# Red Wizard - What the hell was WotC smoking????



## Grog (Oct 30, 2003)

Seriously. They nerfed Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus but left this in? I was planning an adventure for a 13th-14th level party and was looking at using one of these guys for a villian (after adapting the organization to my campaign world). Boy did I drop that idea fast.

It's insane how powerful these guys are. Look at a 10th level Red Wizard (15th level character). First of all, he's effectively a 20th level caster right off the bat, and he doesn't even have to sacrifice spell slots to increase his caster level like the new Archmage does.

But the real problems start when you look at the Circle Leader ability. If he leads a circle of, say, 9 9th level wizards, each of them can cast a 5th level spell, giving him 45 spell levels in his pool. He can crank his caster level to 25 and still have 40 levels left over to metamagic his spells without increasing their level.

I considered what he could do to the party with that kind of power. First of all, a caster level of 25 means his buffs would be literally untouchable by party dispels, and he could strip away their buffs with ease. He could open the combat by casting a Finger of Death Heightened to 20th level - instant death for one character (even the party barbarian couldn't make a Fort save with a DC in the high 30s-low 40s). Or, if he just wanted to kill the whole party at once, he could cast an Empowered Maximized Cone of Cold, followed up by a Quickened (actually using a 7th level slot for this because at least Red Wizards can't use the Circle ability to Quicken spells) Empowered Maximized Fireball. That's 150 + 12d6 damage to the entire party, and he still has 30 spell levels left in his pool afterward. He could Heighten the spells too, to ensure the PCs would fail their saves, and voila - instant TPK.

Given that there's basically no cost for using the Circle Leader ability, there's no reason that the Red Wizard wouldn't do it every day, so he's *always* running with that kind of power at his disposal. And as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing the party can do to take it away from him - it's not dispellable or anything like that.

I would submit that this guy would cause major problems even for a 20th level party! He makes the 3.0 Archmage look like a Commoner. What was Wotc thinking?


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## jgsugden (Oct 30, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> Given that there's basically no cost for using the Circle Leader ability, there's no reason that the Red Wizard wouldn't do it every day, so he's *always* running with that kind of power at his disposal. And as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing the party can do to take it away from him - it's not dispellable or anything like that.
> 
> I would submit that this guy would cause major problems even for a 20th level party! He makes the 3.0 Archmage look like a Commoner. What was Wotc thinking?




Point of order: This guy plus 9 9th level minions. That is a pretty hefty army. EL 15 all by itself. If you add in the 15th level leader, that makes a EL 17. And that is assuming average NPC stats (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 08 with adjustments for gaining levels and magic items). Having 9 9th level minions at your beck and call is a pretty awesome amount of power. Considering this is a FR specific class (even though it is in the DMG), it is unlikely that anyone but a Zulkir is going to be walking around with 9 9th level casters at their beck and call.

And one wail of the banshee will probably take out most, if not all, of those 9th level assistants. Once they are gone, he'll be unable to replenish his power.

This is a strong ability, but it is not as widely abuseable as spell focus, greater spell focus and spell power. Those abilities were being used by virtually every mage to create spells that were out of balance. Removing them was necessary. Leaving in a power that can be abused only under very specific and rare circumstances is by far less disruptive to the game.


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## Grog (Oct 30, 2003)

jgsugden said:
			
		

> Point of order: This guy plus 9 9th level minions. That is a pretty hefty army. EL 15 all by itself. If you add in the 15th level leader, that makes a EL 17.




Even if you add in the assistants to the guy's EL, he's still way out of balance. Look at, say, a marilith (I think that's about CR 17, don't have my MM in front of me). There's absolutely no comparassion.



			
				jgsugden said:
			
		

> And one wail of the banshee will probably take out most, if not all, of those 9th level assistants. Once they are gone, he'll be unable to replenish his power.




First of all, 14th level characters don't have wail of the banshee. Second, even if they did, it wouldn't matter, because the 9th level assistants won't be part of the battle. It'll just be the leader, with all his Circle powers, vs. the party. There's no way he'd be stupid enough to bring his assistants into the battle, especially given that he can exterminate the party quite easily without them.



			
				jgsugden said:
			
		

> This is a strong ability, but it is not as widely abuseable as spell focus, greater spell focus and spell power. Those abilities were being used by virtually every mage to create spells that were out of balance. Removing them was necessary. Leaving in a power that can be abused only under very specific and rare circumstances is by far less disruptive to the game.




Spell Focus did not create spells that were out of balance. You can argue that 3.0 Spell Power did, but Spell Focus was fine. And in any case, the Red Wizard's power absolutely dwarfs that of the 3.0 Archmage.


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## Altamont Ravenard (Oct 30, 2003)

Dont Red Wizards have to give up a LOT of schools? Doesn't this re-balance things (I'm not intimate with the Red Wizard... unless it has 20 CHA).

AR


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## Numion (Oct 30, 2003)

So you dropped the idea of a red wizard opponent because

a) the wizard should then have 10 levels in Red Wizard PrC

and

b) the wizard should then have 9 strong wizards constantly doing his circle magic locked in a closet

Maybe the PrC is too powerful, but you can still use it against the pcs. Just decide that this particular Red Wiz _doesn't_ have a group of circle casters behind his back, nor has he absolutely have to have all ten levels of the class.


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## Grog (Oct 30, 2003)

Numion said:
			
		

> Maybe the PrC is too powerful, but you can still use it against the pcs. Just decide that this particular Red Wiz _doesn't_ have a group of circle casters behind his back, nor has he absolutely have to have all ten levels of the class.




Well, of course I can power him down myself and/or play him less effectively. That's not the point. The point is that the class, as written, is horribly, horribly broken.

And even a Wiz10/Red Wizard 5 could still get 20+ spell levels in his pool, which would be more than enough to do the Empowered Maximized Cone of Cold / Quickened Empowered Maximized Fireball combo I mentioned before.


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## Jubilex (Oct 30, 2003)

Numion said:
			
		

> Just decide that this particular Red Wiz _doesn't_ have a group of circle casters behind his back, nor has he absolutely have to have all ten levels of the class.



Yes if you take of its main ability it is less pewerfull for sure...but I think this was Grog's problem no? I agree with Grog it is overpowered.


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## jgsugden (Oct 30, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> Even if you add in the assistants to the guy's EL, he's still way out of balance. Look at, say, a marilith (I think that's about CR 17, don't have my MM in front of me). There's absolutely no comparassion.
> 
> First of all, 14th level characters don't have wail of the banshee. Second, even if they did, it wouldn't matter, because the 9th level assistants won't be part of the battle. It'll just be the leader, with all his Circle powers, vs. the party. There's no way he'd be stupid enough to bring his assistants into the battle, especially given that he can exterminate the party quite easily without them.
> 
> Spell Focus did not create spells that were out of balance. You can argue that 3.0 Spell Power did, but Spell Focus was fine. And in any case, the Red Wizard's power absolutely dwarfs that of the 3.0 Archmage.




We're talking EL 17. A 14th level party versus EL 17 should be hard pushed.And I think you underestimate the power of a marilith. I've seen a well used 3.5 marilith rip apart a 21st level party by itself. Still, a 14th level PC should have 7th level spells. A nice delayed blast fireball should do the trick against 9th level wizards. 14d6 damage (49 average) versus wizards with hit points in the high 20s?

Second, we're talking the leader here. A leader of a very evil organization. Even if he has a huge advantage, the leader is the last one to actually get into battle. A cleric with an antimagic aura around him would completely destroy this wizard. A single failed save can still kill him. 

I'm not going to argue spell power and spell focus with you. I've done the math. Anything beyond 10 + spell level + attribute modifier is going to start to push the envelope of balance. Even spell focus makes spells too powerful to provide balanced play amongst the classes at high levels. If you do the math and study the effectiveness of the classes, you'll agree with me. If you don't, it is pointless to argue.

Yes, this ability can be grossly abused if the DM builds the game in that fashion. This is primarily an NPC class. If the DM wants to kill the PCs, he can just send a great red wyrm against the PCs at 10th level. The DM can *always* kill the PCs. In the hands of a PC, this ability should be far weaker. He needs to have cohorts and followers and he needs to keep them close at hand. It is still possible to get very high caster levels and multiple metamagic feats (empowered, maximized and heightened to 9th level), but only under very limited circumstances and only if the DM allows him to be built up in that manner.

In other words, yes, this is possible to highly abuse in limited circumstances. Those circumstances are so rare, it wasn't worth their time to change it. The reason why the focus/power issues were addressed is because everybody was using them all the time. They were an abuse that was so overused that they had to be removed.


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## Snipehunt (Oct 30, 2003)

Except for the circle ability, the red wizard doesn't look that great to me.  It's a good PrC, but pretty well balanced overall.

The only wacky thing is the circle ability, which does make things really unfair.  But just because the Red Wizard has an ability, doesn't mean the Red Wizard can or will use it.  As Jgsugden pointed out, not every red wizard has a coterie of 9th level red wizard apprentices ready to donate to the wizard's abilities.
Even if the wizard did, it might not have circled that day, or used the power for something else.  

The circle thing isn't IMO meant for ordinary encounters.  I see it as a way to get a roleplaying smack against the PC's, if needed.  A reason not to seriously annoy the Red Wizards, without a really good reason or your own protection.  Or if you need to explain a really powerful spell effect.  And so on.  If a DM used that against me in a normal encounter, I'd cry foul b/c it's not a lot different than an NPC wizard casting gate and taking a PC to the NEP.  It's cheesy.

IMO, if the PC's fight a Red Wizard w/ bonuses from the circle ability, you need to up the CR quite a bit.  A wiz5/red wiz 10 with circle powers is a significantly different CR than one that doesn't have any circle power for the encounter.  It's like throwing a powered-up cleric against the PC's - you have to adjust the CR.


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## Nifft (Oct 30, 2003)

I think it makes for a very cool adventure concept.

Just like you can't kill a Lich directly, you can't take on this wizard directly. You have to kill his apprentices before he's vulnerable.

I like the idea a lot.

 -- N


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## Grog (Oct 30, 2003)

jgsugden said:
			
		

> We're talking EL 17. A 14th level party versus EL 17 should be hard pushed.And I think you underestimate the power of a marilith. I've seen a well used 3.5 marilith rip apart a 21st level party by itself. Still, a 14th level PC should have 7th level spells. A nice delayed blast fireball should do the trick against 9th level wizards. 14d6 damage (49 average) versus wizards with hit points in the high 20s?




Again, the 9th level wizards _won't be in the fight_. That's the whole point - they don't need to be. They add their power to the leader at the beginning of the day, and that's all they need to contribute.



			
				jgsugden said:
			
		

> Second, we're talking the leader here. A leader of a very evil organization. Even if he has a huge advantage, the leader is the last one to actually get into battle. A cleric with an antimagic aura around him would completely destroy this wizard. A single failed save can still kill him.




