# Wizards in 4E have been 'neutered' argument...



## Melkor (Oct 26, 2009)

So one of my best gaming buddies is a stubborn guy who I have been playing RPGs with for over two decades. I have a great time with him, and would feel like I was missing something if he wasn't involved in my gaming group.

He loves D&D, but is really skeptical about 4E, and says that his main sticking point (other than the fact that he feels it's too much like an MMORPG) is that Wizards and other spellcasters have been 'neutered' by the new system.

He says that while he sees that At-Will, and Per-Encounter powers can be used mutliple times a day, he feels that having to wake up early in the morning (as a spellcaster), and spend a lot of time and GP on rituals to 'buff' your character isn't 'classic D&D'.

He also says that if you compare 3.5 Wizards to 4E spellcasters, at higher levels, the 3.5 Wizards had a lot more versatility in choosing spells.

I'm just learning the 4E system, and have never seen a character over 3rd Level in play....How can I speak to this, and what arguments could I use to at least get him to give the system a look-see?


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## Moon_Goddess (Oct 26, 2009)

Probably not the answer you want, and naturally it's only my opinion, but I'd say, 

He's right.   Not only is he right, it should have been done 25 years go.


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## frankthedm (Oct 26, 2009)

Yes, casters have been neutered, and they needed it. Before 3E designers flat out admitted the wizard was the strongest character by requiring them to gain more XP to level. In the advent of 3e, the designers tried to bring all characters on a level playing field. And failed because the assumption that _X_ number of spells have to last _N_ numbers of encounters *can't* be balanced unless the characters are forced into _N numbers of encounters_ or everyone has the same _X number of spells_. 4E rebalanced all classes again by having a more unified power mechanic. Nobody gets to take out a significant foe in round one anymore and everyone has roughly the same potential of "going nova" now.


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## thatdarnedbob (Oct 26, 2009)

To address one point, rituals in 4E do not grant combat bonuses. He will never have to wake up early to use rituals to buff his his character; this is probably a holdover opinion from earlier editions where a wizard would wake up early to buff for the day. Which makes his comment really strange, since it would appear he wasn't casting prep spells in editions 1-3.5.


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## Morrus (Oct 26, 2009)

"Neutered" is a pretty emotive way of putting it.  Not the word I'd choose.

They are certainly different, and don't much resemble 3.5 wizards.  But that's because they're in a different game system, so they wouldn't.  In the context of 4E they work just fine; in the context of "being the same as 3.5" then - well, 4E fails on every count there if that's your metric.  If it was the same as 3.5 it'd be called 3.5. 

Sounds to me like your player isn't keen on the 4E flavour.  If he doesn't want to play it, he doesn't want to play it.  

I have a similar friend who frequently rants about the "failings" of 4E.  I keep trying to tell him that I'm not trying to sell him a copy of the 4E PHB and am perfectly comfortable with his RPG taste being different to mine.


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## CapnZapp (Oct 26, 2009)

The only real issue as I see it is that WotC chose to market this new game as a "4th edition" of something, despite it clearly being a new game.

If your buddy wasn't led to believe by WotC that wizards in the new D&D should be anything like wizards in the old D&D I do not believe this thread would even exist.


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## Filcher (Oct 26, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> The only real issue as I see it is that WotC chose to market this new game as a "4th edition" of something, despite it clearly being a new game.
> 
> If your buddy wasn't led to believe by WotC that wizards in the new D&D should be anything like wizards in the old D&D I do not believe this thread would even exist.




I felt the same way when they did away with the "fighting man" class.

But your friend is right. Whereas a magic user/wizard could pretty much do everything a thief could do, but more reliably, in 4E that is no longer the case.


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## Fanaelialae (Oct 26, 2009)

IMO, he's correct in that spellcasters were nerfed in 4e.  However, there are a number of people who believe that pre-4e casters were overpowered.  4e brought casters down a bit, non-casters up a bit, and now everyone's on a (relatively) even playing field.

As has been stated, your friend is mistaken about having to use rituals to buff himself.  Rituals are more along the lines of costly utility magic with long casting times.  These kinds of spells certainly existed in earlier editions of D&D (Identify, for example) so they aren't new in that sense.  The only major differences are which particular spells fall into this classification, and that rituals don't require a spell slot.  Once you've learned a ritual you can cast it all day long, provided you can supply the components.

Wizards (unlike other spellcasters) do still memorize spells in the morning (they have a feature that allows them a choice regarding what spell to select for a daily or utility "spell slot" each day).  Admittedly, their versatility has lessened by a significant margin, but it still exists.

In the end though, if he doesn't want to play a 4e wizard, he could always play a fighter or something...


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## Celebrim (Oct 26, 2009)

One of the main issues that earlier editions had to deal with is that the Wizards of fantasy could do fantastic magical things.  The ability to do fantastic magical things is extremely powerful, and so some attempt to balance and limit that fantastic power was made.  The results were not completely successful, because at some point the Wizard still outgrew those limitations and become the phenomenally powerful character of myth, legend, and story.

The problem in 3e got especially bad, because low level wizards got big ability boosts that carried over to higher levels.  Non-combat classes didn't have the huge edge in hit points, attacks, saving throws or levels that they would have enjoyed in earlier editions.  A high-level wizard didn't outshine a rogue quite as much as they would have in earlier editions (primarily because of huge boosts to rogue power levels), but they outshown a fighter to an even greater degree.  And because of huge boosts to the power of clerics, this was true of clerics as well (and by 3.5 also druids).

4e fixes the spellcaster problem by giving them the same sort of abilities had by every other class.  It's a fix, albeit not the sort many people expected (which might have been reduce the power of spells and increases the defenses non-spellcasters had against them, for example).

For many players, the old style was a feature, not a bug.  If the goal was to play Merlin, Gandalf or whatever, then the player at some point wanted to wield phenomenal cosmic power.  For these players, 4e is entirely unsuited to their gaming goals because a wizard can do nothing that isn't fundamentally mundane.   Sure, they can do damage, attack something other than AC, apply conditions, move the target, and move themselves and some of this impressive and perhaps can't be explained easily in mundane terms, but every other class can do all the same things and sometimes these things can't easily be explained in mundane terms either.   While it creates a level playing field, it isn't paying much attention to simulating either fantasy source material or, as is probably more important in the case of your friend, the flavor of the play experience he's used to for the last 20 years or more.

I don't think this is a crossable gulf.


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## Nifft (Oct 26, 2009)

In 4e, Wizards have been smacked down so hard, they're only slightly better than Fighters. Wizards used to rule the world. Now they are merely a balanced class for those who like a certain playstyle.

For people who played wizards because they like to win D&D, this is a terrible setback.

For people who played wizards because they like to play D&D, this is a wonderful development.

"_I like both_", -- N


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## Jack99 (Oct 26, 2009)

I just want to point out that according to 4e players on ENworld who bother to participate in votes, the Wizard is the third most popular class (out of all 16 or however many there are in the PHB1 + PHB2 + FRPG + EPG), despite this nerf.


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## The Ghost (Oct 26, 2009)

Melkor said:


> I'm just learning the 4E system, and have never seen a character over 3rd Level in play....How can I speak to this, and what arguments could I use to at least get him to give the system a look-see?




I would just say "We are going to give the new edition a try and you are welcome to join us." - and leave it at that.


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## Inyssius (Oct 26, 2009)

Melkor said:


> He loves D&D, but is really skeptical about 4E, and says that his main sticking point (other than the fact that he feels it's too much like an MMORPG) is that Wizards and other spellcasters have been 'neutered' by the new system.




He's right. Full casters _have_ been neutered. They are no longer _multiple times_ better than any non-full-caster class; they no longer have entire books worth of spells that no one else can use, but which their character can learn _all of; _they can no longer end a wide array of fights almost immediately, or instantly solve a wide array of problems no one else can, with just the right spell; they can no longer approximate the abilities of almost anyone else in the party while simultaneously being good at their own thing;

...et cetera. Yes, the classes which once were "full casters" have been neutered, and drastically so.

They can and do still contribute to the party--still more so than the fighter or rogue, in fact. But they can no longer _be_ the party if needed.


----


He is wrong about rituals, though. Rituals are utility magic meant to be performed "on the spot"; unless he plans on drawing a _magic circle_ around him on a large carpet and then summoning _unseen servants _to carry him around on it, he will not be getting up early to buff himself with them.

(In fact, the preparation of daily spells in the morning is assumed to take no unusual amount of time;if the wizard needs time to hang his spells, the fighter needs time to clean his sword and exercise.)


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## delericho (Oct 26, 2009)

Melkor said:


> I'm just learning the 4E system, and have never seen a character over 3rd Level in play....How can I speak to this, and what arguments could I use to at least get him to give the system a look-see?




I would try to avoid the argument entirely. Try to persuade him to just give the game a go, and judge it on its own merits.

You might even concede that no, it's not "classic D&D" - it's a new D&D for a new age. That doesn't necessarily mean better, and doesn't necessarily mean worse, but it _does_ mean that it's different.

But, ultimately, if his mind is set against 4e, you won't change it. And, in fact, by pushing him hard to play the game, you may find he actually harms your group more than he helps it.


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## Derren (Oct 26, 2009)

Your friend is right.
Casters in 4E lost a lot of power and versatility. And while the first was warranted, the second one is the real let down.

If your friend is concerned about the power, then maybe showing him the minion blasting ability of the wizard might help (and providing him with enough fodder in the game). If it is versatility it gets harder. You might try to describe skill checks made by the wizard as being magic, maybe even going so far to change the ability score for skills the wizard is trained in to Int in order to represent that he uses spellcasting here if you are willing to tinker with the system.
Or you could add little page 42 side effects to the spells of the wizard and allow him to use those spells outside of the combat.


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## Ourph (Oct 26, 2009)

Derren said:


> If it is versatility it gets harder. You might try to describe skill checks made by the wizard as being magic



Or you could point out that with at-will cantrips, a number of really handy utility powers and ready access to rituals, a Wizard still has a lot of non-combat options that make it one of the most versatile classes in the game.


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## Mort (Oct 26, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> 4e fixes the spellcaster problem by giving them the same sort of abilities had by every other class.  It's a fix, albeit not the sort many people expected (which might have been reduce the power of spells and increases the defenses non-spellcasters had against them, for example).
> 
> For many players, the old style was a feature, not a bug.  If the goal was to play Merlin, Gandalf or whatever, then the player at some point wanted to wield phenomenal cosmic power.  For these players, 4e is entirely unsuited to their gaming goals because a wizard can do nothing that isn't fundamentally mundane.   Sure, they can do damage, attack something other than AC, apply conditions, move the target, and move themselves and some of this impressive and perhaps can't be explained easily in mundane terms, but every other class can do all the same things and sometimes these things can't easily be explained in mundane terms either.   While it creates a level playing field, it isn't paying much attention to simulating either fantasy source material or, as is probably more important in the case of your friend, the flavor of the play experience he's used to for the last 20 years or more.
> 
> I don't think this is a crossable gulf.




My problem with prior eddition wizards (especially 3x wizards) and to a lesser degree other casters, is not just that they become "weilders of cosmic power" it's that they became weilders of cosmic power in (for the most part) bursts of 6 seconds or less. 

4e lets wizards do many of the same things a 3x wizard could do, but as as a ritual; which means there is both a cost and that it takes longer. There are already about 250 rituals and the number is growing.  Wizards will have plenty of "cosmic power" but not in the 6 seconds of prior edditions.


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## pawsplay (Oct 26, 2009)

One of the things that turned me off 4e is the new wizard. It's not because I play wizards (or often play at all) and it's not because of some belief the wizard must be insanely powerful. In previous editions, wizards have been wonder workers. The 4e wizard is both too weak, because he is on even footing to make someone fly or whatever compared to many other characters, but also too strong, because his at-will powers and such make magic seem too... easy. 4e wizards lack a certain flavor, there's just not much bibbedy in their bobbedy boo. I would like wizards who are able to shine in certain areas, just as fighters or rogues shine in their own, and hence 4e is a good game for somebody who is not me.


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## Mistwell (Oct 26, 2009)

There are a number of options to increase the versatility of the wizard class in the game.  Lots of powers and items and class choices that increase their versatility, often by letting them either swap spells around or choose from a wider variety of spells than other classes can usually choose from regarding their powers.  It's not as many as in prior editions, but it is more than others.

Depending on what level you are starting at, I bet a few of us could stat up an example of a highly versatile wizard in 4e (though obviously more options come with higher levels).


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## Filcher (Oct 26, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> For these players, 4e is entirely unsuited to their gaming goals because a wizard can do nothing that isn't fundamentally mundane.




Another perspective is, yes, my 4E is wizard is equal to Merlin, as long as I can accept that the fighter is equal to Hercules,  the paladin, to Arthur, the rogue, Gray Mouser. A wizard is only "mundane" because the player wants him to outshine his peers.


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## pawsplay (Oct 26, 2009)

Filcher said:


> Another perspective is, yes, my 4E is wizard is equal to Merlin, as long as I can accept that the fighter is equal to Hercules,  the paladin, to Arthur, the rogue, Gray Mouser. A wizard is only "mundane" because the player wants him to outshine his peers.




No, a wizard is mundane because he can't turn someone into a toad. The idea that complaints about the wizard are based only on inter-PC envy is mistaken and frankly insulting. Rather than psychologizing our fellow players, how about we talk about what is different about the _class_?


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 26, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> I just want to point out that according to 4e players on ENworld who bother to participate in votes, the Wizard is the third most popular class (out of all 16 or however many there are in the PHB1 + PHB2 + FRPG + EPG), despite this nerf.



I disagree with this. The wizard is the third least hated class according to that poll, not the third most popular.

As for the evolution of the 3e wizard to the 4e wizard, their once majestic power was reduced to the same playing field as all the other characters. The power of the wizard needed to be reduced but I would have preferred a different route than the homogenization of power.

The biggest issue with the 3e wizard is that they always got their spell off. 5ft. steps, casting on the defensive (with a typically maxed out concentration) and an under-utilization of techniques against them (such as readied actions to attack or silence) meant that wizards always got their spells off with little fear of losing them. Combine this with how outrageously wizards could defy a uniform economy of action (summoning a legion of individual creatures to control) and you had a recipe for over-powered wizards at higher levels. If these had have been addressed in a different way while maintaining balance, then I think the wizard could maintain their "wizardlyness" without being compressed into the same gamespace of hit points, keywords, conditions and position as everyone else. The ratio of dailies to others  gives a little extra colour but not enough to make up the lack. In the end, I'm most likely on the same side as your friend. The 4E wizard is the diet lite, stripped down, bargain basement, unleaded version rather than what went before - and for some people, this is just disappointing.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Inyssius (Oct 26, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> No, a wizard is mundane because he can't turn someone into a toad.




Yeah, that's a druid spell now. Good point.


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## Dausuul (Oct 26, 2009)

Nerfed, yes. Neutered, no. The wizard can no longer reliably steal the show from the other PCs, and that's deliberate.

As for rituals and buffing: Most rituals don't provide combat buffs. The ones that do, you're not _supposed_ to cast every day! They're for use when you know what you're going up against and need the extra oomph.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 26, 2009)

Filcher said:


> Another perspective is, yes, my 4E is wizard is equal to Merlin, as long as I can accept that the fighter is equal to Hercules,  the paladin, to Arthur, the rogue, Gray Mouser. A wizard is only "mundane" because the player wants him to outshine his peers.



But this is the thing, the fighter is not equal to Hercules, Conan or even Duck Dodgers! The wizard has been demoted; not everyone else upgraded. As for the player wanting to outshine his or her peers - I can buy that to a point for certain players but to tar all wizard players with this same broad brush is incorrect. What is wrong with wizards doing wizardly things? Are we so scared of save or suck that everything now has to be in terms of attrition and grinding away? Wouldn't it be better to have a happy medium?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## nightwyrm (Oct 26, 2009)

Flavour this, flavour that...how many spells did Gandalf cast in LotR? Didn't someone calculated that he was pretty much a lv 5 wizard using 3e rules?

The whole appeal to literature/mythology argument that wizards should be all powerful reality warpers is flawed. Wizards in stories are only allowed to be reality warpers because they don't use their reality warping powers in those stories. The only reason they don't take over and dominate the narrative by solving every problem is because of plot. Plot reasons that doesn't exist in a normal D&D game.

Wizards in literature and mythology are all infected with a serious case of Holding Back The Phlebotinum.  Wizards in D&D aren't.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Oct 26, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> But this is the thing, the fighter is not equal to Hercules, Conan or even Duck Dodgers!



But he IS equal to Hercules.  Maybe not at first level.  But if you take a 21st level Fighter, they are able to do almost everything Hercules can.  Even at first level though, he's more akin to Aragorn at the beginning of the first book than he is a peasant who just picked up a sword like 1st level fighters were in 1e/2e.



Herremann the Wise said:


> The wizard has been demoted; not everyone else upgraded. As for the player wanting to outshine his or her peers - I can buy that to a point for certain players but to tar all wizard players with this same broad brush is incorrect. What is wrong with wizards doing wizardly things? Are we so scared of save or suck that everything now has to be in terms of attrition and grinding away?



Everyone got an upgrade.  They just got a smaller upgrade than the Wizard got a downgrade.  The average 1st level fighter can take on a bunch of lowly goblins and possible a goblin "leader"(read, non-minion.  In 3e it would have been a bunch of normal goblins with a couple level 1-3 classed goblins) or two by himself.  This group would kill him for sure in any other edition of D&D purely due to lucky rolls.

I don't believe it has to do with being much more powerful than everyone else for everyone.  For a lot of people, it's just the ability to wield EXTREME power.  I understand that.  I miss it sometimes myself.  But I understand, intellectually that the kind of power they used to have is no good for a game where I play with 4-6 other people.

What people want out of a Wizard is the ability to wave their hands and have all their enemies turn to stone or into frogs.  No way to stop it, because their enemies are not Wizards...and only those who have magic can protect against it.

They want the ability to jump out a window at any time and fly to their destination in no time flat.  They want the ability to wave their hand and turn all of their allies invisible for as long as they want.

And people were willing to compromise with the 1e-3e system.  They couldn't fly WHENEVER they wanted, only as often as they had the spells prepared.  They needed to be high enough level to cast those spells...but they'd get there eventually if they just waited long enough.

But even with all those restrictions in place, it is a far cry from being a 10th level Fighter to being a 10th level Wizard.  The Fighter(without magic items) can....use a sword well.  The same Wizard is flying, turning invisible, throwing fireballs that do more damage than the sword does to 8 enemies at the same time with no attack roll, while having skin that reflects all blows, force armor, and a force shield.  All of which makes the Wizard even tougher than the Fighter is.  And if he gets into trouble, he can instantly teleport anywhere he wants in the world.

The Wizard can also use spells to detect traps, trigger them remotely, walk through walls...and any number of a thousand other things.

The next effect is that it is pretty easy to feel useless when you are the one playing the Fighter and to have your fun ruined because of the "anything you can do, I can do better" effect of the Wizard.

From the DM side, it's also difficult to plan adventures around that kind of power.  Unless you absolutely don't care where your adventures head, you're always playing a balancing act of "carefully lead the PCs where you want them to go without letting them realize you are leading them."  That is easily destroyed when the PCs have hundreds of abilities at their disposal that you might not even expect.  I've seen a game destroyed and a DM get really annoyed simply by a well prepared 2e spellcaster.


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## Herschel (Oct 26, 2009)

Melkor said:


> I'm just learning the 4E system, and have never seen a character over 3rd Level in play....




And apparently your friend has never seen an earlier edition wizard before 3rd (or 6th) level of play.  "I cast sleep, and hide" or "I cast magic missile, and run".


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## Peraion Graufalke (Oct 26, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> But this is the thing, the fighter is not equal to Hercules, Conan or even Duck Dodgers! The wizard has been demoted; not everyone else upgraded.




My elven fighter would like a word with you . I guess you haven't played one, but have you ever seen a well-built fighter in action? My DM learned the hard way that monsters shouldn't try to get away from me. Nevermind that our party is still in the heroic tier (lvl 7).
The 4e fighter is one of the most powerful classes, both IMO and in the opinions of many 4e players on the WotC boards.

I do agree that the wizard has been demoted, but nearly everyone else has been upgraded. (The druid has been demoted for probably the same reason as the wizard.)


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## Dragonhelm (Oct 26, 2009)

Melkor said:


> He loves D&D, but is really skeptical about 4E, and says that his main sticking point (other than the fact that he feels it's too much like an MMORPG) is that Wizards and other spellcasters have been 'neutered' by the new system.




So they're healthier and happier?  

*ducks!*


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## JohnRTroy (Oct 26, 2009)

I'm not going to argue with the Wizard in 4e with the new game mechanics, since a lot of 3er's might not remember 1/2 edition version where you had a hp cap and you also would fail automatically if you took a single point of damage.  Obviously, so many people think Wizards were "broken", even though we have 35 years without a reboot--I'm not gonna try to convince 4e fans who think that.

Where I do think WoTC dropped the ball is to make rituals an "afterthought".  I only have the PHB to go on here--but I think 2 things should have happened.

1)  Give Wizards exclusivity or Rituals, or at least "spell-casting" characters. (Arcana and Divine), and give them access to only certain things.  Saying "everybody can do everything" is poor and I don't think every character should have the ability to do that.

2)  Give Rituals more space.  I mean, c'mon.  I would say over half of the original spells in the PHB were "ritual" types.  That was part of the fun.  One of the things that inspired me to like the game was reading all the detailed descriptions of the old spells.  To see rituals given only a few pages as opposed to the tactical stuff is just shameful to me.  It also emphasizes D&D as primarily tactical combat instead of strategy and problem-solving.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 27, 2009)

1. Wizards

Wizards are one of the most powerful classes in 4E. A Wizard class feature(Orb of Imposition) has stood the test of time and is still among the most powerful/broken things you can do in 4E. People say that you can't destroy something in one turn, but the Epic Orb Wizard would argue with that statement. One of the first controversies in 4E was the Orb Wizard beating Orcus in one turn, and after all this time its only gotten worse. When they finally printed stats for Gods, they had to give Gods a way to dodge the Orb Wizard bullet! In addition, when you get used to playing higher level Wizards, you really start to see how much more powerful their spells are. Helping people build Druids, Seekers, and other controllers, I get struck with the thought "If I was playing a Wizard, I wouldn't choose any of these powers in a million years". The Wizard gets better stuff, particularly for Daily powers and Paragon/Epic Encounter powers. 

The difference is that the power of the Wizard is no longer obvious. He doesn't have spells that are blatantly beyond the capabilities of everyone else. It now requires tactics and most importantly timing, instead of just having the right spells.

2. Rituals

Only beef I have with Rituals is that 10 minutes for almost all of them is too much. It kind of breaks the story pacing, as some people can't imagine their characters standing around for 10 minutes while the Wizard does his stuff. A 1 minute casting time would still serve to keep Rituals out of combat, and greatly lessen this flavor problem. This is an easy houserule. People complain about Rituals costing money, but that's a player problem. Money is cheap in 4E, and your wealth isn't as closely tied to your gear or power level as it was in 3E. This is the one aspect of 3E I see people having trouble letting go of as time passes, the thought that money was precious and needed to be hoarded to spend on magic items. Casting Rituals frequently should use less than half of what the DMG gives you, and it shouldn't have more than a minimal effect on your gear. The other player issue with Rituals is player creativity. If you don't put the Rituals in the hands of a creative problem solving player, they tend to be ignored. Some groups are without such a player, and a lot of the time the sort of player who is good at this isn't playing the Ritual caster in the party. What people should realize is that Ritual Casting isn't a player resource, but a party resource. The entire table should be involved in procuring Rituals and their use, and the list of Rituals and what they can do should be something the creative problem solvers in the party should be familiar with, even if they aren't playing the Ritual Caster.


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## GMforPowergamers (Oct 27, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> I'm not going to argue with the Wizard in 4e with the new game mechanics, since a lot of 3er's might not remember 1/2 edition version where you had a hp cap and you also would fail automatically if you took a single point of damage.




I do remember wizards having a longer build to power, but theyalways got way out of hand sooner or later (I mean 1 and 2e...ok mostly 2e)

Infact I remember after 8th level as a wizard going something like this:

DM: I hit, 45pts of damage
Me: no ping, it's one off my stone skin...

at lower level we had ablative armor...and...shoot I know there was one inbetween them...


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## thatdarnedbob (Oct 27, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> I'm not going to argue with the Wizard in 4e with the new game mechanics, since a lot of 3er's might not remember 1/2 edition version where you had a hp cap and you also would fail automatically if you took a single point of damage.  Obviously, so many people think Wizards were "broken", even though we have 35 years without a reboot--I'm not gonna try to convince 4e fans who think that.
> 
> Where I do think WoTC dropped the ball is to make rituals an "afterthought".  I only have the PHB to go on here--but I think 2 things should have happened.
> 
> ...




I disagree.

1) Not every character can do it. Characters who take the ritual caster feat can do it. If you don't want your character to use rituals, don't take the feat. If you don't like seeing less magical classes using magic in a ritual fashion, tough. The literature of fantasy is filled with examples of heros performing magical rituals without also casting spells in combat.

2) So many times, a non-combat spell or a ritual is little more than "Solve Problem X". You only use it to solve problem X, and if you have it, and problem X shows up, guess what you're using? I think problem solving takes much more of the center-stage when you don't have magic tailor-made to solve specific problems.

i do agree that the current edition could have used more color behind many of the powers, but that's not a problem of the game mechanics, which I think are just fine.


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## MrGrenadine (Oct 27, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> What people want out of a Wizard is the ability to wave their hands and have all their enemies turn to stone or into frogs.  No way to stop it, because their enemies are not Wizards...and only those who have magic can protect against it.
> 
> They want the ability to jump out a window at any time and fly to their destination in no time flat.  They want the ability to wave their hand and turn all of their allies invisible for as long as they want.
> 
> ...





Wow.  Who were all of these players who played completely overpowered and selfish wizards who stepped on everyone else's fun?

I have never in 30 years of gaming had an experience like that--just lucky, I guess.

The wizards I play in 3.5 and Pathfinder don't do everything--they do what needs to be done.  If there's a rogue in the party, you can be damn sure I'm not going to waste precious spell slots on finding traps and unlocking doors.

And during battles, I don't want my wizard to turn every enemy to stone--I want him to be a vital part of the team and pull his weight, just like everyone else.  Preferably, doing things that play to his strengths, leaving the back stabbing to the rogues and the sword swinging to the fighters.


To the OP:  I agree with your friend.  If he still wants to give 4e a good try, though, the powers and spells should probably stay as is mechanically, just so things don't get unbalanced in comparison to the other characters.  You can refluff them as you want, though, and you could add the versatility back to the class by letting him have a proper spell book, and spell slots, and the ability to memorize the same spell multiple times.  (Cue protestations!  But really--firing off two of the same spell in the same encounter won't unbalance the whole game.)

Anyway, if its important to you guys to play together, just think of ways to reach a happy medium.


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## Shroomy (Oct 27, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> 1)  Give Wizards exclusivity or Rituals, or at least "spell-casting" characters. (Arcana and Divine), and give them access to only certain things.  Saying "everybody can do everything" is poor and I don't think every character should have the ability to do that.




Wizards are currently the only class in the game that automatically gains rituals as they level up.  They'll get 13 rituals for "free" by 25th level, plus their high Intelligence often gives them an edge when it comes to rituals with the Arcana and Religion key skill.  Even though anyone could theoretically become a ritual caster, wizards are definitely the kings of the ritual casters.


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## GMforPowergamers (Oct 27, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> Wow.  Who were all of these players who played completely overpowered and selfish wizards who stepped on everyone else's fun?



 oh those would be chris and jare (I only really know one of them) who played enough of those types of wizards for any 30 groups of friends



> I have never in 30 years of gaming had an experience like that--just lucky, I guess.



 I am very glade, I have had more of your experiance then the ones of the problems, but the problem players were there...


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## Roland55 (Oct 27, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> For many players, the old style was a feature, not a bug.  If the goal was to play Merlin, Gandalf or whatever, then the player at some point wanted to wield phenomenal cosmic power.  For these players, 4e is entirely unsuited to their gaming goals because a wizard can do nothing that isn't fundamentally mundane.   Sure, they can do damage, attack something other than AC, apply conditions, move the target, and move themselves and some of this impressive and perhaps can't be explained easily in mundane terms, but every other class can do all the same things and sometimes these things can't easily be explained in mundane terms either.   While it creates a level playing field, it isn't paying much attention to simulating either fantasy source material or, as is probably more important in the case of your friend, the flavor of the play experience he's used to for the last 20 years or more.
> 
> I don't think this is a crossable gulf.




There's wisdom here.  This (especially that final sentence) might well be true.  Not for everybody, but for a lot of folks. 

Too bad, really.


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## AllisterH (Oct 27, 2009)

Um, did nobody play a pre 3e wizard?

The tactic of getting up in the morning and buffing yourself seems to be a 3.x tactic which I don't really remember in 1e/2e.

1e/2e wizards were HARD to play. Seriously, with the restriction on magic items (can't buy them, pretty much an adventure in of itself to make one thus you had to get by with what slots you had) AND the rules of magic in combat (1 pt of damage and your spell is lost AND high level spells being relatively slow in combat) AND the rules for spells themselves (many spells being dangerous to the caster AND spell acquisition being more subject to the whims of the DM AND non-damage spells being less useful as you level)

I personally never really thought that the 3e wizard was a D&D wizard since all of the underlying mechanics of what made a D&D wizard got changed. Looks the same, but in practice, but a 3e wizard is vastly different than a pre 3e wizard.

re: Realm-shattering power
Isn't Conan and the tales of the round table major inspiration for D&D? Both and Conan especially, have pretty weak wizards (hell the ritual system for 4e matches pretty well with the more ritualistic style of magic in Conan IMO)

The thing is, I don't believe we could ever go back to the pre 3e mechanics of spellcasting. The biggest issue is that people EXPECT to have more control of their own character thus choice of spells (which was always the real limitation in pre 3e) can no longer be expected to be under the control of the DM.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 27, 2009)

In 3E(and before), Wizards(and spellcasters in general) could break the world if they wanted to. Spells fundamentally changed reality, and there's a lot of power in that. In 4E, the world has rules, and magic has to exist within those rules. If you want to wield the power to break the world, in 4E you're out of luck. It bears saying that the desire to be able to break the world doesn't necessarily mean you want to lord your power over everyone else at the table. 

We lost one of our group when we switched to 4E because of this, though getting married and moving 45 minutes away contributed as well. We see him occasionally, and this is what he complains about in terms of 4E, not being able to wield ultimate power.


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## Celebrim (Oct 27, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Um, did nobody play a pre 3e wizard?...1e/2e wizards were HARD to play. Seriously, with the restriction on magic items (can't buy them, pretty much an adventure in of itself to make one thus you had to get by with what slots you had) AND the rules of magic in combat (1 pt of damage and your spell is lost AND high level spells being relatively slow in combat) AND the rules for spells themselves (many spells being dangerous to the caster AND spell acquisition being more subject to the whims of the DM AND non-damage spells being less useful as you level)




Yes, I played it pre-3e wizard.  And yes, I pretty much instantly discount the opinion of anyone who claims 1e wizards made other classes obselete and completely overshadowed other classes as in fact never having played 1e and not having much of an opinion worth listening to on this matter.  

My general experience with 1e wizards is that they were too fragile to keep alive.  Even at 6th or 7th level, a single class wizard simply didn't have enough spells to contribute anything more than an occasional emergency nova, and could easily be dropped by single attacks and was lucky to have an AC of better than 8 or so.  Most of the time you kept behind cover, and occasionally flung a dart or dagger. In the highly unlikely event you got one to 10th level, you still probably had less than 30 h.p. and you were lucky if you'd managed to get your AC down to 0.  It was very easy to have your character overwhelmed even at a time when your compatriots were reaching the point that they had so many hitpoints that nothing in game could drop them except a failed saving throw.  

I never saw a single classed 1e wizard survive to high levels in all the time playing the game.  I saw some fairly powerful multiclassed wizards who used the hitpoint boost (and sometimes AC boost) to get them through the low levels, but then you often ran up into an XP wall that made advancement almost impossible.  Except by the most deliberate effort by the DM and cautious play by the player, I can't imagine how you'd get a 1e M-U up to casting 9th level spells.

Third edition vastly increased the power of the wizard (and the cleric!).  This was necessary at low levels, but broke the game (somewhat, I'm sure we can find plenty of defenders of the usefulness of other classes) at high levels.  Many of the safeguards Gygax had wrote into the rules to prevent abuse of powerful spells were written out, and that just made the problem worse.  

I didn't however see alot of 3rd edition single classed wizards survive long at my table either, nor did I do alot of high level play.  But I can sympathize with both sides.  I can definately see the problem (and I could foresee the problem developing with my PC cleric) and see why something needed to be done, but I can very much agree that the steps taken leave something to be desired (and that something isn't 'lording it over my fellow players').


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## Fanaelialae (Oct 27, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> In 3E(and before), Wizards(and spellcasters in general) could break the world if they wanted to. Spells fundamentally changed reality, and there's a lot of power in that. In 4E, the world has rules, and magic has to exist within those rules. If you want to wield the power to break the world, in 4E you're out of luck. It bears saying that the desire to be able to break the world doesn't necessarily mean you want to lord your power over everyone else at the table.
> 
> We lost one of our group when we switched to 4E because of this, though getting married and moving 45 minutes away contributed as well. We see him occasionally, and this is what he complains about in terms of 4E, not being able to wield ultimate power.




