Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jesper 12-09-05, 11:51 AM	I am getting sick of the druid and claric being the back bone of party so I am thinking to trying this house rule wiz and sorc have acess to all magic spells have any of you have any experance with this rule and what do you think of it?
Elemenofi 12-09-05, 11:55 AM	It's insane. How would yo explain those spells which take effect through divine intervention?
Shirosai 12-09-05, 11:58 AM	Yay! Let's make two of the strongest classes in the game even stronger!
benmoule101 12-09-05, 12:03 PM	The main concern I would have about that is balance, and flavour. The characters completement each other, a divine spell caster is generally hend to be essential for their access to healing spells, but arcane spellcasters have access to a wide range of other very useful spells, both combat and non-combat oriented. Without a rogue locked doors stay locked, and traps stay trapped. Fighters are very good at fighting, so which one is the backbone? With no powerful offensive/defensive capabilities a party can be vulnerable to general combat. No rogue - locked doors, and lethal traps No wizard/sorcerer - no arcane spells (think, no fireball!) No cleric/druid - No healing No ranger - no wilderness skills Ok I'm being over simplistic in the extreme, but its' all about balnce, I'd worry that one class would get to powerful, with the changes you're suggesting. But, hey, its' your game, try it, have fun!, Do it your own way. Ben
Shirosai 12-09-05, 12:13 PM	Why would you play a cleric if you could just as easily play a wizard with every and any type of magic he wanted. He could essentially fit the role of any class type. Blaster? Use a fireball. Healer? Use some cure spell. Sneaky? Cat's Grace, Chameleon, etc. makes him fairly sneaky. Melee? The cleric's defensive and buffing spells, mixed with the deadly spells from the wizard/sorc list can make your wizard one deadly S.O.B. Wilderness type? I'm sure there are some druid spells, or ranger spells that could fit this role.
Jesper 12-09-05, 12:16 PM	Yay! Let's make two of the strongest classes in the game even stronger! so you are saying that a wiz is stronger then a cleric at the same level? in most of my games the druid or cleric is the tank!
Shirosai 12-09-05, 12:17 PM	No, where did I say that? I said that they are two of the strongest, not the two strongest...
Elemenofi 12-09-05, 12:26 PM	There's is no class stronger tha the sor/wiz. Clerics and Druids are good indeed, but the sor/wiz is da best.
Shirosai 12-09-05, 12:31 PM	Tell that to a well built Druid. :D
Elemenofi 12-09-05, 12:36 PM	Right. Do you really believe that (suppose are Evocer.. or some completely offensive wiz/sor) wiz/sor lvl20 could be defeated by a well built druid? Not by chance.
DarknessEternal 12-09-05, 12:39 PM	Right. Do you really believe that (suppose are Evocer.. or some completely offensive wiz/sor) wiz/sor lvl20 could be defeated by a well built druid? Not by chance. If by "not a chance" you mean "with 100% certainty", you'd be right. Druid 20 can beat anything else in the game with no effort. Clerics aren't far behind them. What makes you even think Wizards can stand up to either of them? Divine spells are certainly no worse than their arcane counterparts, and are frequently better. Now let's throw in a Cleric/Druids twice as many hit points and good Fort saves. Wizards just don't stack up to them. Sorcerers are a joke to everyone.
Shirosai 12-09-05, 12:41 PM	Uh.. Yeah. Have you ever played a Druid20? Edit: (Was replying to the Elemen guy.)
rironin 12-09-05, 12:44 PM	I think most people would agree that giving sorcerers and wizards unlimited access to divine magic would be hugely unbalancing and would ruin most games. For characters that want access to both arcane and divine magic, there is already a Prestige Class called Mystic Theurge that can do this. The Mystic Theurge is balanced with prerequisites (you have to have levels in arcane and divine spellcasting classes beforehand, which limits your overall caster level in either area) and with the fact that Mystic Theurges don't gain the other abilities that either clerics or wizards/sorcerers gain as they go up in levels. Basically, a character with access to arcane and divine magic is balanced only if there are significant drawbacks. Wizards settled on making these dual-casters weaker in magical power than a straight arcane or divine caster of equal level, and in taking away benefits like familiar progression. I guess I don't know about your game, but giving wizards and sorcerers full access to divine magic with no drawbacks would definitely break my game and cause all sorts of problems. If the cleric and druid in your party are that much better than everyone else, I would guess your wizard and/or sorcerer and/or everyone else may not have found effective builds, spells, or techniques to match them yet. I certainly believe that, if played well, there should be no huge power difference between your divine and arcane casters. Just a difference in the powers they have access to, and the roles they play. It might not be perfectly balanced in anyone's eyes, but I think it's fairly well balanced, at least.
Jesper 12-09-05, 12:56 PM	No, where did I say that? I said that they are two of the strongest, not the two strongest... sorry misread your post
Elemenofi 12-09-05, 01:00 PM	Never played a lvl20 character. But 9th level spells tell me all I need to know. time stop(defensive casting in 5 rounds), meteor swarm, power word kill and your cleric is done ! :D
Elemenofi 12-09-05, 01:01 PM	Mystic Theurges don't gain the other abilities that either clerics or wizards/sorcerers gain as they go up in levels. What other abilitie do sor/wiz gain?
Neo_Leviathan 12-09-05, 01:05 PM	What other abilitie do sor/wiz gain? Enahcements to their familiars. Oh gee, look, we have another "What class is best" flame war brewing, YAY! /sarcasm Seriously though, making this kind of house rule for Sorc/Wiz is just ridiculous, you'd simply be handing Sorcerers the world on a silver platter. "Able to cast any spell I want at any time? Yes please!"
Elemenofi 12-09-05, 01:07 PM	Oh right. I'm just trying to point out that most of the well known characters of FR and other worlds, the most powerfull, are wizards. period.