Cleric casts AMF, wizard teleports away until it wears off. And as for killing him with a save-or-die spell, he'll just buff himself with Spell Resistance before the fight. A caster level of 25 gives him SR 37. A 14th level caster would need Greater Spell Penetration to even have a chance of affecting him with a spell, and even then it would only work on a 19 or 20. If he wants to play things safe, he'll raise his caster level to 27 or maybe even 30. Now he's completely immune to any magic the party can throw at him.



			
				jgsugden said:
			
		

> Yes, this ability can be grossly abused if the DM builds the game in that fashion. This is primarily an NPC class. If the DM wants to kill the PCs, he can just send a great red wyrm against the PCs at 10th level. The DM can *always* kill the PCs. In the hands of a PC, this ability should be far weaker. He needs to have cohorts and followers and he needs to keep them close at hand. It is still possible to get very high caster levels and multiple metamagic feats (empowered, maximized and heightened to 9th level), but only under very limited circumstances and only if the DM allows him to be built up in that manner.




First, he can Heighten spells up to 20th level, just so you know.

And I know the DM can always kill the PCs. Again, that's not the point. I already reached the conclusion that this class was a walking TPK and decided not to use it. I'm talking about the class the way it's written in the DMG. It's absolutely ridiculous that they nerfed Spell Focus, which was not a game balance problem, and left this in. The class, as written, is unusable because if it's played intelligently (as a high-level wizard should be played) it will utterly obliterate parties that are even 5+ levels higher than it is.

The class is _not balanced_. That's my complaint.


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## Grog (Oct 30, 2003)

Nifft said:
			
		

> I think it makes for a very cool adventure concept.
> 
> Just like you can't kill a Lich directly, you can't take on this wizard directly. You have to kill his apprentices before he's vulnerable.
> 
> I like the idea a lot.




I considered this, actually.

The challenge would have been for the party to infiltrate the wizard's stronghold and kill the apprentices before facing the wizard himself.

But what I couldn't get past was the fact that, if through one small mistake or just simple bad luck they met the wizard, it would have been an instant TPK. I don't mind punishing the party for big mistakes - but a TPK as the price for a small slip just wasn't my idea of a fun adventure.


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## Nifft (Oct 30, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> The challenge would have been for the party to infiltrate the wizard's stronghold and kill the apprentices before facing the wizard himself.




Do these apprentices never leave on their own? Are they chained to the walls of the stronghold? Don't they have lives of their own?

The way I'd run it is that, f the wizard knows of a threat, he gathers his apprentices to him. This takes 1d4 days, plus one day for them to do the Circle Magic thing.

If the threat fails to materialize -- say, the PCs get wise to the fact that he's got his apprentices around, so they lay low for a few weeks -- the apprentices grow restless and want to get on with their lives.

Summoning apprentices costs the wizard politically (he owes them favors) and financially (he has to pay them for travel and the favor of Circle Magic, probably with scrolls of spells they want).

If he takes the Leadership Feat, he'll have one always-on-call Cohort/apprentice who'll always be available to boost him. That's not TOO much of a power-boost, but it does give him access to the Circle Magic class ability even if he's caught unawares.

 -- N


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## Grog (Oct 30, 2003)

Nifft said:
			
		

> Do these apprentices never leave on their own? Are they chained to the walls of the stronghold? Don't they have lives of their own?
> 
> The way I'd run it is that, f the wizard knows of a threat, he gathers his apprentices to him. This takes 1d4 days, plus one day for them to do the Circle Magic thing.




Well, if they're his apprentices, they're going to be staying close to him in order to learn. And since they're the source of his power, the wizard will make sure they're well-protected. The challenge of the adventure would have been to get past those protections, but like I said, I just didn't think it would work.


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## Nail (Oct 30, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> Well, if they're his apprentices, they're going to be staying close to him in order to learn. And since they're the source of his power, the wizard will make sure they're well-protected. The challenge of the adventure would have been to get past those protections, but like I said, I just didn't think it would work.




Three problems with this, as I see it:

Problem #1) *Cost* You're treating the organization as an individual.  It's not.  It's made of people, all with their own personal agendas (mainly: self advancement), and they do not mesh together harmoniously.  These "appentices" you keep talking about may be lower on the pecking order, but they all require payment of some kind.

Problem #2) *Apprenticeship* You're mis-using the word "apprentice".  Given the 3.5e D&D paradigm, no wizard needs "teaching" from a master to advance in power.  Power advancement comes from XP, plain and simple....and what challenges are these supposed apprentices facing, in order to gain XP?   They are certainly not hidding out in their "master's" impregnable fortress.

Problem #3) * Hey!* The red wizard PrC isn't in the SRD!  (of course.)   Could someone post what this "circle power" is, so we can get a look at it???!!


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## jester47 (Oct 30, 2003)

Looking at the description, it seems to me that if a Red Wizard was going for broke and he was 15th level and had 9 apprentices of 9th level, after the 1 hour ceremony, he would have 45 levels to play with.  Assuming he has maxed out his intelligence, he can cast 8th level spells as a 20th level caster.  

Right.

so he gets his 45 levels to play with.  

Lets say he is an enchanter.  
So he can only take his caster level to 40th.  That eats up 20 of his 45 spell levels.  So we treat him as a spellcaster of 40th level for today.

He then decides to use cast an enchantment-  antipathy, he has scried a powerful group of heroesapproaching his secret stronghold and wants to send them on thier way.  As it stands now he can cover a voume of 40 10ft cubes.  to create an area that he wants to repel them from.  So he can't maximise or empower the spell, but he can heighten it.  So he makes it a 20th level spell.  The heros cant save and so they leave and don't come back for three days.

In that time he can power up again.

Woe be to them if he is an evoker.  

However, if the characters are smart they will find out what his prohibited schools are and make use of attacks that require that kind of magic to stop.  Every red wizard has 3 (for diviners) or 4 prohibited schools.  Figureing out what his first ones were would allow the characters to get at him.  Also chances are that his apprentices follow a similar path.  At least they would be less likely to study a school that is prohibited by thier master.  

Also, keep in mind that even if he does not go for broke on one spell, he is most likely to use up a lot of spare levels very quickly if he were say an evoker in a toe to toe fight...  Especially if he has maxed out his caster level.  Also, if he is away from his home, or his apprentices are off on long term errends, his power will be less.  When you really look at it, its not THAT bad. 

Certainly no one to be trifled with.

Also, he could loose initiative.  DMs First rule:  Never underestimate the players.

Aaron.


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## jester47 (Oct 30, 2003)

Red wizard circle magic:

Ceremony takes 1hr.

Requires circle leader and at least 2 others.

all others have to stand within 10' of leader.

Each casts 1 spell.  The leader absorbs the spell levels.  

The leader then has options:
He can raise his caster level for the purpose of spell effects
or he can metamagic his spells with empower, maximise and heightened up to 20th level. 

After 24 hours he looses the extra spell levels.  

Aaron.


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## Urbannen (Oct 30, 2003)

Am I missing something?  How can a 15th level spellcaster Heighten a spell to 20th level?  In order to do that the spellcaster would need improved spell capacity spell slots from 10th to 20th level (11 epic feats) and an Intelligence of 30.


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## Pax (Oct 30, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> Seriously. They nerfed Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus but left this in? I was planning an adventure for a 13th-14th level party and was looking at using one of these guys for a villian (after adapting the organization to my campaign world). Boy did I drop that idea fast.
> 
> It's insane how powerful these guys are. Look at a 10th level Red Wizard (15th level character). First of all, he's effectively a 20th level caster right off the bat, and he doesn't even have to sacrifice spell slots to increase his caster level like the new Archmage does.



  15th level in total?  So by himself, he's already a touch more powerful than the usual run-of-the-mill encounter for your party (up by +1 or +2 CRs).

  And no, he's NOT effectively a 20th level caster.  He's a 15th levl caster, with +10 caster levels *when casting spells.*  He doesn't get to prepare any extra spells per day, nor cast spells of a higher level than any other 15th level specialist.

  Further, he has *four*, coun 'em *four*, opposition schools, none of them being Divination.  And 5 of those bonus caster levels are specific to only *one* school.



> But the real problems start when you look at the Circle Leader ability. If he leads a circle of, say, 9 9th level wizards, each of them can cast a 5th level spell, giving him 45 spell levels in his pool. He can crank his caster level to 25 and still have 40 levels left over to metamagic his spells without increasing their level.



  He will NEVER lead a circle of 9 ninth-level wizards.  Period.

  Circle LEader lets him lead a Circle, should he happen to have one.  However, it doesn't *give* him a Circle to lead.  For that, he shodl take the Leadership feat.

  15th level character ... we'll assume he (somehow) has enough charisma or whatever to offset the general penalties for being evil, aloof, and cruel to his underlings (as Thayan wizards generally are); thus, we'll assume a leadership score of 15.

  He has a single 10th levl Cohort, and 23 followers (1 is third level, 2 are second, the other 20 are 1st) ... all of whom are warriors or commoners.

  So.  You tell *me* where the other Wizards of 9th+ level come from.  Certainly not the Red Wizard PrC description!



> I considered what he could do to the party with that kind of power. First of all, a caster level of 25 means his buffs would be literally untouchable by party dispels, and he could strip away their buffs with ease. He could open the combat by casting a Finger of Death Heightened to 20th level - instant death for one character (even the party barbarian couldn't make a Fort save with a DC in the high 30s-low 40s).




Um.  Clue-by-four time.

Firt off, Finger of Death and "many buffs" aren't going to be in the same school of magic.  Thus, he won't get the full caster level increase for both of them; the Red Wizard gets *Specialist* Spell Power, which only applies to their specialty school.

Second off, you can't heighten a spell to a level higher than you can actually cast.  This, that Finger of Death isn't going ot be higher than an 8th level spell; the Spell Power-like benefits absolutely do not affect your number of spells per day!  Nor what level of spell you can cast.

Furthermore, heightening anything to 20th level would take an Epic character, with a *slew* of feats, most of them epic:

Heighten Spell
Improved Heighten Spell
Increased Spell Capacity (10th)
Increased Spell Capacity (11th)
Increased Spell Capacity (12th)
Increased Spell Capacity (13th)
Increased Spell Capacity (14th)
Increased Spell Capacity (15th)
Increased Spell Capacity (16th)
Increased Spell Capacity (17th)
Increased Spell Capacity (18th)
Increased Spell Capacity (19th)
Increased Spell Capacity (20th)

For a straight wizard, those epic feats would take a minimum level of 36 ... _with no Red Wizard levels at all!_  Add in 10 Red Wizard levels, and that means you have to be some 6-odd levels higher than *that* ...!