I wouldn't say that 4e wizards can never change reality per se, but rather that the capacity for breaking reality isn't a feature of spellcasting anymore, but rather of being epic level.  

There are plenty of epic destiny powers and such that break reality in various ways.  The most common probably being that instead of dying, you become meaner than you already were (death can be used to your advantage now).  

I don't think there's anything quite on the level of Wish (the ultimate reality breaking spell), but Wish was one of the most problematic pre-4e spells for a number of reasons, so that's a good thing IMO.


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## MerricB (Oct 27, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I never saw a single classed 1e wizard survive to high levels in all the time playing the game.  I saw some fairly powerful multiclassed wizards who used the hitpoint boost (and sometimes AC boost) to get them through the low levels, but then you often ran up into an XP wall that made advancement almost impossible.  Except by the most deliberate effort by the DM and cautious play by the player, I can't imagine how you'd get a 1e M-U up to casting 9th level spells.




In my very limited experience as a player, what you needed was to _get a magic wand_. My AD&D magic-user, Meliander, picked up a _wand of fire_ with about 90-odd charges in the Temple of Elemental Evil and went to town with it. Later, he gained a Staff of Power.

Wizards were (relatively) weak without magic items in AD&D; they were exceptional with a couple of good wands.

Cheers!


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## AllisterH (Oct 27, 2009)

Exactly Celebrim (hey we agree on something).

A 3e wizard is NOT the same thing as a pre 3e wizard. The body may look the same (spells) but the chassis is so different than it is an entirely new car.


I think what made wizards appear to be powerful was that the FICTION for the various D&D worlds. They always downplayed the restrictions IMO. Not just Forgotten Realms fiction where you had Elminister and the love given to spellcasting but even in Greyhawk and Dragonlance, the real movers and shakers of the campaign world were the spellcasters.

I think the only D&D writer that didn't write spellcaster as the uber-class in fiction was Salvatore and he's on record as being somewhat antagonistic towards the spellcasters.


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## Celebrim (Oct 27, 2009)

MerricB said:


> In my very limited experience as a player, what you needed was to _get a magic wand_. My AD&D magic-user, Meliander, picked up a _wand of fire_ with about 90-odd charges in the Temple of Elemental Evil and went to town with it. Later, he gained a Staff of Power.




Well, sure.  But to really get himself going, a 1e M-U needed a fairly large stock of essential items that he just couldn't buy.  I personally never came up with a Wand of Fire or a Staff or Power, though I did have alot of fun with a Wand of Paralyzation and a Wand of Polymorph.  

In edition to at least one good wand you absolutely had to come up with bracers of defence and/or a good cloak of protection early on and neither of these were exactly common unless your DM was being nice.  A set of bracers might turn up every fifty or sixty items, but outside of published modules brimming with every treasure imaginable (all the better to whisk your way through the story), your wand of fire only naturally turns up probably every 200 items or so.  I mean, you are talking about an item that retails in 1e for more than a +5 holy avenger and is worth more than several artifacts.  I don't know many DM's that just give those away.


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## Chainsaw (Oct 27, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Um, did nobody play a pre 3e wizard?
> 
> The tactic of getting up in the morning and buffing yourself seems to be a 3.x tactic which I don't really remember in 1e/2e.




I played a bunch of 2E, but not much 3E. Based on my experience in 2E, I would have to agree with your and Celebrim's comments about magic-users being a difficult class that wasn't an obvious "BEST" option. They were really fragile with their crappy cloth robes and low hit points, plus they dreaded spells being disrupted by range attacks. 

Comparisons of a game that allows/encourages SO many custom rules and playstyles becomes difficult, but honestly, we just never experienced the magic-user stealing the show. He got so few spells that he rarely bothered to memorize (or even want to have in the book) something that was redundant with abilities of other classes.


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## Thasmodious (Oct 27, 2009)

Allister is right.  3e was quite the different beast (as different from older editions as 4e is from 3e).  Older edition wizards were hard to play and those restrictions imposed a lot of balance against their overall power at higher levels.  The 1e wizard is definitely my favorite iteration of the class.  

The 4e wizard, though, let's talk flavor.  The assumptions are a bit different from 1e, the adventurers begin fairly powerful rather than farm hands and wet behind the ears apprentices, but from those assumptions, 4e has the most wizardly wizard since 1e, I would see.  They just ooze arcane power.  The 4e wizard can cast spells all day long and not just some combat spells.  

My 4e wizard wakes up in the inn and as he's stretching, a cup of water is poured from the nightstand and brought to him.  While he drinks it, his clothes, stained from travel and wrinkled all to heck, float over and affix themselves to him.  By the time he descends the stairs, they are spotlessly clean and pressed.  He orders breakfast without seeming to speak aloud and feasts hands free while he peruses arcane texts with the aid of a magical light that floats just over his shoulder.  He never opens a door with his own hands, lights candles and campfires from a distance, is equally comfortable on cold or hot days and is a master of the prank if he wants to be.  Cantrips all day long are all about the flavor.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 27, 2009)

Thasmodious said:


> The 4e wizard, though, let's talk flavor.  The assumptions are a bit different from 1e, the adventurers begin fairly powerful rather than farm hands and wet behind the ears apprentices, but from those assumptions, 4e has the most wizardly wizard since 1e, I would see.  They just ooze arcane power.  The 4e wizard can cast spells all day long and not just some combat spells.
> 
> My 4e wizard wakes up in the inn and as he's stretching, a cup of water is poured from the nightstand and brought to him.  While he drinks it, his clothes, stained from travel and wrinkled all to heck, float over and affix themselves to him.  By the time he descends the stairs, they are spotlessly clean and pressed.  He orders breakfast without seeming to speak aloud and feasts hands free while he peruses arcane texts with the aid of a magical light that floats just over his shoulder.  He never opens a door with his own hands, lights candles and campfires from a distance, is equally comfortable on cold or hot days and is a master of the prank if he wants to be.  Cantrips all day long are all about the flavor.



Hah, that's just mummery for the locals. The 3e wizard comes into the tavern, kills him and takes his stuff... and ya knowit

There are so many ideas of what constitutes a wizard; so many different flavours and all of them equally valid. For me though, a wizard should be able to make a threat and be able to back it up with his magic. A wizard should be able to make the impossible possible, all while having an air of mystery. In this regard, the 4e wizard fails for me; but as a well-balanced controller, he succeeds several times over.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 27, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> Hah, that's just mummery for the locals. The 3e wizard comes into the tavern, kills him and takes his stuff... and ya knowit
> 
> There are so many ideas of what constitutes a wizard; so many different flavours and all of them equally valid. For me though, a wizard should be able to make a threat and be able to back it up with his magic. A wizard should be able to make the impossible possible, all while having an air of mystery. In this regard, the 4e wizard fails for me; but as a well-balanced controller, he succeeds several times over.
> 
> ...




But that isn't exactly true. After a few levels, the 4E Wizard is more than capable of making a threat and backing it up. He makes the impossible possible, and has an air of mystery.

The only difference is that he can't do it to his peers. He has to do it to those lesser than him. This is because the measure of power is no longer "casts spells". Its now level.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 27, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> But that isn't exactly true. After a few levels, the 4E Wizard is more than capable of making a threat and backing it up. He makes the impossible possible, and has an air of mystery.
> 
> *The only difference *is that he can't do it to his peers. *He has to do it to those lesser than him*.



Now don't get me started on minions otherwise we're headed for threadlock!

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 27, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> Now don't get me started on minions otherwise we're headed for threadlock!
> 
> Best Regards
> Herremann the Wise




Wasn't talking about minions. I was talking about level. Level is the measure of power in 4E, not whether or not you use magic. Minions are merely an alternate way to stat out lower level enemies.


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## Hussar (Oct 27, 2009)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Yes, I played it pre-3e wizard. And yes, I pretty much instantly discount the opinion of anyone who claims 1e wizards made other classes obselete and completely overshadowed other classes as in fact never having played 1e and not having much of an opinion worth listening to on this matter.




Wow... Just... wow...

You're saying that anyone who claims to have an experience different from yours is either lying or an idiot.

Do you apply that to all things, or just this specific one?

I did play 1e D&D. I did see wizards completely dominate the game.

I also didn't see 6th level wizards with an 8 AC.  I did see rings of protection combined with cloaks of protection and quite possibly bracers of defense.

In any case, I guess since my experience differs from yours I'm either lying or stupid.  Which one is it?


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## Thasmodious (Oct 27, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> For me though, a wizard should be able to make a threat and be able to back it up with his magic. A wizard should be able to make the impossible possible, all while having an air of mystery.




I would say the 4e wizard more than meets those requirements, much more so than the 3e wizard especially, and from 1st level as well.  In previous editions, a low level wizard couldn't back up much of a threat with just his magic.  It ran out too quickly.

"I will kill you with my magic!"
casts magic missile, orc survives
"I can now a)kill you with my crossbow or b)come back in 8 hours"


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 27, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Wasn't talking about minions.



But I was (as they are the only things out there lesser than Thasmodius's diet lite wizard!) Sheesh, having to explain jokes is always the pits. It's like a guy in our group who will always laugh three times at a joke. Once when it's told, once when it's explained to him and then again two minutes later when he gets it.


			
				Thasmodious said:
			
		

> I would say the 4e wizard more than meets those requirements, much more so than the 3e wizard especially, and from 1st level as well. In previous editions, a low level wizard couldn't back up much of a threat with just his magic. It ran out too quickly.
> 
> "I will kill you with my magic!"
> casts magic missile, orc survives
> "I can now a)kill you with my crossbow or b)come back in 8 hours"



OK buster, before we go anywhere with this, any wizard who has competence in the crossbow should be struck off the Wizardly register! What do you think wands were for huh? Just waving around in the air like they do now days? And no; a low level 3e wizard is an apprentice, generally in awe of his betters - not a real wizard; not yet anyway. Real wizards kill you dead then take your stuff.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Having played since 1977, I can speak to all editions of Wizards...and won't!

I must, however, respond to this:



> I would say the 4e wizard more than meets those requirements, much more so than the 3e wizard especially, and from 1st level as well. In previous editions, a low level wizard couldn't back up much of a threat with just his magic. It ran out too quickly.
> 
> "I will kill you with my magic!"
> casts magic missile, orc survives
> "I can now a)kill you with my crossbow or b)come back in 8 hours"




I happened to play a Sorcerer (OK, not a Wizard, but the issue is the same) who, at first level, would have said this...

"I will kill you with my magic!"
breathes Dragon Breath (Lightning) in 30' line, orc dies, so do several of his buddies...
"I can now a)kill you with my Maul or b)come back in 8 hours"

Or my previous PC, a Specialist Diviner who would have used True Strike to eye-shoot the orcish SOB with his X-bow...

Or...or...or...and so forth- more than anything else 3.X was about flexibility.

(Yes, over time, this flexibility will probably appear in 4Ed as well, but I'm not waiting around for it...)

Should the Wizard have been nerfed?  IMHO, no...at least, not in the way 4Ed did, or others think it should have been done.  I think the 3.X arcanists should have been more vulnerable to disruption than they were, but should not have had their overall potential dropped.

To me, the 4Ed Wiz is an example of balance sapping flavor.  In a Moorcockian sense, Law has triumphed over Chaos, and the result is an unending steady state.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I think the 3.X arcanists should have been more vulnerable to disruption than they were, but should not have had their overall potential dropped.



Nail on head!

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Toras (Oct 27, 2009)

I think part of my problem with 4e has always been the shear dragging mundanity of it all.  Wizards pulled down rather than raising up the non-casting classes.  Let me have Hercules that is capable of taking the world from Atlas's shoulders, a Samson capable of slay hordes with the jaw bone of an ass.  Let my thief steal fire from the gods, the heart of maidens fair and vanish like smoke from even the sharpest eye of man.  Let him steal the words from your mouth and the thoughts from your mind. 

Let my cleric part the sea as Moses's upon the mount or call down fire from the heavens upon a city of men.  

Let my sword's man slice the wind and my monk balance on the head of a pin.


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> Nail on head!




Whereas I'd argue that the game would have swiftly become unplayable for a large number of people.

Hear me out. 

I'm not arguing that 4E's method was the best way to go. Maybe it was, maybe not. But I _will_ argue that "balancing" wizards by making their spells really powerful, but easy to disrupt, would've been one of the worst things for the game.

Here's the thing. I know that lots of people have a problem with WotC's use of the term "fun" lately. I don't pretend to know what _everyone_ thinks is fun, but I _do_ know what most people I've ever met, talked to, or even heard of think is fun.

And I don't know _anyone_ who enjoys sitting around twiddling their thumbs because they're unable to contribute round after round in combat.

It may not be safe to assume that _nobody_ would enjoy that, but it's _absolutely_ safe to assume that the _average gamer_ doesn't look forward to sitting around doing nothing. That's not what gaming's about.

With a wizard who has Phenomenal Cosmic Power, but at the cost of being easily disrupted, every combat is almost guaranteed to go one of two ways:

1) The wizard obliterates everything, and the other players are cast in the role of sidekick at best.

2) The wizard fails to do anything.

Either way, someone's having a really bad experience.

Are there some groups who would enjoy playing that way? Absolutely. Would it have worked for _most_ groups? I'm willing to bet _no_. And would it have turned off more new players than it ever brought in? I'm willing to _guarantee_ the answer is _no_.

Is it possible for balance to grow so strict that flavor suffers? Absolutely. But that doesn't change the fact that a game with any hopes of retaining popularity has to have _some_ focus on balance. And making _every fight_ a swingy one, based on the success or failure of a single class, is absolutely detrimental to any sort of balanced system.


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## Ourph (Oct 27, 2009)

Re: Nerfing Wizards... I liked playing casters in 3.5. Most of my characters were Wizards, Warmages, Druids or some other type of primary caster.

And I have to say that after playing some 4e I just can't go back to playing those 3.5 classes. Despite their awe-inspiring power at higher levels, the lower levels weren't very "magical". By comparison the 4e Wizard is extremely versatile. The idea of playing a low level 3.5 caster again (other than MAYBE a Warlock) is really unappealing. Too much of a low level Wizard's time in 3.5 was spent doing non-magical things because either 1) the resources had run out; or 2) resources needed to be "saved for later".

I recently got invited to play in a friend's 3.5 game and started to roll up a Warmage. I got to the point of buying equipment and realized I would need the ubiquituos Light Crossbow for when my spells ran out and just crumpled up the character sheet and threw it away. The idea of playing a *BANG*BANG*BANG* now break out the crossbow-type character after playing 4e was just too frustrating. I rolled up a Fighter instead.


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## Hussar (Oct 27, 2009)

What's really funny though is the idea that this is something new with 4e.

EVERY 3e replacement class for casters published in WOTC splats was weaker than core casters.  From the first days of 3e, designers knew that the core casters needed to be reined in.  Whether it was sorcerers, or warmages, or any other caster substitute, you see a massive reduction in scope compared to core wizards.

It's pretty telling, to me anyway, that even after 8 years of 3e supplements, clerics, druids and wizards were STILL considered the strongest classes in the game.


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## pawsplay (Oct 27, 2009)

The last time I played AD&D, I was a 4th level abjurer. I remember that my character was able to use flaming sphere to help the party's javelin specialist annihilate a troll in, I think, three rounds, without any party member sustaining damage. I am telling this story for two reasons. First, to point out that pre-3e wizards were not a bunch of sad little beggars grubbing for magic wands; if all you had to rely on was your spells, it was rough, but a well placed spell could really save the party's bacon. Second, I'd like to point out that the javelin specialist did the bulk of the damage. My wizard's contribution was to supply a source of fire damage the troll could not regenerate and to hamper the troll's movement options. 

A 3e wizard knows probably twice as many spells as an AD&D wizard, but I don't think it makes that much of a difference, because he can't cast twice as many in a day, much less in a combat or two. 3e did several things that did increase the power of the wizard. First, spells had fewer drawbacks, fewer weird requirements, chances for disasterous failure, and so forth. Second, a few more spells a day does make a difference. Third, not having to check for chance to know spell did increase AD&D wizard customizability (but not Basic D&D wizards). However, the wizard got stuck with the same hit die, while damage and hp overall went up. Uncapping Con bonus to hp and allowing unlimited hit dice (instead of 10 HD) evened the playing field somewhat, but the 3e wizard is still pretty fragile.

Despite some upgrades, some of which I would consider bland and unwelcome, the 3e wizard remains very similar to the AD&D wizard. In fact, the rogue and fighter have changed more, with the fighter increasing not simply proficiencies and combat options but gaining access to multiple numeric bonuses and easier acess to damaging magic items. The rogue gained more rapidly scaling damage and a generally improved reliability with skills. 

Anyone who has played vampire or Hero or any of a number of games that are not D&D understands that "class balance" is a dream of a dream, not something you can put in a sack and weigh. Obviously, the classes need somewhat balanced capabilities, but a fighter does not need the abiliy to warp reality any more than a wizard needs the capability to pepper a giant to death with thrown weapons or wrestle a bugbear. In 3e, the fighter remains a noble ally to the wizard. In Pathfinder, both classes remain much the same. At the end of the day, the measure of a class is its ability to meaningfully contribute. A wizard is quite powerful, but two wizards are not necessarily more powerful than a wizard and a fighter, and is likely less in many contexts. 

4e's solution to the identified of problem of wizards holding all the good utility spells was to spread them around. The thing about rituals is... if you have a wizard in the party, who would be a ritualist besides the wizard? The supposed innovation comes right back to the same mechanic, the wizard doing the scrying and teleporting and whatnot. 

I don't think 4e hit the mark on rescaling the wizard without affecting the wizard's style. I think 4e's core design probably contributed. 

Bottom line: wizards used to conserve their spells, keep a dagger handy, and occasionally go kaboom. If you preferred the original playstyle, the wizard is gone.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> With a wizard who has Phenomenal Cosmic Power, but at the cost of being easily disrupted, every combat is almost guaranteed to go one of two ways:
> 
> 1) The wizard obliterates everything, and the other players are cast in the role of sidekick at best.
> 
> ...




Really, spellcaster disruption isn't a binary thing.  Or at least, it doesn't have to be.

IME, 1&2Ed Wizards might have a couple of spells disrupted in a session, but by and large, didn't fail to have an impact.  When their casting was disrupted, it was, in a word, an interesting time!

3.X spellcasters, OTOH, seemed almost imperturbable...and that in an RPG that introduced formal rules for countermagic, inspired by the company's other game of note, M:tG.

However, if 
the Concentration skill hadn't been so effective at letting spellcasters avoid disruption, and
The counterspelling system was more robust- more options (including dedicated anti-spellcasting spells, feats, and powers), more chance of success, possible side effects to disruptions (for both caster and counterspeller), and
Disruption could result in diminished or wild magic effects rather than simple fizzles

You'd still have spellcasters with fearsome potential, but with identifiable weaknesses that could be exploited by PC and NPC alike, without the game devolving into a simple "Wizards AWESOME/Wizards SUCK" binary game-state.



> And I don't know _anyone_ who enjoys sitting around twiddling their thumbs because they're unable to contribute round after round in combat.
> 
> It may not be safe to assume that _nobody_ would enjoy that, but it's _absolutely_ safe to assume that the _average gamer_ doesn't look forward to sitting around doing nothing. That's not what gaming's about.




Well, it depends upon how you define "contribute round after round in combat."

One of my best buds plays Wizards almost exclusively...has done so since I met him back in 1984 or so.  His PCs usually have a spell-list that is about as optimized as anything Thanee ever posted.

His playstyle is one reason our group almost never sees the "15 minute workday": He'll cast a spell for impact, then maybe one more...then wait, staff or dagger or dart or whatever his main weapon was, at the ready.  Often, his PC was looking for "targets from unexpected directions"- and make no mistake, trying to anticipate the unexpected is a valuable contribution- "evaluating the battlefield" or simply "conserving his energy."  Or some such.

IOW, his PCs typically spend most of a combat "holding."

And he's perfectly fine with that.

In fact, he's not the only player in the group who feels that a PC can contribute without doing an action every chance he can, that sometimes, "holding" is the best thing you can do.  (I'm another, and I tend towards melee-focused PCs with caster/roguish elements.)

This isn't to say this is the way we all play.  Make no mistake, we have at least one guy who is Wolverine on Meth when it comes to combat...(and yet hasn't played a Barbarian- go figure!).


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## Melkor (Oct 27, 2009)

Herschel said:


> And apparently your friend has never seen an earlier edition wizard before 3rd (or 6th) level of play.  "I cast sleep, and hide" or "I cast magic missile, and run".




Well, in my buddy's defense, he said that in the old days, you worked, struggled, and tried everything  you could to survive as a low-level wizard....and the payoff for all of that was you reaped a power reward if you survived to higher levels.

That's another 4E objection....He enjoyed that aspect of play...trying to use his wits to survive, and he thinks that is gone from the new game.

Another contributing factor to that is that we never had a campaign last (in 20 years of playing D&D together) past about 11th or 12th level, so he feels somewhat slighted that he never saw the real payoff as a Wizard in any of our campaigns. That is a different matter though.


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## Melkor (Oct 27, 2009)

Thanks for all of the responses folks. 

A few days ago, he was DEAD set against 4E. After showing him some of the books and Dragon articles, he is still somewhat bitter, but he has agreed to make up a character, and run through a few encounters to see what the system 'feels' like.

We'll see what happens.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Whereas I'd argue that the game would have swiftly become unplayable for a large number of people.
> 
> Hear me out.
> 
> ...



Hello Ari,

But those are the two extremes as if that is all the wizard can do. Why not suit the risk with the reward: make your basic cantrips at will, your "normal" arsenal as per and the "big stuff" the ones that can be easily disrupted or that can incur other penalties? In this way, you can play a conservative wizard who sticks to the reliable or you can always risk the chocolates going for the prize and all shades in between. You're not forced to stick to the sidelines this way. However, if you want to try and save the day with something big, you can and benefit from or suffer the consequences. This middling approach seems classic risk-reward to me.



			
				Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Are there some groups who would enjoy playing that way? Absolutely. Would it have worked for _most_ groups? I'm willing to bet _no_. And would it have turned off more new players than it ever brought in? I'm willing to _guarantee_ the answer is _no_.
> 
> Is it possible for balance to grow so strict that flavor suffers? Absolutely. But that doesn't change the fact that a game with any hopes of retaining popularity has to have _some_ focus on balance. And making _every fight_ a swingy one, based on the success or failure of a single class, is absolutely detrimental to any sort of balanced system.



I agree if it is every fight that is swingy. If the wizard (or any other class) can occasionally be the hero though, I don't see a problem as long as teamwork/interactivity of allied effort is maintained.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Theroc (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Mouseferatu (and others)- spellcaster disruption isn't a binary thing.  Or at least, it doesn't have to be.
> 
> IME, 1&2Ed Wizards might have a couple of spells disrupted in a session, but by and large, didn't fail to have an impact.  When their casting was disrupted, it was, in a word, an interesting time!
> 
> ...




This isn't directly on the D&D topic, but an offshoot of Danny's post, having played M:TG prior to playing D&D and then reading this.

It hadn't occurred to me until now, but that would have been an excellent concept, in my opinion.  As much as I hate negative effects, adding some of the countering elements from Magic would be interesting.  Heck, add spells to the game which simply dangled a sword above the Wizard's head. Such as a spell that places a curse on the target, causing them to suffer damage equal to the level of every spell cast for a certain length of time, causing the wizard to think about whether he WANTS to cast a spell.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> A 3e wizard knows probably twice as many spells as an AD&D wizard, but I don't think it makes that much of a difference, because he can't cast twice as many in a day, much less in a combat or two. 3e did several things that did increase the power of the wizard. First, spells had fewer drawbacks, fewer weird requirements, chances for disasterous failure, and so forth. Second, a few more spells a day does make a difference. Third, not having to check for chance to know spell did increase AD&D wizard customizability (but not Basic D&D wizards).




One thing people always forget about when talking about 1E/2E and 3E is the difference in pacing. 3E is a much slower running game, both overall and in terms of combat than 1E/2E. In addition to having a few extra spells thanks to bonus spells for high stats, the 3E Wizard usually had to face fewer challenges between rest periods thanks to the slower pace of the game. The Wizard was theoretically balanced by assuming it would have to face X amount of combats between rests, but the slow pace of the game made a shorter day much more common. This powered up the Wizard as much as anything else.



pawsplay said:


> Despite some upgrades, some of which I would consider bland and unwelcome, the 3e wizard remains very similar to the AD&D wizard. In fact, the rogue and fighter have changed more, with the fighter increasing not simply proficiencies and combat options but gaining access to multiple numeric bonuses and easier acess to damaging magic items. The rogue gained more rapidly scaling damage and a generally improved reliability with skills.




What you speak of is a matter of perception. Its not what was added to Wizards, or that what they could do was changed. What changed about Wizards was the removal of the majority of their weaknesses and drawbacks. Its not as obvious to the eye as the additions to Fighters and Rogues, but it had a much greater impact on actual play.



pawsplay said:


> Anyone who has played vampire or Hero or any of a number of games that are not D&D understands that "class balance" is a dream of a dream, not something you can put in a sack and weigh. Obviously, the classes need somewhat balanced capabilities, but a fighter does not need the abiliy to warp reality any more than a wizard needs the capability to pepper a giant to death with thrown weapons or wrestle a bugbear. In 3e, the fighter remains a noble ally to the wizard. In Pathfinder, both classes remain much the same. At the end of the day, the measure of a class is its ability to meaningfully contribute. A wizard is quite powerful, but two wizards are not necessarily more powerful than a wizard and a fighter, and is likely less in many contexts.




I hear this excuse a lot, and it never really addresses the fact that 3E was unbalanced in practice to a greater degree than pretty much any commonly played system. 



pawsplay said:


> 4e's solution to the identified of problem of wizards holding all the good utility spells was to spread them around. The thing about rituals is... if you have a wizard in the party, who would be a ritualist besides the wizard? The supposed innovation comes right back to the same mechanic, the wizard doing the scrying and teleporting and whatnot.




The solution is that there are other classes who can Ritual in the *absence* of the Wizard. The Wizard's presence is far from mandatory. As much as Rituals are necessary, the Bard, Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Invoker, Psion, or anyone with the feat can perform them. 4E frees you up to skip having a Wizard altogether.



pawsplay said:


> I don't think 4e hit the mark on rescaling the wizard without affecting the wizard's style. I think 4e's core design probably contributed.
> 
> Bottom line: wizards used to conserve their spells, keep a dagger handy, and occasionally go kaboom. If you preferred the original playstyle, the wizard is gone.




Indeed. Its a shame that playstyle caused as much problems as it did and had to be set aside. At least people who prefer it that way still have the old edition.


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## Hussar (Oct 27, 2009)

DannyA said:
			
		

> IOW, his PCs typically spend most of a combat "holding."
> 
> And he's perfectly fine with that.




But, do you think that should be the default stance in the game?  That "Holding your action" should be the expectation I should have when playing a wizard?

That your friend is groovy with that is fine and great.  But, I would hardly expect everyone to be fine with warming the pines while everyone else gets to do stuff, just so I can be super spectacular once in a while.

I don't play D&D to be a pinch hitter.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Its been hinted at in other threads, but it hasn't been mentioned here, AFAIK.

In earlier editions of the game, Wizards didn't simply get their pick of spells when they leveled.  They had to see if they successfully learned the spells they were looking at, and if they didn't, they kept trying to learn spells until they succeeded.  They might not learn the spell they really wanted until they found a scroll or tome...or leveled again.

In 3.X, that seemingly insignificant speedbump was gone.  I say "seemingly insignificant" because suddenly, you could make your spellcaster as lean and efficient as you cared to, and that changed the power balance in the game.  Any oddities in your spell list reflected 1) PC concept, 2) player quirk, or 3) player inexperience.

IOW, the "sportscar" class of previous editions had suddenly become a top-fuel dragster.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Hussar said:


> But, do you think that should be the default stance in the game?  That "Holding your action" should be the expectation I should have when playing a wizard?
> 
> That your friend is groovy with that is fine and great.  But, I would hardly expect everyone to be fine with warming the pines while everyone else gets to do stuff, just so I can be super spectacular once in a while.
> 
> I don't play D&D to be a pinch hitter.



To continue the baseball analogy...

He's less of a pinch hitter and more of a discriminating HR hitter who is a tough out.  He makes the DM throw strikes, or he's not swinging.

Its up to the other PCs to hit the singles and the bunts and so forth- he's up there to knock the ball out of the park, and not every pitch is worth his energy.

And no, I don't think it should be the default.

My point was that some players- both those who prefer arcanists and those who don't- don't think that a PC has to cast a spell or swing a weapon in order to "contribute" to combat.  That point was in response to Mouseferatu's assertion about players who are unhappy when they don't contribute.  I was presenting a differing perspective on what "contribute" means.

Observation, situational analysis, or simply guarding against the unexpected- flying, hidden, invisible, dimension-hopping or even mundanely ambushing foes are always a possibility- can be just as important as doing another 1d6 damage in a given round.

Heck, the conservation of spell energy by* not* casting is, in its own way, contributing.

I mean, what is more important- casting a spell that will finish off the combat by disabling all of the remaining foes, or letting the other PCs mop things up (knowing they're not in any real danger) and saving that spell for later.  (The answer to that becomes even clearer when the caster in question is a Cleric who could spontaneously channel that spell into healing down the road.)


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## Hussar (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Its been hinted at in other threads, but it hasn't been mentioned here, AFAIK.
> 
> In earlier editions of the game, Wizards didn't simply get their pick of spells when they leveled.  They had to see if they successfully learned the spells they were looking at, and if they didn't, they kept trying to learn spells until they succeeded.  They might not learn the spell they really wanted until they found a scroll or tome...or leveled again.
> 
> ...




Eeeehh.  You're chance of learning a spell was pretty good by and large.  Assuming an 16+ Int (and that's not a tough assumption IME) you had about a what, 60, 70% chance of learning a spell.  If you ever hit 19 Int, that issue when away.

Now, the max spells per level could certainly be an issue though.  You couldn't just keep adding spells to your spellbook forever.  There was an upper limit.  It was a pretty high upper limit, but, upper limit there was.

As far as 



> My point was that some players- both those who prefer arcanists and those who don't- don't think that a PC has to cast a spell or swing a weapon in order to "contribute" to combat. Observation, situational analysis, or simply guarding against the unexpected- flying, hidden, invisible, dimension-hopping or even mundanely ambushing foes are always a possibility- can be just as important as doing another 1d6 damage in a given round.




goes, well, again, sure, there are some players like this.  I don't deny that.  But, again, I don't think this should be the default.  I think it should be the player's choice.  If I as the player, choose to do that, it's because I want to, not because I have so few spells per day that I'm pretty much forced to by circumstance.

Again, there's no reason you can't play like that in 3e or 4e either.  

But, something to be really aware of in all of this was the assumption of party size.  It was perfectly okay for the wizard to sit back and watch in 1e and 2e because the party was assumed to be 6-8 rather than 4.  Those extra 2-4 PC's make an ENORMOUS difference.

In 1e, you were assumed to have 3 frontline fighter types.  Plus the cleric and you have 4 PC's that can form a nice wall for the wizard to hide behind.  Because the monsters were quite a bit smaller hit point wise and damage potential wise, the three fighter types could put a serious pounding on pretty much any threat.

The wizard was just icing on the cake.

In 3e, the assumption is that there is no icing, there is only cake.  The wizard HAS to pull his weight every round or the party is going to start losing PC's.  The monsters are not only considerably tougher, but their damage potential is significantly higher.  Sometimes to the tune of doubling their 1e damage.  1st to 10th level PC's aren't all that different in any system 1e-3e as far as hit points go.  

Suddenly, you had only 1 fighter type in the front instead of 3 spreading out the damage and the monsters were doing possibly twice as much damage per round.

It's not an option for the wizard to not do damage.  If the wizard is just watching the fight, the fighter is seriously going to get pummeled.

I think that's a point that gets lost in a lot of these comparisons.  The biggest shift between pre-3e and 3ed is the assumed size of the party and the huge increase in monster hit points and damage output.


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> My point was that some players- both those who prefer arcanists and those who don't- don't think that a PC has to cast a spell or swing a weapon in order to "contribute" to combat.  Observation, situational analysis, or simply guarding against the unexpected- flying, hidden, invisible, dimension-hopping or even mundanely ambushing foes are always a possibility- can be just as important as doing another 1d6 damage in a given round.




Sure, such players exist. But they're enough of an outlier that a core part of the system cannot afford to cater to them at the expense of other uses.

Now, that said, I'd _love_ to see an _optional system_ added to 4E that _did_ include more nova-style wizards. It would be far more complex, and far more swingy, but I have no problem with that for what amounts to an _Unearthed Arcana_-style option.

But it would have to be just that: _an optional add-on_. Not a default assumption, and not the only way to play a wizard.


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## pawsplay (Oct 27, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> One thing people always forget about when talking about 1E/2E and 3E is the difference in pacing.




Forgotten in what way? I am quite familiar with AD&D.

3E is a much slower running game, both overall and in terms of combat than 1E/2E. In addition to having a few extra spells thanks to bonus spells for high stats, the 3E Wizard usually had to face fewer challenges between rest periods thanks to the slower pace of the game. The Wizard was theoretically balanced by assuming it would have to face X amount of combats between rests, but the slow pace of the game made a shorter day much more common. This powered up the Wizard as much as anything else.


