all eight at once.

Then have prestige classes or whatever you want to call them mixes of two of the base classes. Perhaps being able to blend the casting mechanics of the other.

But leave the glass cannon shit behind. have physical combat be something you can easily invest in to become good at, but learning a different school of magic is a huge undertaking.

Now you have divided up the power, and everyone can have a definitive role and edge, and not step on toes.

You actually don't even have to change the name. Just give all the classes spells, and then a bunch of unique passives, and combat techniques only they can do, and you are done.

>it's easy to challenge a player when you have already defeated them
Here's a hint a caster is bound and gagged you've already thoroughly fucking beat them.
Support spells are already what makes casters fucking broken. You balance casters by forcing them to actually specialize. That's why Psionics tended to be more balanced than the default magic system in 3.PF, the concept of Discipline powers meant that manifesters couldn't just snipe the best powers in the game just by nature of existing. They were restricted in how much they could learn as they didn't have a spellbook they could eventually copy everything in the game from nor could they change their loadout on the fly ignoring psi reformation which is the most commonly banned power for a reason.

That and limit the scope of spells. I instantly ignore anyone who talks about how OP casters are and then says we need to remove shit like fucking fireball.

But what if my class fantasy is to play a mundane guy who gets by without using magic?

Why even allow Wizards if you're going to get butthurt by their existence? You're no better than the people who allow Paladins specifically so you can have them fall at the slightest provocation.

Then you can play a peasant and hope you roll well enough to make up for the 10's you have in every stat.

I've been thinking about it for a while. I think that it would be interesting to see a 3.x hack where martial classes have limited "spellcasting" progression of thematic tricks and remove a few of those tricks from other casters. But I think hardcore 3aboos would balk at the idea.

>Support spells are already what makes casters fucking broken.

Healing, repairing broken equipment, and granting resistances to poison or elemental damage types are not broken. Unless you're the type that thinks shit like "Flight" and "Teleport" are support, which they aren't. Those are the kind of spells that ruin games, and are the main problems with casters.

Hell even a do-anything caster is fine by just reducing the scope of spells, like you said. Specialization isn't even required. Just don't give them the tools they need to bypass the entire campaign.

By that definition, anything that offers alternative rules is broken from the get go for being dev house rules.

If the system was not broken, why have anything besides the core rules?

quads of truth

If he summons them from the second dimension they're still 2d.

>By that definition, anything that offers alternative rules is broken from the get go for being dev house rules.

If it needs alternate rules to fix your style of play, it's broken or you are playing wrong.

You don't have to repeat yourself, we already know you're a dumbass user.

>"Why do you complain about this, it's not a problem"
>No OP, it is a problem, you are not considering these other factors
>"Well just ignore those factors"
>But OP, then you are houseruling, so you admit it's a problem
>"No u"

Reminder not to let your clerics cast spells if they were dumb enough to take a shield and weapon.

>> he ignores the verbal, somatic, and material components of spells altogether in his games

>"I cast Big Spell With Material Components"
>"You haven't been to a town for a week, how can you have Thing You Don't Find Just Laying Around In the Forest?"
>"Well shit, can I retcon that I prepped another spell?"
>"Go ahead."
>"I prepped Another Spell With Components You Can't Find Anywhere Without a Dedicated Magic Shop."
>"Nah, can't do that either."
>"Fucking martial fag why do you hate wizards so much!?"
>"Just prep another spell instead."

And then he complains that he can't cast something with somatic components because he is tied up or that he can't cast spells with verbals because the enemy cast Silence.

>Eschew materials
>Somatic Weaponry

In 5e clerics can emblazon their holy symbol upon their shield and cast somatic components with the hand holding the shield.

This.
No one bitches when the archer runs out of ammo or the fighter is on the wrong side of a Rust Monster, but forcing the wizard to use exotic components or keep a "travel spellbook" is somehow bad.
Casters are immensely powerful, but there are multiple ways of challenging them and other PCs.
>party fails to keep a fire going, or assign a watchmen at night and an encounter happens
>party narrowly escapes catastrophe but risks losing items/weapons/spellbooks etc
>cleric/paladin pisses off their god and is stripped of divine power
>NPCs behave like rational, intelligent, beings, and set ambushes
>if magic is known to the commoner, every guard/mercenary should adopt a "Don't let the dude in the bathrobe speak. He'll cast a spell on us!" mentality.