I don't care if you're burning the metamagic costs with Circle Magic ... the same limitation put on the Instant Metamagic ability of the Incantatrix: you have to have at least had the *option* to have prepared it yourself, to be able to cast it that way.



> Given that there's basically no cost for using the Circle Leader ability, there's no reason that the Red Wizard wouldn't do it every day, so he's *always* running with that kind of power at his disposal. And as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing the party can do to take it away from him - it's not dispellable or anything like that.



  Sure there's somethign they can do ... there's this 6th level spell, you see, called "antimagic field" ... run up with the fighter, and pound the snot out of the then-crippled wizard.



> I would submit that this guy would cause major problems even for a 20th level party! He makes the 3.0 Archmage look like a Commoner. What was Wotc thinking?



  I'm one of the GMs for an Epic arena, and the scenario you describe would never happen there ... even with start-at-25th-level Red Wizards.  Heck, not even with a Wizard(10)/Red Wizard(10)/Archmage(5).

  The simple reason being, noone is allowed to simply *assume* that the ability to lead a Circle of fellow red wizards automatically *grants* you a Circle to lead.


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## Pax (Oct 30, 2003)

Urbannen said:
			
		

> Am I missing something?  How can a 15th level spellcaster Heighten a spell to 20th level?  In order to do that the spellcaster would need improved spell capacity spell slots from 10th to 20th level (11 epic feats) and an Intelligence of 30.




Not to mention Improvd Heighten.

And for campaigns not using the ELH ... then, there's not such *thing* as a spell-slot above 9th.  It's just that simple. ^_^


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## jester47 (Oct 30, 2003)

I think the assumption came from the description saying that many redwizards able to lead a circle collect thier spell levels daily from thier appretices.  

It is a good point to point out that it does not say what level those apprentices are. 

Also the levels can only be applied to the spells that the caster has already prepared.  

To quote:

"The circle leader may add one of the three listed feats to a spell even if he does not know the feat or the addition of the feat would raise the spell level past the circle leaders normal maximum spell level (maximum spell level 20th)."  

So yes our red wizard could cast spells higher than any other 15th level specialist.   That 8th level spell can become a 20th level spell.  Or he could maximise and empower all his magic missiles if memorised a slew of them at 1st level.  (heightening it does not good).  Unless I am mistaken, fireballs still cant do more than 90 points of damage, but that save can become a problem.

Aaron.


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## Numion (Oct 30, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> Well, of course I can power him down myself and/or play him less effectively. That's not the point. The point is that the class, as written, is horribly, horribly broken.




I apologize for missing the point:



			
				Grog said:
			
		

> I was planning an adventure for a 13th-14th level party and was looking at using one of these guys for a villian (after adapting the organization to my campaign world). Boy did I drop that idea fast.




That part might've confused me. I was just trying to solve that problem for you. 



> And even a Wiz10/Red Wizard 5 could still get 20+ spell levels in his pool, which would be more than enough to do the Empowered Maximized Cone of Cold / Quickened Empowered Maximized Fireball combo I mentioned before.




That would be a strong combo, but wouldn't be a problem in my games, since people like to pack protection from elements in them at 14th level.


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## FrankTrollman (Oct 30, 2003)

> He has a single 10th levl Cohort, and 23 followers (1 is third level, 2 are second, the other 20 are 1st) ... all of whom are warriors or commoners.




This is a 3.5 thread. Followers are not restricted to Experts or Commoners - and can be specialist Wizards. If this is a Red Wizard of Thay - they probably are.

Secondly, just because he is 15th level doesn't mean his leadership score is. If he has +4 in Charisma + Leadership bonuses he'll have his maximum - a 13th level Cohort.



> Second off, you can't heighten a spell to a level higher than you can actually cast.




...Unless you are a Red Wizard, or have another similar ability. But since we are talking about the Red Wizard here, I fail to see your point.

Actually the big normal limit is that Heighten Spell won't go past 9th level - unless you are Red Wizard in which case it will.



> Furthermore, heightening anything to 20th level would take an Epic character, with a slew of feats, most of them epic:




Unless you are using Circle Magic and are a Red Wizard. Then you can just use Spell Slots to pump it up to 20th level.



> I don't care if you're burning the metamagic costs with Circle Magic ... the same limitation put on the Instant Metamagic ability of the Incantatrix: you have to have at least had the option to have prepared it yourself, to be able to cast it that way.




That's a piece of errata for the 3e Incantatrix. If they had wanted such a rule on the 3.5 Red Wizard it would say that.




> I'm one of the GMs for an Epic arena




A 3rd edition Epic Arena from the degree to which you've been ignoring the 3.5 rules I should hope.

-Frank


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## AuraSeer (Oct 30, 2003)

FrankTrollman said:
			
		

> This is a 3.5 thread. Followers are not restricted to Experts or Commoners - and can be specialist Wizards. If this is a Red Wizard of Thay - they probably are.



Oh cripes, he has a 3rd-level wizard follower! Run away! Head for the hills! Fly, you fools! 

(That's still a long, long, long way from having a circle of 9 Wiz9 specialist buddies.)


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## jgsugden (Oct 30, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> Again, the 9th level wizards _won't be in the fight_. That's the whole point - they don't need to be. They add their power to the leader at the beginning of the day, and that's all they need to contribute.



They need to exist for him to use them. If he is the BBEG, the PCs can find them. It may take effort, but they are still in the game. Besides, as I pointed out, BBEGs tend to hide behind their underlings ... they don't dive out into combat before sending out their minions.


			
				Grog said:
			
		

> Cleric casts AMF, wizard teleports away until it wears off. And as for killing him with a save-or-die spell, he'll just buff himself with Spell Resistance before the fight. A caster level of 25 gives him SR 37. A 14th level caster would need Greater Spell Penetration to even have a chance of affecting him with a spell, and even then it would only work on a 19 or 20. If he wants to play things safe, he'll raise his caster level to 27 or maybe even 30. Now he's completely immune to any magic the party can throw at him.



Teleport from in an anti-magic field? Neat trick. And Mordenkainen's Disjunction takes down his buff spells. Even if the party is not 17th level, a scroll of this spell is often worth the purchase. If you're going against a Zulkir, I'd think it an obvious choice. And we must be talking a Zulkir if he has 9th level wizards at his beck and call.


			
				Grog said:
			
		

> First, he can Heighten spells up to 20th level, just so you know.



This has already been completely shot down by others. 


			
				Grog said:
			
		

> And I know the DM can always kill the PCs. Again, that's not the point. I already reached the conclusion that this class was a walking TPK and decided not to use it. I'm talking about the class the way it's written in the DMG. It's absolutely ridiculous that they nerfed Spell Focus, which was not a game balance problem, and left this in. The class, as written, is unusable because if it's played intelligently (as a high-level wizard should be played) it will utterly obliterate parties that are even 5+ levels higher than it is.
> 
> The class is _not balanced_. That's my complaint.



This ability, if used at an extreme, is not balanced. You are completely correct on that point. Nobody has ever argued that a 15th level caster in an EL 17 encounter throwing out caster level 40 spells is balanced. The point is that this ability should not be able to be used at such extreme levels. 

As for spell focus: by itself, a +2 to DCs is not very abusive. A +4 from 2 feats (SF and GSF) is abusive. The balance of the game is designed around DCs of 10 + spell level + ability score modifiers along a fairly predicatable curve as the character advances. The additional +s from greater spell focus and spell power abilities were complete idiocy. Nerfing spell focus while adjusting greater spell focus and spell power was not necessary, but it was a fine way to go.

As for the class being unusuable because the only intelligent thing to do is to use it to such an extreme level: That is like saying people should buy everything in the world because it is smart to have everything in the world. The problem with these statements is that it completelt ignores a simple component in the equation: nobody has unlimited resources. Your argument assumes that the wizard has many powerful minions running around at his beck and call. It assumes that these beings devoted a portion of their education to being able to serve that master as a battery. It assumes that they are willing to put themselves at risk as well: any enemy of the master will try to kill them to deny his battery.

As long as you assume ridiculous resources for the Red Wizard, this ability will be overpowered. If you consider real limitations, average NPC ability scores, etc ... this stuff falls into place rather easily.


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## Plane Sailing (Oct 30, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> he'll just buff himself with Spell Resistance before the fight. A caster level of 25 gives him SR 37. A 14th level caster would need Greater Spell Penetration to even have a chance of affecting him with a spell, and even then it would only work on a 19 or 20. If he wants to play things safe, he'll raise his caster level to 27 or maybe even 30. Now he's completely immune to any magic the party can throw at him.
> .




Unless they use conjurations, which don't have SR applied. Or any other spells which don't allow SR for that matter.


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## Grog (Oct 30, 2003)

Pax said:
			
		

> And no, he's NOT effectively a 20th level caster.  He's a 15th levl caster, with +10 caster levels *when casting spells.*  He doesn't get to prepare any extra spells per day, nor cast spells of a higher level than any other 15th level specialist.




This is why I said 20th level caster and not 20th level wizard. His caster level is 20, before any circle magic.



			
				Pax said:
			
		

> Further, he has *four*, coun 'em *four*, opposition schools, none of them being Divination.  And 5 of those bonus caster levels are specific to only *one* school.




Yes, this is significant. However, it in no way offsets the power gained by the PrC.



			
				Pax said:
			
		

> Um.  Clue-by-four time.
> 
> Firt off, Finger of Death and "many buffs" aren't going to be in the same school of magic.  Thus, he won't get the full caster level increase for both of them; the Red Wizard gets *Specialist* Spell Power, which only applies to their specialty school.
> 
> Second off, you can't heighten a spell to a level higher than you can actually cast.  This, that Finger of Death isn't going ot be higher than an 8th level spell; the Spell Power-like benefits absolutely do not affect your number of spells per day!  Nor what level of spell you can cast.




Clue-by-four yourself. The PrC description *specifically* says that the spell levels granted by the circle can metamagic a spell up to 20th level. Sorry, but you're wrong.



			
				Pax said:
			
		

> Furthermore, heightening anything to 20th level would take an Epic character, with a *slew* of feats, most of them epic:




Unless you're a Red Wizard, who can do it at 15th level (or possibly lower).



			
				Pax said:
			
		

> Sure there's somethign they can do ... there's this 6th level spell, you see, called "antimagic field" ... run up with the fighter, and pound the snot out of the then-crippled wizard.




And he just stands there and lets that happen, because he's a complete idiot who somehow managed to make it to 15th level as a wizard. Right.



			
				Pax said:
			
		

> The simple reason being, noone is allowed to simply *assume* that the ability to lead a Circle of fellow red wizards automatically *grants* you a Circle to lead.