> I don't see how any differences in the editions would mandate this. AD&D was not, in my experience, a faster game. In fact, at low levels, high damage rolls often prompted a rest break. Potions of CLW were generally less common. If anything, 3e extended the work day by giving wizards half again as many spells in many cases.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> But those are the two extremes as if that is all the wizard can do. Why not suit the risk with the reward: make your basic cantrips at will, your "normal" arsenal as per and the "big stuff" the ones that can be easily disrupted or that can incur other penalties?




And you still wind up with the same problem, although not to the same level. If the wizard "save up" all his good stuff until the opportune moment, and then--due to the penalties he incurs--it fails utterly, I think even the most patient of players is going to be frustrated.

Or you wind up with the wizard's companions handling all the "minor" fights, and the wizard hogging all the glory against the main villains.

As I said in my prior post, I'd be all for an optional sub-system to allow this sort of thing. But I truly believe there's no satisfactory way to make it work for the bulk of the audience as a _core conceit_.


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## pawsplay (Oct 27, 2009)

Hussar said:


> But, do you think that should be the default stance in the game?  That "Holding your action" should be the expectation I should have when playing a wizard?




What, for a round or two? Why not? I mean, seriously. I can grok the whole cinematic style thing, but there is a lot to be said for the literary style as well. It's perfectly possible to play your character without doing a few points of damage every round. Because 4e gives everyone at-Wills, the wizard is in the exact same stance of "nothing exciting to do," except zotting with this or that is substituted for nothing or taking a defensive action or whatever. 

And personally, I would prefer less casual magic use. If I wanted to give wizards something to do every round, I'd let them use swords or inspire their allies or something. Not sit around zotting like a Gauntlet character. That is my preference, which may not be others' preference.


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## pawsplay (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Or you wind up with the wizard's companions handling all the "minor" fights, and the wizard hogging all the glory against the main villains.




Whereas if you give all the characters the same powers, you end up with a different problem. Everyone will go nova on the main villain. Which means that when fully loaded, they will blow away lesser encounters too easily, or else their nova is necessarily underwhelming and main villains equally so. Variation is what characters interesting, not consistency. The more characters are alike, the less each PC contributes in terms of adding interest to the encounter.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Hussar said:


> In 3e, the assumption is that there is no icing, there is only cake.  The wizard HAS to pull his weight every round or the party is going to start losing PC's.  The monsters are not only considerably tougher, but their damage potential is significantly higher.  Sometimes to the tune of doubling their 1e damage.  1st to 10th level PC's aren't all that different in any system 1e-3e as far as hit points go.
> 
> Suddenly, you had only 1 fighter type in the front instead of 3 spreading out the damage and the monsters were doing possibly twice as much damage per round.
> 
> ...




If that assumption were true, then our groups shouldn't be able to survive.  And yet they do.

Typically, our 3.X groups are built along the lines of earlier editions: There will probably be a rogue of some kind, there will be a healer, there will be an arcanist, and warriors of some kind outnumber any other archetype.

Oftentimes, there is no solo-class healer, and only one pure arcanist- almost everyone multiclasses (discounting PrCls).

And yet, we're doing just fine without the Wiz slinging spells every round.

2 campaigns ago, we were playing RttToEE, and my buddy was- as I described- playing his typical Wizard.  I was playing a heavily multiclassed Specialist Diviner/Warrior type PC who had almost no offensive spell capability (he knew Lesser Orb of Electricity).  We were the only arcane casters.

For campaign reasons, my PC approached the Wiz to see if he could arrange for a little cross-tutelage in the ways of magic.  I'd teach him my divinations, he'd teach me some evocations and the like.  Thus, the party would have a little bit more low-level firepower and detection ability.  He refused (in character).

He also didn't change his playstyle.

Despite this, we still managed to finish off the campaign with only 1 PC death (the rogue).


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## Echohawk (Oct 27, 2009)

Melkor said:


> he said that in the old days, you worked, struggled, and tried everything  you could to survive as a low-level wizard....and the payoff for all of that was you reaped a power reward if you survived to higher levels.






> he feels somewhat slighted that he never saw the real payoff as a Wizard in any of our campaigns. That is a different matter though.




These two statements seem rather contradictory. Either your friend liked "olden days" wizards because of the high-level rewards for surviving the lower levels, or he's bitter because he never got to see those rewards. But not both, surely?


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Whereas if you give all the characters the same powers, you end up with a different problem. Everyone will go nova on the main villain. Which means that when fully loaded, they will blow away lesser encounters too easily, or else their nova is necessarily underwhelming and main villains equally so. Variation is what characters interesting, not consistency. The more characters are alike, the less each PC contributes in terms of adding interest to the encounter.




Variation does make characters interesting. I find the classes in 4E to be _quite_ varied. Just because they use the same basic progression doesn't make them identical.

Now, would I like options for _more_ variation? Sure. But if we never get them, I'm okay with most of what we have.

And you know what happens when 4E parties blow through early fights too early? They get their butts kicked later on, and have to learn to retreat. There's _absolutely_ still a question as to when it's proper to bring out the big guns, and when they should be saved for later. And not everyone's going to agree on when those moments are. I've seen fights where one character is completely out of dailies, but other characters haven't used even one.

So... Different powers, different choices as to when those powers should be used, different contributions to combat. Seems interesting enough to me.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Forgotten in what way? I am quite familiar with AD&D.
> 
> I don't see how any differences in the editions would mandate this. AD&D was not, in my experience, a faster game. In fact, at low levels, high damage rolls often prompted a rest break. Potions of CLW were generally less common. If anything, 3e extended the work day by giving wizards half again as many spells in many cases.




I'm not talking about in-game time. Where 3E was slow was at the table, and resolving in-game events took more real life time at the table. The fact that things took longer to resolve tended to have an effect on adventure design, as you design adventures for both in game pacing, and at the table real time pacing. People tended to write adventures with fewer events to deal with simply because they took longer to resolve in real time.





pawsplay said:


> Pshaw. I can think of no single playstyle difference between AD&D and 3e than the dual-wielding rogue sneak attacking an ogre to death in a single round.




I never saw Wizards or other spellcasters stand around and do nothing in 3E to the degree they did so in 1E/2E and was described earlier in this thread. Even at 1st level, a 3E Wizard could have three level 1 spells without breaking a sweat. By level 3, a Wizard could have 7 spells to cast in 3E. 





pawsplay said:


> I make no excuses, just observations. And the only reason you are right about 3e is because it was the most commonly played system, and 4e is more rigorously balanced in most respects.




The issues described for 3E didn't really exist for 1E/2E, and that has been discussed in this thread. Overpowered Wizards being a problem, while occasionally happening in earlier editions, came to the forefront in 3E. As for other systems, while I'm not familiar with Hero, I am familiar with Vampire. One can claim that from a system standpoint Vampire isn't a well balanced game, in practice its less of an issue. The game isn't focused on combat, or the system for that matter. Most of the Vampire games I've been involved with didn't utilize the system anywhere near the degree that occurs in D&D. When the game is as freeform as Vampire tends to be, you see the imbalances less. When you go three sessions without engaging in combat, the guy who twinked himself out into a killing machine falls into the background.





pawsplay said:


> Sure. But making the wizard unnecessary is in my mind a less important design goal than making them useful. 4e seems to agree with me; rituals make many characters potentially part-time spellcasters. It is not that there are no wizards any more, just that any fighter can be "part wizard" in previous edition terms.




And what is the issue here?





pawsplay said:


> Interesting choice of words. I don't think the playstyle "had to" be put aside; indeed, I view the 4e design as less desirable in most ways for my purposes. I think it is a tragedy that the playstyle was not given the same level of support as the central style supported by 4e: long endurarance encounters punctuated by the occasional daily. I think it is as much a tragedy as if 4e had decided mundane fighters were not a concept worth preserving and all paragon level fighters exuded magical energies to allow them to go toe to toe with dragons and such. Rogues have just about been dispensed with; "rogue rituals" (aka skills) are also readily available, leaving rogues mainly in the role "sneaky fighter," in effect making them fighters. Apart from legacy concerns, rogues and rangers could just about have been two builds of the same class, Scout or whatever you wanted to call it.




I don't see the previous editions Wizard as being an issue. Its specifically the 3E Wizard that was the problem. I played 2E for years, and have no beef with the 2E Wizard. 



pawsplay said:


> The Vancian wizard is not exinct, nor has he been proven cumbersome to play. He has merely been proven unpopular at this time. How far does a 4e party progress when it's dailies have been expended? 4e lends itself, if anything, to a shorter workday. The issue was, is, and will be, GM pacing of encounters.




Daily powers don't dictate the 4E workday. Healing Surges do. As long as you have surges, you can go on forever. Dailies don't mean squat.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Sure, such players exist. But they're enough of an outlier that a core part of the system cannot afford to cater to them at the expense of other uses.




You're the pro- I'm not going to argue that you're not- but are there actual stats to back you up?

I'm not being snarky here.

Its just that my personal experience as a gamer since 1977 simply doesn't jibe with that assertion- besides me and my buddy, the _majority_ of the guys & gals I've played D&D with in the past 32 years (in Colorado, Kansas, and Texas) have been perfectly capable of self-restraint in combat.  As I've said to Hussar in several other threads- I have NEVER seen the "15 minute workday" in my years of D&D, and a lot of that is because of that patient playstyle.

I have to wonder if certain design decisions were made because of assumptions about the predominant playstyle within the game that may not be justified.


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Its just that my personal experience as a gamer since 1977 simply doesn't jibe with that assertion- besides me and my buddy, the _majority_ of the guys & gals I've played D&D with in the past 32 years have been perfectly capable of self-restraint in combat.




I have no doubt that lots of people are _capable_ of it.

Where my questioning comes in is, how many people would have _chosen_ it?

Obviously, there's no way for either of us to answer that, since we're getting into the realm of hypotheticals and guesses on other people's motivations. But my own experience--and my understanding of the _average_ person--is that people prefer to be able to decide for themselves on this sort of thing.

So a class that lets you _choose_ whether you want to play a conservative, "I only act every few rounds" type is going to have a wider appeal than a class that _forces_ you to play that type.

And no, you can't just say "Well, they shouldn't play a wizard then." Wizards are too much of a fantasy archetype to restrict them to what is--IME, and apparently judging by WotC's research--a relative minority playstyle.

My first 4E character was a rogue. And there were times where I spent several rounds just moving, to position myself for the perfect sneak attack, even though it might've been more mathematically sound for me to spend those rounds attacking even without SA damage. And I enjoyed doing it.

But I enjoyed it because I _chose_ to do it. If I'd been _forced_, if (for whatever reason) I was incapable of contributing meaningfully without first maneuvering for position, I'd never have played the class.

I played wizards, a _lot_, in 2E and 3E. And I enjoyed the experience. But I enjoyed it _in spite of_ the fact that there were times I just couldn't meaningfully contribute (especially at low levels), not _because_ of that fact.



> I have to wonder if certain design decisions were made because of assumptions about the predominant playstyle within the game that may not be justified.




I have no access to WotC's research, and I certainly won't claim that their design decisions are infallible. But I do know that they _have_ such research, and I trust that, _for the most part_, they have a strong sense of what the majority of their market is looking for.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> And you still wind up with the same problem, although not to the same level. If the wizard "save up" all his good stuff until the opportune moment, and then--due to the penalties he incurs--it fails utterly, I think even the most patient of players is going to be frustrated.



A wizard does not have to only save up the big stuff, why not save up the OK reliable stuff too (thus being effective but not a scene stealer so to speak against the big guy). Or possibly saving that one spell cracker as a last roll of the dice, all or nothing TPK or Victory spell that saves everyone's bacon... or not. I'm not seeing much frustration here unless a wizard psychotically tries overstretching themselves (in which case he is tempting fate and most likely losing and deservedly so).


			
				Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Or you wind up with the wizard's companions handling all the "minor" fights, and the wizard hogging all the glory against the main villains.



Sometimes the wizard will "win" versus the big guy, or they will "lose" and the rest of the party will have to pick up the slack, or the wizard can be mister reliable contributing and letting the Barbarian/Rogue/Cleric win the gold instead. Each approach and result seems fair to me and not skewed too far in the wizard's favour. 

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> A wizard does not have to only save up the big stuff, why not save up the OK reliable stuff too (thus being effective but not a scene stealer so to speak against the big guy).




So what's he doing in the other fights? If he's saving all the big _and_ all the "okay" stuff, he's losing the chance to shine--or even contribute meaningfully--_before_ the big fight. And once again, you have a wizard who's spending lots of his time doing nothing of consequence.



> Sometimes the wizard will "win" versus the big guy...




And you really don't see how that's a problem? Giving one class the chance to completely short-circuit the dramatic final encounter without the other players being able to contribute is not good design. It only works in a game where everyone agrees from the get-go to accept that as a possibility--which once again takes me back to the "optional rule" comment. It's fine for some groups, but it's not a good thing to build into the core system.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> So a class that lets you _choose_ whether you want to play a conservative, "I only act every few rounds" type is going to have a wider appeal than a class that _forces_ you to play that type.



Again, this is counter to what I'm observing.

IME, its the _warrior_ and other non-caster classes that force you act nearly every round of combat.  If/when the warriors sheathe their swords or the rogues elect not to flank...well, things are going to go south very, very quickly.

But our parties do just fine when the casters hold fire after just a couple of rounds of action.

And if what you say were true, those non-casting classes- forced to act every round- should be the minority of PCs observed in our campaigns...and they simply aren't.

I think what is *really* going on is that the controlling factor as to who must act when is their proportion _within a given party._  IOW, if a party is comprised of 3 warriors, a rogue a cleric and a mage, the party can win if one of the "soloists" elects (for whatever reason) to hold actions, but if the warriors take a holiday, its going to be a TPK.

OTOH, if a party is built along the lines that Hussar suggested upthread, with 3 full-caster arcanists, a rogue, a warrior, and a cleric, that party will be killed if those arcanists don't do something each time they have the opportunity.  The inaction of the rogue, the warrior or the cleric for one combat won't matter much.


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## pawsplay (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Variation does make characters interesting. I find the classes in 4E to be _quite_ varied. Just because they use the same basic progression doesn't make them identical.




No, of course not. Conversely, even the most varied 3e characters are not as varied as, say, Batman and Superman.


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Again, this is counter to what I'm observing.
> 
> IME, its the _warrior_ and other non-caster classes that force you act nearly every round of combat.  If/when the warriors sheathe their swords or the rogues elect not to flank...well, things are going to go south very, very quickly.




Well, as I said above, I've played rogues who were inclined to spend rounds in positioning themselves, and I've seen fighters do the same, so I wouldn't say the melee types are "forced" to do anything.

Of course, I'd also suggest that even if true, being forced to do _something_ every round is still not nearly as limiting, or unattractive to most people, as being forced to do _nothing_ in some rounds.

But mostly, I think we've reached the point of "dueling anecdotes."  So I don't see this getting us much further.


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## Inyssius (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And if what you say were true, those non-casting classes- forced to act every round- should be the minority of PCs observed in our campaigns...and they simply aren't.




I can't speak for that specific paragraph, but unless I've misread both him and Herremann, _that_ is Mouseferatu's entire point in this thread. In the majority, people like to _be effective all the time._ People who often prefer waiting to be effective are a minority, and people who prefer _needing _to wait to actualize their full potential are in such small number that they aren't really worth marketing to.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Well, as I said above, I've played rogues who were inclined to spend rounds in positioning themselves, and I've seen fighters do the same, so I wouldn't say the melee types are "forced" to do anything.




But that IS doing something in combat- you're trying to gain a positional advantage that should contribute to success in combat.  That's sound combat strategy.

And that's conceptually no different than holding an action: holding a reserve, be it large scale like an army or small scale in a party; be it a warrior guarding the rear or a wizard holding off on casting- is all sound strategy that contributes to the success of the party as a whole.  No good commander commits his entire force to a fight until he has no option.



> Of course, I'd also suggest that even if true, being forced to do something every round is still not nearly as limiting, or unattractive to most people, as being forced to do nothing in some rounds.




And now I'm confused- in what way has anyone suggested that someone is being_ forced_ to do nothing?

The nearest I can see is that I've suggested that _choosing_ to do nothing is sometimes the superior option.

Its akin to Feat selection.  Some feats are objectively better or worse than others, but AFAIK, nobody is forced to choose them.  (I've often chosen "suboptimal" feats because it was appropriate to the PC in question.)

But IMHO, the inclusion of "suboptimal" feats in 3.X was part of the charm.


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## pawsplay (Oct 27, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> I never saw Wizards or other spellcasters stand around and do nothing in 3E to the degree they did so in 1E/2E and was described earlier in this thread. Even at 1st level, a 3E Wizard could have three level 1 spells without breaking a sweat. By level 3, a Wizard could have 7 spells to cast in 3E.




I really would not expect to see a 1st level wizard blow all three spells in one combat.



> I don't see the previous editions Wizard as being an issue. Its specifically the 3E Wizard that was the problem. I played 2E for years, and have no beef with the 2E Wizard.




The 2e wizard was so similar to the 3e wizard as to be virtually indistinguishable, from their spell list to their gear. You could probably take an AD&D wizard, recalculate their AC, BAB, and saves, and drop them into a 3e game converting everything else on the fly.  I just do not agree that changes in 3e completely changed their playstyle. Daily spells in 3e were still limited. Wizards in 2e were capable of keeping their distance and casting relatively fast spells without interruption. Wizards in AD&D could largely pick their main spells, and wizards in Basic D&D could learn every wizard spell in the game. You can argue all you like, but you have this: A guy, in robes, possibly wearing bracers, with a dagger or staff, who casts some spells throughout a combat but not every round. 

While I can certainly imagine you feel the 3e is too much changed, I do not think a sizeable percentage of people who reviewed both classes in the book as well as in play would agree they were very different or the 3e version was completely over the top because all of its weaknesses had been removed.


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And that's conceptually no different than holding an action: holding a reserve, be it large scale like an army or small scale in a party; be it a warrior guarding the rear or a wizard holding off on casting- is all sound strategy that contributes to the success of the party as a whole.  No good commander commits his entire force to a fight until he has no option.




Right, but the difference is, I _chose_ to do that. Had I _wanted_ to just make constant attacks every round, I _could_ have. What I'm discussing is _choice_.



> And now I'm confused- in what way has anyone suggested that someone is being_ forced_ to do nothing?




In a system where a wizard has only a tiny number of very powerful spells, he's effectively "forced" to do nothing--or at least nothing meaningful--part of the time. In your case, you talk about a player who prefers to dole out his spells carefully, only a couple per combat. While that's his choice in one respect, in the other it's something forced on him--because he _wasn't_ that careful, he'd wind up without any spells at all in a later combat.

Like I keep saying, there's nothing wrong with that playstyle. But a version of class X that lets people _choose_ whether to go with that style, or go with something more active, is by definition going to have wider appeal than a version of class X than only supports one.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Inyssius said:


> I can't speak for that specific paragraph, but unless I've misread both him and Herremann, _that_ is Mouseferatu's entire point in this thread. In the majority, people like to _be effective all the time._ People who often prefer waiting to be effective are a minority, and people who prefer _needing _to wait to actualize their full potential are in such small number that they aren't really worth marketing to.




And my assertion is that Mouseferatu's definition of "effective" is a bit narrow.

My buddy's Wizard play is sound, not just from a gameplay standpoint, but also from a RW military standpoint.  He has a certain amount of power that he brings to the conflict, commits a certain amount and holds a certain amount in reserve...just in case he's misread the situation and hasn't accounted for all of the opponents he's got to face.

Sometimes, "being effective" means being patient.

They aren't "waiting to be effective"- they are *being effective by waiting.*

Look at the history of RW conflict, and you'll find that many conflicts were lost because one side or the other over-committed to action and had nothing left in reserve when the tide of battle changed.


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And my assertion is that Mouseferatu's definition of "effective" is a bit narrow.




Fair enough. Mine is that your definition isn't shared by the majority of players, and doesn't take into account that we're playing a game. 

IME, the average player wants to have a _tangible_ effect. He wants to be _doing something_. The fact that his mere presence may be a benefit to a military tactician doesn't change the fact that, during several rounds of combat--many minutes of real time and many die-rolls--he's not _doing anything_.

Again, yes, there will be those happy with playing that way, but I don't believe the majority would be.

(This leaving aside the question of whether the wizard is actually "being effective by waiting," which I think is pure semantics and not actually accurate, but honestly, I have no interest in delving into it.)


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Right, but the difference is, I _chose_ to do that. Had I _wanted_ to just make constant attacks every round, I _could_ have. What I'm discussing is _choice_.




As am I.



> In a system where a wizard has only a tiny number of very powerful spells, he's effectively "forced" to do nothing--or at least nothing meaningful--part of the time. In your case, you talk about a player who prefers to dole out his spells carefully, only a couple per combat. While that's his choice in one respect, in the other it's something forced on him--because he _wasn't_ that careful, he'd wind up without any spells at all in a later combat.




Its called resource management, and its a part of any conflict.  The archer with 20 arrows makes the same kind of decisions.

Its just magnified in D&D because the foe around the corner may just be a Pit Fiend.

Which, BTW, is why he also makes sure his PC upgrades his weapons from time to time, just like the warriors and rogues.  No 6th level spells?  No problem- eat bolts from his Brilliant Energy Crossbow!



> Like I keep saying, there's nothing wrong with that playstyle. But a version of class X that lets people _choose_ whether to go with that style, or go with something more active, is by definition going to have wider appeal than a version of class X than only supports one.




As I read 4Ed- indeed, as I believe you yourself posted earlier in this thread- this kind of resource management has not disappeared, its just shifted to a different mechanical part of the game.  The difference is that instead of it being a caster's top couple of levels of spells (3.X), its whether the party has any of their Daily powers and Healing surges left.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> (This leaving aside the question of whether the wizard is actually "being effective by waiting," which I think is pure semantics and not actually accurate, but honestly, I have no interest in delving into it.)




Feel free not to delve- but I'll say this anyway: our parties tend to go 5+ combats between rests, and my buddy's Wizard will usually still have spells to burn at the end of that stretch.

Which means that even as the party is resting, he is not defenseless.

Which means that if we are attacked while resting, we have a decent chance of fending off the attack.

I'd call that effective.

(And just to be 100% clear- I'm not trying to harangue Mouseferatu or anyone else...I'm just...I guess I'm railing against an assertion that I've seen many times in the past few years that simply doesn't in any way resemble my decades in D&D.  So don't take any of my posts personally, anyone.  If my posts seem to have an edge, chalk it up to the evils of my being a lawyer. )


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Its called resource management, and its a part of any conflict.  The archer with 20 arrows makes the same kind of decisions.




We're back to dueling anecdotes, then, because in all my years of gaming, through every edition, I think I only ever met _one_ DM who actually made the PCs count ammunition.



> Which, BTW, is why he also makes sure his PC upgrades his weapons from time to time, just like the warriors and rogues.  No 6th level spells?  No problem- eat bolts from his Brilliant Energy Crossbow!




Of course, he wasn't going to _hit_ that often with it... 



> As I read 4Ed- indeed, as I believe you yourself posted earlier in this thread- this kind of resource management has not disappeared, its just shifted to a different mechanical part of the game.




Well, yeah. I'm not arguing for the elimination of resource management.



> Feel free not to delve- but I'll say this anyway: our parties tend to go 5+ combats between rests, and my buddy's Wizard will usually still have spells to burn at the end of that stretch.




Fair enough. Now consider two aspects of the reverse.

How many other resources did the party burn--ammunition (if you're counting that), healing spells, hit points, disposable magic items or charges, or other types of damage like ability drain--because your buddy didn't hurl some of those spells earlier?

And in how many rounds of combat did he accomplish nothing of note, _other_ to save those spells for later--when they arguably didn't do him any good?

I think that's a definition of "effective" that could be argued. On the one hand, it's always nice to have a reserve. On the other, any spell wizards in prior editions had left at the end of the day was something they _could_ have accomplished in combat, and didn't.

This is a game that needs to appeal to a wide base of players. Some people enjoy the resource management more than other stuff, sure. But I'm willing to all but guarantee you that your _average player_, standing around for several rounds and not casting spells just so he might have something to fall back on later, is going to feel like he's not getting to play his wizard to full effectiveness.

So again, I say a class build that lets you _choose_ is better than one than _forces_ a level of caution or hoarding of resources so intense that you wind up doing nothing--or resorting to your crossbow --for a significant portion of combat.

As far as resource management... The difference is that, using healing surges and daily powers, you're still at high effectiveness until you're completely out. Dailies are cool, but you can forge ahead without them. Healing surges are vital, but you don't fight more poorly without them.

In prior editions, a wizard's resource management also mandated his ability to _do anything_. If he's out of expendable resources, he's out of _spells_. He's reduced to an archer with a crappy BAB. 

As I said, I'm not arguing for the removal of resource management. I'm just suggesting that a system where running _low_ isn't the same as being almost helpless might be reasonably said to have a broader appeal, and contribute to people feeling more effective/productive more of the time.


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

And just in case I haven't said it enough already... 

I'd be tickled pink if WotC began publishing optional systems that added some of this back in, for those who want it. I'd love to see rules for spell-casters built differently, where they have more powerful spells but limited access to them. I think it's difficult--borderline impossible--to balance with the existing system, and there's no way around some of the "swing" problems I mentioned. But for groups who know that going in, sure, give them the toys they want to play with.

But to do that, you need the firmly balanced baseline from which to work. And for _that_, you need classes that have roughly the same resources, and roughly the same economy of actions, and roughly the same opportunities to go "nova."


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 27, 2009)

I'll also admit that, even understanding all the arguments, part of me still misses old-edition wizards. I got a kick out of trying to figure out if I could use the spells I'd prepared that day in a given situation, and trying to figure out how best to do so. And yes, I enjoyed occasionally going nova and shoving magic down the villain's throat. 

None of that changes the fact that I absolutely understand why the changes that were made, were made. I said when I first came into the thread that I don't know if might've been a better option. Maybe, maybe not. But I understand why _something_ was necessary. And most of the time, I'm quite content playing the new version of the wizard.

Just, for the occasional times I'm not--and assuming the rest of my group agreed--I'd love those aforementioned optional rules for my own use, not just to pacify you guys.


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## Marshall (Oct 27, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> I just want to point out that according to 4e players on ENworld who bother to participate in votes, the Wizard is the third most popular class (out of all 16 or however many there are in the PHB1 + PHB2 + FRPG + EPG), despite this nerf.




No. Its the third least unpopular class. IIRC, the results were markedly different when asked "Whats your favorite class?" and dropping the lowest vote getter in each round.


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## Jack99 (Oct 27, 2009)

Marshall said:


> No. Its the third least unpopular class. IIRC, the results were markedly different when asked "Whats your favorite class?" and dropping the lowest vote getter in each round.




Yeah, I realized the first time someone mentioned it that you just didn't understand that it effectively amounts to the same. Which is that despite the wizard having undergone a massive nerf, a lot of people do not hate it more than everything else.


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## Jack99 (Oct 27, 2009)

Oldtimer Fallacy: Just because you couldn't manage to break the wizard doesn't mean he wasn't broken already prior to 3e.


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## vagabundo (Oct 27, 2009)

The wizard changes in 4e are some of my favourite; the class truly became what it always should have been: magical.

If I do have a criticism they should have has some additional flexibility in the core options or allowed some of specialities as customisations. Not sure if arcane power made any difference in this regard.


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## Belphanior (Oct 27, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> And no; a low level 3e wizard is an apprentice, generally in awe of his betters - not a real wizard; not yet anyway. Real wizards kill you dead then take your stuff.




A 'No True Scotsman' fallacy? Really? I thought ENWorld was better than that...


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## FireLance (Oct 27, 2009)

I would say that the biggest thing that the wizard has lost in the transition from 3E to 4E is what I will call, for want of a better term, potential.

While the poster child for this change is probably the loss of the _wish_ spell, you can see aspects of this loss of potential in other areas as well:

*1. Save or Die*
In 4E, the wizard has lost the possibility, however remote, of ending a fight with a single spell. 

*2. Creative Solutions*
Spell effects are more tightly defined in 4E, which means that the scope for creating and/or discovering uses for them which the DM (and maybe even the designers) did not expect are reduced. 

*3. Learning Everything*
The 4E wizard's spellbook is more limited than in previous editions. There is no longer the possibility, (again) however remote, of learning every spell.

*4. Doing Anything*
All of the above, plus the (normally) relatively cheap "cost" of spending a spell slot to prepare and cast a spell combined to make it seem as if the wizard could do anything. This was reinforced by many classic spells with very flexible effects such as _polymorph self/other_, _phantasmal force_ and other illusion spells, and (of course) _wish_.

Mind you, while the wizard had all this theoretical potential, I doubt that many wizards in actual play ever achieved even a significant fraction of it. There were always limiting factors (which incidentally, also helped to balance the wizard with the other classes) such as: the availability of spells and other resource limitations, the need to prepare spells in advance, and simply not being high enough level to cast really powerful spells.

So, how you view the 4E wizard is thus very dependent on what you are looking at. If you are looking at how he performs in actual play, in comparison to the challenges he faces and in comparison to his other party members, there will not be very much of a difference between the 4E wizard and his predecessors. However, if you are looking at the 4E wizard's theoretical potential, then yes, he will appear to be quite limited.


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## Rashak Mani (Oct 27, 2009)

I'm one more who thinks Wizards were neutered and correctly so as far as game balance is concerned. 

I know most americans play in higher levels and so the Wizard tended to be overpowered. 3rd edition and prior it was understood that the Wizard sucked until around 8th lvl... and that the payoff was being much more powerful from 12th lvl onwards. Since we tend to play below 11th level more than over... the old Wizards were too frail. 4E neutered them in mid to higher... but made them more interesting and robust from 1st lvl onwards.

In 3.5E and before... the gaming group was like a carrier task force. The Wizard dished out much more damage/power and the rest were the cruiser/destroyer escort protecting the "Carrier/Wizard". Now wizards are just one more member of the group.... though a still versatile one.


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## vagabundo (Oct 27, 2009)

@ Firelance: That potential is still there in ritual magic, and it is something that is underused. I think WotC should have a few articles expanding Ritual magic and how it is used.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 27, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> Hello Ari,
> 
> But those are the two extremes as if that is all the wizard can do. Why not suit the risk with the reward: make your basic cantrips at will, your "normal" arsenal as per and the "big stuff" the ones that can be easily disrupted or that can incur other penalties? In this way, you can play a conservative wizard who sticks to the reliable or you can always risk the chocolates going for the prize and all shades in between. You're not forced to stick to the sidelines this way. However, if you want to try and save the day with something big, you can and benefit from or suffer the consequences. This middling approach seems classic risk-reward to me.
> 
> ...



Don't just suggest it - just do it! 
Thanks to "exception-based design", you can relatively easily implement this. Just create new daily powers that do the impossible - at a price.

One concept I am contemplating on are spells that gain more power if you sustain them or "charge them". After 4 rounds of charging, you can unleash Kyros' Overpowered Fireball for 4 times the usual damage of a Fireball. But since you needed those 4 rounds, you give your enemies the time to react.


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## FireLance (Oct 27, 2009)

vagabundo said:


> @ Firelance: That potential is still there in ritual magic, and it is something that is underused. I think WotC should have a few articles expanding Ritual magic and how it is used.



For me, at least, the big problem with rituals is that they usually cost money to use. What I think could have made rituals more popular would be if wizards were able to expend utility powers to use at least certain rituals, e.g instead of paying the component cost of the _comprehend languages_ ritual, the wizard could expend a daily utility power of 2nd or higher level instead.


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## vagabundo (Oct 27, 2009)

FireLance said:


> For me, at least, the big problem with rituals is that they usually cost money to use. What I think could have made rituals more popular would be if wizards were able to expend utility powers to use at least certain rituals, e.g instead of paying the component cost of the _comprehend languages_ ritual, the wizard could expend a daily utility power of 2nd or higher level instead.




It is certainly doable. I think they could be the gateway to more non-combat magic, and they are available to all classes - with a little buy in - wizards obviously have a leg up on everyone else.

I would love a series of articles on DDI expanding the role of rituals in a campaign and not just giving more rituals. One of the wizard epic destinies allows free use of rituals; more of that please.


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## AllisterH (Oct 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> The 2e wizard was so similar to the 3e wizard as to be virtually indistinguishable, from their spell list to their gear. You could probably take an AD&D wizard, recalculate their AC, BAB, and saves, and drop them into a 3e game converting everything else on the fly.  I just do not agree that changes in 3e completely changed their playstyle. Daily spells in 3e were still limited. Wizards in 2e were capable of keeping their distance and casting relatively fast spells without interruption. Wizards in AD&D could largely pick their main spells, and wizards in Basic D&D could learn every wizard spell in the game. You can argue all you like, but you have this: A guy, in robes, possibly wearing bracers, with a dagger or staff, who casts some spells throughout a combat but not every round.
> 
> While I can certainly imagine you feel the 3e is too much changed, I do not think a sizeable percentage of people who reviewed both classes in the book as well as in play would agree they were very different or the 3e version was completely over the top because all of its weaknesses had been removed.





You might be surprised. I personally think the 3e wizard was WAY more effective than the 2e wizard anyday and your assumptions don't actually hold true.

Take for example the spell list.

An AD&D non-specialist wizard only gained 1 spell every SPELL level (thus, 1 every other character level). Every other spell had to be either found or researched by the spellcaster. The 1e/2e wizard is NOT going to have the same number of spells as the equivalent levelled 3e wizard IMO and almost as importantly, what the 1e/2e wizard actually does have would be totally random compared to the best spells of that level which the 3e wizard would have.

