A modest proposal: Iterative Spellcasting

[Lago_AM3P]

Since buffs are holding the game by its throat and wizards never cast even a mighty web past level 9, why not do this instead:

Add iterative spellcasting. And by this I mean that when a wizard or anyone gets 4th level spells, they can cast a 1st level spell, too.

When they get 6th level spells, they can cast up to a third level spell EXTRA.

When wizards get 9th level spells, they can cast up to a 6th level spell AND cast up to a 3rd level spell.

Soforth. At a -3 block. As for spells that have a duration of concentration, they can be maintained simultaneous. (So if a 15th level wizard casts telekinesis as an iterative spell, the next round he can throw out a polymorph any object and a web while maintaining contact on the telekinesis).

This means that full-round action spells would suck (even more) as-written, but who cares?

What do you think?

[Sma]

I fail to see how this would remove the usefullness of buffing.
This would aloow you to power up in one turn instead of two, or three.

What multiclassed fighter/caster need on the other hand is a way to attack and cast in the same round

Sma

[MrWaeseL]

Or you could fold all spell levels into a single level of them (as has been proposed before on this forum) and have a singel spells have the effects of multiple lower-level spells.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I have an idea.

Why not have the spells and attacks interchangable.

For example, if you get both multiple spells and multiple attacks, you may switch them around.

For example, a 10th level fighter/10th level wizard would (suck, and) have a BaB of 15/10/5 and cast spells at 5th level/2nd level, if I understand Lago's proposal correctly.

So, maybe that fighter mage coudl attack at +15/cast 2nd level/attack +5, or cast a 5th spell/attack +10/attack +5, or maybe even spell 5th/ spell 2nd/ attack +5?

[User3]

Wizard don't need a power-up. They never have. They are only somewaht balanced by the fact that they use higher level spells vs the fighters more attacks.

To be honest, fighters need less of the "-5,-10,-15" attacks" and more full BAB attacks.

[Username17]

Well, if you want to be a burner, you do need a power up. But that's neither here nor there.

I suspect that the whole idea of differing amounts of BAB for different classes was a bad idea to begin with. It causes lots of problems with multiclassing and epic play, why not drop it altogether?

Your BAB could just be your level, spells and attacks could be interchangeable, spell slots and buff spells could go away, and the more powerful save-or-die type spells could be full-round spells.

That's not a modest change, but properly managed it could make an evoker rather balanced with a berserker, and also make the fighter/mage archetype viable.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Wizards would need a nerf to compensate, first you'd probably have to take away save or die spells entirely, and you'd have to remove all spell scaling.

The problem with save or dies is that it's always worth throwing more of them in the mix just for a crap shoot where you hope to get lucky. If you can cast 2-3 of them around you get a lot more powerful.

Spell scaling quite simply would produce far too powerful effects. Buffs especially. I would hate to see what a divine favor + divine power + righteous might combo would do in a single round of casting.

The advantage to iterative casting is that it would cause wizards to cast several weaker spells, which would in turn make spell slots available more of a real concern. That's generally a good thing. It also takes away part of the caster's versatility, because he's forced to memorize more combat spells, which is also probably a good thing.

The disadvantage of course is that you're hosing metamagic using sorcerers and 1 round casting time spells. You'd probably need to improve the 1 round casting time spells.

You're also opening up the door for tons of uber combos, especially with time stop. The old forcecage + damage over time spell is going to become a common occurence under this system.