Nor can you assume he *won't* have a circle to lead. If he's the head of a wizard's guild or something similar, he will definitely have access to a circle.


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## Grog (Oct 31, 2003)

jgsugden said:
			
		

> As for the class being unusuable because the only intelligent thing to do is to use it to such an extreme level: That is like saying people should buy everything in the world because it is smart to have everything in the world. The problem with these statements is that it completelt ignores a simple component in the equation: nobody has unlimited resources. Your argument assumes that the wizard has many powerful minions running around at his beck and call. It assumes that these beings devoted a portion of their education to being able to serve that master as a battery. It assumes that they are willing to put themselves at risk as well: any enemy of the master will try to kill them to deny his battery.




You can't make the claim that because a PrC might not be able to use an ability under certain circumstances that that makes the ability balanced. If WotC produced a PrC that had the ability to cast a Finger of Death that allowed no saving throw and ignored Death Ward, but had to craft a ring costing 200,000gp in order to do it, would you argue that that was balanced? Would people be saying "The class is fine because you can't assume he'll have 200,000gp to spend"?

And having access to other wizards to form a circle does not require even close to unlimited resources. It would be perfectly reasonable for the head of a wizard's guild to have access to this. Having several 9th level minions is a very common thing for a 15th level BBEG to have - the Red Wizard just uses them in a different way.


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## Numion (Oct 31, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> Cleric casts AMF, wizard teleports away until it wears off. And as for killing him with a save-or-die spell, he'll just buff himself with Spell Resistance before the fight. A caster level of 25 gives him SR 37. A 14th level caster would need Greater Spell Penetration to even have a chance of affecting him with a spell, and even then it would only work on a 19 or 20. If he wants to play things safe, he'll raise his caster level to 27 or maybe even 30. Now he's completely immune to any magic the party can throw at him.




Is the Red Wizard a Cleric now? Since only clerics can cast Spell Resistance:

From SRD:

Spell Resistance
Abjuration
Level: Clr 5, Magic 5, Protection 5


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## DM_Matt (Oct 31, 2003)

Um, guys, unless I am misunderstanding the FRCS, Red Wizards DO have those sorts of rescources.  They are an enormously powerful organization that rules a country and has a total monopoly on magic within it, as well as controlling a world-wide network of autonomous enclaves that trade among other things in magical items (Gee, I wonder who pays all those XP...certainly not the Zulkirs).

The only way to advance is to suck up to Red Wizards more powerful than yourself, and by suck up, I mean you're their b*tch.  If not, you die.  

It is prefectly reasonable to assume that they will have access to a good number of underlings to add to their circles.


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## Pax (Oct 31, 2003)

Personally, I say, just give the Red Wizard BBEG the LEadership feat, give hima Red Wizard cohort and a bunch of Adept or Wizard followers, and base his available Circle Magic power on *that*.


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## Snipehunt (Oct 31, 2003)

The main problem is that it's a roleplaying issue, not a "power" issue.  A Red Wizard also could have used its resources as an item-creation factory, and made a ton of magic loot that makes it invincible.  But we all know he didn't.  Because that would make him overpowered for the PC's.

Same deal here.  A PC red wizard wouldn't have the ability to do much damage with the circle.  Leadership doesn't give enough cohorts of useful levels, and it would cost too much money to get others to cast the spells every day.  An NPC red wizard is balanced by the fact that it can't just kill the PC's.  

Well, IMO.


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## jgsugden (Oct 31, 2003)

Grog, there is no point in arguing. At the core, we agree.

A 15th level wizard/red wizard should not be running around with 9 9th level wizards in his circle on a daily basis. That is far too strong for a 15th level creature.

You think this means the class can not be used. I think it means that the DM has to avoid that particualr kind of extreme case *or* use great care in how it is used. 

We disagree on what is a balanced supporting cast for a 15th level wizard, but in the end, the design of the supporting cast is up to the DM. If you think a 15th level wizard should be running around with 9 9th level wizards that are at his beck and call, I have no right to tell you not to do it. I can just say that it is not something I'd do in my game and it seems out of whack with the advise on encounter construction in the DMG.

Good luck in your gaming.


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## Hammerhead (Oct 31, 2003)

Assuming he has access to Illusion, he could use Simalcrums to get a few 7th-8th level 'apprentices.'


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## Grog (Oct 31, 2003)

jgsugden said:
			
		

> You think this means the class can not be used. I think it means that the DM has to avoid that particualr kind of extreme case *or* use great care in how it is used.




Well, there's care, and then there's care, you know? As the Red Wizard stands now, I basically have two options:

1. Don't use it

2. Use it, but cripple it so that my PCs have a chance against it.

If those are my only choices, I'll take option 1, because I'd much rather make a villian that can use all its resources against the PCs without it being an auto-TPK. That's much more challenging for the PCs and much more fun for everyone.



			
				jgsugden said:
			
		

> We disagree on what is a balanced supporting cast for a 15th level wizard, but in the end, the design of the supporting cast is up to the DM. If you think a 15th level wizard should be running around with 9 9th level wizards that are at his beck and call, I have no right to tell you not to do it. I can just say that it is not something I'd do in my game and it seems out of whack with the advise on encounter construction in the DMG.




I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but would you consider it unbalanced for a frost giant king (CR 15) to have nine regular frost giants (all CR 9) at his beck and call? If not, what makes that situation any different?



			
				jgsugden said:
			
		

> Good luck in your gaming.




You too. I appreciate the discussion, even if I disagree.


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## Wish (Oct 31, 2003)

Your basic premise is flawed, Grog.  You're looking at it and saying that this 15th level wizard who's prepped for the encounter plus his 9 free cohorts are more than your 13th level PCs can handle.  Of course he is.  But that's really no different than looking at any other creature that's already a tough challenge, and assuming that it would have lots of tough minions.  Take a spectre, for instance.  It has the create spawn ability.  It could depopulate and enslave as spectres and entire village, if no adventurers happened to be passing through.  But that doesn't mean that when you create an encounter with a spectre that you should just assume that it has another 250 spectre minions, and that those don't change the balance of the encounter.

If you want to use this guy at 15th level, leave out the minions.  Just like you would if you wanted to use a spectre at CR 7.  If you want to use him at ~CR 18 (with lots of powerful minions and favorable circumstances) then yes, he's going to kick the stuffing out of your 13th level characters.  Big surprise.

Or, you could create him as, say, 13th level.  Let him spend a feat on Leadership to get his minions, and let them (a 9th level, a 2nd level, and a bunch of 1st levels) contribute to his circle for a max of 11 levels.

You don't have to create overkill just because you can.  And your badguy can use all of the resources available to him in the encounter, if you set those resources to a resonable level.  If you give him essentially unlimited resources, of course there's going to be a problem.


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## jgsugden (Oct 31, 2003)

Look, Grog, we can argue this back and forth all you want and never reach a conclusion that will satisfy both of us. To that end, I have a much more practical solution.

I'm going to plug my ears and scream NANANANANANANANANANANANANANANA over and over until you agree with me.


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## Pax (Oct 31, 2003)

Wish speaks the truth.  You're looking at "wizard + extraneous resources" as a CR 15 encounter, when it's *not*.  The wizard *alone* is CR15.  The Red Wizard class doesn't *give* you any followers ... it just lets you benefit more form any followers you get *yourself*, _if_ they're of the right sort of followers.

The wizard _with the extra resources_ ... is more than CR15.  CR17 is, IMO, a consrvative estimate.  And at CR 17, you're +4 ovr your party's average level, so TPK is almost to be *expected*, more often than not!


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## Simulacrum (Oct 31, 2003)

Just my two cents. To be able to heighten a spell to 20th level does NOT mean that you can freely do it. YOU CAN do it if you have a 20th level slot available. This is just a misunderstanding and some guy over there at WotC has allready cleared that up. So no Grog you are wrong and Pax is right.

Still yes teh Red Wizard circle magic is slightly off because it is not capped. It should be capped this way:
Circle Leader: +10 levels 
Great Cicle Leader: +20 leves

Otherwise the thing that I think is not ok is that the Red Wizard is--> "Über high cost -> high power" type of PrC.
And that is no good in itself. 
I mean drop FOUR schools of MAGIC. THIS IS INSANE.


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## green slime (Oct 31, 2003)

Reading through the actual description in the DMG, I see no problem with this at all.


Red Wizards are a paranoid lot.
There is only a limited number of available "Circle bonus levels" with which to apply metamagic.
Metamagic applied at the time of the Circle, not on the fly.

Given these facts, the Red Wizard in question will probably be more worried about trying to discern who actually put these chump "Heroes" up to this act of utter stupidity, and what his enemies hope to gain in the process, than actually pouring all his resources into one PC-slaughter feast. Because, the Red Wizard assumes that is what his opponents are trying to trick him into doing. Then his so called "apprentices" will be lurking in the wings to finish of their "mentor".

Given 15th Red Wizard, with 9 9th level "apprentices", sure he can access an incredible 45 Circle bonus levels. So he expends 25 of these to increase his caster level to 40. Which means he is likely to overcome any Spell Resistance he might face. 20 Circle bonus levels left to apply metamagic feats (Heighten, Empower or Maximize) to any spells he has memorized at the time of the Circle.

Given the multitude of threats a Red Wizard may face in anyone day, would he choose to raise one or two spells out the wazoo, or would he spread them over a multitude of spells, increasing his versatility and staying power? Personally (if I was a Red Wizard), I'd rather choose the later, rather than count on my "friends" to back me up should a "big" spell fizzle for what ever reason.

Any idiot or gang of "heroes" trying to take on a Red Wizard at home had better come well prepared.

But there are far more easier ways to defeat megalomaniacal paranoid wizards


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## green slime (Oct 31, 2003)

Simulacrum: as a Red Wizard circle leader of level less than 10th Red Wizard level, you can only lead 5 others in a circle. This means that a Red Wizard of less than 15th character level can only possibly have 25 Circle Bonus levels, if he has access to 5 9th level wizards.

The bonus drops quite radically if you lower the level of the participants, or the number of participants. All of these factors are under DM control. As DM, you have to decide how the circle leader is gaining control of these high level wizards.


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## ruleslawyer (Oct 31, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> Well, there's care, and then there's care, you know? As the Red Wizard stands now, I basically have two options:
> 
> 1. Don't use it
> 
> ...