Similarly, with the shall we say draconian method of item creation, the 1e/2e wizard has to depend on mostly finding magic items so even at 10th level, a wizard would have an AC that even a kobold could still hit on a 15+

There's anorher factor that made spells more effective in 3.x. The creation of the weak save.  A 20th level wizard targetting the weak save of a 20th level creature/enemy has a much higher chance of success than when he tried it at 1st level in 3e. This is in direct contrast with the 1e/2e wizard where a 20th level enemy can laugh in the face of magic since their saves scale upwards but spell effectiveness remains constant.


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## Byronic (Oct 27, 2009)

Your friend is right, the Arcane classes are now one of the weakest in the game when before they were some of the strongest (I'm not counting any of the Power books since I haven't read them fully).

You wouldn't be able to convince him... unless of course you showed him the epic destiny that specialises in Rituals. And even then it's iffy. they just aren't magical anymore.


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## avin (Oct 27, 2009)

3E casters were unbalanced. When my friends (usually the powergamers) QQ about how 4E Wizards became "weaklings" I remember them how many times people were reading comic books and talking about other stuff when they nuke every combat.

The solid complaining point, I think, it's their loss of that out of combat utility spells which long time casting Rituals don't replace properly.


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## Fanaelialae (Oct 27, 2009)

Byronic said:


> Your friend is right, the Arcane classes are now one of the weakest in the game when before they were some of the strongest (I'm not counting any of the Power books since I haven't read them fully).
> 
> You wouldn't be able to convince him... unless of course you showed him the epic destiny that specialises in Rituals. And even then it's iffy. they just aren't magical anymore.




Arcane is one of the weakest?  Orb of Imposition is one of the weakest?  The sorcerer, with his striker bonus to AoE damage, is one of the weakest?  Maybe it's just me, but I'm just not seeing the weakness of arcane...

I won't argue against the fact that casters were brought down from 3.x.  They definitely were.  IMO, they needed to be for the game to have any true sense of balance.  I don't see arcane as being a weak power source at all though.


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## billd91 (Oct 27, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> And you really don't see how that's a problem? Giving one class the chance to completely short-circuit the dramatic final encounter without the other players being able to contribute is not good design. It only works in a game where everyone agrees from the get-go to accept that as a possibility--which once again takes me back to the "optional rule" comment. It's fine for some groups, but it's not a good thing to build into the core system.




But why does the dramatic final encounter have to be everyone effectively ganging up on the opponents and beating them down... like every other fight you've had to that point? That's part of the charm of powerful magic - sometimes it's really effective, sometimes it's not, and it sometimes saves you from round after round of combat.


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## Fanaelialae (Oct 27, 2009)

billd91 said:


> But why does the dramatic final encounter have to be everyone effectively ganging up on the opponents and beating them down... like every other fight you've had to that point? That's part of the charm of powerful magic - sometimes it's really effective, sometimes it's not, and it sometimes saves you from round after round of combat.




Perhaps because if Aragorn, Frodo, Gimli, and Gandalf all sacrificed and struggled to reach Sauron's inner sanctum, it's really anti-climactic for Gandalf to strike the Dark Lord down with a single spell and a nat 1, before Sauron can even act.

_Everyone_ (presumably) worked hard to get to the dramatic encounter and _everyone_ ought to get a share of the fun and glory.  It's a team game after all.


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## billd91 (Oct 27, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> Perhaps because if Aragorn, Frodo, Gimli, and Gandalf all sacrificed and struggled to reach Sauron's inner sanctum, it's really anti-climactic for Gandalf to strike the Dark Lord down with a single spell and a nat 1, before Sauron can even act.
> 
> _Everyone_ (presumably) worked hard to get to the dramatic encounter and _everyone_ ought to get a share of the fun and glory.  It's a team game after all.




I'm not sure I'd find that anti-climactic. I'd be willing to bet the gaming group would be talking about that fight years later because the results really stand out. Can people say the same about all their knock-down, drag out, attrition-based fights against BBEGs?

It is a team game, sure. But what kind of team game is it? It used to be more like baseball. PCs did their job to advance the team, but did so in fairly different ways. A good DM would make sure everyone got their time at the plate - some classes were better at knocking it out of the park, but others consistently got on base. Now, it's a lot more like football without a passing game - everyone's participating at the snap but all plays are designed for short to moderate yard gains.


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## TerraDave (Oct 27, 2009)

A fast growing thread with a lot of posts, so I will summarize 

*Pre 3E play:* Varried masively across groups, with magic items, party size and composition, play style, and DM adjudication making, well, massive differences. 

*Pre 3E Wizards: *Were balanced by weak defenses and few spells (known and casting) at low levels, and monster immunities, magic resistance, and absolutist saving throws at higher levels. Basicly he evolved from the brittlest glass cannon to a much more robust charecter that frequantly ran into oponents that his big bad spells might not do much against. But also see my first point. 

*The 4E wizard at low levels:* Is just so much better then all past wizards it is not even funny. He is more everything and then some. Ok, some spells miss. But then he just casts it again and again. And he can live!

*4E wizard fire power and versatility:* Has this declined in a relative sense? You would hope so. Do wizards need rituals and their cantrips to retain their versatility-yes. Are things in supplements (illusion magic, summoning, familiars) that should have been core-yes. Does the sorcerer or druid seem better in some ways-yes. But wizards still have some of the best dailies and with the right player can feel quite potent. 

*Magical:* Wizards still got more then anyone else, and more then ever before. But my feeling this is more about perceptions and roleplaying then mechanics.


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## Obryn (Oct 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> The 2e wizard was so similar to the 3e wizard as to be virtually indistinguishable, from their spell list to their gear. You could probably take an AD&D wizard, recalculate their AC, BAB, and saves, and drop them into a 3e game converting everything else on the fly.  I just do not agree that changes in 3e completely changed their playstyle. Daily spells in 3e were still limited. Wizards in 2e were capable of keeping their distance and casting relatively fast spells without interruption. Wizards in AD&D could largely pick their main spells, and wizards in Basic D&D could learn every wizard spell in the game. You can argue all you like, but you have this: A guy, in robes, possibly wearing bracers, with a dagger or staff, who casts some spells throughout a combat but not every round.
> 
> While I can certainly imagine you feel the 3e is too much changed, I do not think a sizeable percentage of people who reviewed both classes in the book as well as in play would agree they were very different or the 3e version was completely over the top because all of its weaknesses had been removed.



My recent 2e experience is minimal, but I have a lot of recent 1e experience.  So I'll talk about that.

The 3e wizard and the 1e wizard have somewhat similar playstyles, but the 3e wizard has more power in just about every case.  Bonus spells for the 3e wizard are one of the biggest differences.  Larger spellbooks for 3e wizards are another, along with free choice of spells with no chance of failure to learn.

On a less mechanical note, the 3e wizard also has a much vaster library of spells available...  The 1e wizard is fairly limited, on the other hand.

There's spell disruption, too - it's a gigantic factor in 1e.  A 1e wizard casting a high-level spell needs to be very, very careful, because any hit will disrupt him.  A 3e wizard just needs the Concentration skill to cast defensively and will never risk disruption in practice.

Spell saves are very different, too - in 1e, they're based only on the class and level of the target.  In 3e, they're based on the (probably maxed + buffed) ability scores of the caster and the spell level.  And spell resistance in 3e is, IME, much, much weaker with feats like Spell Penetration picking up the slack.

Also, the 1e wizard couldn't use a crossbow.   Or wear any kind of armor, and risk spell failure chances.  OTOH, they could throw three darts every round, which I suppose is a perk!

-O


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## vagabundo (Oct 27, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> Perhaps because if Aragorn, Frodo, Gimli, and Gandalf all sacrificed and struggled to reach Sauron's inner sanctum, it's really anti-climactic for Gandalf to strike the Dark Lord down with a single spell and a nat 1, before Sauron can even act.
> 
> _Everyone_ (presumably) worked hard to get to the dramatic encounter and _everyone_ ought to get a share of the fun and glory.  It's a team game after all.




What version of Tolkien's work did you read????


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## Melkor (Oct 27, 2009)

Echohawk said:


> These two statements seem rather contradictory. Either your friend liked "olden days" wizards because of the high-level rewards for surviving the lower levels, or he's bitter because he never got to see those rewards. But not both, surely?




To clarify, he liked the fact that you had to struggle, and claw your way to higher levels, before you would get the 'payoff'. We never played a campaign past 11th or 12th level, so while he liked the concept, he never achieved that super 'payoff'.

So now, he's kind of bitter that he never obtained the payoff, and now we are considering switching to 4E, and with everything being 'balanced', and in his opinion, spellcasters being 'neutered', he thinks he won't ever see that payoff.

Like I said, I have never seen 4E past 3rd level, but I have a feeling that high-level spellcasters in the new edition are none too shabby when it comes to what they can do.


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## Mort (Oct 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As am I.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Speaking of resource management - One of the biggest changes to the Wizard between 1e/2e and 3x (and imo probably the biggest contributor to 3x wizards power) hasn't been mentioned. In a "standard" game 3x wizards have extraordinarily easy access to scrolls and wands compared to prior edditions(yes they cost money and xp but a very minor amount compared to the benefit gained). 

This means a 3x wizard rarely has to memorize knock, invisibility, protection from evil, tongues, teleport and a meriad of other useful spells. IME this is what took the wizard from a merely strong class to one that towered above non-casters (and to a lesser degree above spontaneous casters).

A 4e wizard has access to scrolls too - in the form of rituals, but the cost and  casting time is a significant balancing facter (If the rogue can pick the lock in under a minute whereas the wizard takes 10 minutes has to spend money, and looks ridiculously conspicuous for those 10 minutes, there is actually a benefit to letting the rogue do it).


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## nightwyrm (Oct 27, 2009)

Theroc said:


> This isn't directly on the D&D topic, but an offshoot of Danny's post, having played M:TG prior to playing D&D and then reading this.
> 
> It hadn't occurred to me until now, but that would have been an excellent concept, in my opinion. As much as I hate negative effects, adding some of the countering elements from Magic would be interesting. Heck, add spells to the game which simply dangled a sword above the Wizard's head. Such as a spell that places a curse on the target, causing them to suffer damage equal to the level of every spell cast for a certain length of time, causing the wizard to think about whether he WANTS to cast a spell.




Wow, one night of sleep and this thread grew by 2 pages.

Before 3e, a lot of spells had negative effects. Haste ages everyone by a year. Polymorph et al all requires system shock rolls. Heck, old school fireball and lightning bolt were dangerous to use in confined spaces. 

I think if WotC had learned anything from MtG is that a large number of players (expecially more casual players) _hates_ disruption. They hate not being able to play out their game and hate "not doing anything". You bring a heavy disruption deck (permission, land destruction, discard etc.) into in the casual room on MTGO and people will hate you. Those disruption decks were often beatable but they were not fun to play against. They take 20 turns to kill you but you aren't allowed to do anything in those 20 turns.

You can call those casual players scrubs or whatever. But WotC knows that those scrubs are the ones who pays their salary.


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## billd91 (Oct 27, 2009)

Obryn said:


> My recent 2e experience is minimal, but I have a lot of recent 1e experience.  So I'll talk about that.
> 
> The 3e wizard and the 1e wizard have somewhat similar playstyles, but the 3e wizard has more power in just about every case.  Bonus spells for the 3e wizard are one of the biggest differences.  Larger spellbooks for 3e wizards are another, along with free choice of spells with no chance of failure to learn.
> 
> ...




Some of these issues are, actually, pretty minor. Bonus spells, for example, are a fairly small speed-bump in the differences between 1e and 3e. Spell resistance isn't all that different from 1e (though it's pretty different from 2e with SR not affected by caster level at all). And I rarely saw a wizard player unable to obtain most of the spells he wanted in 1e or 2e.

Disruptability is one of the biggest differences in the game as the rules are written, but then I've rarely seen a game in which the 1e spellcasting initiative rules were ever strictly used. I've seen bigger differences between 2e and 3e games over spellcasting interruption, largely because those initiative rules were a lot clearer and easier to use. The big issue I see is that of pre-emptive disruption. Injure the caster *before* his turn and he couldn't cast. Catching him mid-cast was unnecessary before - but made necessary in 3e. That makes catching him in the act much harder.

The difference in saving throws is an interesting one, and a positive one for the most part in the base design. Any problems I've seen with them are more associated with point-buy build mentalities rather than rolling and with magic item creation making it too easy (and too dominant a strategy) to bump wizard offenses over non-wizard defenses.


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## nightwyrm (Oct 27, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> Perhaps because if Aragorn, Frodo, Gimli, and Gandalf all sacrificed and struggled to reach Sauron's inner sanctum, it's really anti-climactic for Gandalf to strike the Dark Lord down with a single spell and a nat 1, before Sauron can even act.
> 
> _Everyone_ (presumably) worked hard to get to the dramatic encounter and _everyone_ ought to get a share of the fun and glory. It's a team game after all.




Blah, Gandalf should've just mass teleported everyone into Mount Doom.


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## Fanaelialae (Oct 27, 2009)

vagabundo said:


> What version of Tolkien's work did you read????




It's a reimagining of what the end of LoTR might have been like if it had been based on 3.x (though I suppose I did forget to include a cleric- Elrond?).  After that Gandalf teleports over to Mt Doom and they drop the Ring in, (Frodo kills Gollum with an sneak attack of opportunity when Gollum lunges for the Ring).  Many parties ignore the Razing of the Shire because the CR is too low to offer the heroes xp.


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## nightwyrm (Oct 27, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> It's a reimagining of what the end of LoTR might have been like if it had been based on 3.x (though I suppose I did forget to include a cleric- Elrond?). After that Gandalf teleports over to Mt Doom and they drop the Ring in, (Frodo kills Gollum with an sneak attack of opportunity when Gollum lunges for the Ring). Many parties ignore the Razing of the Shire because the CR is too low to offer the heroes xp.




That sounds pretty awesome.


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## rjdafoe (Oct 27, 2009)

billd91 said:


> I'm not sure I'd find that anti-climactic. I'd be willing to bet the gaming group would be talking about that fight years later because the results really stand out. Can people say the same about all their knock-down, drag out, attrition-based fights against BBEGs?
> 
> It is a team game, sure. But what kind of team game is it? It used to be more like baseball. PCs did their job to advance the team, but did so in fairly different ways. A good DM would make sure everyone got their time at the plate - some classes were better at knocking it out of the park, but others consistently got on base. Now, it's a lot more like football without a passing game - everyone's participating at the snap but all plays are designed for short to moderate yard gains.




Then pick a Sorcerer.  Wizards have changed.  Wizards are generalists, the other arcane spellcasters are specialists and do other things better.

Wizards are not the do anything you want class anymore.  They are more focused in 4E.  They can do a bunch of stuff still, but if you want better damage, you need a arcane striker.


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## Obryn (Oct 27, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Some of these issues are, actually, pretty minor. Bonus spells, for example, are a fairly small speed-bump in the differences between 1e and 3e.



Really?  I kinda think it's defining.  In 3e, you can cast battle-defining spells much more often, and still have room left for a good, solid end-of-day nova.  In 1e, you were a lot more limited.



> Spell resistance isn't all that different from 1e (though it's pretty different from 2e with SR not affected by caster level at all). And I rarely saw a wizard player unable to obtain most of the spells he wanted in 1e or 2e.



My experience disagrees, as far as 1e goes.   Even with a rare 18 Intelligence, you'd miss 3 out of 20 spells.  With a more-realistic 16 or 17, you'd miss more.  Lots of folks didn't use these rules, mind you - but they're part of the system, so I think they have to be included in any discussion of it.



> Disruptability is one of the biggest differences in the game as the rules are written, but then I've rarely seen a game in which the 1e spellcasting initiative rules were ever strictly used.



OK.  I use them, and the folks I was talking with while planning my 1e game use them.  They actually work pretty well.  Yes, there are a few different ways to interpret them, but a core element is that spellcasting is slow and you need to cover yourself before doing it.



> The difference in saving throws is an interesting one, and a positive one for the most part in the base design. Any problems I've seen with them are more associated with point-buy build mentalities rather than rolling and with magic item creation making it too easy (and too dominant a strategy) to bump wizard offenses over non-wizard defenses.



I don't like the differences in saving throws for basically the same reason I don't like the differences in bonus spells.  For both clerics and wizards, it makes single-stat stacking absolutely insane.

Also, importantly, high-level 1e wizards facing high-level opponents could still easily have their spells saved against - opponent saves are usually fairly stable, and don't vary more than a few points from one another.

Not so in 3e, where a high-level presumably-buffed wizard only needs to target the appropriate defense to win.  Target the big brutes with Will or Reflex, and you seldom (if ever) miss.  It's like rock-paper-scissors where you already know what the other guy is throwing.

-O


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## Celebrim (Oct 27, 2009)

billd91 said:


> The difference in saving throws is an interesting one, and a positive one for the most part in the base design. Any problems I've seen with them are more associated with point-buy build mentalities rather than rolling and with magic item creation making it too easy (and too dominant a strategy) to bump wizard offenses over non-wizard defenses.




I think you are both missing where the saving throws change the most between 1st edition and 3rd edition.

In 1st edition, a 1st level character was not expected to make his saving throws.  A 1st level character asked to make a saving throw would probably die.  The odds of success were generally minimal, and often 16's or 17's were required.   But, by the time the character obtained 12th level (or 17th level), the situation had changed radically.  With a combination of magical defences and vastly improved saves, the high level character was expected to make most every saving throw, with characters often needing only 3's or 4's in every category to successfully save.

By way of contrast, in 3e, a 1st level character will probably make most or at least many of his saves versus level appropriate challenges.  Generally, with a DC of around 12 or 13 and a bonus on the save of +2 to +6, the character can expect to make his save most of the time.  Moreover, because of changes in the rules, most of the saves he faces at this level won't be the 'save or die' sort that a 1st level 1e character would face against a venomous spider or yellow mold.  But, by the time the character obtains 12th level or 20th level, this situation has changed radically.  Despite magical defences and somewhat impoved saves, the increased DC of 'level appropriate challenges' vastly outstrips the ability of the character to keep up.  It's not at all unusual to see DC's of saves in the high 20's or even low 30's versus high level challenges, which means that the high level character - at least in the case of his 'poor saves' must be utterly optimized in his defenses and even then may face needing to roll a 16 or 17 to save.  And, not only that, but he finds himself now facing true 'save or die' threats.  

The result is that just as high level wizards are getting the ability to produce save or die threats, the targets of these threats are losing the ability to defend against them.  Between increasing ability scores and increasing spell level and other bonuses (and rapidly inflating HD in the case of monsters), the ability to increase DC outstrips the ability to increase your saving throw bonuses.  What this results in is something rarely seen in 1e.  In 1e, faced with having to blow through spell resistance and a strong saving throw, wizards rarely relied on 'save or die' as their primary attack.  Instead, they relied on damage dealing evocations that weren't capped by level and still did half damage on a save.  But in 3rd edition, with capped damage dealing evocations, much higher hit point totals in monsters, and much easier 'save or die' attacks, high level 3e very quickly became a matter not merely of 'who loses their saving throw first', but of having in place before hand the right absolute defences (mindblack, freedom of action, death ward, hero's feast etc.)  Since non-mages didn't have access to these absolute defences, they were generally helpless without mage support.

This was absolutely degenerate, especially if you allowed access to the full range of degeneracy available in the form of unbalancing PrCs and ill-thought out feats.


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## Garthanos (Oct 27, 2009)

Melkor said:


> To clarify, he liked the fact that you had to struggle, and claw your way to higher levels, before you would get the 'payoff'. We never played a campaign past 11th or 12th level, so while he liked the concept, he never achieved that super 'payoff'.
> 
> So now, he's kind of bitter that he never obtained the payoff, and now we are considering switching to 4E, and with everything being 'balanced', and in his opinion, spellcasters being 'neutered', he thinks he won't ever see that payoff.
> 
> Like I said, I have never seen 4E past 3rd level, but I have a feeling that high-level spellcasters in the new edition are none too shabby when it comes to what they can do.




His character in 4e would be able to be much more of a wizard starting out.. there is advancement and versatility yeah rituals are cool ... but no cataclismic advancement or realizing you now outshine everyone when you where outshined before (so no boom payload)... your abilities in combat are kind of distinct to you and mowing down minions is the specialty of Wizards...  (if you only use phb you are the only one who specializes in this) there is no longer a need to make up for sucking for a long time... some of the games ummm broken builds are indeed wizard  and the sorceror is a real damage dishing and movement machine(easier to play and feels powerful right away)... heck warlocks have some really cool style and have that "I am harder to play feel" but if I do it right I can be effective going down. Arcane power has some really nice stuff for arcanists (like a feat to make their spells areas of effect bigger and this makes them feel more wizardly for me). As a DM I love minions they are designed to make everyone feel cool but especially the Wizard!!! so using plenty of them can make the Wizard feel like a real go to dude. (there are certain tweaks that I find make minions more interesting... but even out of the box they are very nice for just this purpose).

You probably wont be able to convince him of anything... but I played AD&D wizards (a lot at low levels) and for me.. being able to play even low level wizards (but especially when you hit paragon level) in 4e is a real payoff in itself... though I DM most of the time... grr.


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## the Jester (Oct 27, 2009)

I've seen the wizard in my campaign grow from 1st to 17th level- and the second wizard in the party, who joined at prolly around 6th level, grow to 16th level. So I have seen a lot of wizarding. 

In my experience, wizards are bad ass. They don't do as much damage with a typical attack as a lot of other classes might, but they often do that damage to multiple enemies. Not to mention the conditions they impose. 

I use a lot of varied encounters- some with minions, some without; some solos; a lot of custom creatures; mixes of creatures above and below the party's level; etc. The wizards usually not only hold their own, they often play a pivotal role in the combat. 

The issue of rituals seems to have been discussed almost ad nauseum here, so I won't dwell on that except to say, once the party started using them, they never stopped. The cleric may have started the party's love of rituals, but both wizards have gotten in on it in spades.


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## Fanaelialae (Oct 27, 2009)

billd91 said:


> I'm not sure I'd find that anti-climactic. I'd be willing to bet the gaming group would be talking about that fight years later because the results really stand out. Can people say the same about all their knock-down, drag out, attrition-based fights against BBEGs?




At least for my groups, the fights that we still talk about are the knock-down, drag out fights where we managed to snatch victory from the jaws of death.  The insta-kill battles do get remembered, but only for their lameness.



billd91 said:


> It is a team game, sure. But what kind of team game is it? It used to be more like baseball. PCs did their job to advance the team, but did so in fairly different ways. A good DM would make sure everyone got their time at the plate - some classes were better at knocking it out of the park, but others consistently got on base. Now, it's a lot more like football without a passing game - everyone's participating at the snap but all plays are designed for short to moderate yard gains.




I have to disagree.  It's more that a single spell can no longer relegate the other classes to "cleanup duty".

In 3.x, it was amazingly simple for the wizard to cast one "I win" spell that effectively ended any chance of the fight being a challenge, and then stand back and let everyone else mop up.  It wasn't even a high-level thing: Sleep, Color Spray, and Web were all examples of low-level spells that could easily render encounters a non-issue.  If it only takes one spell to win the fight, being limited to three casts a day isn't an issue until the fourth battle of the day (and that limit only applies to a level 1 specialist).

IMO, being automatically promoted to MVP based on having picked the "correct" class is not good design.


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## pawsplay (Oct 27, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> You might be surprised. I personally think the 3e wizard was WAY more effective than the 2e wizard anyday and your assumptions don't actually hold true.
> 
> Take for example the spell list.
> 
> An AD&D non-specialist wizard only gained 1 spell every SPELL level (thus, 1 every other character level). Every other spell had to be either found or researched by the spellcaster. The 1e/2e wizard is NOT going to have the same number of spells as the equivalent levelled 3e wizard IMO and almost as importantly, what the 1e/2e wizard actually does have would be totally random compared to the best spells of that level which the 3e wizard would have.




Would you say that a Basic D&D magic-user vastily overpowers an AD&D one? In the red box set, a M-U got one new spell each spell level, and never had to roll to learn a new spell. I will argue that it hardly matters. Although magic-users can learn spells this way, they will eventually uncover enough scrolls and the occasional spellbook that they will cover most of the bases. In 3e, a wizard is more likely to find a spellbook and already know most of the spells. In AD&D, even a wizard of meager intelligence has an even chance of learning a spell, which means in a few levels, barring bad luck, he can know any spell he encounters. If he does not encouter it, he can research it. 



> Similarly, with the shall we say draconian method of item creation, the 1e/2e wizard has to depend on mostly finding magic items so even at 10th level, a wizard would have an AC that even a kobold could still hit on a 15+




I'm pretty sure less than half of 3e wizards get into the item creation business themselves. Exception: scrolls and potions are relatively easy to make in AD&D, as in 3e.



> There's anorher factor that made spells more effective in 3.x. The creation of the weak save.  A 20th level wizard targetting the weak save of a 20th level creature/enemy has a much higher chance of success than when he tried it at 1st level in 3e. This is in direct contrast with the 1e/2e wizard where a 20th level enemy can laugh in the face of magic since their saves scale upwards but spell effectiveness remains constant.




That is a potential issue, sure. There are ways to mitigate this, but in any case it's not a game-changer. No wizard of any edition would be likely to throw a spell unlikely to work at all.


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## Obryn (Oct 27, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I think you are both missing where the saving throws change the most between 1st edition and 3rd edition.



I tried to touch on this, but I might not have been explicit enough. 

Yes, high-level foes save most of the time by design in 1e; the level of the wizard is irrelevant, barring spell resistance.  It's a major factor to counteract save-or-die (or save-or-suck) effects; they're still scary, but it's not a sure thing.

By contrast, in 3e, it's the wizard's characteristics which matter most for saving throws.  And because a creature's good and bad saving throws get so disparate at higher levels, it's a weak rock-paper-scissors game where you can basically tell what spells you should throw based on what you're facing.

1e wizards are awesome at taking out hordes of low-level creatures.  Besides the saves, just look at spells like cloudkill, sleep, color spray, etc.  Against higher-level foes, they need to get more creative.

-O


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## Obryn (Oct 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> That is a potential issue, sure. There are ways to mitigate this, but in any case it's not a game-changer. No wizard of any edition would be likely to throw a spell unlikely to work at all.



How isn't that a game-changer?  While wizards in any edition may not throw spells which will work, a 3e wizard has a lot more spells which will probably work.  It's the rock-paper-scissors game I alluded to above.

In 1e, a Wizard may not throw _any _spells which require saves against any high-level opponent.  Rather, he might wait for them to get softened up by the fighters, and then throw a Power Word at them.

In 3e, a Wizard just picks their "Zap against Reflex" spell against a cleric, or a "Zap your Fortitude" spell against a wizard, or a "Zap your Will" spell against a brute.  It's the weak save that's the issue - and a 3e wizard has both a limitless capacity to learn spells which target all defenses, and more spells prepared per day because of bonus spells.

-O


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## Ariosto (Oct 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> If I wanted to give wizards something to do every round, I'd let them use swords or inspire their allies or something. Not sit around zotting like a Gauntlet character.



 Brought a smile -- nice, rare reference to a video game I've actually played! It also neatly summarizes a key change.

It started, at least as I saw it, in 3e. Mages using crossbows?? Just a sign of the times, of how the game was putting more emphasis on combat. Come 4e, and the focus is so tightly on fighting it's a close-up.

See how it dominates the conversation here?

So, the new wizard -- indeed every character -- is made as able a combatant as the fighter. What necessarily follows? End of story! The spell-caster is _already_ doing what the fighter does, so letting it do other (more "magical") things as well would throw the balance off.


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## AllisterH (Oct 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> . Although magic-users can learn spells this way, they will eventually uncover enough scrolls and the occasional spellbook that they will cover most of the bases. In 3e, a wizard is more likely to find a spellbook and already know most of the spells. In AD&D, even a wizard of meager intelligence has an even chance of learning a spell, which means in a few levels, barring bad luck, he can know any spell he encounters. If he does not encouter it, he can research it.




There was an upper limit to how many spells a wizard could know of any level so if you rolled poorly, (a 14 for example only netted you 9 spells per level)  and that bad luck seemed to happen with regularity for wizards ("fireball spell, roll for scroll and spellbook saving throws)

I think you're underselling just how many spells a 3e wizard at any equivalent level would have. Not only would they have the bases covered, but a 3e wizard has the ENTIRE field covered. A pre 3e wizard didn't really select their spells, the DM decided what spells they got and if lady luck frowned on them, they could even lose all of that thanks to spellbook destruction.

Which is a huge game changer. Take the existence of the scry-buff-teleport schtick that came in 3.x.Not only is it common, but WOTC actually designed spells to counter such tactics. In previous editions, there's absolutely no certainity you would even know all the spells in that chain.




pawsplay said:


> I'm pretty sure less than half of 3e wizards get into the item creation business themselves. Exception: scrolls and potions are relatively easy to make in AD&D, as in 3e.




I don't consider the following easy.
Wizards needed to be name level to create scrolls, priests needed to be level 7

Seriously, contrast the effort and time to create a scroll of protection from poison in 2e with the scroll of neutralize poison in 3e.

It literally takes over 2 weeks to create the scroll in 2e...I'm not seeing how item creation in 2e is easy AT ALL Especially compared to 3e.


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## nightwyrm (Oct 27, 2009)

Item creation before 3e was _hard.  _The example of making a wand in the 2e DMG was an adventure in itself.


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## Celebrim (Oct 27, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Take the existence of the scry-buff-teleport schtick that came in 3.x.  Not only is it common, but WOTC actually designed spells to counter such tactics. In previous editions, there's absolutely no certainity you would even know all the spells in that chain.




And even if you did, you wouldn't have done it, because buff spells were both relatively ineffective compared to dropping a fireball or lightning bolt and relatively unnecessary because your comrades were already nasty combatants in and of themselves capable of ginsuing any monster in the manual.

Alot of 3rd edition's spell problems can be summed up as, "We knew what was broken in 1e (fireball, for example) so we carefully nerfed it, but we never understood why Gygax had nerfed spells like haste, polymorph other, etc so we took the limitations off the spells."   In fact, alot of 3rd editions balance problems come from trying to fix 1e's balance problems and overcompensating.  And yes cleric my old friend, I'm looking straight at you.

Sometimes it worked ok (evocation spells, lower level wizards, rogues, etc.) and sometimes it didn't (CoDzilla, essential buffs at high level, etc.).


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## UngeheuerLich (Oct 27, 2009)

I want to add to the very good analysis of Celebrim and Allister H that pre 3rd edition there were two other balancing factors:

1. Very low hp which are not as easily increased as in 3.x A solid blow from a fighter could outright kill him. Magical defenses like stoneskin needed expensive components to cast and didn´t last for a long time.

2. Spell preperation time: 10 min per level of spell. (So preparing 2 3rd level spells are one hour to prepare.) So a cast out high level spellcaster needs days of rest to replenish his spells and thus has an even harder time preserving his power in the course of an andventure.


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## Obryn (Oct 27, 2009)

UngeheuerLich said:


> 2. Spell preperation time: 10 min per level of spell. (So preparing 2 3rd level spells are one hour to prepare.) So a cast out high level spellcaster needs days of rest to replenish his spells and thus has an even harder time preserving his power in the course of an andventure.



On the flip side of the coin, however, 1e magic-users only needed to rest for ... I can't remember if it's 2 or 4 hours right now ... to prepare low-level spells.  So it kind of goes both ways.

-O


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## Henry (Oct 27, 2009)

UngeheuerLich said:


> 2. Spell preperation time: 10 min per level of spell. (So preparing 2 3rd level spells are one hour to prepare.) So a cast out high level spellcaster needs days of rest to replenish his spells and thus has an even harder time preserving his power in the course of an andventure.




it was 15 min. per level of spell in 1E: Someone worked out in a dragon mag letter that a 29th level magic-user would take 72 HOURS of straight prep time to replenish all his spells. Let's see someone want to wait three days for the wizard just to read War and Peace so that he's at his best.


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## Nifft (Oct 27, 2009)

Henry said:


> it was 15 min. per level of spell in 1E: Someone worked out in a dragon mag letter that a 29th level magic-user would take 72 HOURS of straight prep time to replenish all his spells.



 Therefore, *Lich*.

It doesn't sleep. It doesn't eat. It doesn't need to take a bathroom break. It doesn't have twelve children pulling at its ankle-bones (not for long anyway).

- - -

Clearly, this is why only madmen and monsters are high-level wizards. It's just too annoying for regular people who have any kind of a life.

Cheers, -- N


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## Saeviomagy (Oct 27, 2009)

Wizards have been neutered.

This is because previously they were spraying their seed everywhere, and it was making a mess of the game.