OctoberRaven 12-09-05, 01:16 PM	I want to come up with a positive thing to say about this idea, but I can't. It's completely stupid. Sorry.
Dinges 12-09-05, 01:26 PM	I believe the power of a arcane spellcaster comes more from it's player. Arcane spells are more versatile than divine and can be easier used for multiple purposes. Examples: Using fabricate to create falling stalactites from the ceilings material. Create a wall with Minor Image that you can see through (concealment). Web on swarms. Other than that, arcane spellcaster are more flashy and most of the time is role-playing one of the reasons to chose then. The flavour of a spellcaster that gets its power by its own effort is also more appealing to some.
DarknessEternal 12-09-05, 02:36 PM	Never played a lvl20 character. But 9th level spells tell me all I need to know. time stop(defensive casting in 5 rounds), meteor swarm, power word kill and your cleric is done ! :D Coincidently, those are all Cleric spells as well.
DarknessEternal 12-09-05, 02:36 PM	Using fabricate to create falling stalactites from the ceilings material. Create a wall with Minor Image that you can see through (concealment). Web on swarms. Once again, also all Cleric spells.
DaveReaves 12-09-05, 02:44 PM	Its not cure light wounds' fault that your wizard is not the "backbone" of the party. If a party backbone is formed its a combination of three factors: The players, the characters and the DM. First, the players in question may or may not like the feeling of being the party backbone. They stay in the back ground, doing their job. If this is because they like it in the back ground or some other reason, access to a class feature is not what's holding them back. Next you have the characters. I once formed the party leader with a bard, in another game the fighter took charge and yet I remember a time when a sorcerer was all that held the party together. Very different classes, all backbones of some kind for our group. In the end, a character designed to be a leader probably will be and a follower will never lead. Of course as in most D&D situations, the DM can play a role as to who, if anyone, becomes a backbone. If the DM uses few fighting encounters and more roleplay encounters, a healer build cleric may not be held in as high a regard as a wizard with his variety of mind influencing incantations. Changing a major rule of the game should be avoided unless you fully understand the effects of such a change. Try to look into any other options before jumping straight into something as drastic as this.
Tusz 12-09-05, 03:39 PM	Coincidently, those are all Cleric spells as well. Once again, also all Cleric spells. Actually, none of those are cleric spells. 1 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/meteorSwarm.htm) 2 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fabricate.htm) 3 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/powerWordKill.htm) 4 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/timeStop.htm) 5 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/web.htm) 6 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/minorImage.htm)
Shirosai 12-09-05, 03:48 PM	But they potentially can be, if you take into consideration domains.
JC99 12-09-05, 04:05 PM	Out of the PHB domains, only Power Word: Kill and Time Stop are cleric spells. I haven't memorized the domains from CD, ECS, etc, so they might be in there.
rbrt_Spade 12-09-05, 04:10 PM	Doing this is going nuts. Basicly your making wizards and sorcerers not in check of balance between divine and arcane magic. Basicly if you still plan on doing this, kill all divine magic and prepare for pun-pun 2. The combos of spells are crazy. If they take damage, they can just heal themselves. But you might look into make a variant arcane spellcaster with access to both lists like the bard, a mix of everything.
Ignatius Metamorphic 12-09-05, 04:31 PM	It's not so crazy. There is an optional rule in Unearthed Arcana that describes something very similar. If you want to do this, you should check out the generic classes in Unearthed Arcana. Essentially, the generic spellcaster casts like a sorcerer, but can pick spells from any list. You can find the rules Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) . I would suggest you check out some of the threads on the Unearthed Arcana boards that discuss the generic classes if you want more information.
rironin 12-10-05, 12:43 PM	It's not so crazy. There is an optional rule in Unearthed Arcana that describes something very similar. If you want to do this, you should check out the generic classes in Unearthed Arcana. Essentially, the generic spellcaster casts like a sorcerer, but can pick spells from any list. You can find the rules Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) . I would suggest you check out some of the threads on the Unearthed Arcana boards that discuss the generic classes if you want more information. The generic Spellcaster class at the page you linked to sounds like a very balanced way to give Jesper what he says he wants. That is, it's a class that gives access to arcane and divine magic. I think it's balanced, which is why I have no problem with it, but I also think that's why it won't help Jesper. He seems to want something to make wizards and sorcerers more powerful than they already are, to match the clerics and druids in his party. Which is silly. But that is a good example of a class that has access to everything. At first glance it's not something I'd want to play, just because of the huge restriction on how many spells you actually know, but - perhaps with some thought you could come up with killer arcane/divine spell combos that would make you really effective. It's an interesting class - the Mystic Theurge gets tons of spells per day, but he can't access higher level spells. This generic class gets access to high level spells like any straight caster, but doesn't get to choose many to learn. Like I said, interesting. Dunno if I'll ever use it though. =)
Always-Late 12-10-05, 04:11 PM	I think it's pretty much a given that WoTC thinks arcane spellcasting is better than divine spellcasting. For example, the straight sorc to favored soul conversion gets medium BaB, no ASF, d8 hit die, and random bonuses. Same with the wiz to archivist conversion.
shadowrisae 12-11-05, 03:12 PM	I don't see how this will make a difference. The wizard/sorc will get more spell choices, but if the player doesn't know how to play a caster well (and to me, that sounds to be more of the problem) then giving them more spells won't help. Taking away spells, the cleric can still be a tank and the druid still has wildshape plus better fighting ability than a wizard/sorc. Spells combined with those, it's easier to be a better cleric or druid player than a wizard/sorcerer player. If the cleric and druid players know how to play their characters to the best of their ability, and the sorc/wizard player(s) do not, then nothing changes.