Here's where I think you might be getting off-track, Grog. It is very, very easy for a DM to design an encounter with an EL three or four levels over the EPL that is a TPK. The encounter you're talking about has an EL three or four levels over the party's EPL. IIRC, and as jgsugden has noted, a 15th-level NPC plus nine 9th-level NPCs is a strong EL 17. With preparation (which circle magic most certainly is; it requires a coordinated advance effort by the NPCs at the start of the day), the EL is arguably HIGHER. I can build you an EL 17 dragon or half-dragon troll frenzied berserker + cleric cohort encounter that will trash 13th-14th level PCs as well. It's not a question of "crippling" the PrC, but recognizing that this encounter might need to wait a few levels. Against 17th-level PCs, this guy really isn't all that bad; a single 9th-level spell can take him out pretty easily. Some encounters do work that way.

Also, I think it's a bit unfair to call the RW brokety-broke-broke when it really only works this way as an NPC class. You DO have the option, as the DM, to control how the class's power is used, and that is NOT "crippling" it. It's more like not deliberately stacking templates so as to make a BBEG immune to the PCs' attacks (something that's quite easy under core rules) or designing a vampire that walks around with its own EL +10 worth of dominated followers and spawn and keeps a steady stock of 200 temporary hit points from blood drain.

[Edit: "PCs" to PrC.]


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## Simulacrum (Oct 31, 2003)

Another thing. If you could highten a spell over the max spell level you can cast it would mean that you could effectively gain new spell slots.
Like hightening a 7th level slot to 20th you gain another 7th level slot for free. *lol*
That would be stupid.


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## Simulacrum (Oct 31, 2003)

Another thing. If you could highten a spell over the max spell level you can cast it would mean that you could effectively gain new spell slots.
Like hightening a 7th level slot to 20th you gain another 7th level slot for free. *lol*
That would be stupid.


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## Spatula (Oct 31, 2003)

Simulacrum said:
			
		

> Another thing. If you could highten a spell over the max spell level you can cast it would mean that you could effectively gain new spell slots.
> Like hightening a 7th level slot to 20th you gain another 7th level slot for free. *lol*
> That would be stupid.



You don't *actually* metamagic the spell to a 20th level spell, you cast the spell in its normal slot but can apply metamagics with the caveat that the final spell level can't be above 20th.  At least that's how I understand it.


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## jester47 (Oct 31, 2003)

Spatula said:
			
		

> You don't *actually* metamagic the spell to a 20th level spell, you cast the spell in its normal slot but can apply metamagics with the caveat that the final spell level can't be above 20th.  At least that's how I understand it.





Spatuala has the right of it.  

A red Wizard memorises his spells for the day and then goes and does the circle thing.  

After that he can trick out his spells with the remaining levels from the circle magic that he did not use to raise his caster level.  

So if he has prepared a fireball at 3rd level, he can maximise it and empower it.  At that point his fireball that he memorised at breakfast before the circle is an 8th level spell coming out of a third level slot.  Then he can burn 12 more of his stored levels to make it a 20th level spell and essentially unstoppable.  But it still only does a max of 90pts of damage because it is still really a third level spell.  In this case spell damage is calculated by the true level of the caster.  Its just a very dangerous and unavoidable third level spell.

This is from the red wizard description in the DMG:

"The circle leader may add one of the three listed feats to a spell even if he does not know the feat or the addition of the feat would raise the spell level past the circle leaders normal maximum spell level (maximum spell level 20th)." 

Key words here are:
...OR THE ADDITION OF THE FEAT WOULD RAISE THE SPELL LEVEL PAST THE CIRCLE LEADER'S NORMAL MAXIMUM SPELL LEVEL.

This works because the spell that is getting heightened is already prepared.  

Red Wizard circle leaders prepare it as a normal spell, then the spell gets pumped up by the magic of the circle rather than pumping it up while it is being prepared (as most wizards do and he woul do normally if he were not a circle leader).

Its just a way for wizards to cast unstopable spells.  So yes that finger of death is unstoppable.  Think twice before taking on a frikkin red wizard...  They are dangerous.

Aaron.


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## Endur (Nov 1, 2003)

I think Circle Magic is great.  It should be a feat and not a PRC in my opinion.


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## Pax (Nov 1, 2003)

jester47 said:
			
		

> This is from the red wizard description in the DMG:
> 
> "The circle leader may add one of the three listed feats to a spell even if he does not know the feat or the addition of the feat would raise the spell level past the circle leaders normal maximum spell level (maximum spell level 20th)."
> 
> ...




  Of course, the rules for the metamagicks themselves still apply.  And Heighten doesn't allow you to set a spell-level of over 9th.  you need Improved Heighten for that ... and Circle Magic doesn't GIVE you that feat as a choice.


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## Simulacrum (Nov 1, 2003)

Yeah, that makes even a little sense. Now I fully undestand the application of the feature.
Its still a little weird in its mechanic, but it follows what the wotc guy said about it. Interesting....


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## jester47 (Nov 1, 2003)

Pax said:
			
		

> Of course, the rules for the metamagicks themselves still apply.  And Heighten doesn't allow you to set a spell-level of over 9th.  you need Improved Heighten for that ... and Circle Magic doesn't GIVE you that feat as a choice.




I will concede that point.  I think the reason they put the 20th level cap in the description is that when the description was written (it was cut whole cloth from the FRCS) there was a rudimentary Epic Level system in place.  So this is considering circle magic in the epic levels.  But as long as the character is under 20th level, you are right, he is limited to heightening his spells to 9th level.  

Though I think he can still put his caster level through the roof if he wants... not sure though... 

Aaron.


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## Pax (Nov 1, 2003)

Caster level, sure, through the roof.

Spell level ... 20th level, or 2,000,000th level ... he's not gonna use Heighten to set the spell level above 9th.  Heighten can't do that.  Just like Maximise can't make you roll 20's for dispel checks, even if you prepare a "maximised greater dispel magic" or some such.

HE could set the level for almost EVERY spell he had prepared, that had a saving throw, to 8 or 9 ... fine; and that'd be pretty powerful in it's own right.

But a 20th level spell, through Heighten Spell?

Not.

Physically.

Possible.

  Pre-ELH, there's no such thing as a 20th level spell.  Post-ELH, you need Improved Heighten to set spells at levels exceeding 9.


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## Pseudonym (Nov 1, 2003)

Simulacrum said:
			
		

> This is just a misunderstanding and some guy over there at WotC has allready cleared that up.



Would you site a link or source for this, please?


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## Simulacrum (Nov 1, 2003)

Mh I'd love to, its somewhere on the wotc board.
But it would be very hard to track it down. Basicly it says what Pax said.
You can highten the spell to increse the DC but everything else stays like it is. Its the way it was meant.
I'll give it a try right now, but dont expect me to find it right away....


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## Grog (Nov 1, 2003)

Pax said:
			
		

> Caster level, sure, through the roof.
> 
> Spell level ... 20th level, or 2,000,000th level ... he's not gonna use Heighten to set the spell level above 9th.  Heighten can't do that.




The text as written in the DMG is pretty clear (emphasis mine):



> The circle leader may add one of the three listed feats to a spell even if he does not know the feat or if the addition of the feat would raise the spell level past the circle leader's normal maximum spell level (*maximum spell level 20th*).




So yes, while Heighten cannot ordinarily raise a spell past 9th level, the Red Wizard is an exception and the DMG specifically says that the spell level can be raised past 9th, up to 20th.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Nov 2, 2003)

I think, if the party were ~18th-level (to roughly match the actual EL) they still couldn't beat that Red Wizard. Their saving throws simply won't be good enough.

Red Wizard Circle Leaders often lead _daily_ circles to gain power, and any 9th-level wizard who didn't take Conjuration as his prohibited school can cast _teleport_.

I think it's broken, and I think the circumstances under which Circle Magic can be used aren't all that rare.


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## Treebore (Nov 2, 2003)

i didn't read every post on this thread, so if I am stepping on someones toes I apologize.

A fix for being so overpowered. Granted this would have to be made oficial by WOTC, but go back to the way circle magic worked in 2e. The circle has to stay together for the duration. I would make this mean that for the Red Wizard to keep the power boost his "circle" would have to stay within ten feet of him for the whole 24 hours. Any disruption of this circle would then nullify his extra power, making it much more feasible for a party to defeat him. 

But as written, the Red Wizard PrC is very broken, like many PrC's in 3.5e (and 3.0)


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## Pax (Nov 2, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> The text as written in the DMG is pretty clear (emphasis mine):
> 
> So yes, while Heighten cannot ordinarily raise a spell past 9th level, the Red Wizard is an exception and the DMG specifically says that the spell level can be raised past 9th, up to 20th.





  That, then, triggers the "Primary Source" Errata Rule.  Metamagics Feats are discussed in the PHB, not the DMG; that confers Primary Source status on the PHB rules for Heighten Spell ... so where the two conflict, the PHB's rules hold precedence.

  Thus, you cannot heighten the spell to a level of above 9th.  You can heighten it to 9th, and *then* add more metamagics BESIDES, if you want.

  But Heighten only goes to 9th level.  *Period.*

(GOD I'm gonna love being able to haul that argument out to quash assorted inanity ...)


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## Simulacrum (Nov 2, 2003)

Another thing anyone noticed that Red Wizards bacame a completely non playable class:: in 3.5?

I mean who is wotc kidding. Lets say you are an Evoker.
Ok you drop Illusion and Enchantment at first level.
And at 5th or 6th level (by gaining the RW PrC) you drop
Conjuration and Necromancy. 

Now your party will be like: "what sort of Wizard are you?? You can't make anyone invisible, you can't teleport, you have none of those spells that makes bg baddies die, and you can't even magicaly "persuade" people/creatures to make them do what we want?? WTF -> you are not a Wizard you are a JOKE!

Honestly who would want to play this sort of Wizard?
I mean you cant drop Abjuration and Divination, droping those two (especialy BOTH) is every mages suicide.
So you are left with Transmutation, Evocation, as combat and multi use spells.

Yeah you can power up spells to high power, but the cost to do that is imho TOO FRIGGING HIGH!
I'd rather drop GCL, and cap the power of CL more and keep another school of magic. I mean 3 schools is a cruel trade, but FOUR SCHOOLS IS INSANE!


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## Thanee (Nov 2, 2003)

Do you absolutely have to be a specialist Wizard (guess so, but can't check currently )?

Funny, tho, that with the restriction on Heighten Spell, those 20 spell levels are not even possible, as 14 is the absolut maximum, the Red Wizard can achieve, since now you cannot stack Metamagic feats anymore, unlike 3.0.

Bye
Thanee


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## Grog (Nov 2, 2003)

Pax said:
			
		

> That, then, triggers the "Primary Source" Errata Rule.  Metamagics Feats are discussed in the PHB, not the DMG; that confers Primary Source status on the PHB rules for Heighten Spell ... so where the two conflict, the PHB's rules hold precedence.
> 
> Thus, you cannot heighten the spell to a level of above 9th.  You can heighten it to 9th, and *then* add more metamagics BESIDES, if you want.
> 
> But Heighten only goes to 9th level.  *Period.*




I just read the "primary source" rule, and I guess it would apply here. It seems strange and silly that WotC would make a PrC that doesn't actually work the way it's written, though...