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## awesomeocalypse (Oct 28, 2009)

Wizards still have probably the most impressive daily spells of any class in the game. Their dailies often effect tons of enemies, often last a very long time if not the entire combat, and have some extremely powerful effects that can absolutely swing a fight if used properly/the dice are at all favorable. It is not at all rare in our sessions to see a well-deployed wizard daily turn a tough encounter into a cakewalk. On the other hand, they can be tricky to use without hurting teammates, and they tend to do a whole lot of rolling (IME about 3-5 attack rolls per daily, plus a lot of saves and stuff), which means players scramble for any buff they can get. The result is that wizard players are still pretty damn careful about resource management, and still get to do their "god of cosmic power" thing once in a while. 4e made some major changes, no doubt. But play a few levels of the new wizard and I think you'll come to appreciate the ways that the designers have tried to build him in a way that would recreate some of the feel of previous editions.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 28, 2009)

awesomeocalypse said:


> Wizards still have probably the most impressive daily spells of any class in the game. Their dailies often effect tons of enemies, often last a very long time if not the entire combat, and have some extremely powerful effects that can absolutely swing a fight if used properly/the dice are at all favorable. It is not at all rare in our sessions to see a well-deployed wizard daily turn a tough encounter into a cakewalk. On the other hand, they can be tricky to use without hurting teammates, and they tend to do a whole lot of rolling (IME about 3-5 attack rolls per daily, plus a lot of saves and stuff), which means players scramble for any buff they can get. The result is that wizard players are still pretty damn careful about resource management, and still get to do their "god of cosmic power" thing once in a while. 4e made some major changes, no doubt. But play a few levels of the new wizard and I think you'll come to appreciate the ways that the designers have tried to build him in a way that would recreate some of the feel of previous editions.




This can be seen at early levels with spells like Flaming Sphere, Grasp of the Grave and Visions of Avarice. Any of these timed right can destroy an encounter by themselves.


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## pawsplay (Oct 28, 2009)

Obryn said:


> In 3e, a Wizard just picks their "Zap against Reflex" spell against a cleric, or a "Zap your Fortitude" spell against a wizard, or a "Zap your Will" spell against a brute.  It's the weak save that's the issue - and a 3e wizard has both a limitless capacity to learn spells which target all defenses, and more spells prepared per day because of bonus spells.
> 
> -O




A wizard does not, however, have a limitless capacity to cover all saving throw bases. Further, SR is likely to be a limiting factor, especially at high levels. I have rarely had a main villain type who was extremely vulnerable to saving throws of any stripe.


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## Hussar (Oct 28, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> If that assumption were true, then our groups shouldn't be able to survive.  And yet they do.
> 
> Typically, our 3.X groups are built along the lines of earlier editions: There will probably be a rogue of some kind, there will be a healer, there will be an arcanist, and warriors of some kind outnumber any other archetype.
> 
> ...




May I ask, DannyA, how many players and NPC's do you typically have in your group?



> OTOH, if a party is built along the lines that Hussar suggested upthread, with 3 full-caster arcanists, a rogue, a warrior, and a cleric, that party will be killed if those arcanists don't do something each time they have the opportunity.  The inaction of the rogue, the warrior or the cleric for one combat won't matter much.




Whoops, I think there was a miscommunication there somewhere.  I said three FIGHTER types, a cleric, wizard and thief.  Not three wizard types.

That archetype, combined with much lower hit points, meant that wizards could sit back and not contribute to a given fight and it didn't matter all that much.

Heck, take a 2nd level 1e party vs an ogre.  The ogre has 4+1 HD, meaning it's got, on average 19 hit points.  It also does about 10 points of damage per round, if it hits, which, with a THAC0(yeah, I know 1e, but they still had THAC0 then) of about 16 (I'm running from memory here, so my numbers are probably a bit off.

The ogre probably won't even drop a 2nd level fighter in a given round.  It will likely need two rounds.  Meanwhile, the fighter types are doing d12 points of damage to it from their longswords.  Three attacks plus the cleric means that probably 2 hits per round.  Ogre dies in the second round most of the time and the party might get away without any damage if their lucky, or a cure light wounds amount of damage being fairly likely.  Note, the thief and the MU sat back and watched this fight.

Compare this to a 3.5e 2nd level party squaring off with the ogre.  Mr. Ogre now has 29 hit points on average (50% more) and does 2d8+7 points of damage (and has reach possibly giving it some extra attacks.  It's got a pretty decent chance of dropping the 2nd level fighter types and the cleric or the rogue had better be VERY careful.  Yeah, they will probably win, but there's a very, very good chance of outright PC death.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 28, 2009)

Hussar said:


> May I ask, DannyA, how many players and NPC's do you typically have in your group?




In the group that went through RttToEE?  1 DM, 7 regular players.  There were 2 guys who joined briefly, but only for a few sessions.

Almost no NPCs were included in the party- 1 ally (for 3 combats), mp hirelings, no mounts, no companions, and my PC lost his familiar in the 2nd session.  The single-classed Wizard didn't have a familiar, nor did the Rog/Sorc.  There were 2 draft horses that were frequent rally points (a la Richard the Sorcerer's battlecry here).

The party was 1 Wizard, 1 Diviner/Ftr/Rgr/Spellsword, 1 Ftr/Clc, 1 Rog/Sorc, 1 Monk, 1 Fighter, 1 Brb/Drd.  We finished at level 11.  No PC had more than 4 divine casting levels.  The Rogue had only 1 or 2 Sorc levels.  He was also the single PC who died, but was brought back by an NPC.


> Whoops, I think there was a miscommunication there somewhere.  I said three FIGHTER types, a cleric, wizard and thief.  Not three wizard types.




Perhaps I misunderstood this post:


Hussar said:


> In 1e, you were assumed to have 3 frontline fighter types.  Plus the cleric and you have 4 PC's that can form a nice wall for the wizard to hide behind.  Because the monsters were quite a bit smaller hit point wise and damage potential wise, the three fighter types could put a serious pounding on pretty much any threat.
> 
> The wizard was just icing on the cake.
> 
> ...




(bolded emphasis mine)

Are you saying there that if the Wizard isn't spellslinging every round then he goes from 3 warriors to 1?  Are you describing attrition?

If so, my bad!

However, it still doesn't match anything I've seen in gameplay.

Our parties do best when our spellcasters hoard their spells and only use them when absolutely necessary.  Typically, that means 1-3 spells in a given combat from arcanists plus 1-3 from the divine casters (depending on type)- they still tend to wait until afterwards to cast the heals.  The exceptions are usually when we have foes that aren't affected by the melee attacks of the front-liners or sometimes when we're facing a "boss."

But even "boss battles" don't necessarily draw out the "nova."  When the RttToEE party was facing an Aboleth & allies, one of the interim players was playing a single classed Druid (and 2 other players were absent).  He cast a Summon Nature's Ally into the Aboleth's water sphere- I believe it was a shark- and a Flaming Sphere, while the Wizard cast 3 mid-level spells directly on the Aboleth (who saved once- and the third spell was the kill-shot) and one spell at its minions.  The rest was handled by melee combat.  My Diviner and the various multiclassed divine casters cast no spells until after the combat.

The combat lasted 10+ rounds with only 6 total spells cast, one without effect.  The Aboleth wasn't killed until after the 7th or 8th round.  
The spellcasters didn't cast every round.  No PC died, despite our being shorthanded for the evening.

Would the combat have been shorter if the casters had gone nova?  Sure...but we would have had our butts handed to us about 20 minutes later in the combat that followed.

Which, for the record, was the 6th combat the party had gone through in that campaign day (IOW, between opportunities to rest & rememorize spells).

Also for the record: despite 6 combats in that "day," the Wizard finished the day with a Fireball still ready to go.


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## Hussar (Oct 28, 2009)

When I said 3 fighters to 1, I meant in 3e, when you go from 6 assumed PC's (1e) to 4 assumed PC's (3e) you lose two fighter types.  The assumption in 1e is 3 fighters, a cleric, MU and a thief.  The assumption in 3e is 1 fighter, a cleric, wizard and a rogue.

The loss of those two fighters HURTS.

I would also point out that your seven PC's five were casters.  That's a pretty far cry from the baseline assumptions of 3e D&D.  You've got a party that's almost twice the size of normal.  Of course that means that your wizard can pick and choose combats.  

I'm thinking that your expectations have been very strongly colored by your experiences.

Having two healers, and three casters means you have a gazillion spells per day.  Of course you can go longer.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 28, 2009)

1) We may have had a gazillion spells, but remember, 1 guy was a diviner with Disrupt Undead and Lesser Orb of Electricity as his sole damage dealing spells, the Rog/Sorc had spells that let him be a better rogue (IOW, no offensive spells), and no healer cast better than Cure Moderate Wounds...and not many at that.  In the eyes of a powergamer, that's not a lot of spellpower for a 10th level party.

What we had was a lot of fighter levels, meaning HP.  However, you'll note that since only one PC was a pure warrior, BABs were not tops, so sometimes, hitting was an issue.

(And for the record, I guarantee you that the Monk and my PC weren't dealing out huge piles of damage.  The Monk was a Gnome, and my PC was a 2WF build...with Whip and a Heavy Pick.)

2) As for the assumption of party structure, I agree that every edition has suggested/recommended that a typical party cover the 4 roles: Warrior, Rogue, Divine Caster, Arcane Caster.

However, I have never seen anywhere that the game's designers assumed that typical party size was 6 in earlier editions and 4 in the post-3Ed regime.

3) As for the actual size of our group, that was just our big group.  Our other groups- really, satellite subgroups of the main one- typically had 3-6 gamers (including the DM) and the same playstyle.  No difference.


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## Gort (Oct 28, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> For these players, 4e is entirely unsuited to their gaming goals because a wizard can do nothing that isn't fundamentally mundane.   Sure, they can do damage, attack something other than AC, apply conditions, move the target, and move themselves and some of this impressive and perhaps can't be explained easily in mundane terms, but every other class can do all the same things and sometimes these things can't easily be explained in mundane terms either.




Rituals, the things that any self-respecting wizard should have tons of, can do a lot of the cosmic power. Teleportation, raising of the dead (something wizards couldn't do before), and so on.

Wizards already get a leg-up as far as rituals are concerned by getting the feat for free. Do rituals not count or something because other classes can get them by spending feats? Or is it that they have a casting time greater than 6 seconds?

To be honest, this argument seems like a bunch of sour grapes that wizards can't just make any problem in the game vanish with three clicks of his fingers.


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## Gort (Oct 28, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I have rarely had a main villain type who was extremely vulnerable to saving throws of any stripe.




Well, of course not. Then the fight would last a single round because he would be an instant pile of dust. In order to make the encounter interesting, you basically have to remove a large amount of the wizard's arsenal of spells from the equation, either by nigh-unbeatable SR or by nigh-unbeatable saves.

I remember a lot of our 3e fights at high level were the fighters keeping the unstoppable beastie in place by engaging it in hand-to-hand while the casters lowered its saves with various spells (like enervate) until it would fail a save-or-die.

That kinda sucked. I much prefer the situation as it is now, where the wizard isn't a total liability at first level and then becomes a useful party member by about level 5, and from that point onwards disappears into the clouds as far as game balance is concerned. Clerics and druids were worse though, going from quite overpowered at level 1 to ridiculously overpowered later on. Animal companions, endless summoning, lots of blasting, the ability to *HEAL 150 POINTS OF DAMAGE IN A SINGLE ROUND* which made every villain without the ability to deal 150 points of damage in a single round completely powerless. Man, that spell was ridiculous. I'm not even going to talk about mass heal.


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## Obryn (Oct 28, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> A wizard does not, however, have a limitless capacity to cover all saving throw bases. Further, SR is likely to be a limiting factor, especially at high levels. I have rarely had a main villain type who was extremely vulnerable to saving throws of any stripe.



Why don't they have that limitless capacity?

At _worst_, a Wizard knows 4 spells of every level below their highest.  In most cases, they'll know a lot more.  So unless a DM is really strangling spell access for Wizards (and thereby removing their sole advantage over sorcerers), any competently-made Wizard will have plenty of options.

SR is a kludge, and has been since 1e.  It's a gamist invention (which I'm fine with, for the record!) to counteract the fact that most spells automatically work.  Basically, it does what 4e did and gives spells an attack roll against the target.  Even then, a good Wizard will have at least one of a few options...  (1) Assay Spell Resistance.  (2-???) Conjurations and the like which don't allow SR.

-O


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## Voadam (Oct 28, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Why don't they have that limitless capacity?
> 
> At _worst_, a Wizard knows 4 spells of every level below their highest.  In most cases, they'll know a lot more.  So unless a DM is really strangling spell access for Wizards (and thereby removing their sole advantage over sorcerers), any competently-made Wizard will have plenty of options.




1 knowing every spell does not equate to preparing every spell. Three defenses also equates to splitting your attack spell slots into three categories to cover the possibilities. Having the right high powered spell for the situation is powerful, but not guaranteed with a prep caster. For instance, in one game we knew we were going against a powerful undead killer and I prepared fort and reflex defense spells. Surprise! He turned out to be a templated fighter rogue assassin with great fort and ref saves.

2 The lower level the spell the less relevant. Having dozens of first and second level attack spells on scrolls does not mean much at high levels, it is the highest level spells that are most relevant. Lightning bolt and magic missile wands in our 17th level game were minor effects at best against high CR foes.


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## Voadam (Oct 28, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> However, I have never seen anywhere that the game's designers assumed that typical party size was 6 in earlier editions and 4 in the post-3Ed regime.




I thought 3e was pretty explicit about their assumption of a 4 person base party. CR is built around that assumption.

More than four sounds right for my memory of most earlier edition module suggested party number ranges. Usually something like for 5-7 characters of levels 5-7.


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## Votan (Oct 28, 2009)

Voadam said:


> The lower level the spell the less relevant. Having dozens of first and second level attack spells on scrolls does not mean much at high levels, it is the highest level spells that are most relevant. Lightning bolt and magic missile wands in our 17th level game were minor effects at best against high CR foes.




Yes and no; many lower level spells can still have useful effects and provide a basis for a high level caster to use in parallel with their pinnacle spells.

For example, Dimension Door, Ennervation, Polymorph, Greater Invisibility, and Disintegrate are all still highly viable spell options for a 17th level caster (despite having higher level spell options).  This means that a wizard is no longer hoarding spells for encounters just picking what cool effect to use this turn.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 28, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> Herremann the Wise said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ouch!
Within the context of playful banter back and forth with Thasmodius and thecasualoblivion, you missed the tongue in cheek hyperbole of this (cutting off the context bolded above when you quoted). Sorry this was lost in translation but seriously, sometimes we all need to lighten up a little and laugh at ourselves. If I was feeling snippy I'd throw your statement about EN World back at you but instead I'll let the reference and quote stand as they are.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Fanaelialae (Oct 28, 2009)

Votan said:


> Yes and no; many lower level spells can still have useful effects and provide a basis for a high level caster to use in parallel with their pinnacle spells.
> 
> For example, Dimension Door, Ennervation, Polymorph, Greater Invisibility, and Disintegrate are all still highly viable spell options for a 17th level caster (despite having higher level spell options).  This means that a wizard is no longer hoarding spells for encounters just picking what cool effect to use this turn.




In addition, Web (a 2nd level spell) can ruin a great deal of melee based enemies (without access to teleportation), regardless of whether they make their save or not.  It may grant cover, but even with an extremely good strength check it will still consume at least a full round of actions from anyone attempting to escape.  Enemies also often escape at a staggered rate, which makes picking a group off one by one child's play.  

All that regardless of the enemy's level, spell resistance, or saves.


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## Dr. NRG (Oct 29, 2009)

4E decreased variability between classes in several regards, presumably in the name of balance.  Of relevance here, it decreased the variability between the frequency with which different classes can use their abilities.  For example, a character of a given level in 4E can use the same number of dailies, encounters and at-wills as any other character, regardless of class.  Whether you're a fighter, a wizard, or (name a class), you have the same resource-management decisions to make.  Contrast this with any previous edition, where a fighter can make his most effective attack a limitless number or times, while a wizard can make his most effective attack a limited number of times.  The trade-off is that the fighter's best attack is (generally) less effective and/or flexible than a wizard's.  

4E has removed that variation.  It has homogenized the classes in that regard.  This change has several effects.  First, it limits the options available to players in regards to the kind of character they want to play.  A player can no longer choose to play a class that has very limited (but fairly effective) options -- there is no such class.  A player cannot choose to play a class that has a multitude of options that are less effective, but maintain flexibility -- there is no such class (see bard 3/3.5 as an example).  

Specifically to the OP, a wizard is no different than any other class in this regard.  It has been homogenized in the name of balance.  IMHO, this particular homogenization is part of what the OP's player is addressing.  Unless this player was somehow abusing the wizard class's abilities in previous editions, he undoubtedly sees 4E's treatment as an attempt to solve a problem that never existed for your group.  To expand, given the OP's facts, this player never played a high-level wizard, and thus never ran into the problems that are commonly cited.  Further, from what I understand, those problems occurred primarily among power-gamers or players who were just attention hogs.  I can honestly say that never once during extensive 2E and 3E play did I run into the problem(s) that 4E attempts to solve by radically altering wizards.  

Essentially, the authors of 4E have told the OP's player that he must change the kind of character he plays because other people may have abused it the way it was.  I can fully understand why that kind of mandated change might stick in his craw.  

My suggestion is that the OP's player play another class in 4E.  In essence, the problem is that he is going to be playing a different class with the same name as the old class (wizard).  Since he is going to be playing a new class, he might as well play one with a new name, thus helping to ease the cognitive dissonance.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 29, 2009)

Voadam said:


> I thought 3e was pretty explicit about their assumption of a 4 person base party. CR is built around that assumption.
> 
> More than four sounds right for my memory of most earlier edition module suggested party number ranges. Usually something like for 5-7 characters of levels 5-7.




Modules in older editions usually did make suggestions on party size & level, but if you look over- I walked over to my shelf and did a random grab of 1Ed/2Ed modules: 4-6, 5-7, 6-8, and no suggestion as to party size (just level).

But if you're homebrewing, there isn't anything as structured as the CR system built into the game that tells you how to tailor adventures.  Its mostly _feel._

However, while the CR system does assume "four fresh characters (full hit points, full spells, and equipment appropriate to their levels) (*MM, p7*)" it _does not tell you the class breakdown of those four PCs._


> *DMG p48*
> A monster's Challenge Rating (CR) tells you the level of the party for which that monster is a good challenge.  A monster of CR5 is an appropriate challenge for a group of four 5th level characters.  If the characters are of higher level than the monster, they get fewer XP because the monster should be easier to defeat.  Likewise, if the characters are of lower level than a monster's Challenge Rating, the PCs get a greater award.
> 
> Parties with five or more members can often take on monsters with higher CRs, and parties of three or fewer are challenged by monsters with lower CRs.  The game rules account for these facts by dividing the XP earned by the number of characters in the party.




IOW, while DMG's text on CR assumes 4 PCs- and the MM assumes that they may have spells (though linguistically, it may just be using that as a general stand-in for all non-gear resources of a normal party that level- spells, powers, special abilities)- it doesn't tell us the party is made up of a Warrior, Rogue, Divine Caster and Arcanist.  We just assume that this is the case.


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## pawsplay (Oct 29, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Why don't they have that limitless capacity?




Very few wizards of low or even mid-level can muster a credible spell of each saving throw, one damage dealing conjuration, and a credible spell of each energy type, and have slots let over to even double most of those areas. Hence, if you have one Fort spell, you get one shot... in which case a monster who can make that save 75% of the time is still a credible threat. Certainly, I've never felt the need to make main villains nigh-invulnerable, save in situatins where the PCs had the opportunity to plan in advance, such as the assault on the CR 25 dragon.


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## Hussar (Oct 29, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 1) /snip
> 
> 2) As for the assumption of party structure, I agree that every edition has suggested/recommended that a typical party cover the 4 roles: Warrior, Rogue, Divine Caster, Arcane Caster.
> 
> ...




I believe if you look inside those modules, you'll usually find a line that says something to the effect of "Recommended for 6-8 characters levels X to Y"  Particularly in 1e modules.

For example, and I just checked, in page 3 of my Isle of Dread module, you find the following line:



> The party of adventurers This module is designed for a party of 6-10 characters. Each character should be between the 3rd and 6th level of  experience when the adventure begins.




I'll have to dig out my 3e DMG, but, I'm pretty sure the line is there somewhere that the assumption is 4 PC's, 1 fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue (or variations thereof).

Something I would point out here too.  You're saying that you regularly had 6 encounters per day.  The standard assumption is 4.  That's not exactly breaking limits here.  If you had 13 encounters per day, that might be different, but, you're only having 2 extra encounters per day and there could be a great many reasons for that.


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## Votan (Oct 29, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Very few wizards of low or even mid-level can muster a credible spell of each saving throw, one damage dealing conjuration, and a credible spell of each energy type, and have slots let over to even double most of those areas. Hence, if you have one Fort spell, you get one shot... in which case a monster who can make that save 75% of the time is still a credible threat. Certainly, I've never felt the need to make main villains nigh-invulnerable, save in situatins where the PCs had the opportunity to plan in advance, such as the assault on the CR 25 dragon.




True. But 1E, 2E and 3E were all extremely vulnerable to a house rule that skipped memorization.  While I know it is not fair to compare game baalnce in the prescence of house rules, in 4 major groups on both coasts and the mid-west over 20 years I encountered this house ruling and it really improved the power curve of wizards.

To be fair, I've run the game and played he game with memorized spells and it's possible but I see why it was annoying.

4E basically incoporates this highly popular house rule in as a balanced option with a shorter list of known spells plus a few rituals.  Kind of the logical extension of the sorcerer.


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## pawsplay (Oct 29, 2009)

Votan said:


> True. But 1E, 2E and 3E were all extremely vulnerable to a house rule that skipped memorization.  While I know it is not fair to compare game baalnce in the prescence of house rules, in 4 major groups on both coasts and the mid-west over 20 years I encountered this house ruling and it really improved the power curve of wizards.




Anything is extremely vulnerable to a houserule. What you are talking about is insane. I played in such a 2e game and it was insane, and I never played in another such game before or since. You might as well complain fighters are overpowered because they are easily houseruled to d20s for hit dice and all good saves.


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## Votan (Oct 29, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Anything is extremely vulnerable to a houserule. What you are talking about is insane. I played in such a 2e game and it was insane, and I never played in another such game before or since. You might as well complain fighters are overpowered because they are easily houseruled to d20s for hit dice and all good saves.




It wasn't the ease of the house rule (anything can be house ruled) but rather the ubiquity.  If I had not seen it in truly independent pools of players 1000's of miles apart then I wouldn't have commented.  

But I wonder how much of the perceived loss of wizard power comes from this type of baseline?  

I agree that a 15th level wizard, in all 3 editions, was extremely scary.  But the power shift didn't seem to begin to happen until after 12 level if you adhered to memorization.


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## pawsplay (Oct 29, 2009)

Votan said:


> It wasn't the ease of the house rule (anything can be house ruled) but rather the ubiquity.




Ubiquity means present everywhere. It was not a ubiquitous house rule, just an obvious one, like "maximum hit points" or "any race can multiclass and there are no level limits" or "barbarians can use greatswords in one hand because they are so strong and mighty." 

While I can't speak for anyone else, I was comparing the 3e wizard, as written, to wizards of other editions, because I have never seen a 3e wizard in play that was allowed to cast all wizard spells, or even all the spells in his book freely. It's also worth noting that prior to 3e, there was no sorcerer, so this version of "spontaneous casting" might have served some people's purposes. But seriously, such a house rule has nothing to do with this discussion.


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## Obryn (Oct 29, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Very few wizards of low or even mid-level can muster a credible spell of each saving throw, one damage dealing conjuration, and a credible spell of each energy type, and have slots let over to even double most of those areas. Hence, if you have one Fort spell, you get one shot... in which case a monster who can make that save 75% of the time is still a credible threat. Certainly, I've never felt the need to make main villains nigh-invulnerable, save in situatins where the PCs had the opportunity to plan in advance, such as the assault on the CR 25 dragon.



Sure, the worst-case scenario may never happen.  But the simple fact is that a 3e wizard has a larger toolbox of spells available to them which target various saving throws than magic-users did in 1e/2e; a creature's saves are far more variable between "good" and "bad"; and higher-level 3e casters have an advantage over their 1e/2e counterparts in that the difficulty for higher-level foes to save versus their spells is vastly higher.

Also, I'm not really talking about low-level wizards here - though they, too, were boosted a bit in 3e, it's not as dramatic.  It's mostly mid- to high-level wizardry in question here.

-O


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## pawsplay (Oct 29, 2009)

In high level games, many opponents have enough HD that all their saves are boosted above the wizard's spell DCs. In both AD&D and 3e, many high level combats devolve to where only a 1 fails a save, or maybe 1 to 5 in some cases. It's very rare for a monster or NPC to have a completely soft save except through a combination of bad luck and poor planning.


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## Herremann the Wise (Oct 29, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> In high level games, many opponents have enough HD that all their saves are boosted above the wizard's spell DCs. In both AD&D and 3e, many high level combats devolve to where only a 1 fails a save, or maybe 1 to 5 in some cases. It's very rare for a monster or NPC to have a completely soft save except through a combination of bad luck and poor planning.



I'm not so sure about this. I'm running the Age of Worms where the PCs are all 16th level or above. I don't see the problem so much as the PCs affecting the bad guys, but more the bad guys affecting the PCs. The PCs will usually have a bad save that can be easily targeted, and some creatures have DCs so high that even a specialist saver will have trouble. This is where I see the disparity more so than the other way around with the PCs affecting the bad guys.

And in some ways, I don't think this is a bad thing. Some monsters are huge, or just incredibly dangerous and the DCs they enforce on the PCs are dire. Softening creatures up just so they are a "fair" combat challenge is not an ethos of play I like. A dragon's a dragon - and should be dangerous (to the point of if you don't want to die, don't go after the Dragon's hoard through force; use cunning instead if you dare). The idea that every creature should be able to be defeated through physical combat alone lessens the game for me.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Votan (Oct 29, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> In high level games, many opponents have enough HD that all their saves are boosted above the wizard's spell DCs. In both AD&D and 3e, many high level combats devolve to where only a 1 fails a save, or maybe 1 to 5 in some cases. It's very rare for a monster or NPC to have a completely soft save except through a combination of bad luck and poor planning.




I'm not sure "rare" is exactly correct depending on what we mean by "completely soft".  [I'm quite open to being corrected on this point]  

Imagine an elite array wizard (Int 15) at level 16 with a +2 from a tome and a +6 from a stat adder (much as I despite them).  It's reasonable that her Int will be: 15 + 4 (level) + 2 (tome) + 6 (headband of intellect) for a 27 INT.  

That gives her a +8 add to spells so her 6th level spells have a DC 24 to save (that being 2 levels below peak, let's not assume the perfect spell is available at 8th but rather that something useful is in the top 3 spell levels).  

From the SRD;

1) Titan (CR 21) Saves: Fort +26, Ref +13, Will +21

Needs a 2+ to save Fort, an 11+ to save reflex and a 3+ to save will (and is 5 levels above the wizard (ut is a good example if we shifted to a level 20 wizard)  

2) Nightcrawler (CR 18) Saves: Fort +12, Ref +10, Will +23

Might as well not bother with a will save based spell but that distintegrate needs the beastie to roll a 12+ to save and it's even worse with a delayed blast fireball.  

3) Marlith (CR 17) Saves: Fort +19, Ref +14, Will +14

Fort saves against a 6th level spell on a 5+, requires a 10+ to save versus a 6th level spell if it targets will or reflex.  

These are all critters in the same range as a high level wizard.  Even dragons tend to lag in reflex saves.  These weak saves aren't completely soft but the 13 point save gaps in the Nightcrawler or Titan are not unimportant.  

The Marilith is more balanced but save targeting can shift a "save or bad thing happens" from 20% chance (disintegrate) to 45% chance (Repulsion to keep those swords away).  Some creatures are very balanced (Balor) and I see that as a major advantage for these monsters.  

I also did not add spell focus and greater spell focus (the key spell might not be in the correct school) but these can also make the weak save of the Titan (for example) really show up (as in it has little hope of saving).  A DC 28 level 8 spell in a school with focus and a reflex save is saved on a 15+ for the Titan and 18+ for the Nightcrawler.  And a pearl of power (core item) can handle that agonizing 19 for the first save roll should it happen . . .  

Sometimes these things are subtle but I have a long experience with players just opening up with the (frequently prepared as it is often useful) disintegrate spell when undead appear after level 14 or so . . .  

I agree, ahead of time, that this maybe different in fully supplemented and homebrewed 3.5E where the DM is adapting the creatures to the (far tougher) late 3.5 character builds.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 29, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> In high level games, many opponents have enough HD that all their saves are boosted above the wizard's spell DCs. In both AD&D and 3e, many high level combats devolve to where only a 1 fails a save, or maybe 1 to 5 in some cases. It's very rare for a monster or NPC to have a completely soft save except through a combination of bad luck and poor planning.




See, there, your experience is different from mine.

3e got rid of 2e's save system and cut it down to only three saves.  That's cool.  But 3e also got rid of 2e's "Everyone progresses in all saves, just some a bit faster then others."  Instead, you have fighters, who essentially fail everything but fortitude saves, and wizards, who do the same but for will saves.

3e was much more friendly towards save-or-dies.

The other thing 3e did was jack up the health of just about everything, which only put *more* emphasis on save or dies.


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## nightwyrm (Oct 29, 2009)

We can also take a look at some of the iconic strongest monsters:

Asmodeus CR 27
Fort +27 Ref +23 Will +29

Graz'zt CR 22
Fort +27 Ref +24 Will +20

Demogorgon CR 23
Fort +29 Ref +23 Will +21

Great Wyrm Gold Dragon CR 27
Fort +33 Ref +22 Will +33

Consider that the minimum DC for a level 9 spell is 23 (10+spell lv+bonus from int 19).


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## Obryn (Oct 29, 2009)

Votan said:


> Imagine an elite array wizard (Int 15) at level 16 with a +2 from a tome and a +6 from a stat adder (much as I despite them).  It's reasonable that her Int will be: 15 + 4 (level) + 2 (tome) + 6 (headband of intellect) for a 27 INT.
> 
> That gives her a +8 add to spells so her 6th level spells have a DC 24 to save (that being 2 levels below peak, let's not assume the perfect spell is available at 8th but rather that something useful is in the top 3 spell levels).



Yep, and IME, few campaigns just used the elite array as-is.  Most Wizards started with a 16+ - and higher if you go outside the PHB.  Just looking at one  common non-PHB book, Sun Elves from the 3e FR setting have INT bonuses and no EL.  (Heck, if you're running FR, you might as well throw the utterly insane Spellcasting Prodigy feat in there, too.)

So we're looking at IME a minimum DC 25 against level 6 spells, and at least a 27 for level 8 spells.  And probably a point or two higher.  Like I said upthread, it's rock-paper-scissors; just pick the right defense against most creatures.

-O


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 30, 2009)

Even without auto-success, like on a monster with three high saves, a 33%-50% chance of defeating the boss outright is more powerful than anything else anyone can do. 

If it takes 2-3 tries, thats what it takes. Often it won't take that long.

This doesn't even consider Ray or Suck spells.


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## Voadam (Oct 30, 2009)

Votan said:


> I agree, ahead of time, that this maybe different in fully supplemented and homebrewed 3.5E where the DM is adapting the creatures to the (far tougher) late 3.5 character builds.




A couple techniques that have worked since 3.0.

Advance an undead 4 HD to go up 1 CR. Each weak save goes up at least +1. Advance say a Mohrg up to CR 16 and see how he does.

Use an undead template, perhaps a fighter vampire, and the disintegrate does not do so well against a strong fort save. True they are now weak on will saves but they are still immune to mind affecting spells.

For High CR monsters don't forget the outsider SR in addition to all good saves.


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## nightwyrm (Oct 30, 2009)

Voadam said:


> A couple techniques that have worked since 3.0.
> 
> Advance an undead 4 HD to go up 1 CR. Each weak save goes up at least +1. Advance say a Mohrg up to CR 16 and see how he does.
> 
> ...




Except that undeads have 0 con.  They have terrible fort saves and are disintegrate bait.


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## Votan (Oct 30, 2009)

Voadam said:


> A couple techniques that have worked since 3.0.
> 
> Advance an undead 4 HD to go up 1 CR. Each weak save goes up at least +1. Advance say a Mohrg up to CR 16 and see how he does.
> 
> ...




It is true that you can do a lot to customize monsters to avoid some of these issues.  But I was curious how the basic SRD creatures did and it is amazing how poorly they do.  

If we go beyond the PHB, there is a 4th level spell that is a swift action that gives +10 to penetrate spell resistance: Assay Spell Resistance (Sor/Wiz 4).  It lasts one round/level so you cast it once and your target is reduced in defenses for the rest of the combat.  

Our Marilith has a spell resistance of 25; after Assay Spell Resistance it is 15 and a 16th level caster will pierce it on a 2+.  Even the mighty Balor, at SR 28, needs only a 2+ from a 16th level caster using this spell.  

Even within the PHB, the wizard goes through on a 9+, less if she invested in spell penetration, greater spell penetration and a robe of the archmagi.  

The best a Mohrg can do is 28 HD by the SRD, with a weak Fort Save that is 
a +9 (no con bonus) and he needs a mircale to save.  If we did allow a 44 HD Mohrg (as CR 16 monster) it'd have a +15 Fort Save (needs an 11+ to save) and 286 hit points.  Save or die still looks awful tempting . . .


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 30, 2009)

One of the issues with SoD's is that, while they're a problem in the Core game, once you leave Core, it just gets _worst_.  Look at the aforementioned Assay Spell Resistance.

The issue with casters is that almost _every single book_ increased their power.  Druids were especially bad about this, because their power increased with both every new spell AND every new monster.  And while spellcasters got new ways of lowering enemy resistance and new spells to destroy them, the fundamental issue of saves was never addressed.  It's a gap that just got wider.