Running around for resources just turns game into "let's find spell components"

In fact, almost every "nerf" ends up just turning the camera back to the mage.

Also, as mages can wear clothes that don't look like they came out of liberace's closet, how does anyone know to "geek" the mage, or even that the mage is a mage at all.

All things considered, prior to more accurate ways of storing, say, spell components, or a spell book. They should be completely unnoticeable and indistinguishable from any other dude in regular gear, and honestly, would at their most intelligent dress like rogues, as they are the most lightly dressed but still expected adventurers on the battlefield

Rust Monsters are commonly complained about for being shitty and unfair, what are you talking about?

>We want superhuman power
>We want to cut corners
Sell your soul off then, ya filthy heretics.

Two things; 1) Everyone hates rust monsters because of how easily they can devour your kit, leaving you naked as the day you were born while miles away from civilization and 2) The reason nobody gives a shit about material components (especially the designers) is because nobody wants to trail behind the mage while he's skulking around for bat shit and gossamer wings and shit.

If it actually worked, people wouldn't be complaining about it 10 years down the line.

>bat guano is less than 1cp and has 0 weight
>the character buy a bag of 100 uses of it, and a bunch of anything else he might need, and splits it between three bags on his person

sure it's real problematic for them

The more i look at that pic the more i cringe at how bad the anatomy is
Like goddamn, that takes dedication

That's how earthdawn does it. Every PC is an adept, weither you throw earth darts. dodge blows preternaturally fast or magically terrify people by yelling at them.

>turn into small cat because none of those do a single fucking thing about Wild Shape
>bindings and gag are gone because they're melded into your form
>walk right through the bars, Stone Shape another party member out of jail
Yeah, 'valid'.

>He thinks damage spells are what makes casters powerful
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

Unironically play a different system. D&D isn't meant for that style of play, it's meant for high fantasy. There are plenty of other systems that do that low fantasy a whole lot better, and will give you the experience you want. WFRP, Harnmaster, Riddle of Steel, and Song of Swords might be up your alley.

I used to play AD&D and we regularly did "gather components" adventures. In hindsight, I realize they must have been awful for the rest of the party, and most of the time I had spells that didn't need them.

>every shop ever sells bat shit
Just don't be a drooling retard.

you literally just described tome of battle

>slip some filthy street orphan a few coppers to go gather some bat shit from the nearest cave
>also pick it up as we stroll through caverns and ruins
wow that was hard

nevermind that bat guano would indeed be on sale as fertilizer in a rural society

>how does anyone know to "geek" the mage, or even that the mage is a mage at all.
The guy staying at the back and wearing no armour probably tips them off.

>wearing armor when being dexterous makes you even harder to hit AND lets you go first.

I still maintain that you'd get halfway towards a balanced game if you deleted the Warrior class and added his advancement bonuses to every martial class

>how does anyone know to "geek" the mage, or even that the mage is a mage at all.
Depends on how long the PCs have been around. Surely news of Shiny Armor Man, Muscly Orc Lady, Penis with Bard Attached, and Plain Clothes with a Gnarly Wand, has spread throughout the countryside.

Eschew materials

Not like Wizards can't get armor and shields to wear too.

oh boy making people painstakingly RP out collecting 0 gp material components is so much fun!

>cleric/paladin pisses off their god and is stripped of divine power
Not actually a thing in D&D since 4E that one had Avengers going after renegade divine spellcasters

Other way around. The norm 99% of the time is noncasters get less of a concession than casters do; its almost always nothing at all.

The sole exception is, of course, retarded narrativist games where the only difference between a wizard and being a lucky tricksy guy xD is how you fluff things.

>I'm retarded
/thread

>remove that or place a limit on it's uses and casters are suddenly balanced
No, it just becomes a game about helping wizard gather spell components rather than about whatever adventure you had in mind.

This. Enforcing components will only turn your sessions into Wizard's Quest for Bat Guano, starring the party as supporting character.