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## Nifft (Nov 2, 2003)

Grog said:
			
		

> I just read the "primary source" rule, and I guess it would apply here. It seems strange and silly that WotC would make a PrC that doesn't actually work the way it's written, though...




Consider it a "cut-n-paste" error -- WotC is having editorial issues in the 3.0e-to-3.5e upgrade, and it's likely that no-one bothered to think about the logicalness of the 20 level limit.

IMHO, it's likely that they paid more attention to potentially unbalancing benefits than they did to potentially non-sensical limitations.

 -- N


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 3, 2003)

Simulacrum said:
			
		

> Another thing anyone noticed that Red Wizards bacame a completely non playable class:: in 3.5?
> 
> I mean who is wotc kidding. Lets say you are an Evoker.
> Ok you drop Illusion and Enchantment at first level.
> ...



As far as I can tell, taking the red wizard PrC only requires you to drop one additional school on top of your initial specialization sacrifice.

Furthermore, the PrC specifically says that you retain access to spells you already knew from the school which you drop for the purposes of red wizard.

So if you knew fireball before you took red wizard, and you dropped evocation, you still know and can use fireball (and all of it's metamagiced variations).

It's a bit wierd, because it would seem to suggest that the best possible red wizard build is a wiz9/red wizard 10/something else 1, who learnt every spell from the first 4 levels of his red-wizard prohibited school before he became a red wizard.


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## Simulacrum (Nov 3, 2003)

Umm no, actually the description say 1 or more schools wich means that if you took divination you have to drop one otherwise two....that makes two schools lost completely and two from level 3 or at best spell level 4, wich is a a joke imho and is completely unplayable and insanely high cost.


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## FrankTrollman (Nov 3, 2003)

The Primary Source Rule says that the Red Wizard Text Wins. This is a power of the Red Wizard. Since PrC abilities are in the DMG - the DMG text wins.

The Red Wizard says it can go up to 20th level - which _requires_ that it be able to Heighten past 9th level - otherwise it can't rise things past 14th level which it can _specifically_ do.

The normal maximum from Heighten, Empower, and Maximize is 14th. The _new_ Maximum is 20th. That's a _higher_ than normal maximum and it is thusly its own Primary Source.

-Frank


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## Toras (Nov 3, 2003)

A few points.
1) Thay wizards should really be a FR class because of their politics.  Their ranks are filled with backstabbing, treachery, and deceit.  If a Red Wizard manages to gather his apprentices, (without them betraying him), and gains the levels from them, he still has his multitude of rivals who watch in the shadows for a moment of weakness.  If he unloads his uber spells at the party, he no longer has these levels to menace his enemies, who he has likely been using that as a club against.  

2) If he EVER doesn't make the init compared to Fighter with Mercurial Greatsword and Power Critical, Archer with Bolt of Human slaying (fort save bitch), assassin, the cleric who bitch slaps him harm (if he makes the sr), the death touch class from Book of Exalted deeds or the Archmage with Spell Turning.  Or God forbid a Spell Fire Channeler, (he'd leave such a stain)

Not a single one of the groups in which am currently a part of would have failed to defeat this Red Wizard at the level range required.  Part of which gives you some idea of how broken we were and some about how dirty your willing to play it.  A party member gets mindblanked, sneaks into the Red Wizard's tower, and poisons the villians goblet.  Or our friendly archer picks him off from hiding far away.  If he doesn't see it coming, he is dead.  

Also, if he does the Fireball/Cone of Cold, half my party at that level, (including my character, the half-celestial with the armor with Fire Resistance.) would have just looked at him funny.  He could have maximized and double empowered the damn thing and that would have barely slowed some of us down.  We would likely have had to raise our wizard (though he is and was an archmage with evocation speciality and spell turning), and possibly our cleric. 

The other party was and is just gross (Chosen of Goddess of Luck), Halfling Cavalier, a Spell Fire wielder (who turned a dracolich into his manabitch), a samuri with supreme cleave and uberginsu, the monk (me), and the cleric of baccus who had timestop as a domain ability.  Its an epic level FR campaign and I swear we have almost depopulated Thay at this point.


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## Simulacrum (Nov 3, 2003)

Sure and the Red Wizards with their vast army's, legions of undead (not to mention the legions of hell they can conjure), thousands of specialist killers lead by a big mob of superintelligent long time archmages and epic liches didnt do the same cheap tricks on your party?
looooooooooooool
Your DM is a little weak of mind.
Red Wizards wouldnt drop Fireballs at your party, they would disinitgrate them with DC's far over the 30ties....
(after they cast lots of wishes and timestop to make sure you have zero chance of survival, and or unleashing a good ton of Pit Fiends to slow your party to a whimsy crawl...)
If there was a way for a bunch of epic characters to defeat the Red's it would have allready happened long ago.
3 problems:
1.Thay is protected by a mythal similar magic that prevents scrying on them.
2. The Red Wizards should be played highly intelligent. As you have written, all of them should be naturally full of paranoia and not too easy to surprise...also they deal with devils and demons, thus they are the fathers of cheap and ugly tricks.
3. Red Wizards are ultra careful, as they tend to do dangerous business all the time. They should be permanently warded by essential spells like Arane Sight, See Invisibility and Contingency's. Thus it would make it pretty hard to actually kill them in battle, or even surpise them. Not to forget that the Red Wizards hav the biggest recources on magic available, they will quickly find a spell and a few items that will make short work out of most threats (see below)
(just for example, though arcane sight you can see instantly that someone is using spell turning against you. so you throw a high level but benefical spell against them (draining the reflective power) and having the spell rebound on yourself. Funky!)
Items like Ioun Stones that can absorb magic up to 8th level should be easily created by Red Wizards of high power and Rods of Cancelation and M's Disjunction should turn your party into helpless puppies after a few rounds...

If your epic party was that powerful, your DM should have made the Red Wizards at least 10 times as powerful. And lets not forget Szass Tam (and the other Zulkiers) who is to date undefeated in 1:1 combat (who owns netherese artifacts) is not amused by having to watch some whimpy mortals endanger his business...


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## Toras (Nov 3, 2003)

We haven't assualted Thay, I meant more to the fact of the sheer number of Red Wizards we had killed outside of it.  And yes, if you are high enough level, most red wizards they have outside of Thay are not particularly difficult. Also if you have Szaa Tallen and massive legions of undead coming after you, that means Thay is on the move in a big way.  The kingdoms in the way are hardly going to remain idle and neither are the power players present.

We got like 15 of them at once, by finding the boats they were supervising, waiting until nightfall, and then casting prismatic walls in front of the boats.  Only 3 managed to make it off the ship before they got kicked the crap out of. And those three we picked out of the sky farely easily. 

Improved Counter Spell + the Spell Turning Archmage ability (not the spell turning spell) .  Wizard holds action and uses a similar spell to essentially turn back the spell the Red Wizard is casting.  It doesn't show up on the Arcane Sight, and your disintergrates become his disintergrates. Make your own save.  

The Epic FR party also has a Epic Spell Fire Channeler, who can eat any targeted spell that he can get in front of. (yum Disintegrate).   He also can launch blasts that would crispy fry any Red Wizard, SR not applying.  How is 30d6 to face. 

And before you ask, yes they have sent Assassins (we defeated them), the undead never make it past the Positive Energy Aura.  And the last Mordienkines Disjunction we got shot at us just made the Staff of the Magi mad.


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## Simulacrum (Nov 3, 2003)

Sounds like serious munchkin crap. I'd never lead such a game. Completely turned for the players.

You know that the Red Wizards are around a bit longer than your party and they know every little slimy trick.
And they are masters of magic. Nearly every high level Red Wizards takes Reactive Counterspell and Mastery of CS as soon as he can get. Thus he can turn the spell back again against your spellcaster (forfeiting his next action but still your boy is a crispy critter afterwards...etc)
eh epic munchkin party's there is nothing worse.
Believe let me build a equaly munckinised Red Wizard assault group and you wont survive a round...

No offence its your gaming group, but your DM sounds like a very poor DM.

For starters if you want to hurt a party, dont attack them as a Group, anihilate/ capture individual key members. After that let the rest of the party be little tools and toys for the Red Wizards pleasure...and as soon as they become useless turn them into Undead and stick them into the army...(and thats by the way exactly how Red Wizards operate, a Zulkir who hears that some epic goons have killed lots of his lackeys is going to be royaly pissed, there is no way he wouldnt retaliate in an equaly epic strike, that is so buffed and fool proof that the party can be happy to get away with their bare lives (but without any magic items etc of course, and most likely as captives).
I mean serious do I have to post how easy it is for a whole legion of high level spellcasters is to come up with some nasty surprise no one has a chance of surviving?
They will wait and strike at a moment your individual members are helpless to begin with...

And its foly of you bringing in the argument that as soon Thay is doing something that immediate help would arive for your party. Ever though of the fact that the reverse could be true to?
Like you destroyed a ship with the guys that were actualy directly doig a job for Szass Tam who in turn worked for LARLOCH?
Boy Larloch is going to be pissed and send some Archliches and Epic Shadow Lord Vampires to chekc if you guys have any loot that makes up for his loss...(wich is doubtful by recalling that he and Szass have about everything that is Netherese and looks like an artifact)

If you are talking grand (epic) scale, than please be realistic (or better give your DM a clue) about how it should look from the other side.
Evil (epic) organazations are vastly underestimated and believe me Larloch and Szass Tam are not going to WATCH some goons foil any of their plans.
Next stop-> Larloch using one of his powers obtained from the Nether Scrolls....


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## HeavyG (Nov 3, 2003)

Toras said:
			
		

> Improved Counter Spell + the Spell Turning Archmage ability (not the spell turning spell) .  Wizard holds action and uses a similar spell to essentially turn back the spell the Red Wizard is casting.  It doesn't show up on the Arcane Sight, and your disintergrates become his disintergrates. Make your own save.




This doesn't work, btw.  Disintegrate is a ranged touch spell and thus would "merely" be countered.


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## Toras (Nov 4, 2003)

Curious, I was not aware that Disintergrate didn't function, did this change from 3.0?  The example I was thinking off took place using that version of the Archmage.  Assume that the Archmage also has reactive counterspell and master of counterspell (sooner because he doesn't have to get through Red Wizard levels to get it) 

Our epic FR DM is not exactly the best at plot development or preparation, but when it comes to designing retribution for such groups she does a fairly good job.  Though perhaps I am not describing the situation clearly.  We killed the Red Wizards who were involved in selling a series of particularly nasty drugs into Om and other places along that coast.  Now we are currently investigate similar happenings in Waterdeep.  I doubt Szass Tam is that concerned with the drug trade to invoke his masters aid due to losses on an admittedly large but not crippling scale.  