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## cattoy (Oct 30, 2009)

vagabundo said:


> It is certainly doable. I think they could be the gateway to more non-combat magic, and they are available to all classes - with a little buy in - wizards obviously have a leg up on everyone else.
> 
> I would love a series of articles on DDI expanding the role of rituals in a campaign and not just giving more rituals. One of the wizard epic destinies allows free use of rituals; more of that please.





Even so, wizards don't have a monopoly on ritual magic. So this helps little if at all.


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## Nifft (Oct 30, 2009)

I'll have you know, my Wizard just impregnated a Marilith.

"_A Staff as Long as a Man_", -- N


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## pawsplay (Oct 30, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Yep, and IME, few campaigns just used the elite array as-is.  Most Wizards started with a 16+ - and higher if you go outside the PHB.  Just looking at one  common non-PHB book, Sun Elves from the 3e FR setting have INT bonuses and no EL.  (Heck, if you're running FR, you might as well throw the utterly insane Spellcasting Prodigy feat in there, too.)
> 
> So we're looking at IME a minimum DC 25 against level 6 spells, and at least a 27 for level 8 spells.  And probably a point or two higher.  Like I said upthread, it's rock-paper-scissors; just pick the right defense against most creatures.
> 
> -O




At that level, a dragon is still going to make most of their saves. If you put four CR 12 dragons against four 16th level characters, you will get an "average" encounter. four CR 15 dragons will be a challenging encounter. An adult red dragon is CR 15. It has For +18, Ref +13, Will +17 and SR 21. Assuming they don't heroism on themselves or whatever, it can make DC 27 over half the time for Fort, about a fourth of the time for reflexes, and half the time for Will. A fourth of the time, any given spell will fail to beat their SR. If the four PCs open up with game-ending spells, generally two of them will be out of action after a round. At that point, the party can begin to explore what it's like grappling with a dragon or being breathed on. 

That's pretty formidable... especially considering we haven't permitted the dragons to select feats or cast spells.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 30, 2009)

Hussar said:


> I believe if you look inside those modules, you'll usually find a line that says something to the effect of "Recommended for 6-8 characters levels X to Y"  Particularly in 1e modules.




That's true, but it doesn't help you while you're shopping for adventures.  I checked the one I referenced- it was in the "Notes to the DM" section of the module.  FWIW, it was I4- which with I3 & I5 (the Deserts of Desolation series) were designed for 6-8 PCs.


> I'll have to dig out my 3e DMG, but, I'm pretty sure the line is there somewhere that the assumption is 4 PC's, 1 fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue (or variations thereof).




For clarity, my source was the 3.5 MM and DMG.



> Something I would point out here too.  You're saying that you regularly had 6 encounters per day.  The standard assumption is 4.  That's not exactly breaking limits here.




That's a 50% increase in encounters.  Going proportionately the opposite direction would mean 2 combats/day.

Whether that's actually a significant difference or not would require a statistical analysis that, frankly, probably will never be done.

However, my gut instinct tells me that while a 25% increase (here, +1 combat/day) might well be within foreseeable tolerances for the system, winning that additional combat (getting to 6/day) would be a severe stretch for most parties.

While it was not the norm for us to get to 6 combats/day, on those occasions when we got that far (or rarely, even further) between rests, we 1) usually won the encounter, and 2) rarely suffered any significant casualties*.

* Again, we had only 1 death in the entirety of RttToEE...several close calls, yes, but only 1 death.  In that group, we haven't experienced more than 2 deaths in any of the last 3 campaigns, and like I said, its the same playstyle over and over.


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## Obryn (Oct 30, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> At that level, a dragon is still going to make most of their saves. If you put four CR 12 dragons against four 16th level characters, you will get an "average" encounter. four CR 15 dragons will be a challenging encounter. An adult red dragon is CR 15. It has For +18, Ref +13, Will +17 and SR 21. Assuming they don't heroism on themselves or whatever, it can make DC 27 over half the time for Fort, about a fourth of the time for reflexes, and half the time for Will. A fourth of the time, any given spell will fail to beat their SR. If the four PCs open up with game-ending spells, generally two of them will be out of action after a round. At that point, the party can begin to explore what it's like grappling with a dragon or being breathed on.
> 
> That's pretty formidable... especially considering we haven't permitted the dragons to select feats or cast spells.



I think I'll let all the other posts speak to this and others with specific examples. 

A high-level foe succeeding vs. a save-or-die/save-or-suck half the time is nevertheless a considerable upgrade from pre-3e.

-O


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 30, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I think I'll let all the other posts speak to this and others with specific examples.
> 
> A high-level foe succeeding vs. a save-or-die/save-or-suck half the time is nevertheless a considerable upgrade from pre-3e.
> 
> -O




Its also one of the most powerful things you can do with your turn, which also wasn't really the case pre-3e.


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## Votan (Oct 30, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> At that level, a dragon is still going to make most of their saves. If you put four CR 12 dragons against four 16th level characters, you will get an "average" encounter. four CR 15 dragons will be a challenging encounter. An adult red dragon is CR 15. It has For +18, Ref +13, Will +17 and SR 21. Assuming they don't heroism on themselves or whatever, it can make DC 27 over half the time for Fort, about a fourth of the time for reflexes, and half the time for Will. A fourth of the time, any given spell will fail to beat their SR. If the four PCs open up with game-ending spells, generally two of them will be out of action after a round. At that point, the party can begin to explore what it's like grappling with a dragon or being breathed on.
> 
> That's pretty formidable... especially considering we haven't permitted the dragons to select feats or cast spells.




Dragons were picked to be tough for their CR in 3.5E and a CR+3 multi-opponent dragon encounter is about as nasty as it gets.  A party in such a situation will lose members if they do not use every resource.  

My only comment is who is doing the best in this scenario:

1) The Fighter trying to full attack with a bow?

Assume 27 Str, a strength +1 holy bow and an 18 dex with +5 arrows (possibly provided by the cleric using greater magic weapon). He does 1d8 + 5 (magic) + 8 (strength) +2d6 (holy) per arrow with attacks of +25/20/15/10 (hitting on a 4, a 9, a 14 and a 19).  That';s 1.9 hits per round (assume 2 so we don't worry about crits) for about 50 points per round.  He can drop a dragon in about 5 rounds (253 hit points, we'll round up).   

If there are range increments invovled then this is not good and he'll be soaking 14d10 breath weapons while sniping.

2) The cleric firing off a destruction spell as a readied action as the dragons close (likely DC around 27) with a 95% chance to hit AC 8, a 75% chance to beat SR (assuming no magic item or feat that helps) and a 40% chance to kill it outright.  If it saves it averages 35 damage which isn't bad.  That's hititng the tough save for a CR equivalent creature and is a reasonable spell for an 16th level cleric to have one or two copies of in core.  

3) We'll skip the rogue -- this type of encounter does not play to his strengths (flanking under these conditions is brutal).  

4) The wizard might have an ideal 8th level spell: maze looks promising if the party is lucky.  

Low level spells (that could be prepared) are also interesting: Resiliant sphere might actually take a dragon out until their allies are defeated.  Even at DC 24 (for a lower level spell) it has a 75% chance to break SR and a 50% chance to take a dragon out of the fight for 160 rounds.  It's close range but still better than what the fighter can do (range increment for a composite longbow is 110 feet), range for this spell is 65 feet.  

Notice that this is a 4th level spell targeting a weak save (the classic wizard trick).  

Hold Monster has a range of 260 feet, assume DC 25 so a 75% chance to break SR and a 35% chance to drop a dragon from a great height.

Now in core, with bonus feats, a wizard (having limited feat choices) is likely to have spell penetration.  No wizard will have all of these spells prepared .  . .  but they are likely to have some of them (the low level save or suck that targets reflex is an especially common choice) and all of them are better actions than the fighter's attacks at stopping a dragon.  

Or even compare to damage spells.  Hit all 4 dragons with horrid wilting (requires them to be grouped).  1 will resist.  2 will save for 28 hp of damage.  1 will fail and take 56 hit points of damage.  That's an 8th level spell gone -- whereas repulsion (save or suck) will keep half the dragons out of breth weapon range (a lower level spell with a much more effective outcome).


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## Mournblade94 (Oct 30, 2009)

Melkor said:


> So one of my best gaming buddies is a stubborn guy who I have been playing RPGs with for over two decades. I have a great time with him, and would feel like I was missing something if he wasn't involved in my gaming group.
> 
> He loves D&D, but is really skeptical about 4E, and says that his main sticking point (other than the fact that he feels it's too much like an MMORPG) is that Wizards and other spellcasters have been 'neutered' by the new system.
> 
> I'm just learning the 4E system, and have never seen a character over 3rd Level in play....How can I speak to this, and what arguments could I use to at least get him to give the system a look-see?




This is a common problem.  My gaming group stopped gaming since last thanksgving because half of us could not abide 4e.  We were a great group, played off of each other well, but I could not get my heart into running 4e because it did not give me the versatility I liked.  

Out of our group of 5, one does not table top anymore, gave it up and sticks to MMO's, 2 play 4e with another group, and myslef and one other play short campaigns of alternity or 3rd edition, but nothing epic like I used to run.  

So it is quite possible you won't play D&D together anymore, though there are other games.  The 2 that broke off to play 4e still want me to Run M&M so we can still game but we will not play D&D ever again since they do not like 3rd edition and I do not like 4e.  Maybe we'll be able to compromise with Dragon Age, who knows.

It is not necessarily stubborness though.  When my friends went for stints playing Blood Bowl I sat out.  I just did not want to invest time in games I tried and did not like.  

I don't know if 4e has changed with the PHB2 run as I have not looked at it.  MY friends tell me it has, but it will still be to far from the D&D I am used to.


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## Mournblade94 (Oct 30, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> The next effect is that it is pretty easy to feel useless when you are the one playing the Fighter and to have your fun ruined because of the "anything you can do, I can do better" effect of the Wizard.
> 
> From the DM side, it's also difficult to plan adventures around that kind of power.  Unless you absolutely don't care where your adventures head, you're always playing a balancing act of "carefully lead the PCs where you want them to go without letting them realize you are leading them."  That is easily destroyed when the PCs have hundreds of abilities at their disposal that you might not even expect.  I've seen a game destroyed and a DM get really annoyed simply by a well prepared 2e spellcaster.





After playing D&D for over 25 years with hundreds of people I have yet to meet anyone that felt they were not having fun because they were "only" a fighter.

If a DM has proper system mastery, the well prepared caster is never a problem.


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## Hussar (Oct 30, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That's true, but it doesn't help you while you're shopping for adventures.  I checked the one I referenced- it was in the "Notes to the DM" section of the module.  FWIW, it was I4- which with I3 & I5 (the Deserts of Desolation series) were designed for 6-8 PCs.




Heh.  The fine print gets ya every time.  



> For clarity, my source was the 3.5 MM and DMG.




In all honestly, I checked and I think you are totally right.  I'm not sure where I got the idea that the party was balanced that way.  Probably one of those things you read on forums and just assume is truth.  Learn something new every day.



> That's a 50% increase in encounters.  Going proportionately the opposite direction would mean 2 combats/day.
> 
> Whether that's actually a significant difference or not would require a statistical analysis that, frankly, probably will never be done.
> 
> ...




What would you attribute your lack of PC death to?  I'm totally not trying to be snarky here.  When I ran the World's Largest Dungeon (which is pretty similar to RttToEE) I was whacking a PC about every 3 sessions.  I had one player, by the end of 80 sessions of the campaign, on his SIXTH PC.  

How did you manage it?  Could it have been the DM?  Did your DM roll in the open (I know that increased my lethality considerably)?


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## Harlekin (Oct 30, 2009)

*You may have a non-standard play experience*



Dannyalcatraz said:


> In the group that went through RttToEE?  1 DM, 7 regular players.  There were 2 guys who joined briefly, but only for a few sessions.
> 
> Almost no NPCs were included in the party- 1 ally (for 3 combats), mp hirelings, no mounts, no companions, and my PC lost his familiar in the 2nd session.  The single-classed Wizard didn't have a familiar, nor did the Rog/Sorc.  There were 2 draft horses that were frequent rally points (a la Richard the Sorcerer's battlecry here).
> 
> The party was 1 Wizard, 1 Diviner/Ftr/Rgr/Spellsword, 1 Ftr/Clc, 1 Rog/Sorc, 1 Monk, 1 Fighter, 1 Brb/Drd.  We finished at level 11.  No PC had more than 4 divine casting levels.  The Rogue had only 1 or 2 Sorc levels.  He was also the single PC who died, but was brought back by an NPC.





Seven players is an APL of ~+2. Did you DM double the number of monsters in each encounter to make up for your large party size?

I think I figured out why your play experience is so different from that of some other players: It seems, most of your fights had a low EL for your APL/party size. In other words, you were making things challenging by having many encounters in a day, rather than doing a few encounters that have an EL of party level +3 or more (after adjusting for party size). 

While I think that your way of playing is the most fun way to play 3.5 (as long as you keep munchkins under control), this is not how most adventures were designed (Paizo is the worst culprit here). In the typical Paizo adventure, meaningful fights are EL=APL+3 and up. And IME, the PCs have a high chance of TPKing in these fights unless every character goes "all in".


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## Majoru Oakheart (Oct 30, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> After playing D&D for over 25 years with hundreds of people I have yet to meet anyone that felt they were not having fun because they were "only" a fighter.




I've met people who were annoyed that they were only a fighter.  Our experiences differ.  I've met a number of them.  Often, the people in question didn't speak up to let their opinions be known.  But we used to discuss the game in between sessions a lot.  We had no lives to speak of.

So, often the talk was about "I feel like I'm not useful to the party.  I'm just there to be the meat shield and hold off the enemy until the Wizard fireballs them all and kills them.  Then, I'm supposed to roleplay my low intelligence so that the Wizard who is roleplaying his high intelligence can figure out the answer to all the riddles and puzzles.  Then I have to roleplay my low charisma and be dumb and not very friendly...so I avoid talking to people in social situations.  Meanwhile, the Bard or the Cleric does all the talking.  What do I do that is useful and recognized better than everyone else other than have more hitpoints?"

The answer given was normally, "Well, we need a fighter.  Otherwise the rest of us would die.  So, you can't switch characters."



Mournblade94 said:


> If a DM has proper system mastery, the well prepared caster is never a problem.




As for "proper system mastery"....I have no idea what that is anymore.  One person's complete mastery is another's "Not yet ready to DM."

One of the examples I always use to demonstrate this was a time where the DM decided to create an ongoing villain for the group in a combination 1e/2e game we had.  It was a female Wizard.  We were supposed to meet this Wizard when she used Projected Image to create an image of herself while hiding in a well hidden secret chamber nearby.  The Wizard was supposed to threaten us, attack us with spells through the image and then teleport out if we lived.

What ACTUALLY happened was that the player who was playing OUR Wizard immediately guessed that it was a Projected Image.  The rest of the party ran up to her in order to attack.  He hung back.  The enemy created an illusion of falling rocks on us and most of us were pinned, believing the illusion.  He, on the other hand, looked for secret passages.

The DM got a really worried look on her face and said "Why?".  He said "Because the range on Projected Image is short.  She has to be around here somewhere.  Like in a secret room connected to this one."

She told him that he couldn't see any secret doors because this one was really hard to detect.  He cast some spells to detect secret door, I can't remember which one.  There was a brief argument over whether the spell could detect it.  The description of the spell was consulted.  He found the secret room, opened it and surprised the enemy who had no idea she would be found.  She then pointed a Rod of Disintegration at our Wizard, figuring she could finish him off and teach the player a lesson for being a little TOO crafty.  The Wizard said "I use my ring of telekinesis to grab the rod out of her hand."  The DM insisted he couldn't do that...the description of the ring was looked up...It was decided that it DID work that way...The player won initiative and then used the ring to grab the rod.  Then the DM said, "Fine, you get a rod.  But she's high enough level to just teleport away and nothing you can do will kill her in one round."  The player considered this and said "You're right.  Does the wand at least have the command word written on it?"  She said yes.  Then he used the rod to disintegrate the enemy.  He won initiative because the time to activate a Rod is much faster than casting a 5th level spell.

Then the DM complained that we needed to end the game there because she didn't have anything else planned out.  Her entire adventure hinged on that Wizard surviving.  And to add insult to injury, the player asked where the Wizard's spellbook was and the DM said "Not here, she left it elsewhere" and the player went on a tirade about how "No Wizard leaves their spellbook out of reach, besides, we had evidence that she'd been here for multiple days and she had been casting spells during that time.  She needed her spellbook to rememorize the spells."  Until the DM was forced to agree, that yes...the spellbook was in the room.  Which he then promptly picked up and due to the XP for GP rule from 1e gained 4 levels just by picking it up(he convinced the DM that each spell in the book should be assigned the GP value of a scroll of that spell, since they essentially WERE scrolls).

And that was a problem that a simple Ring of Telekinesis and a spell to detect secret doors caused.  One could say that the DM didn't have proper system mastery in that she didn't expect someone to figure out that the Wizard was hidden nearby, have a spell to detect secret doors, followed by the ability to disarm a powerful magic item and make plans accordingly.  But she had no real reason to think that those combination of things would happen.  Plus, she had enough system mastery to think of using a Projected Image instead of putting the enemy in the same room with us.


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## Herschel (Oct 30, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> What ACTUALLY happened was that the player who was playing OUR Wizard immediately guessed that it was a Projected Image. The rest of the party ran up to her in order to attack. He hung back. The enemy created an illusion of falling rocks on us and most of us were pinned, believing the illusion. He, on the other hand, looked for secret passages.
> 
> The DM got a really worried look on her face and said "Why?". He said "Because the range on Projected Image is short. She has to be around here somewhere. Like in a secret room connected to this one."
> 
> ...




But it could have been avoided by the DM simply placing a "lock" on the secret door at any time. When the Knock spell was cast, the Wizard teleports out. A 3 silver dead bolt could have saved the adventure. Safety first, kids.


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## Akaiku (Oct 30, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> gameplay excerpt




Ironically, that kind of thing is why all epic wizards are liches as well. Plus, well prepared wizard always wins. The gm did a slight fail in not using infinite gm powers to counter well prepared wizard. Just as planned is rather good. Perhaps an explosive runes hidden on the secret door trigger? That way the other wiz would have warning to pull the rod and ready an action, ignore init and omgpwning the other one?


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## Stoat (Oct 30, 2009)

The real lesson to be learned is this:

Never assume that any NPC will survive any contact, however tenuous, with the PC's. 

It should be printed on the inside cover of the DMG.


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## Nifft (Oct 30, 2009)

Stoat said:


> Never assume that any NPC will survive any contact, however tenuous, with the PC's.



 Conversely, never assume PCs will use force of arms to overcome foes who obviously showed up just to fight.

Some of my player's most liked NPCs started as throw-away random encounters.

Cheers, -- N


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## Holy Bovine (Oct 30, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> It is not necessarily stubborness though.  When my friends went for stints playing Blood Bowl I sat out.  I just did not want to invest time in games I tried and did not like.
> 
> .




I can understand not liking 4E (or 3E or 2E or any XE really) but not liking Blood Bowl is like not liking oxygen.  That's just crazy man!


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## Voadam (Oct 30, 2009)

Votan said:


> It is true that you can do a lot to customize monsters to avoid some of these issues.  But I was curious how the basic SRD creatures did and it is amazing how poorly they do.
> 
> If we go beyond the PHB, there is a 4th level spell that is a swift action that gives +10 to penetrate spell resistance: Assay Spell Resistance (Sor/Wiz 4).  It lasts one round/level so you cast it once and your target is reduced in defenses for the rest of the combat.
> 
> ...




3.5 disintegrate does what, 32d6 on a failed fort save at 16th level. About 16x7=112 hp damage. Failing that 11+ weak save means the monster loses a lot of hp, but still less than half its hp.


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## Henry (Oct 30, 2009)

Sounds like the DM above was railroaded by the player, not the other way around. 

Finding the projected image/secret door? Clever.
Rules-lawyering the ring/rod/disintegrate? Discourteous.
Badgering the DM into the spellbook and extra XP? Jerkish.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Oct 30, 2009)

Harlekin said:


> I think I figured out why your play experience is so different from that of some other players: It seems, most of your fights had a low EL for your APL/party size. In other words, you were making things challenging by having many encounters in a day, rather than doing a few encounters that have an EL of party level +3 or more (after adjusting for party size).



This is the key to why it works differently.  Most encounters of EL=Average Party Level or lower are actually so easy that they don't use up significant resources.  The book says that EL=APL should use up 20% resources.  In a good group they don't use up anywhere near that amount.

Most EL=APL encounters can be defeated entirely by non-casters without using any magic items.  The worst that happens is that the party is forced to use a couple of charges of their Wand of Cure Light Wounds at the end of the combat.  4 charges from one of 3 Wands the party is carrying is less than 1% of the party's resources.

It's only due to slight variations on luck and the difficulty of individual monsters that parties have to cast any spells at all against encounters of this difficulty.  It gives the Wizards the freedom to just stand there was delay for the entire encounter without worry.



Harlekin said:


> While I think that your way of playing is the most fun way to play 3.5 (as long as you keep munchkins under control), this is not how most adventures were designed (Paizo is the worst culprit here). In the typical Paizo adventure, meaningful fights are EL=APL+3 and up. And IME, the PCs have a high chance of TPKing in these fights unless every character goes "all in".




Some people feel like encounters at the EL=APL level are a little too easy.  If you don't have to cast any spells at all, where is the difficulty?  You might as well not bother spending the 30 minutes running the combat because it's easier to mark 20 damage on the fighter and say you win.  At least, that's how a lot of players feel.  My friends included.

You need to use EL=APL+3 or higher encounters for it to feel like you needed to use a real amount of resources to survive.  It feels like a fight for your life if you needed to cast 2 disintegration spells and 3 fireballs in the same combat while at the same time the Cleric needed to cast a Heal, 2 Cure Critical Wounds and a Cure Serious.

This is when we have the most fun...it feels like we ALL need to pull together and use our abilities or we'll lose.  Which is why fighting more than 2 or 3 combats of that difficulty a day were next to impossible.  Sometimes more than 1 was next to impossible.


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## Votan (Oct 30, 2009)

Voadam said:


> 3.5 disintegrate does what, 32d6 on a failed fort save at 16th level. About 16x7=112 hp damage. Failing that 11+ weak save means the monster loses a lot of hp, but still less than half its hp.




It's true that Disintegrate is not an instant kill in this situation.  But it's notable that it's still really effective despite deliberate attempts to pick creatures that are hard to drop (and don't exist in the core rules).  Allow the wizard a couple of other options out of core too and matters don't necessarily improve.  

There are other spell choices (reverse gravity followed by pincushioning) but disintegrate is so universally useful I feel safe assuming it's a prepared spell at these levels.  

But I'll gladly concede that, if the DM really focuses on avoiding "save or die" spells, it is possible to create encounters and creatures that are hard.  But it's concerning that the core material out of the book fares so poorly.


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## Nifft (Oct 30, 2009)

Henry said:


> Sounds like the DM above was railroaded by the player, not the other way around.
> 
> Finding the projected image/secret door? Clever.
> Rules-lawyering the ring/rod/disintegrate? Discourteous.
> Badgering the DM into the spellbook and extra XP? Jerkish.



 Agreed.

Being able to manage the kind of players who make good hams involves being able to stomp down the egos of the charismatic, in such a way that they enjoy it.

Cheers, -- N


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## Majoru Oakheart (Oct 30, 2009)

Henry said:


> Sounds like the DM above was railroaded by the player, not the other way around.
> 
> Finding the projected image/secret door? Clever.
> Rules-lawyering the ring/rod/disintegrate? Discourteous.
> Badgering the DM into the spellbook and extra XP? Jerkish.




Yep.  Welcome to group who taught me how D&D was supposed to be played.  That player is the one who invited me to the group to try it.

We sometimes thought he was a jerk.  But then again, the prevailing opinion was that our DM at the time was way too easily manipulated.  Meanwhile the player was the most crafty amongst us and able to get whatever he wanted.

There's another story about the same DM.  She apparently didn't know that the +1 part of a +1 weapon added to both to hit and damage(which she really should have, she had been running the game for a while), she thought it was to hit only.  A different player bet her that it was both and if he won he could bring in any character he wanted to with "basic equipment".  She saw no problem with this.  He proved her wrong.  He created a character who came from a far away kingdom he made up(our DM regularly let us add on to her world in order to make up backgrounds for our characters as long as it didn't effect anything already established in the game).  He apparently had a Dragon Mount, and a +5 Sword and +5 Armor at level 1.  He told the DM that everyone from that country who was in the military had that as standard equipment.  And she had lost the bet fair and square.

So she let him have it.  I never heard what happened to it as that happened before I joined the group and he had already switched characters by the time I joined.  Still, that was pretty much standard for the group...if you outsmarted the DM, you could have whatever you wanted because the DM played by the letter of the rules as well as "realism" when the rules were silent.  Make a logical enough argument using "realism" and you could have whatever you wanted.

It's actually one of the reasons I liked 3e and now 4e so much.  There were a lot more rules and therefore a lot less times someone could appeal to the DM using "logic" and "realism" in order to get whatever they wanted.

And in an effort to stay on topic...it's the reason I like the nerfing of Wizards because their rules rely less on balancing the game with logic and instead balance the game with numbers.  It's too easy to use a Wish spell to get yourself completely and utterly broken if you can convince the DM of it.  It isn't nearly as easy to use Fireball for the same purpose.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Oct 30, 2009)

Herschel said:


> But it could have been avoided by the DM simply placing a "lock" on the secret door at any time. When the Knock spell was cast, the Wizard teleports out. A 3 silver dead bolt could have saved the adventure. Safety first, kids.




I'm fairly certain he had a knock spell prepared.  Everyone always does.  Which I suppose is kind of the point.  Wizards ALWAYS have a way around whatever you plan.


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## Votan (Oct 30, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> And to add insult to injury, the player asked where the Wizard's spellbook was and the DM said "Not here, she left it elsewhere" and the player went on a tirade about how "No Wizard leaves their spellbook out of reach, besides, we had evidence that she'd been here for multiple days and she had been casting spells during that time.  She needed her spellbook to rememorize the spells."  Until the DM was forced to agree, that yes...the spellbook was in the room.  Which he then promptly picked up and due to the XP for GP rule from 1e gained 4 levels just by picking it up(he convinced the DM that each spell in the book should be assigned the GP value of a scroll of that spell, since they essentially WERE scrolls).




Two options:

1) The spellbook was on the wizard (in a pouch of holding) and is now a fine spray of dust.

2) No wizard planning to teleport away (as an evasive action) would ever have the spellbook lying around (to be seized).  It'd be elsewhere in a locked vault or secreted in a place that only the wizard knew.

Wow.  I am amazed that worked . . .


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## billd91 (Oct 30, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> But then again, the prevailing opinion was that our DM at the time was way too easily manipulated.  Meanwhile the player was the most crafty amongst us and able to get whatever he wanted.




I think this is why your example really doesn't say much about how the wizard always has a way around the DM's plans. The impression I got was that the DM was too easily manipulated by a clever player willing to weasel the ref into agreeing to whatever he wanted, not that the player waltzed through the encounter because he was a wizard.

The specific situation may have involved a wizard, but I can see a number of ways the situation could have been manipulated into an easy win with other PC classes.


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## Herschel (Oct 30, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I'm fairly certain he had a knock spell prepared. Everyone always does. Which I suppose is kind of the point. Wizards ALWAYS have a way around whatever you plan.




Very true, but that three silver dead bolt makes an awfully nice alarm that someone is coming, especially if they've left the scrying area.


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## Harlekin (Oct 30, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> This is the key to why it works differently.  Most encounters of EL=Average Party Level or lower are actually so easy that they don't use up significant resources.  The book says that EL=APL should use up 20% resources.  In a good group they don't use up anywhere near that amount.
> 
> Most EL=APL encounters can be defeated entirely by non-casters without using any magic items.  The worst that happens is that the party is forced to use a couple of charges of their Wand of Cure Light Wounds at the end of the combat.  4 charges from one of 3 Wands the party is carrying is less than 1% of the party's resources.
> 
> It's only due to slight variations on luck and the difficulty of individual monsters that parties have to cast any spells at all against encounters of this difficulty.  It gives the Wizards the freedom to just stand there was delay for the entire encounter without worry.




That is pretty much my theory. And it would explain why different people on this board have very different play experiences with 3.5.

I also have the hypothesis that many gamers that came up through 1st and 2nd edition stuck with their "old ways" of designing encounters.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> Some people feel like encounters at the EL=APL level are a little too easy.  If you don't have to cast any spells at all, where is the difficulty?  You might as well not bother spending the 30 minutes running the combat because it's easier to mark 20 damage on the fighter and say you win.  At least, that's how a lot of players feel.  My friends included.
> 
> You need to use EL=APL+3 or higher encounters for it to feel like you needed to use a real amount of resources to survive.  It feels like a fight for your life if you needed to cast 2 disintegration spells and 3 fireballs in the same combat while at the same time the Cleric needed to cast a Heal, 2 Cure Critical Wounds and a Cure Serious.
> 
> This is when we have the most fun...it feels like we ALL need to pull together and use our abilities or we'll lose.  Which is why fighting more than 2 or 3 combats of that difficulty a day were next to impossible.  Sometimes more than 1 was next to impossible.




I agree that these kind of fights can be fun, but IME they have a bad effect on the game overall. They force the dreaded 15 min adventurers day, they necessitate well-built characters, and they foster a DM vs players atmosphere. 
Personally I prefer adventure design that leaves place for quirky PCs, inefficient strategies chosen for RP reasons, and many encounters between rests.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 30, 2009)

Harlekin said:


> I agree that these kind of fights can be fun, but IME they have a bad effect on the game overall. They force the dreaded 15 min adventurers day, they necessitate well-built characters, and they foster a DM vs players atmosphere.
> Personally I prefer adventure design that leaves place for quirky PCs, inefficient strategies chosen for RP reasons, and many encounters between rests.




There really isn't much middle ground with 3E. Its either trivial or nail biting intense, sometimes both.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 31, 2009)

Hussar said:


> What would you attribute your lack of PC death to?  I'm totally not trying to be snarky here.  When I ran the World's Largest Dungeon (which is pretty similar to RttToEE) I was whacking a PC about every 3 sessions.  I had one player, by the end of 80 sessions of the campaign, on his SIXTH PC.
> 
> How did you manage it?  Could it have been the DM?  Did your DM roll in the open (I know that increased my lethality considerably)?




I know you're not being snarky!

Its not the DMs- of that I'm sure.  Our core group has, besides me, 4 other guys who have DMed adventures for the group, each with an individual playstyle.  At least one is a completely by-the-book type- no fudging either way.  Most- except me- favor a PHB only or PHB + Completes only type game, sans Psionics or anything like that, and minimal stuff (if anything) from extraneous campaign sourcebooks.  Usually, monster races are not allowed and alternative class features & templates are not used.  Sometimes, PHB classes or races get excluded, like Paladins and Halflings.  3PP stuff is right out.  Dragon magazine & the DCv1 aren't used very often, and you can usually forget PHB2, Unearthed Arcana and all that stuff.  (All- _again_- except me.)

This doesn't mean, though, that PC builds are simple or cookie-cutter- especially in my case.  My Dex-based Monk with a polearm and my Mage-Brute both were run in that core group.

Without the vast array of later-developed feats, spells and gear, the main factors in survivability have to be, IMHO:
A strong preference for PC builds- solo or multiclassed- including warrior classes.  Most builds are with base classes (regardless of role) only, as well.
Our generally stingy playstyle when it comes to spell use.

The preference for warrior classes in PC builds means we have better than average HP, AC and BAB on a per-PC basis.

That we all tend to use spells like they're gold and not sand means that we generally have a little surprise left in store when most parties wouldn't.

We use magic to get a situation under control, then let our melee prowess carry the battle.  Simply put, we get the upper hand, then slog it out, depending on our HP, AC and BAB to finish off our foes.  Now, our combats typically lasted much longer than the 3-4 rounds that so many people talk about, but when our casters stop casting, our foes are usually not landing a lot of high-damage blows anymore, and it starts looking like a back-alley beatdown.  With things under control, the casters stop casting...and sometimes even lend a hand with the odd crossbow bolt or thrown dagger.  Or coup-de-grace.

*IF *something oddball happens, the magic came out again.  

And because we're so stingy, even if a random encounter pops up or a rest-time raid occurs, we still have magic at our disposal.

This actually goes back to the kind of stuff I was trying to get at in my ill-fated, poorly worded thread from last year, 
SPR: Quantification of the "Theurge-style" PrCls.

As was correctly pointed out in that thread by many others, there are certain things only high-level magic can do.

However, in my experience (over the 12 years in this group, playing 2Ed and 3.X, along with 11 more years prior experience with my Wiz-o-phile buddy), sometimes a lot of low-level magic- judiciously used- in accord with the right tactics and equipment can achieve the same goals, just not as quickly and efficiently.

Our party got through RttToEE with few, if any, divine spells of level 3 or higher.  We didn't have the big massive heals, but we had slews of minor ones- the party was rarely at 100%, but we seldom got below 25%- and we had only one Wizard slinging big combat spells.


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> There really isn't much middle ground with 3E. Its either trivial or nail biting intense, sometimes both.




Well, there's little middle ground in edition comparisons, at any rate.