However, you don't need to relegate them to support roles. There are other niches: divination, artillery... Just don't give them any rogue/fighter/etc. powers, only give them shit the other classes CAN'T do.

Wait wait, I must have glossed over that. So in 5e, a Cleric that flies in the face of their god, retains all divine powers?
I thought the whole purpose of a Cleric was to be an instrument of their god, and their use of spells is more "praying to their patron for a miracle" thing.

There are no take-backs with regards to the seed of divine power that is invested into the Cleric, yes - and that was this way since 4E. In 5E Paladin is the only class that has something comparable to the loss of powers, and even in this case it boils down to a fairly weaksauce "lol, ask ur DM, 'kay? u also feel real bad for a night".
Bears mentioning that even in the old-school D&D deviant Clerics were punished by a mere reduction in attack bonus or spells known, subject to the Referee ruling.

>Cleric was to be an instrument of their god
Cleric is an instrument of their god in a way that James Bond is an agent of Her Majesty - they can get cut off from their instutional backing, but all training, experience, knowledge and pocketed gadgets will remain.

>The sole exception is, of course, retarded narrativist games where the only difference between a wizard and being a lucky tricksy guy xD is how you fluff things.

What the fuck are you even talking about

No I didn't? Tome of battle is 80% combat tricks and 20% self-help. I'm talking about making Knock and Spider Walk rogue-only spells.

A cleric isn't even necessarily a WILLING cleric, user.

Likewise, if renegades from the divine lost theirpowers, then devils, Lucifer, etc. would be pretty lame.

this is actually genius, at last wizards could have some flavor.

It was called Legend.

The RuleOfCool one? Yes, that's more or less what I'm going for, except in a d20 chassis so that I don't have to redo a whole system from scratch.
Shame that Legend never got finished though.

That's just bookkeeping, it's not a serious limitation.

One of the biggest limitations on casters that got removed from 3e was that previously wizards needed to learn almost all their spells by finding spellbooks or a willing teacher, and clerics only *requested* certain spells and received whatever their god wanted them to have for that day. This made both classes more DM-dependent, but that's also the case for martials who rely on magic items. Today, wizards get free spells out the ass and clerics can pick and choose from their whole list every day.

I don't think these limitations make the game any more caster-focused, because in any situation where a wizard might go looking for new spells, a fighter might find a brand new magic weapon or piece of armour. This could be reinforced by saying that high-tier magic equipment can *only* be wielded by a martial of sufficient skill, in the same way only a wizard can use a spellbook, and then making those items more powerful (not so much in combat terms, but in terms of letting martials pull off 'mythical' stunts). Wizard gets spell, fighter get sword.

Basically, more power from all classes would made external, including casters. Everyone can perform feats of high-octane weeaboo power if they have the right equipment, and no one gets that power if they don't.

Also, casting spells was a slow and long affair in combat and could be disrupted with relative ease.

Most combat spells had faster speeds than weapons.

I still think that would be a way to 'depower' casters.

Make a spell take multiple rounds to cast. The higher level the spell, the longer it takes. Fireball takes a full round, but meteor swarm takes three full rounds.

And maybe something about being able to cast cantrips or reserve spells during the 'dead' rounds where you're just chanting, so you're not just waiting for three turns to pass, but casting flare a few times.

Maybe he'll stop pretending to be Gandalf and accept that he's Radagast, a disgusting vagrant strapped with enough pouches of vermin shit to be the envy of 90's comicbook heroes.

This, but you don't even need to explain it as literal spellcasting. Maybe the mid/high level fighter can crack the Earth with his sword because he's just that badass, and his body is infused with magic from all the monsters he's slain. The rogue can magically detect stupidly well-hidden traps because he's got a sixth sense, it doesn't need to be a ritual or whatever.

In 1e, casters are powerfully vulnerable regardless, and speed factor isn't quite like casting time.

In 2e, stoneskin ablates (caster level+1d4) hits so casters don't fear melee much.

>In 2e, stoneskin ablates (caster level+1d4) hits so casters don't fear melee much.

It also costs an eye IIRC.

Nah. It costs a bit of diamond dust, in an edition where gp doesn't get used much at all

I'm not really in love with that level of minutia. It's probably a big reason I've migrated to more narrative-dependent games.