Admittedly that game has slowly become extremely munchkin, due to in part the rolling randomly for treasure.  Let it be said I consider that a mistake.  But any DM can kill any part at any time.  The question is what makes for a fun, interesting, and realistic (I used the term loosely) game.  What I am flabbergased about is the fact that you honestly think that the PCs, even Epic PCs, are the center of the universe. 
1. Larloch honestly doesn't care much about what goes on outside his lab, they said as much in many seperate sources. Before Szass Tam, anyone who bothered him would be horribled killed.   I don't debate the fact that he could right now, horrificly maim and slowly kill every member of our party by himself.  I debate the fact that we are even at the forefront of his mind.  More likely his attention is resting on the return of the Shade Enclave and their artifacts and mythalar. If he was honestly going to toss epic undead at people why has he never done so in any FR source?  Why do Halaster, Shade and Cloth still possess Nether Artifacts? 

2. Admittedly Szass Tam could be incredibly pissed about the whole affair, and could organize a Red Wizard strike team that likely could wait in the shadows and pick us off left, right, and center.  But in order to do that, he has to bend a group high level wizards to his will long enough to convince them that we are a huge threat that must be eliminated, no matter the fact that they would have to weaken their position to make the strike.  Either this is easy or extremely difficult.  If it is easy, why hasn't he conquered the realms yet?  Right now we could stand our own with most of the power players, (the Chosen of Mystra, Most of the sword kindoms, and most of elven lords now).  If he could basicly destroy any of them, why does he tolerate the Sisters continued attacks upon his holdings?  Indeed, why has he not simply destroyed them now, if his power is so great?

3. Consequences and Reprisals.  Right now, we are affiliated with a noble house which is nobility in Waterdeep and in Om (one of the characters is the head of the family). The estate were we dwell has many interesting magical properties, woven in times of paranoia.  The first of which is the fact that no one but ourselves may teleport into the estate.  The second is the wards against scrying that are placed through out the mansion itself and any attempt to teleport in lands one in a room a locked room 81 square feet total.  The room is covered by an permanent antimagic field as well having no food or water.  Outside the mansion, their are several golems and Clockwork Dragons guarding the against intruders.  

Outside of the mansions and grounds proper is a series of two temples.  One to Baccuss, which leads to the wine orcherd and houses many clerics to that deity.  The other is a temple to Bahamut, and we regularly have good dragon worshipers arriving there.

Again I don't debate that he could, with sufficent effort destroy us utterly, but the consequences of such an action would be dire.  First, it couldn't be quiet, that level of conflict would be sensed by massive numbers of people.  And assuming they manage to get us all.  They still have to deal with consequences of having angered (alot) of Gods that are hardly slouches, including Baccus, Bahamut, Timara, and a host of other dieties whom we have done good works for.  As well as the fact that they have essentenially committed an act of war against both Om and Waterdeep by assassinating an important noble and laying waste to his house.

Either the PCs are important enough to matter to both Good and evil alike, making their deaths the beginning of a multiplanar  storm the likes of which Toril has never seen. Or they are below the extreme notice of both.  

In Summary, I honestly believe that Thay as a nation is quite as powerful as you would contend, realitive to the world in which they live.  I also contend that any party that would be doing enough lasting damage to warrant the type of response that you are suggesting would likely be valuable enough to others to protect.


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## Simulacrum (Nov 4, 2003)

The books are the books, and the story's therein are not exactly D&D pen and paper.
If the sisters & elmi and all the other chosen of Mystra were more epic than they are now, the red wizards would be also more powerful etc.. its not a good point of measure.

I say the game should always "go with the pc's", as soon as they "advance" and become epic, they start to see that there is allready a world full of epic politcis and powers ahead of them.
Why the Red Wizards havent killed any of the Sisters yet?
LoL because wotc just thinks and that good should always win and that the baddies are always stupid and never get even the best plan working thats why.
But honestly I dont play evil = stupid.
On a grand scale such generalazations are stupid anyway. 
Even disregarding this, one could argue that the choosen and many other epic powers on Faerun have struggled long enough (for hundreds of years actually) to have maintained some sort of status quo, and that most epic forces need them for their politics even tho they hate them. One can imagine that some evil wizards needs some epic hero alive, otherwise he could not *convince* his superiors/gods/underligngs that his regime is good as is and that only "he" can manage that problem....whatever.
But PC's (especialy those that got more or less bumped into epic gaming, without any real background and interaction with all those epic forces around them) cant just benefit from this things without them realy having worked for it hard. I mean just because you are *epic* doesnt mean you are not disposable or that any other epic force was more favoured by their surroundings.

And an epic evil organazation like the Red Wizards (hey that THE EVIL EPIC ORG!) would certainly try one of the above. Most likely trying to capture on or two out of the party and making them strike a deal with them, (one that is not going in favour of the party) so that they at least pay for teh damage they have done, and make them show that there is no such thing as fopping with the Red Wizards. I mean if it was so easy to rip apart the Red Wizards, explain why no one has done it yet?

You see you have to look at both sides of an argument.

Or why dont the evil gods that the red wizards have done many favours for, are not angered at the good party's out there and destroy them at a regular basis?
Just because Szass Tam decides to make short work of an epic party doesnt mean that the the gods can interpose or actually act against the Red's. Yes mabe they will curse Szass Tam a lot. But hey what has he got to fear? He is nearly a god himself and he is not hedged out of the world of Mortals by AO like the real gods.

None the less, Szass Tam is literarily FORCED to retaliate with a quick but devastating strike. If just about anyone would hit on his business like your party did, he would be soon dishonored and be pushed aside by the other zulkirs.
If I was Szass Tam I would kill your party. Not because the party is a threat to me, rather my fellow zulkirs are a serious threat to me.
Its all politics you know   

For real if you was Szass Tam you would do the same. And Szass and Larloch have a pretty good relationship. If Szass needs some epic liches and vampires he gets them. I mean what harm can it do. Liches and epic vampires cannot be destroyed (at leat not without checking larlochs lair first) anyway. So there is no reason he could not get some of larlochs lackeys for a day or two...

and btw. you are done with the RW PrC at 15th level, there you can jump into the archmage PrC right away, and you'll get CS mastery as soon as everyone else.


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## Toras (Nov 4, 2003)

We don't even know if Szass Tam is even involved in the Drug trade. Assume that he is, the people we have destroyed are doubtfully very high up on the food chain.  Of course if it was another zulkir, suddenly the access to epic undead and nether artifacts disappears.  Now they have to organize an attack party willing to go have way across the world to attack the enemy.  How many epic level subordinates does the average zulkir have on hand, that are willing to step in themselves? I am honestly curious. 

Assuming its him, he could ask for Lorath the undead, but honestly he would have to teleport them in  at the entrance (due to our wardings) and run the holy ground gauntlet or try to overpower said wardings, which is he do able at his level but that act would set off the alarms, allowing everyone to get prepared.  It wouldn't be as easy or trivial a thing as you are contending.

According to his write up in the epic level handbook, "he works from the shadows and is perfectly willing to abandon servants and attempts that fail and simply try again later...He's not exerting power yet." You may play it differently but that is what it says.  He is undead, he could just wait for us to grow old and die. 

As to the "evil" wizards that want us around, we might not have Thay interested in us, but a certain master of Undermountain looks upon us with good favor.  

For the Balance issue, you have to remember the time frame.  The enclave of Shade, an incredibly powerful group of "evil" netherese have appeared on the scene.  They have incredibly powerful magic and are likely causing great speculations in Thay.  Honestly, who would be more of a concern, ancient Netherise with a mythalar or a group.

Tell you what.  Design what you would consider an appropriate strike force.
You know that there is 1-2 clerics, 1 samurai, 1 monk, 1 wujen/archmage (hidden), 1 spellfire wielder, and 1 wizard/rogue noble.   That is the party.  
There are countless npcs including (Gold, Silver, and other metallic dragons), 1 epic paladin, 1 additional epic cleric, 1 assassin, and the clergy of the two temples.  I've already explained the mansion set up, post what your "strike force" would look like or how you would go about it. I like it, I will foward it on to our DM, and see if we run through it.


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## The Little Raven (Nov 4, 2003)

Simulacrum said:
			
		

> Umm no, actually the description say 1 or more schools wich means that if you took divination you have to drop one otherwise two....that makes two schools lost completely and two from level 3 or at best spell level 4, wich is a a joke imho and is completely unplayable and insanely high cost.




Can you read? From the DMG, page 194:



> For example, Ghorus Toth is specialized in the school of transmutation. His prohibited schools are abjuration and enchantment. When he becomes a Red Wizard, he must choose one other prohibited school. He decides to select conjuration as his additional prohibited school.


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## Simulacrum (Nov 4, 2003)

copy paste error from 3.0 FRSC. What did you expect?
The rules text says something else. So yep I can read.


And Toras, for starters if I was Szass Tam I would level the whole building to the ground with one epic spell powered by a wish. Sorry no warning, just dead people.


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## Toras (Nov 4, 2003)

From Epic Book
1. Szass Tam doesn't have epic spell casting, he has improved spell capacity (10th, 11th) but not epic sepll casting.  Thus no epic spells for him until he gains a couple more levels.
2.Epic spells are developed, and take time and effort to research.  Given that he would first have to gain sufficent experience to create the spell as well. It would also take several months of research.  All this would likely delay him.
3.Epic Spells aren't powered by Wish, though they could be.  It wouldn't lower the cost though.
4.He doesn't have a high enough spell craft to research the really powerful epic spells.  He could learn Ruin, Rain of Fire, or something similar.  The problem being he would have to do at least 400 points over a 2 mile radius to us personally to kill all of us, and god help him if he picks the wrong energy type.  Or our paladin with the holy devestator shows up. Also a couple members of our party are immune to death attacks.

Admittedly you could just give him the levels, the feat, and the spell that could destroy us all. But then you could give that to anybody.


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## Simulacrum (Nov 4, 2003)

On the other hand he has quite a few netherese artifacts that can help him out there. And he still has about any spell ever written (non epic) so he uses a proper 9th level spell and powers it with enough wishes to achieve a similar (if not greater) effect.
Epic magic is not really that strong anyway.

Anyway there are plenty of ways you know that. Hell he is OLD. Its will not be the first time he killed some goons.
Please be realistic. He is ten times longer around then anyone else from his callibre, so he will know how to deal with just about anyone.