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## AllisterH (Oct 31, 2009)

Harlekin said:


> I agree that these kind of fights can be fun, but IME they have a bad effect on the game overall. They force the dreaded 15 min adventurers day, they necessitate well-built characters, and they foster a DM vs players atmosphere.
> Personally I prefer adventure design that leaves place for quirky PCs, inefficient strategies chosen for RP reasons, and many encounters between rests.




Well keep in mind that this is because of the cheap existence of wands (another reason why the casters in 3e are so much stronger).

Without wands of CLW, in pre 3e D&D, you could have a series of encounters that only took off 10-15% of the HP of the fighter but it would be tense as there was no way for the fighter to get back to full HP without the use of the cleric's actual spell slots.


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Well keep in mind that this is because of the cheap existence of wands (another reason why the casters in 3e are so much stronger).
> 
> Without wands of CLW, in pre 3e D&D, you could have a series of encounters that only took off 10-15% of the HP of the fighter but it would be tense as there was no way for the fighter to get back to full HP without the use of the cleric's actual spell slots.




Or the use of potions of CLW, which were plentifully available in AD&D anywhere there was a clerical temple.


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## Obryn (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Or the use of potions of CLW, which were plentifully available in AD&D anywhere there was a clerical temple.



...where are you getting this from?

-O


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## AllisterH (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Or the use of potions of CLW, which were plentifully available in AD&D anywhere there was a clerical temple.




Huh?

If you were able to finagle a potion from a temple, it usually came with a cost attached (namely, do this ques for us and this potion will be part of the reward/gear) and more importantly, you certainly weren't getting 50 potions at a time a la the wand of CLW.


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## Henry (Oct 31, 2009)

I'll agree here -- in my games of AD&D "back in the day", we rarely had "plentiful" potions of healing or extra-healing in the clerical sector. It was onesies and twosies if at all, the way both groups I played in back then ever played it.


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Huh?
> 
> If you were able to finagle a potion from a temple, it usually came with a cost attached (namely, do this ques for us and this potion will be part of the reward/gear) and more importantly, you certainly weren't getting 50 potions at a time a la the wand of CLW.




In AD&D, potions are easily manufactured using a few hundred gp of ingredients and one or more "special ingredients." Unless the DM chooses to make potions of healing rare, which the DMG does not suggest, the PCs should be able to either purchase the potions outright, or else agree to a quest of some sort in order to have the potions made. So although potions are not available at the local Sam's Club, anywhere there are name-levels priests, potions of healing are potentially available. Scrolls are even simpler; the only requirements are fine materials and some kind of special ink, determined by the DM. Doubtlessly, the ink required for a clerical scroll of CLW, while closely guarded by the clerics themselves, is something that is common knowledge among powerful clerics. 

It is true that getting a fully charged, 50 charge wand of CLW is more involved in AD&D than in 3e, no question. Still, scrounging up up a few partially charged wands is probably not outside the realm of possibility. And wands found as _treasure_ are no more likely to have all 50 charges in 3e than in AD&D.


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

Henry said:


> I'll agree here -- in my games of AD&D "back in the day", we rarely had "plentiful" potions of healing or extra-healing in the clerical sector. It was onesies and twosies if at all, the way both groups I played in back then ever played it.




I think that's typical in low and mid-level games. I certainly remember schlepping back to town to heal for a few days. However, at "name level," PCs can create their own magic items, and have the gold and influence to have scrolls and potions made.


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## AllisterH (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> In AD&D, potions are easily manufactured using a few hundred gp of ingredients and one or more "special ingredients." Unless the DM chooses to make potions of healing rare, which the DMG does not suggest, the PCs should be able to either purchase the potions outright, or else agree to a quest of some sort in order to have the potions made. So although potions are not available at the local Sam's Club, anywhere there are name-levels priests, potions of healing are potentially available. Scrolls are even simpler; the only requirements are fine materials and some kind of special ink, determined by the DM. Doubtlessly, the ink required for a clerical scroll of CLW, while closely guarded by the clerics themselves, is something that is common knowledge among powerful clerics.
> 
> I.




You are really overestimating how EASY item creation was in pre 3e.

Item creation in 1e/2e literally took weeks for even a simple scroll. Here's the actual text from PO:S&M for a scroll of Protection from Poison.

Milana, 8th level priestess. Since she can cast Neutralize Poison, no research needed. Spell equivalent is 4th so DM decides it needs an exotic material fort he ink.

DM decides it is nightshade harvested during the dark of the moon which takes over a week for Milana to find and harvest. The quill is a feather steeped in the venom of ana dder. After getting the ingredients, it takes another full week to scribe the scroll and then she still has to pass her creation check.

Similarly, the philter of love requires an adventure in of itself (requires the tears of a dryad) and the research itself to find this out was 1d3+1 weeks.

The cost of magic item was trivial, but the time and effort?


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## Obryn (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> In AD&D, potions are easily manufactured using a few hundred gp of ingredients and one or more "special ingredients." Unless the DM chooses to make potions of healing rare, which the DMG does not suggest, the PCs should be able to either purchase the potions outright, or else agree to a quest of some sort in order to have the potions made. So although potions are not available at the local Sam's Club, anywhere there are name-levels priests, potions of healing are potentially available. Scrolls are even simpler; the only requirements are fine materials and some kind of special ink, determined by the DM. Doubtlessly, the ink required for a clerical scroll of CLW, while closely guarded by the clerics themselves, is something that is common knowledge among powerful clerics.
> 
> It is true that getting a fully charged, 50 charge wand of CLW is more involved in AD&D than in 3e, no question. Still, scrounging up up a few partially charged wands is probably not outside the realm of possibility. And wands found as _treasure_ are no more likely to have all 50 charges in 3e than in AD&D.



Again, where are you getting this?

Can you give me some sort of cite from the 1e books?  Or an example that this was at all commonplace?

-O


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

I'm looking at DM's Option: High Level Campaigns right now, which is more specific than the DMG, and it says a _potion of healing_ (2d4+2 hit points) involves 200 gp, two days, and one "rare" ingredient, such as silk, roc feathers, etc. That's a snap. That's what we were specifically talking about, the availability of low level healing, not creating high level magic items.


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Again, where are you getting this?
> 
> Can you give me some sort of cite from the 1e books?  Or an example that this was at all commonplace?
> 
> -O




What specifically? Glancing at the DMG 1e, page 115,



> In order to avoid the length and complication of separate formulae for
> each type of potion, the following simple system is given. Both the cost in
> gold pieces and the days of compounding and infusing are determined by
> use of the experience points award (as shown on the list of magic items)
> ...


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## Nifft (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I'm looking at DM's Option: High Level Campaigns right now, which is more specific than the DMG, and it says a _potion of healing_ (2d4+2 hit points) involves 200 gp, two days, and one "rare" ingredient, such as silk, roc feathers, etc. That's a snap. That's what we were specifically talking about, the availability of low level healing, not creating high level magic items.



 I'm going to assume the High Level Campaigns in the title doesn't mean it's restricted to campaigns with PCs of high level?

Cheers, -- N


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## Obryn (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I'm looking at DM's Option: High Level Campaigns right now, which is more specific than the DMG, and it says a _potion of healing_ (2d4+2 hit points) involves 200 gp, two days, and one "rare" ingredient, such as silk, roc feathers, etc. That's a snap. That's what we were specifically talking about, the availability of low level healing, not creating high level magic items.



Wait, is that one of the pseudo-2.5 books?

I know I'm not talking about 2e, and particularly not the non-core Option books.  This conversation hasn't involved splitting ability scores into two sub-scores, or spell point systems, either.

-O


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

Nifft said:


> I'm going to assume the High Level Campaigns in the title doesn't mean it's restricted to campaigns with PCs of high level?
> 
> Cheers, -- N




It just means that magic item creation was considered the province of high-level characters in AD&D. The magic item creation system is compatible with the the version in the DMG, I just referred to that book because it is more specific about special ingredients. The system has been virtually the same from AD&D 1e to 2e.


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## Obryn (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> What specifically? Glancing at the DMG 1e, page 115,



OK, great!

So... there's a small gp cost, a huge time cost (3 days per potion, minimum), and a requirement for special components for which you'd presumably need to adventure.

Nothing about buying them at your local temple, though.

-O


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Wait, is that one of the pseudo-2.5 books?
> 
> I know I'm not talking about 2e, and particularly not the non-core Option books.  This conversation hasn't involved splitting ability scores into two sub-scores, or spell point systems, either.
> 
> -O




Ok, so look at the page 177 of the 2e DMG. Suggested cost of potion of healing is 200 gp, plus whatever special ingredients desired by the DM. Same as 1e, same as the High Level book.


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

Obryn said:


> OK, great!
> 
> So... there's a small gp cost, a huge time cost (3 days per potion, minimum), and a requirement for special components for which you'd presumably need to adventure.
> 
> ...




Does the temple have a high-level cleric? If so, then the potion can be manufactured. All that remains is gathering the ingredients and convincing the cleric to create the potion. Finding and killing an ogre mage is a pretty straightforward endeavor for a high level party.


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## Campbell (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I'm looking at DM's Option: High Level Campaigns right now, which is more specific than the DMG, and it says a _potion of healing_ (2d4+2 hit points) involves 200 gp, two days, and one "rare" ingredient, such as silk, roc feathers, etc. That's a snap. That's what we were specifically talking about, the availability of low level healing, not creating high level magic items.




Whereas in 3e creating a wand of cure light wounds involves 375 gold, 30 xp, and one day. That nets you 50 1d8+1 charges. That's 7.5 gold and 0.6 xp per charge. 

2e = 200 gold for 2d4+2 healing.
3e = 7.5 gold and 0.6 xp for 1d8+1 healing.

That's not exactly what I'd call a trivial difference.


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## pawsplay (Oct 31, 2009)

Campbell said:


> Whereas in 3e creating a wand of cure light wounds involves 375 gold, 30 xp, and one day. That nets you 50 1d8+1 charges. That's 7.5 gold and 0.6 xp per charge.
> 
> 2e = 200 gold for 2d4+2 healing.
> 3e = 7.5 gold and 0.6 xp for 1d8+1 healing.
> ...




However, I am not claiming that there is a trivial difference. This particular line of discussion concerned the availability of non-clerical healing. As I have noted, potions of healing were fairly routine to acquire. If you run out, you could always go raiding the lairs of dark nagas and orcs... orc lairs always have 1-8 potions of various types, and dark nagas have 3-8 potions in their lairs. 

While some of the assumptions between editions are substantially different, they are alike in that mid to high level characters can readily acquire healing magic.


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## FireLance (Oct 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> However, I am not claiming that there is a trivial difference. This particular line of discussion concerned the availability of non-clerical healing. As I have noted, potions of healing were fairly routine to acquire. If you run out, you could always go raiding the lairs of dark nagas and orcs... orc lairs always have 1-8 potions of various types, and dark nagas have 3-8 potions in their lairs.



Actually clearing out monster lairs in order to get the potions would be quite grindy, though, even though it was theoretically possible and fairly low-risk for a high-level character. Ditto for fighting monsters to get special components to brew the potions.

I think the key difference between 3e and earlier editions is not so much how feasible it was for the _character_ but how time-consuming it is for the _player_ to get the potions. To use a videogame example, it is the difference between grinding monsters to get a random loot drop and buying what you want with gold at a magic shop.


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## Obryn (Nov 1, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Ok, so look at the page 177 of the 2e DMG. Suggested cost of potion of healing is 200 gp, plus whatever special ingredients desired by the DM. Same as 1e, same as the High Level book.



The gp value was for PCs selling them, not for PCs purchasing them.  You're overlooking everything in the 1e DMG regarding purchasing magic items.



pawsplay said:


> Does the temple have a high-level cleric? If so, then the potion can be manufactured. All that remains is gathering the ingredients and convincing the cleric to create the potion. Finding and killing an ogre mage is a pretty straightforward endeavor for a high level party.



I really think this is theorycraft in the extreme.  I don't know of any 1e group which has ever treated going out and killing an ogre mage or whatever for a healing potion a "routine" process. 

The assumptions of availability between 1e and 3e are pretty gargantuan.

-O


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## Celtavian (Nov 1, 2009)

*re*

The 4E Wizard is a pale shadow of its former self. No way getting around it. 4E makes you feel like a perpetual wizard's apprentice. Almost everything you do is more focused on temporary effects or damage rather than being able to come up with interesting spell strategies for solving hard encounters designed by smart DMs. Everyhing is so simplistic and short term that there is no real strategy to your spell attacks other than shoot off your encounters, mix in a daily if you need to, and mindlessly cast your at wills over and over again. Just like every other class. 

We've been trying _Pathfinder_. It does a much better job of balancing the classes without the destroying the wizard. I hope to see more people move to _Pathfinder_ because I hope superior game design wins out over the simplification that occurred during the creation of 4E. 

I'm not sure how your gaming group will go. But we tried 4E. Some of us tried it kicking and screaming. Enjoyed it for a while. Then the entire group save for one person ended up being completely underwhelmed by the game to the point we quit playing it and D&D period for a while. Then picked up _Pathfinder_. That reenergized our group and we're looking forward to the growth of _Pathfinder_. 

If you find you don't like 4E, but still want to play a more balanced version 0f D&D that sticks more to the traditional tropes of the game, I'd suggest giving _Pathfinder_ a try. It was more what I was looking for in a new edition of D&D. It may be a reasonable compromise between your friend and yourself.

Seriously, any game like 4E that turns _Fireball_ into a spell no one takes is not my kind of D&D game. Everyone started taking only spells with persistent durations and moveable spells so they weren't stuck with at wills every round. Classic AoE spells like _Meteor Swarm_ and _Fireball_ were turned into spells vastly inferior to spells such as _Flaming Sphere_ and _Mordenkainen's Sword_. It used to be both spells were fun. But in 4E you only need your AoE at will to kill minions which are really the only creatures that can be killed by an AoE spell. I imagine you'll see once you play the game. But 4E wizards are pathetically weak and can no longer decimate groups of creatures of appropriate level.


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## nightwyrm (Nov 1, 2009)

Celtavian said:


> Seriously, any game like 4E that turns _Fireball_ into a spell no one takes is not my kind of D&D game.




You mean 3e. Who takes fireball with haste and stinking cloud around.



Celtavian said:


> But 4E wizards are pathetically weak and can no longer decimate groups of creatures of appropriate level.




That's a feature, not a bug, so the rest of the party can play too.


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## billd91 (Nov 1, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> You mean 3e. Who takes fireball with haste and stinking cloud around.




Every wizard or sorcerer I've seen played in 3e with the sole exception of the scout/diviner character.


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## AllisterH (Nov 1, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Every wizard or sorcerer I've seen played in 3e with the sole exception of the scout/diviner character.




Including *SORCERORS*? The same sorceror that only knows at MOST 4 level 3 spells? Weird. 

Fireball is a prime example of why the 3e caster is so much stronger than the pre 3e caster.

Fireball pre 3e D&D, especially in the 1e uncapped era, was _KING_. Fireball in 3e is a decidely less optimal.

(hell, the fact that damage is subpar in 3e is why the Warmage is seen as a lesser light than the equivalent Dread Necromancer and Beguiler)

As an aside, it should be noted that in 1e/2e, as mentioned earlier, high level spells were not that effective against equal levelled opponents. A 10th level fighter had at a minimum a 50% chance of succeeding on any spell saving throw. Tack on cloaks and rings, and a 10th level fighter would most likely fail only on a 5 or lower.

Where does this idea come from that in DnD high level magic was super effective versus high level opponents? It certainly wasn't based on the 1e/2e ruleset IMO.


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## billd91 (Nov 1, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Where does this idea come from that in DnD high level magic was super effective versus high level opponents? It certainly wasn't based on the 1e/2e ruleset IMO.




Power word spells - no save
Maze - no save
Bigby's hand spells - no save
Wall of iron's crushing effect - no save
Transmute rock to mud - no save
Uncapped level-based damage dice for most spells in 1e + generally lower hit points for the target plus rebounding lightning bolts and huge areas for fireballs indoors
Harm - no save

And, like Harm, there are other touch spells that have no save and some nasty consequences. And AC generally tops out at -10 while that cleric or wizard gets better at hitting you has he levels up.


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## AllisterH (Nov 1, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Power word spells - no save
> Maze - no save
> Bigby's hand spells - no save
> Wall of iron's crushing effect - no save
> ...




Well, let's look at this shall we.

Power Word - PW had a big drawback namely it didn't work on full HP critters of that level. PW Stun for example only did 1d4 rounds to critters that had HP between 60-90 HP. At 13th level when it first appeared, even a fighter that didn't have a CON bonus should have 60+ HP. 

Similarly, PW Blind and PW Kill were ineffective spells versus fresh opponents at high levels. 

Bigby spells had to deal with a) their sucktastic casting time especially compared to the magic weapon speed and b) specifically for crushing hand, the fact that it was CONCENTRATION-only spell and that it took 4 rounds of constant concentration to be able to do 9d10 pts of damage (when fireball in 1e at that level is doing 20d6 a round) and c) the hand was easily destroyed (only had the HP of a caster at full health and AC0? - 4 rounds is not even a certainty especially given the multiple attacks of a specialized fighter of that level).

Wall of Iron - You couldn't cast that spell in midair and that had a 50% chance of tipping either way if you had it freestanding AND those who were subject to a falling wall of Iron got a saving throw versus DEATH MAGIC. Even the wizard who had the worst saving throw at that level for death magic had a 50% chance to escape. How is this an example of a non-saving throw spell?

Maze is a good spell, no two ways about it...that said, it isn't a game-ender since the creature affected doesn't lose anything..

Damage spells - um,, that's kind fo why 2e capped FIREBALL. It was too effective that a 3rd level spell is one of the BEST spells even when compared to 9th level magic. Not sure how this is an example of high level spells being powerful when fireball is ONLY a 3rd level spell. Hell, the most unbalancing houserule I remember playing with was the 3e rule where you can use higher level slots for lower level spells. Can we say FIREBALL for slots at the spell levels 4, 5 and 6?

Spells were AWESOMESAUCE versus much lower levelled opponents and high level spells gave the wizard lots of non-combat options at high levels (and even here, many of the spells had serious drawbacks) but compared to how effective they were against his fellow adventurers , who I might add, were probably high level than him, the wizard got weaker than he was at 1st level.


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## Henry (Nov 1, 2009)

Power Word kill could kill a by-the-book Pit Fiend in AD&D - they had 13 hit dice, with average just under 60 hit points. Even the Magic resistance was largely useless, coming out to 30% vs. a level 18 caster. Even an ancient red dragon only had 88 hit points! What's more important, though, is that P.W.K. taking a major opponent out of a fight once they're in the 60 hit point range - which wasn't that hard to knock various creatures into. I tend to discount the power words being useless vs. "fresh" monsters because monsters nor PCs didn't have very many hit points to begin with, so knocking off about 20 or 30 wasn't that hard of a deal - a magic missile and a sword strike, and most monsters in the books were in that 60 to 90 hit point range.

In 2E, though, they changed the way Magic resistance worked, which had problems of its own - anything with magic resistance was often much harder than its hit dice would have suggested, since most of those also had magic weapon damage resistances.

Harm did at least have a balancing feature in that it took a regular to-hit roll to touch an opponent - something that 3E turned into a touch attack and scared DMs worldwide. 





AllisterH said:


> Well, let's look at this shall we.
> 
> Power Word - PW had a big drawback namely it didn't work on full HP critters of that level. PW Stun for example only did 1d4 rounds to critters that had HP between 60-90 HP. At 13th level when it first appeared, even a fighter that didn't have a CON bonus should have 60+ HP.
> 
> Similarly, PW Blind and PW Kill were ineffective spells versus fresh opponents at high levels.


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## Nifft (Nov 1, 2009)

FireLance said:


> Actually clearing out monster lairs in order to get the potions would be quite grindy, though, even though it was theoretically possible and fairly low-risk for a high-level character. Ditto for fighting monsters to get special components to brew the potions.
> 
> I think the key difference between 3e and earlier editions is not so much how feasible it was for the _character_ but how time-consuming it is for the _player_ to get the potions. To use a videogame example, it is the difference between grinding monsters to get a random loot drop and buying what you want with gold at a magic shop.



 Now this is an interesting observation. It always seemed to me that RPGs have inspired video-game evolution, but if D&D is responsible for inventing "grinding", the debt becomes that much more blatant.

Thanks, -- N


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## AllisterH (Nov 1, 2009)

Pit Fiends though were not expected to be a match for 18th level wizards or fighters for that matter.

Pit fiends were a match for name level characters but by 17th level?


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## billd91 (Nov 1, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Well, let's look at this shall we.
> 
> Power Word - PW had a big drawback namely it didn't work on full HP critters of that level. PW Stun for example only did 1d4 rounds to critters that had HP between 60-90 HP. At 13th level when it first appeared, even a fighter that didn't have a CON bonus should have 60+ HP.
> 
> Similarly, PW Blind and PW Kill were ineffective spells versus fresh opponents at high levels.




So it's not your _first_ spell. After a magic missile spell, that 13th level fighter is looking pretty vulnerable. 




AllisterH said:


> Wall of Iron - You couldn't cast that spell in midair and that had a 50% chance of tipping either way if you had it freestanding AND those who were subject to a falling wall of Iron got a saving throw versus DEATH MAGIC. Even the wizard who had the worst saving throw at that level for death magic had a 50% chance to escape. How is this an example of a non-saving throw spell?




1e version doesn't have a save vs Death Magic. The death magic save from 2e?


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## pawsplay (Nov 1, 2009)

FireLance said:


> Actually clearing out monster lairs in order to get the potions would be quite grindy, though, even though it was theoretically possible and fairly low-risk for a high-level character. Ditto for fighting monsters to get special components to brew the potions.




Well, since orc chiefs have 12 hp, a single fireball would take care of the main part of an orc lair. There might be an ogre or a troll with them, I suppose. That's not what I would consider grinding so much as shopping with extreme prejudice.



> I think the key difference between 3e and earlier editions is not so much how feasible it was for the _character_ but how time-consuming it is for the _player_ to get the potions. To use a videogame example, it is the difference between grinding monsters to get a random loot drop and buying what you want with gold at a magic shop.




That's probably a fair assessment. But only if the AD&D DM decides to be a pain in the ass is healing magic really difficult for mid-level characters to acquire. I certainly don't remember bowing down and thanking the gods every time we found a potion of healing.


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## pawsplay (Nov 1, 2009)

Obryn said:


> The gp value was for PCs selling them, not for PCs purchasing them.  You're overlooking everything in the 1e DMG regarding purchasing magic items.




For making, not selling. And how would the PCs sell them when according to the DMG, the sale of magic items was not a common occurence?

Bottom line: with a few hundred gp and a side adventure, a PC or mid-level NPC can brew up a few potions of healing in a month's time.



> I really think this is theorycraft in the extreme.  I don't know of any 1e group which has ever treated going out and killing an ogre mage or whatever for a healing potion a "routine" process.




What, for a 10th level party? 



> The assumptions of availability between 1e and 3e are pretty gargantuan.
> -O




Maybe Large, with reach. Since 3e modules are so relentlessly balanced and 1e modules are so generous, the treasure rewards turn out to be rather similar.


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## Hussar (Nov 2, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Pit Fiends though were not expected to be a match for 18th level wizards or fighters for that matter.
> 
> Pit fiends were a match for name level characters but by 17th level?




I think it's probably the most telling about the differences in the approaches of the game when the most powerful creature in the books, a pit fiend (and if a pit fiend isn't the biggest non-unique baddy, it's pretty darn close) isn't considered a sufficient challenge for a high level party.  That it's a challenge for a name level party, true, but, by the time you get to the end of the spell list for wizards, pit fiends aren't a serious challenge.

It makes comparisons so difficult between editions.

As far as fireball goes.  Well, in 3e, why would you bother?  By 7th level, you magic missiles were doing 4d4+4 for an average of 14 points of damage.  Your fireballs were doing 7d6, for an average of 24, but a save throw which meant that you were likely going to do about 12 points of damage.  

Again, we run into play style issues.  If you used large groups of small creatures, then fireball is king.  If you, instead, played with small numbers of big creatures, fireball sucked.  I would suggest that views of a given spell have far more to do with how the adventures you played through were designed than anything to do with the spells themselves.


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## Hussar (Nov 2, 2009)

I would also point out, that in 2e at least, clerics could brew their own potions at 6th level.  Availability of potions depends on a lot of factors.


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## Celtavian (Nov 2, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Including *SORCERORS*? The same sorceror that only knows at MOST 4 level 3 spells? Weird.
> 
> Fireball is a prime example of why the 3e caster is so much stronger than the pre 3e caster.
> 
> ...





Depends really. Alot of creatures had far fewer hit points in 1e/2E. Thus damage spells were pretty effective.

Some of us were creative with our spell strategies. That didn't necessarily mean doing damage. It was more fun to have a spellbook that allowed you to figure out  a spell strategy for helping the entire party do the job.

Effective use of spells like Wall of Force or Fire could control the battlefield allowing your melee and physical damage dealers to break up tough combatants. I know the majority of players are focused on damage dealing, but that wasn't me. I liked playing the wizard as a facilitator capable of changing the flow of a battle by applying a spell to a given situation. 
That was always more fun.

Sad thing in 4E is that magic is very personal in effect. You can't do many group effects or effects on other people that last longer than a round or two. It's a very limiting game for players that like to use magic creatively. Same for DMs that like to use magic creatively. Even 1E/2E catered to wizard players that liked to come up with interesting ways to help the party get the job done.


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## Celtavian (Nov 2, 2009)

*re*



AllisterH said:


> Pit Fiends though were not expected to be a match for 18th level wizards or fighters for that matter.
> 
> Pit fiends were a match for name level characters but by 17th level?




You had to make your own stuff up at that level. Which many of the guys I played with did. Alot of creativity in the adventures my gaming buddies came up with to challenge high level characters.


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## pawsplay (Nov 2, 2009)

Celtavian said:


> You had to make your own stuff up at that level. Which many of the guys I played with did. Alot of creativity in the adventures my gaming buddies came up with to challenge high level characters.




Most of the level 12+ games I remember revolved around either acquiring artifacts and the attending lifestyle difficulties that come with owning them, or raiding various levels of Hell.


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## Hussar (Nov 2, 2009)

Celtavian said:
			
		

> Sad thing in 4E is that magic is very personal in effect. You can't do many group effects or effects on other people that last longer than a round or two. It's a very limiting game for players that like to use magic creatively. Same for DMs that like to use magic creatively. Even 1E/2E catered to wizard players that liked to come up with interesting ways to help the party get the job done.
> __________________




See, there's the crux of the problem.  For some, it wasn't the fact that the wizard could "help the party get the job done" it was that "creative" use of spell casting got the job done full stop.  The wizard didn't need the party.

Take invisiblity as a good example.  Sure, wizards in 1e and 2e got less slots, but, you only needed one invisibility spell.  It lasted 24 hours!  So long as you didn't attack, you were invisible for a whole day.  Or a whole day for the party with a 3rd level spell.  Who needs a scout?  You drop invisibility and you were pretty much good to go.  Worried about someone coming up on you while you're sleeping?  Invis is pretty much just as good as rope trick.

Let's not forget that there were no rules for scent in 1e or 2e.  There was lip service given in the text, but, that was entirely up to the DM to interpret.  If the DM was generous, then you could wander an entire dungeon invisible, and you were golden.

The "creative" use of spells is precisely the reason why 4e is written the way it is.  There is a segment of D&D gamers that doesn't like the fact that the way some spells are written allow "creative" use of spells.  In other words, they don't like the fact that caster players can play silly buggers word games with the DM and gain way more power that what is intended by the spell.  1st and 2nd level instant kill spells are a "creative" use of spells too.

No one has a problem with wizards being able to polymorph.  That's a pretty standard trope.  What people do have a problem with is being able to polymorph into a Behir and instantly becoming a far better fighter than the fighter, hitting the Autowin button on any combat with a corporeal creature of size M or smaller.  And even the large creatures probably have a serious, serious problem.

THAT's why wizards got beaten with the nerf bat.


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## pawsplay (Nov 2, 2009)

There's a difference between nerfing and making Tofurkey. Pathfinder nerfed polymorph, but I don't know of anyone who hates the new spells, because they are still functional and retain their original flavor. Tofurkey is Thansksgiving turkey made out of tofu.  While you may like Tofurkey, it's useless to claim other people should also prefer it. Calling it Tofurkey doesn't make it other than a form of tofu, and not turkey. It may be better in every way tofu is preferable to turkey, but it's worse in every way turkey is preferable to tofu.

EDIT: To summarize my point, in case this was not clear, I consider the 4e wizard to be a tofurkey wizard.


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 2, 2009)

Hussar said:


> See, there's the crux of the problem.  For some, it wasn't the fact that the wizard could "help the party get the job done" it was that "creative" use of spell casting got the job done full stop.  The wizard didn't need the party.
> 
> ...well-argued stuff...
> 
> THAT's why wizards got beaten with the nerf bat.




But couldn't they have done it in a different way that restricted the wizard's power but still allowed magic to be interpreted in terms not restricted to hit points, position and momentarily bestowed standardized conditions?

I suppose illusion spells are the real case in point here being forced into dealing hit point damage. I can appreciate using hit points as a general currency to reflect battle condition, but when Celtavian talks about the creative use of spells, this is what I'm thinking of. The subtle quirks of other spells to beat an encounter through creative use got flushed down the toilet along with the save or dies... and to me, this is a shame. In return, we can play 4e literally without referring to the rulebooks in a session but is this streamlining gone too far? Yes rules-lawyers are a pain as are the various arguments relating to rules vague in certain applications. Their complete eradication in 4e is certainly a design goal success but has the baby been thrown out with the bath water? Has the colour been taken out of The Excellent Prismatic Spray?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Nifft (Nov 2, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> The subtle quirks of other spells to beat an encounter through creative use got flushed down the toilet along with the save or dies...



 Can a single Diplomacy roll from a Warlord change a hostile army into loyal vassals?

Can a single Intimidate roll from a Barbarian cause a dragon to run away before combat starts, leaving you his hoard?

If so, I'd say you can keep Illusion and whatever other encounter-beater spells you want. If not, well... in 4e, you don't get to be a spotlight-hog. All characters have an equal opportunity to be useful in combat, and out.

Cheers, -- N


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## Hussar (Nov 2, 2009)

Oh certainly they could have done it a different way.

But, even if they did do it differently, I think they would still have to restrict the wizard considerably.  There were two issues IMO:

1.  The wording of spell descriptions.  Illusion, charm, polymorph, various transmutations, etc.  These are the "creative use" spells that could very easily get out of hand.  One of my favorites was the 1e Item spell which allowed you to turn a fire into a small piece of cloth that would turn back if hit hard or the command word was spoken.  Barrels of oil+fire+sheep= bunination fun!  

2.  Casters stepping on other people's toes.  This has been argued to death and I won't do it here.

Really, I don't think they could tighten the descriptions of the spells without losing the flexiblity of those spells.  So, they chose tighter over looser.


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 2, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Can a single Diplomacy roll from a Warlord change a hostile army into loyal vassals?



In a skill challenge, I dare say a high level Warlord could take a dominant role in making this happen.



Nifft said:


> Can a single Intimidate roll from a Barbarian cause a dragon to run away before combat starts, leaving you his hoard?



What you are trying to compare here is a single check with the casting of a single spell. Fair enough, but your examples are extreme. Turn the volume down from 11 to an encounter with a single creature that is most probably easy for the group to deal with but might use up some resources. If a party member can come up with something that quickly/intelligently/admirably defeats such an encounter thus saving the party resources - is that not something that should be rewarded. Just because it is a wizard's spell rather than a warlord's or barbarian's presence should not matter. I'm not talking about a 1st level spell that is going to single-handedly convert a hostile army or scare away a dragon from it's hoard. I'm talking about those somewhat rare occasions where a handful of different circumstances converge in a way where the clever use of a simple spell can have an imaginatively boosted effect.



> If so, I'd say you can keep Illusion and whatever other encounter-beater spells you want. If not, well... in 4e, you don't get to be a spotlight-hog.



Is that really how you see it. Johnny the wizard does something clever in a particular encounter and he gets brought up before the player's judicial council for being a spotlight-hog or wanting to be a "special snowflake"? I'm not talking about the big encounter here, just the hum drum but "heh... damn that was clever" one. Having imaginative effects that don't rely on hit points, position or momentary conditions shouldn't immediately cast you as a "spotlight hog".



> All characters have an equal opportunity to be useful in combat, and out.
> 
> Cheers, -- N



I suppose you could argue that a good 3.x DM responsive to his or her players and their choice of characters could achieve this without too much difficulty. I do agree that 4e has made it automatically achievable (as long as you get over the "strikers deal most of the damage and all the other roles help them do it" mentality).

My first character for 4E was a Warlord and at the time, I shifted my mind to think in terms of the party being under my umbrella - almost like a puppet-master pulling his battle strings. I maximized the effect of what everybody else was trying to do. Under these terms, I really enjoyed the character in combat. However, take Dave in our group who played the wizard to begin with. For him, it was just complete frustration that the damage he was dealing was not that effective (along with some pretty poor rolls) compared to the optimized strikers in the party (the rogue and ranger). Handling the minons was just not that much fun for him.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Nifft (Nov 2, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> What you are trying to compare here is a single check with the casting of a single spell. Fair enough, but your examples are extreme.



 Yes, they are extreme. They are exactly as extreme as any other single-action *I win* button. I think the only distinction is: we're used to spellcasters being the only guys who have those single-action *I win* buttons.