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## Toras (Nov 5, 2003)

I am trying to be realistic.  I am simple contending that it would not be the minor task that you are contending for the following reasons.
1. Nether Artifacts, though more potent than those produced by the wizards of Toril proper, are by no means equivalent to Divine Artifacts.  They generally range from High End Magic items to Epic Magic Items.  Many of the truly powerful items do not function without Heavy Magic or a functioning Mythalar, which no one has accept for Shade.
2. Our Group, is not, I repeat is not your typical adventuring party.  For one, a full half our party is not from this prime.  Of those who are, many of them are from the far corners of the globe, like Halruu, and the Unapproachable East.  Our casters possess magic that has never been seen on Toril, and many of our techniques are strange and mysterious.  Also, Spell Fire, especially an Epic Spell Fire Channeler, are exceptionally rare.  We possess god given artifacts, epic items, and many a blessing between us.  Some of us are naturally immune to death attacks, and other such spells, while still others possess potent magical defenses.  His expertise is in necromancy rather any other discipline, so he is not better at dispelling that anyone else of his equivalent level.
3. Wish does not do what you think it does.


> Wish is the mightiest spell a wizard or sorcerer can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality to better suit you.
> *Even wish, however, has its limits.*
> A wish can produce any one of the following effects.
> • Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
> ...



Does anything in this description suggest a wish could reliably boost the power of a 9th level spell? ANYTHING?

And by the way, he has been a lich for 200 years, and assuming a maximum human life span that only puts him 600 years behind Elminster, and countless centuries behind Halaster and the Sisters, as well as any Elven High Mage still running around alive.


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 5, 2003)

Simulacrum said:
			
		

> copy paste error from 3.0 FRSC. What did you expect?
> The rules text says something else. So yep I can read.




The rules text says "one or more, according to the rules for specialisation". It doesn't explicitly say that you have to fulfill the rules for specializing all over again.

Which are you going to believe - the text which makes sense, or the text which makes the class, in your own words more or less, unplayable?

And can we stop this "Szass tam is the greatest wizard that ever (un)lived?" crap? It's only remotely on topic, and it's certainly not contributing to the discussion, or likely to arrive at a conclusion.


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## Pax (Nov 5, 2003)

Toras said:
			
		

> From Epic Book
> 1. Szass Tam doesn't have epic spell casting, he has improved spell capacity (10th, 11th) but not epic sepll casting.  Thus no epic spells for him until he gains a couple more levels.




As a matter of fact, he will NEVER have Epic Spellcasting, or rather ... not whilein the FR.  Mystra *forbids* such powerful spells; Epic Spells simply don't *work* on Toril.

Not for anyone ... Gods included.


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## Toras (Nov 5, 2003)

Mystra forbids Spells of Level 12 and up.  10th and 11th are allowed, but watched carefully.  This restriction however is due to misdeeds of the Netherese. However, if you are a shadow weave caster, the restriction need not apply. Also the restrictions on Gods are chancy, as Ao has censured Mystra over cutting gods off from portions of the weave.

As to the circle casting abilitiy, it is balanced if you take into account the fact that the extra spell levels do up the CR for the encounter, a good rule of thumb might be an additional CR for every 3-5 levels gained from the circle.


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## Madfox (Nov 5, 2003)

Toras said:
			
		

> Mystra forbids Spells of Level 12 and up.  10th and 11th are allowed, but watched carefully.  This restriction however is due to misdeeds of the Netherese. However, if you are a shadow weave caster, the restriction need not apply. Also the restrictions on Gods are chancy, as Ao has censured Mystra over cutting gods off from portions of the weave.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Nov 5, 2003)

Madfox said:
			
		

> Toras said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## ruleslawyer (Nov 5, 2003)

Pax said:
			
		

> As a matter of fact, he will NEVER have Epic Spellcasting, or rather ... not whilein the FR.  Mystra *forbids* such powerful spells; Epic Spells simply don't *work* on Toril.
> 
> Not for anyone ... Gods included.



Not true, according at least to Rich Baker, who at present is WotC's lead FR designer.

From the WotC boards:


			
				Richard Baker said:
			
		

> It seems I keep answering this question over and over again...
> 1. Mystra's Ban is still in effect. There are no 10th-level spells.
> 2. Metamagicking 9th-level and lower spells doesn't make a true "10th-level spell."
> 3. Epic spellcasting does not create 10th-level spells.
> 4. You're thinking way too hard about this, since the game changed editions. The notion of an epic spellcasting did not exist when Arcane Age materials were written back in the day of 2nd Edition.


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## Pax (Nov 5, 2003)

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> Not true, according at least to Rich Baker, who at present is WotC's lead FR designer.
> 
> From the WotC boards:






			
				Richard Baker said:
			
		

> It seems I keep answering this question over and over again...
> 1. Mystra's Ban is still in effect. There are no 10th-level spells.
> 2. Metamagicking 9th-level and lower spells doesn't make a true "10th-level spell."
> 3. Epic spellcasting does not create 10th-level spells.
> 4. You're thinking way too hard about this, since the game changed editions. The notion of an epic spellcasting did not exist when Arcane Age materials were written back in the day of 2nd Edition.




  I am afraid Mr. Baker is not entirely correct in his assertation #3.



			
				ELH page 73 said:
			
		

> *Spic Spell Levels:* Epic spells have no fixed level.  However, for purposes of Concentration checks, spell resistance, and other possible situations where spell level is important, epic spells are treated as if they were 10th-leel spells.




So, the Ban *does* block Epic spells.  Further, it makes perfect sense within the setting -- what else but an Epic spell could have had a chance of elevating even a Netherese archmage to *godhood*, while simultaneously threatening the life of Mystril/Mystara/Mystra and the fabric of magic itself ... ?

3.0/3.5 Epic Spells are generally the same as the old Netherese "True Dweomers"; they don't function in "modern" FR, nor should they.  Mystra doesn't let the Weave power them, and even Shar isn't stupid enough to let the Shadow Weave do so.


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## Gregor (Nov 5, 2003)

The later part of this thread reminds me of the WotC boards....and no, that is not a good thing.


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## jgsugden (Nov 6, 2003)

WotC books are ripe with conflicting statements. Their internal consistency has taken a turn for the worse ... and it started out pretty bad.

When you talk about issues that involve so many detailed specifics, the conflicts raise their ugle head and you end up with pointless arguments like this one.

If you're looking for a 'victory' for your view, give up. The opposing side can find materials to support their argument. You may not agree with those arguments, but they'll be solid enough for your opponents to stand by them. Figure out how you want it to work in your game and live with the reality that other players will decide on other interpretations. All we can do is offer suggestions on how we would play it.


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## Madfox (Nov 6, 2003)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
			
		

> I think most of us agreed on the CR - however, even as an EL ~18 or so encounter it would be overpowered. Unless, of course, all the party members were optimized from day one for boosting saving throws and covered with non-core saving throw-boosting items, etc.




I don't know about your players, but mine are certainly optimizing their PCs for saving throws and the cleric is more and more willing to have a neutralize poison and death ward up and running.

In any event, if you are foolish enough to attack an arch-wizard without proper preperations (especially when you know he is expacting you), then you deserve a good beating. Even without the circle ability a wizard of those levels who can prepare is lethal.


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## ruleslawyer (Nov 6, 2003)

Pax said:
			
		

> I am afraid Mr. Baker is not entirely correct in his assertation #3.



How so?



> _Epic spells have no fixed level._ However, for purposes of Concentration checks, spell resistance, and other possible situations where spell level is important, epic spells are treated as if they were 10th-level spells.



If epic spells have no fixed leve, then it is a reasonable interpretation that they are not 10th-level spells except where you need to attach a number to level checks and DCs. As jgsugden points out, it's easy to read these sorts of statements either way. More to the point: Do you really think it's a reasonable reading of this statement to imply that Mystra's Ban, a big, subjective campaign issue, belongs in the same category of "Concentration checks [and] spell resistance"? Mr. Baker's words on the subject make a lot more sense than trying to read 10th-level spell status into epic spellcasting.


			
				Pax said:
			
		

> Further, it makes perfect sense within the setting -- what else but an Epic spell could have had a chance of elevating even a Netherese archmage to *godhood*, while simultaneously threatening the life of Mystril/Mystara/Mystra and the fabric of magic itself ... ?



Such a spell would have a DC far beyond the capacity of any wizard in the Realms to develop as an epic spell.

Ah, yes. A setting that has its own prestige class (the Elven High Mage) entirely devoted to developing and casting epic spells. A setting that continually mentions the fact that various kinds of cooperative, ritual magic (the leveling of a mountain by the wizards of Neverwinter, Elven High Magic) have been possible to accomplish effects beyond the power of regular 9th-level spells even after the fall of Mystra, albeit at great cost.


> 3.0/3.5 Epic Spells are generally the same as the old Netherese "True Dweomers".



Just proved my point here. The "true dweomers" to which you're referring are a mechanic developed in the 2e _High-Level Campaigns_ supplement. Those spells were specifically termed to not be actual 10th-level spells. The Netherese spells, OTOH, were termed actual 10th, 11th, and 12th-level spells, according to _Netheril: Empire of Magic_.

In any case, I'll take Rich's word on the subject, thank you.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Nov 6, 2003)

Madfox said:
			
		

> I don't know about your players, but mine are certainly optimizing their PCs for saving throws and the cleric is more and more willing to have a neutralize poison and death ward up and running.
> 
> In any event, if you are foolish enough to attack an arch-wizard without proper preperations (especially when you know he is expacting you), then you deserve a good beating. Even without the circle ability a wizard of those levels who can prepare is lethal.




My players optimize their saving throws too, but they're not in the habit of making Fortitude save DC 40 or die!

Furthermore, a Red Wizard can strip off their buffs like any other wizard ... with his uber Nondetection going the players can't even _see_ him.


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## Toras (Nov 6, 2003)

Nondetection wouldn't help you get close enough undetected dispelled buffs, they really don't have that much of a range.  A better choice would be improved invisibility if your red wizard didn't give up that school.

Red Wizard appears, invisible and undetectable. He begins to dispell the Death Wards and other buffs places on us.  We would notice them being dispelled.  Somebody casts True Sight or Invisibility Purge.  Now quite visible wizard has at least one very anger personl to deal with.  And he better hope he wins initiative, because as a wizard you don't have a lot of hit points and a sword through your gut is likely going to make casting difficult.


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## Henry (Nov 6, 2003)

There is some name-calling I've seen in this thread that borders very close to personal attacks. Let's please calm the tone of the retorts down - we're all gamers here, and _yes, we can all read._ 

By a similar token, the off-topic topic about Szass Tamm and larloch is getting the thread a little cluttered. If you'd like to continue it, would it be OK with those concerned if it were relocated to a thread in, say, General Discussion? 

Thanks, all.


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