Herremann the Wise said:


> If a party member can come up with something that quickly/intelligently/admirably defeats such an encounter thus saving the party resources - is that not something that should be rewarded. Just because it is a wizard's spell rather than a warlord's or barbarian's presence should not matter.



 Well, like I said above, *if* you allow every class to have low-resource, single-action *I win* buttons, triggered by the same level of cleverness, then it's fair.

Thing is, Barbarians and Warlords (... er, Marshals? White-Raven Warblades?) didn't have those single-action *I win* buttons. Only spellcasters got those.

So yeah. Wanting to keep spellcasters different is a sin against game balance, when this kind of different is identical to *better*.

Cheers, -- N


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 2, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Oh certainly they could have done it a different way.
> 
> But, even if they did do it differently, I think they would still have to restrict the wizard considerably.  There were two issues IMO:
> 
> ...



I completely agree with you . The other factor is that 3.x wizard's get their spells off too easily with minimal chance of disruption.



Hussar said:


> Really, I don't think they could tighten the descriptions of the spells without losing the flexiblity of those spells.  So, they chose tighter over looser.



Yes. Anything that might need DM interpretation was removed. It was a solution and I suppose a successful one. I would have liked a different solution but how to do it? Oh well.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## FireLance (Nov 2, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Can a single Diplomacy roll from a Warlord change a hostile army into loyal vassals?
> 
> Can a single Intimidate roll from a Barbarian cause a dragon to run away before combat starts, leaving you his hoard?
> 
> If so, I'd say you can keep Illusion and whatever other encounter-beater spells you want. If not, well... in 4e, you don't get to be a spotlight-hog. All characters have an equal opportunity to be useful in combat, and out.



Now that you mention it, I wonder how feasible it would be to allow three separate feats or at-will utility powers to allow a wizard (or any other character with training in Arcana and the Ritual Caster feat) to use an Arcana check in place of a Diplomacy check (Charm), a Bluff check (Illusion), or an Intimidate check (Fear) to simulate the use of mind-affecting magic without entirely stepping on the toes of other characters.


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## Nifft (Nov 2, 2009)

FireLance said:


> Now that you mention it, I wonder how feasible it would be to allow three separate feats or at-will utility powers to allow a wizard (or any other character with training in Arcana and the Ritual Caster feat) to use an Arcana check in place of a Diplomacy check (Charm), a Bluff check (Illusion), or an Intimidate check (Fear) to simulate the use of mind-affecting magic without entirely stepping on the toes of other characters.



 Arcane Mumbling (Arcana utility power from that Dragon article on skill powers). Does something with Intimidate, IIRC.

There were also some cool, versatile utilities in Arcane Power for Wizards, at least some of which had both a combat application and a social skill challenge application.

Cheers, -- N


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 2, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Yes, they are extreme. They are exactly as extreme as any other single-action *I win* button.



I disagree with what you're saying. A button refers to the action (in this case being an ingeniously used spell) being automatic, easy to use and simple. I'm talking about a small encounter defeating action, ingeniously used under a very particular set of circumstances - not some easily repeated recipe and very far from an "I-win" button. Can you see why players who enjoyed the imaginitive (and not necessarily super powerful I beat everyone at their own game) style wizard get a little unenthusiastic about popping off minions, shifting combatants around and imposing some easily removed condition on enemies? There's not much magical about it in comparison is there?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## FireLance (Nov 2, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Arcane Mumbling (Arcana utility power from that Dragon article on skill powers). Does something with Intimidate, IIRC.



Just checked it out: it's a 2nd-level encounter utility power that allows you to use an Arcana check in place of a Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate check. I wouldn't have a problem with the player flavoring it as casting a Charm, Illusion or Fear spell, though. I guess 4e encourages a different kind of creativity: creativity in description or flavoring, rather than creativity in effect (and arguably, the former is easier to balance ).


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## GMforPowergamers (Nov 2, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> I disagree with what you're saying. A button refers to the action (in this case being an ingeniously used spell) being automatic, easy to use and simple. I'm talking about a small encounter defeating action, ingeniously used under a very particular set of circumstances - not some easily repeated recipe and very far from an "I-win" button.




Ok lets see some examples...

 Here I will start...I remember a wizard useing Invisability on a door to then cast spells through it un harmed...

I remember a wizard useing the shrink item spell to shrink bolders, then drop them onto people as cloth then say the command word

I remember contingent spell heal casters becomeing little more then suciside bombers...

in 2e I remember banking lightning bolts, and crative area fireballs, and I remember there was some trick with feather fall being used as a weapon but I can't for the life of me remeber how....


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## Nifft (Nov 2, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> I disagree with what you're saying. A button refers to the action (in this case being an ingeniously used spell) being automatic, easy to use and simple.



 Spells are easy to use in 3.x
Spells are fire-and-forget.
Spells do work reliably.

What exactly is your quibble with the word "button"?



Herremann the Wise said:


> I'm talking about a small encounter defeating action



 Right. A single action that defeats a whole encounter, which was intended to challenge the whole party.

Granted, 3.x was not great in that regard, since traps could also be counted as "encounters", and those were designed such that only specific niche PCs had anything to do (... except spellcasters, of course: Clerics can find traps, Druids can _stone shape_ them inoperative).



Herremann the Wise said:


> Can you see why players who enjoyed the imaginitive (and not necessarily super powerful I beat everyone at their own game) style wizard get a little unenthusiastic about popping off minions, shifting combatants around and imposing some easily removed condition on enemies? There's not much magical about it in comparison is there?



 You can do the imaginative stuff as *any class*, and you can do it at any time, and you can do it in any game. (In Exalted, there's even a codified mechanic for it, because everyone is expected to be *relentlessly* imaginative, every action, no exceptions, no stopping for tea.)

4e didn't take away your ability to be imaginative.
It did take away your ability to win whole encounters with a single action.
You'll just have to slog through the mud with the rest of us mortals.

Cheers, -- N


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 2, 2009)

Nifft said:


> 4e didn't take away your ability to be imaginative.
> It did take away your ability to win whole encounters with a single action.
> *You'll just have to slog through the mud with the rest of us mortals.*
> 
> Cheers, -- N



(_emphasis mine_)

4Ed did put some constraints on what you can do, which, as anyone who is a truly creative person knows, may force you to be _more _creative to reach a certain goal.

However, the problem lies with that bolded sentence, because its true.  And because its true, it means that- for some of us- the Wizard has literally and figuratively lost some of his magic.  Thus, some of the class' appeal has been lost.

There were other ways to balance the Mages without tearing away their magesty.


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## AllisterH (Nov 2, 2009)

A 4e wizard can be wickedly powerful, but it requires the player to be able to best utilize the ritual system. By the time you hit high heroic, low paragon, you should be using rituals left right and center to affect the world.


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## Hussar (Nov 2, 2009)

Herreman said:
			
		

> Yes. Anything that might need DM interpretation was removed. It was a solution and I suppose a successful one. I would have liked a different solution but how to do it? Oh well.




I can totally see that.  To me, the reason that the decision was made that way was to standardize play across tables in order to make RPGA play much more accessable.  I know, it's my tin foil hat conspiracy theory, but, its the only one I can come up with that explains why they made the decisions they did.  They don't want that degree of flexibility in the game because that degree of flex doesn't work for RPGA style play.  

Heck, most of the spell nerfs that saw their way into 3e (polymorph being a very obvious one) came by way of the RPGA.

I think those who like the way things were changed in 4e probably played close to the way the RPGA played anyway, even if they never participated.


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## MrGrenadine (Nov 2, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> A 4e wizard can be wickedly powerful, but it requires the player to be able to best utilize the ritual system. By the time you hit high heroic, low paragon, you should be using rituals left right and center to affect the world.




Sure, if you have a spare 10 minutes to cast...per ritual.


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## Garthanos (Nov 2, 2009)

Celtavian said:


> Even 1E/2E catered to wizard players that liked to come up with interesting ways to help the party get the job done.




I recall them coming up with uninteresting ways to make the rest of the party ... unnecessary... hmmm different game play.


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## Garthanos (Nov 2, 2009)

Hussar said:


> See, there's the crux of the problem.  For some, it wasn't the fact that the wizard could "help the party get the job done" it was that "creative" use of spell casting got the job done full stop.  The wizard didn't need the party.




Oh I see you said it with more detail etc... I might as well just read


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## Garthanos (Nov 2, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> There were other ways to balance the Mages without tearing away their magesty.




Majesty you should have used the real spelling... kingship ... better than everyone else godhood.


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## MrGrenadine (Nov 2, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> I recall them coming up with uninteresting ways to make the rest of the party ... unnecessary... hmmm different game play.




Thats unfortunate, but could be more the fault of selfish gameplay, poor RP, and absentee DMing than a problem thats intrinsic in the system.

In other words, just because a system can be gamed, doesn't mean it has to be--thats up to the group and the DM to decide together.

And like I said before, I guess I got lucky, because the spell users I've played and played with never took the place of other party members.  Everyone had their moment(s) in the spotlight, as it should be.


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## Garthanos (Nov 2, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> Thats unfortunate, but could be more the fault of selfish gameplay, poor RP, and absentee DMing than a problem thats intrinsic in the system.




There were mechanics which encouraged the phenomena and especially at high levels ... Overly potent and adaptable illusion, wish or self transformation magics were basically good bye team work wating in the wings...(and from what I hear in 3e... the save or die effects became way too reliable with similar implications since only a small selection of characters could reap the bounty)  

Perhaps the dm could have avoided allowing pass wall and knock and some of the other role stealing magics or they could have been given a disadvantage like costing real money and taking a bit more time.


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## Dausuul (Nov 2, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> Sure, if you have a spare 10 minutes to cast...per ritual.




And this is a problem why?

Ritual magic enables wizards to do amazing things; the casting time restriction and component costs enable other classes to shine as well.


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## MrGrenadine (Nov 2, 2009)

Dausuul said:


> And this is a problem why?




Its a problem for me because there are few situations where more than ten minutes of lead time is available.

All games are different, I know, but while that lead time might be available to some groups, it doesn't seem to apply to ours.  I'm the only guy in our game to cast any rituals, and only Silence as we prepared camp--every other situation seems to warrant a fast response.

There also haven't been many opportunities to learn more (and perhaps more useful) rituals, either.  I think I have the same few I started with at 1st level.


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## AllisterH (Nov 2, 2009)

Weird...I find that rituals are used and abused in my campaigns a lot more.

 I think this might be because it is seen as a team endeavour so EVERYONE is looking over the ritual list and thus, the guy playing the rogue guy is just as likely to say, "We could use the Share Husk ritual to scout out the encampment"
(actual example that our DM didn't see coming) even though he has no skill in the Nature skill itself.


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## Ourph (Nov 2, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> Can you see why players who enjoyed the imaginitive (and not necessarily super powerful I beat everyone at their own game) style wizard get a little unenthusiastic about popping off minions, shifting combatants around and imposing some easily removed condition on enemies?



Honestly? No, I can't see why. Being a good Wizard in 4e requires the imaginative use of the character's spells in order to be effective. If a player isn't doing anything with his Wizard spells other than popping the occasional minion, his problem is that he's not using his imagination enough. I think, as others have pointed out, the real problem isn't that a player can't make imaginative use of spells in 4e, but that the reward for doing so is an increase in the overall combat effectiveness of the entire group rather than a spotlight hogging moment of utter arcane carnage for the individual player.

In 4e, a Wizard using his spells in the right place, at the right time and in a creative manner can make a huge difference in how long a fight lasts and how many limited resources (daily powers, healing surges, action points) the party spends to overcome the challenge. The only thing it cannot do is end the fight in some kind of boring, anti-climactic *fwoosh* that's entertaining and gratifying for the Wizard character's player alone.



MrGrenadine said:


> There also haven't been many opportunities to learn more (and perhaps more useful) rituals, either.  I think I have the same few I started with at 1st level.



What level are you? Remember, you get to automatically add two new rituals to your spellbook at 5th, 11th, 15th, 21st and 25th level. This is one of the Wizard's major advantages over other classes when it comes to rituals.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 3, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> Majesty you should have used the real spelling... kingship ... better than everyone else godhood.




Ahh...just having fun with words.


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## Garthanos (Nov 3, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Ahh...just having fun with words.



Sorry for some reason I interpreted it in the non-self conflicting ...non sarcastic way... that ignored the issue of the king being so mighty he had to loose a peg or two even if others were uplifted. With the dichotomy firmly in place... it makes perfect sense.


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## ExploderWizard (Nov 3, 2009)

I don't think wizards have been 'neutered' exactly. Wizards don't feel like wizards in 4E because the wizard no longer stands out as a worker of magic in a partially mundane world. All adventurers are superheroes hanging around at the Hall of Justice and the wizard just happens to be the one with the robe and pointy hat costume. The default world operates more on the supers comic genre tropes than swords and sorcery and that is why the wizard feels so un-wizard like. 

Wizards no longer function as mysterious masters of arcane magic. They have become a flavor for controlling superpowers that can be duplicated by other means. Anything that becomes so widespread and common cannot be all that magical. 

If we were to take a 4E wizard and drop him in a 1E world then he would still feel like a wizard because there would be actual non-magic using adventurers to compare him to.

When everyone is a wizard then, effectively;  no one is.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 3, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> Sorry for some reason I interpreted it in the non-self conflicting ...non sarcastic way... that ignored the issue of the king being so mighty he had to loose a peg or two even if others were uplifted. With the dichotomy firmly in place... it makes perfect sense.




No, you read it right...I just meant that I wanted to use that alternative spelling out of fun.


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## Garthanos (Nov 3, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> I don't think wizards have been 'neutered' exactly. Wizards don't feel like wizards in 4E because the wizard no longer stands out as a worker of magic in a partially mundane world.
> 
> When everyone is a wizard then, effectively;  no one is.



That is a villains quote you realize ;p

The archer ranger is robinhood and william tell doing things that are astonishing. The paladin murmurs over his blade and flares to light with power streaming in from the astral sea.  Poets priests and politicians inspire the heroic to push beyond all natural limits. Warriors tap in to heroic luck that seems unending. Barbarians channel spirits and the might of the earth goddess into awesome rages(check out ancient celt barbarians).
The wizards powers still sweep the chaff before him ... but the chaff no longer seems to include his peers... is that bad?


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## Nifft (Nov 3, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> The wizards powers still sweep the chafe before him ... but the chafe no longer seems to include his peers... is that bad?



 Not to rub it in until it becomes an oozing sore, but I think you mean "chaff".

Otherwise, largely agreed. It's not that Wizards have lost power in the world, they've merely lost power over the other PCs.

Cheers, -- N


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## Garthanos (Nov 3, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Not to rub it in until it becomes an oozing sore, but I think you mean "chaff".
> 
> Otherwise, largely agreed. It's not that Wizards have lost power in the world, they've merely lost power over the other PCs.
> 
> Cheers, -- N




heh heehh...fun yup.


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## Plissken (Nov 3, 2009)

Funny. When 4e first came out the typical response to complaints about the Wizard being nerfed was: "Dude. The wizard is still very powerful! Check out this and this power, combined with this with an implement and Int Mod of +4, the wizard is so freaking deadly." Now it's: "Yeah. He's nerfed. Deal with it."


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## Nifft (Nov 3, 2009)

Plissken said:


> Funny. When 4e first came out the typical response to complaints about the Wizard being nerfed was: "Dude. The wizard is still very powerful! Check out this and this power, combined with this with an implement and Int Mod of +4, the wizard is so freaking deadly." Now it's: "Yeah. He's nerfed. Deal with it."



 Both are true.

Low-level Wizards are no longer limited to a handful (or even just a finger-full) of spells per day, and low-level Wizards can compete with Fighters for raw damage output.

On the other hand, mid-to-high level Fighters can now compete with Wizards for damage output and battlefield control.

"_Balance giveth, and balance taketh away_", -- N


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## ExploderWizard (Nov 3, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> That is a villains quote you realize ;p
> 
> The archer ranger is robinhood and william tell doing things that are astonishing. The paladin murmurs over his blade and flares to light with power streaming in from the astral sea. Poets priests and politicians inspire the heroic to push beyond all natural limits. Warriors tap in to heroic luck that seems unending. Barbarians channel spirits and the might of the earth goddess into awesome rages(check out ancient celt barbarians).
> The wizards powers still sweep the chaff before him ... but the chaff no longer seems to include his peers... is that bad?




Not bad really but it does change the vibe to a more supers-team feel than a sword and sorcery adventuring party. Everyone in the party being equal is a noble goal but there are certain traditional D&D'isms that added a lot of fun moments.

Targeting casters first to eliminate the danger. Turn based initiative makes acting as a cohesive team for coordinated nuking more difficult unless everyone delays to the lowest initiative count in the party. That combined with the knowledge that an enemy caster just really isn't more dangerous than anyone else and is not such a high priority make this classic staple pointless.

The excitement of not knowing if you will get that big spell off before its disrupted. Once again turn taking predictability kills the sizzle. Heck, even being grabbed and held won't prevent you from casting. 

Spells just don't seem like spells these days. They are more like a targeted bzzzzt with spell tacked on as a label.


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## Obryn (Nov 3, 2009)

Plissken said:


> Funny. When 4e first came out the typical response to complaints about the Wizard being nerfed was: "Dude. The wizard is still very powerful! Check out this and this power, combined with this with an implement and Int Mod of +4, the wizard is so freaking deadly." Now it's: "Yeah. He's nerfed. Deal with it."



That's different from how I remember it.   IIRC, there was a lot of joy over the Wizard not being able to step on other classes' toes so much.  And then there was much wailing & gnashing of teeth when a lot of folks decided it was the weakest class in 4e, IMO without much justification.

Yes, the Wizard in 4e is less powerful and flexible than the Wizard in 3e, while still being able to do wizardy things for longer.  Yes, I think this is a good thing.  Yes, the Wizard is nevertheless still very powerful in 4e, and has both decent at-wills and incredibly good Daily powers.  And yes, if a Wizard player pays attention to their Rituals, they might still get some of that old-fashioned out-of-combat magic feeling.

-O


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## Nifft (Nov 3, 2009)

Obryn said:


> That's different from how I remember it.   IIRC, there was a lot of joy over the Wizard not being able to step on other classes' toes so much.  And then there was much wailing & gnashing of teeth when a lot of folks decided it was the weakest class in 4e, IMO without much justification.



 After playing a pregen 4e Wizard in KotS, I will affirm that there was some justification.

In my case it's pregen bias: the Fighter was fairly well done (got some feats tweaked & picked up a shield), the Rogue was very well done (pretty much unchanged), but the Wizard got a total makeover once we finally got our hands on a PHB.

Cheers, -- N


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 3, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> That is a villains quote you realize ;p
> 
> The archer ranger is robinhood and william tell doing things that are astonishing. The paladin murmurs over his blade and flares to light with power streaming in from the astral sea.  Poets priests and politicians inspire the heroic to push beyond all natural limits. Warriors tap in to heroic luck that seems unending. Barbarians channel spirits and the might of the earth goddess into awesome rages(check out ancient celt barbarians).



And rightly so!... although I'm still not jiving with all of this at 1st level. Count me a sucker for the occasional peasant to hero thing.



			
				Garthanos said:
			
		

> The wizards powers still sweep the chaff before him ... but the chaff no longer seems to include his peers...



or the real enemies, just the pretend ones (minions).



			
				Garthanos said:
			
		

> is that bad?



No it's not bad, it's just unfortunate for certain players. It's a mind shift going from the versatile and somewhat dangerous Wizard to the crowd control guy who's had his niche [rituals] taken away from him. For all the little guys out there who have had their trapfinding, melee-badass, sneaking shoes trodden upon by the ALL-MIGHTY WIZARD TM, it is a victory sweet that you are all still rejoicing in. Meh... Wizards were nerfed, all colour removed from their Excellent Prismatic Sprays and we'll all deal with it in our own way.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

PS Garthanos: clicked on your link and found some good stuff. Well done!


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 3, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Spells are easy to use in 3.x
> Spells are fire-and-forget.
> Spells do work reliably.
> 
> What exactly is your quibble with the word "button"?



They were not the circumstances or context I was talking about. I was referring to very situational occasions where a simple spell could have surprisingly inventive usefulness, not a simple I-win-button to be mindlessly mashed. Perhaps I should give you a simple example from our game:

Social Event and Banquet but we needed to talk to the Prince immediately without his back-stabbing fiance next to him to hear the conversation (and thus inform the cult she was working for). We needed to spirit him out of there without causing a fuss. We tried one or two things to talk directly to the prince but nothing would seem to work within the faux "politeness" of the banquet. Then at the toast, everyone cheers raises their glasses including the fiance but a grease spell makes her dump the red wine all over her dress. She quickly excuses herself, runs out in embarassment (a few extra victory points and cheers for that!) and we get to talk to the Prince directly with recently acquired but irrefutable evidence against his Fiance. The province saved by a grease spell.

I'm not talking about cheesy recipes (as highlighted by another poster) but simple inventive opportunities; happenstances that only come around every so often. Could a diplomacy check have worked? Possibly but a little risky and time-consuming. Could an outright accusation have been made? Of course but with serious repercussions at getting at the cults head - they would have been forewarned. Grease spell? Perfect!!!



			
				Nifft said:
			
		

> Right. A single action that defeats a whole encounter, which was intended to challenge the whole party.



Again you take what I was saying out of the context it was delivered. I was referring to a minor encounter that was a resource speed bump for the party - not a "*challenge *for the whole party".



			
				Nifft said:
			
		

> 4e didn't take away your ability to be imaginative.



No of course it didn't. It took away most of the interesting and imaginative tools that a wizard could use though.


			
				Nifft said:
			
		

> It did take away your ability to win whole encounters with a single action.



Save or dies fine. Giving simple monsters so many hit points that numerous rounds of hit point erosion are required... not so fine.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Harlekin (Nov 4, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> They were not the circumstances or context I was talking about. I was referring to very situational occasions where a simple spell could have surprisingly inventive usefulness, not a simple I-win-button to be mindlessly mashed. Perhaps I should give you a simple example from our game:
> 
> Social Event and Banquet but we needed to talk to the Prince immediately without his back-stabbing fiance next to him to hear the conversation (and thus inform the cult she was working for). We needed to spirit him out of there without causing a fuss. We tried one or two things to talk directly to the prince but nothing would seem to work within the faux "politeness" of the banquet. Then at the toast, everyone cheers raises their glasses including the fiance but a grease spell makes her dump the red wine all over her dress. She quickly excuses herself, runs out in embarassment (a few extra victory points and cheers for that!) and we get to talk to the Prince directly with recently acquired but irrefutable evidence against his Fiance. The province saved by a grease spell.
> 
> I'm not talking about cheesy recipes (as highlighted by another poster) but simple inventive opportunities; happenstances that only come around every so often. Could a diplomacy check have worked? Possibly but a little risky and time-consuming. Could an outright accusation have been made? Of course but with serious repercussions at getting at the cults head - they would have been forewarned. Grease spell? Perfect!!!




Sure that is a neat trick (Although the rules fiend in me wonders if the spell was stilled and silenced). This is exactly the reason that I like mage hand and prestidigation being at wills in 4th edition. After all, a 4th edition wizard would have gotten the same effect with mage hand.

As a side note: A really large number of these stories seem to be based on the application of the Grease spell. Is that because there are only a few spells in 3.5 that are really that flexible?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 4, 2009)

Harlekin said:


> Sure that is a neat trick (Although the rules fiend in me wonders if the spell was stilled and silenced). This is exactly the reason that I like mage hand and prestidigation being at wills in 4th edition. After all, a 4th edition wizard would have gotten the same effect with mage hand.
> 
> As a side note: A really large number of these stories seem to be based on the application of the Grease spell. Is that because there are only a few spells in 3.5 that are really that flexible?




Well, a 3.X mage could have used Mage Hand to do that as well, though not "at will" unless he had taken a particular Feat.

As for Grease?  It gets used a lot because its a popular spell with both combat and non-combat applications.  In a sense, its the quintessential low-level flex-use spell, just like MM and Sleep are frequently cited in low-level combat discussions.


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## Fanaelialae (Nov 4, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> They were not the circumstances or context I was talking about. I was referring to very situational occasions where a simple spell could have surprisingly inventive usefulness, not a simple I-win-button to be mindlessly mashed. Perhaps I should give you a simple example from our game:
> 
> Social Event and Banquet but we needed to talk to the Prince immediately without his back-stabbing fiance next to him to hear the conversation (and thus inform the cult she was working for). We needed to spirit him out of there without causing a fuss. We tried one or two things to talk directly to the prince but nothing would seem to work within the faux "politeness" of the banquet. Then at the toast, everyone cheers raises their glasses including the fiance but a grease spell makes her dump the red wine all over her dress. She quickly excuses herself, runs out in embarassment (a few extra victory points and cheers for that!) and we get to talk to the Prince directly with recently acquired but irrefutable evidence against his Fiance. The province saved by a grease spell.
> 
> ...




The 4e Wizard could use Prestidigitation to make a wine stain appear upon the fiance's dress.  He could also use mage hand to tip over a wine glass as a waiter passed by the fiance.  I'd even allow a page 42 use of Grease (admittedly somewhat wasteful as it's a daily) or an ice spell to slick up a wine glass, as per your example.  IMO, 4e hasn't harmed creative spell usage.  The tricks just aren't necessarily always the exact same tricks from earlier editions.

The fact that everyone plays the same ablative game is preferable to me and my group.  If they'd given all non-casters instant death attacks (the fighter can chop the dragon's head off in one swing) I think it might have worked okay, though I admit it would not have been the game for me (my group avoided insta-death in earlier editions like the plague).


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 4, 2009)

Harlekin said:


> Sure that is a neat trick (Although the rules fiend in me wonders if the spell was stilled and silenced).



At that point there was a cheer and raising of glasses, so the wizard's casting was ruled to be suitably disguised - it was just the perfect moment and so off the cuff... a really nice casting of a spell.



			
				Harlekin said:
			
		

> This is exactly the reason that I like mage hand and prestidigation being at wills in 4th edition. After all, a 4th edition wizard would have gotten the same effect with mage hand.



Putting on my own DM's hat, mage hand creates a spectral hand which I'm not too sure is strictly invisible (is it ghostly in appearance)? The rules seem to be vague on whether the object is allowed to be attended by someone (if so, then mage hand would seem to be an excellent tool for disarming combatants). As such, I'm not too sure it would conclusively work (I know that the 3.5 version of Mage Hand would not work with an attended object). Someone mentioned prestidigitation but the range here would be too close having to be within 10ft. (The range on the grease spell was about 35/40ft.) As well, it is not as natural as a dropped crashing glass to get attention (with evidence of the grease being unnoticeable). Possible but maybe not quite as effective.
Hmmm... it's a maybe (and certainly worthy of being paid by a supportive 4e DM looking to reward inventiveness despite the clunky tools) but not a certainty.



			
				Harlekin said:
			
		

> As a side note: A really large number of these stories seem to be based on the application of the Grease spell. Is that because there are only a few spells in 3.5 that are really that flexible?



Well you had prestidigitation and mage hand in 3.x anyway... but all the illusion spells were ripe for imaginitive use. Unseen Servant was also one of those spells that could be nicely used. But to answer your question, Grease is just a damn useful spell in a lot of scenarios and I suppose the slapstick possibilities with it are just fun and so it is always a good spell to have close to hand.

As far as my own example was concerned, I just wanted to demonstrate that wizardly effects didn't have to be powerful to be really useful but at the same time, they were heavily dependent upon circumstance, inventiveness and timing, and not an "I-win" button to be repeatedly mashed until success was assured. 

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Fanaelialae (Nov 4, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> At that point there was a cheer and raising of glasses, so the wizard's casting was ruled to be suitably disguised - it was just the perfect moment and so off the cuff... a really nice casting of a spell.
> 
> Putting on my own DM's hat, mage hand creates a spectral hand which I'm not too sure is strictly invisible (is it ghostly in appearance)? The rules seem to be vague on whether the object is allowed to be attended by someone (if so, then mage hand would seem to be an excellent tool for disarming combatants). As such, I'm not too sure it would conclusively work (I know that the 3.5 version of Mage Hand would not work with an attended object). Someone mentioned prestidigitation but the range here would be too close having to be within 10ft. (The range on the grease spell was about 35/40ft.) As well, it is not as natural as a dropped crashing glass to get attention (with evidence of the grease being unnoticeable). Possible but maybe not quite as effective.
> Hmmm... it's a maybe (and certainly worthy of being paid by a supportive 4e DM looking to reward inventiveness despite the clunky tools) but not a certainty.




By that logic, the fiance could have noticed that her hand was suddenly covered in a layer of grease.  Many DMs also wouldn't consider a toast a sufficient distraction to cover the verbals and somatics of spellcasting.  Regardless of edition, the DM is capable of either working with a creative player or against them.  Grease is as much of a "maybe" with regard to subtly "disarming" the fiance in 3x as 4e.



Herremann the Wise said:


> Well you had prestidigitation and mage hand in 3.x anyway... but all the illusion spells were ripe for imaginitive use. Unseen Servant was also one of those spells that could be nicely used. But to answer your question, Grease is just a damn useful spell in a lot of scenarios and I suppose the slapstick possibilities with it are just fun and so it is always a good spell to have close to hand.
> 
> As far as my own example was concerned, I just wanted to demonstrate that wizardly effects didn't have to be powerful to be really useful but at the same time, they were heavily dependent upon circumstance, inventiveness and timing, and not an "I-win" button to be repeatedly mashed until success was assured.
> 
> ...




Little creative things like that weren't what the "I win" button was about.  In your scenario the party rogue could have just as easily sauntered over to speak with the fiance and used Bluff to "accidentally" spill his wine on her.

The problematic "I win" buttons were the serious game changers like Web, Invisibility, Fly, Forcecage, and Wish, which could get results far beyond the wildest dreams of the non-caster classes.  

Using grease in the aforementioned manner was somewhat clever.  Casting Tasha's Overactive Bladder to get rid of her, on the other hand, would not have been.  Much of the time, IME, casters were quite more the latter than the former.


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## Nifft (Nov 4, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> Social Event and Banquet but we needed to talk to the Prince immediately without his back-stabbing fiance next to him to hear the conversation (and thus inform the cult she was working for). We needed to spirit him out of there without causing a fuss. We tried one or two things to talk directly to the prince but nothing would seem to work within the faux "politeness" of the banquet. Then at the toast, everyone cheers raises their glasses including the fiance but a grease spell makes her dump the red wine all over her dress. She quickly excuses herself, runs out in embarassment (a few extra victory points and cheers for that!) and we get to talk to the Prince directly with recently acquired but irrefutable evidence against his Fiance. The province saved by a grease spell.
> 
> (...)
> 
> [4e] took away most of the interesting and imaginative tools that a wizard could use though.





			
				Compendium said:
			
		

> *Prestidigitation*
> You perform an amusing magical trick, such as creating a dancing wisp of light, freshening a wilting flower, making a coin invisible, or warming a cold drink.
> At-Will        Arcane
> Standard Action      Ranged 2
> ...



 Hey look, that still works.

So now you're on-board with 4e being awesome and supporting imaginative Wizards, right?

Cheers, -- N


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## Garthanos (Nov 4, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> The 4e Wizard could use Prestidigitation to make a wine stain appear upon the fiance's dress.  He could also use mage hand to tip over a wine glass as a waiter passed by the fiance.  I'd even allow a page 42 use of Grease (admittedly somewhat wasteful as it's a daily) or an ice spell to slick up a wine glass, as per your example.  IMO, 4e hasn't harmed creative spell usage.  The tricks just aren't necessarily always the exact same tricks from earlier editions.




Oh exactly exactly... and we have creative use of other folks abilities... but I suggest they take thievery skill if they want to exploit subtle timing and similar things to conceal there arcane activities. Its one of the witchy skills you know, not just for the gypsy witch. 

But there is further one could go... 

For instance maybe a magic missile could be used to break a lamp across the room if you wanted a distraction. A rogue could do similar with a small coin.... and since somebody else did the distraction you would be even less obvious. . The party warlord might pull out his diplomacy to make sure the toast was not only loud but drew the attention of the people most likely to notice your surreptitious magic.


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 4, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> By that logic, the fiance could have noticed that her hand was suddenly covered in a layer of grease.  Many DMs also wouldn't consider a toast a sufficient distraction to cover the verbals and somatics of spellcasting.  Regardless of edition, the DM is capable of either working with a creative player or against them.  Grease is as much of a "maybe" with regard to subtly "disarming" the fiance in 3x as 4e.



I suppose this is what I meant by circumstances. The toast was with over a hundred people in a noisy banquet hall with everyone focused on the Prince and moving their hands up toasting him. Perfect conditions for even the most noisily obvious wizard - which this guy wasn't. The greasing was like how you grease a cake tin, not how you grease a differential joint (which of course is fairly loose I suppose in terms of interpretation). Your point is well made, I'm just explaining the circumstances and why it seemed so... perfectly cast and executed at the time.



Fanaelialae said:


> Little creative things like that weren't what the "I win" button was about.  In your scenario the party rogue could have just as easily sauntered over to speak with the fiance and used Bluff to "accidentally" spill his wine on her.
> 
> The problematic "I win" buttons were the serious game changers like Web, Invisibility, Fly, Forcecage, and Wish, which could get results far beyond the wildest dreams of the non-caster classes.
> 
> Using grease in the aforementioned manner was somewhat clever.  Casting Tasha's Overactive Bladder to get rid of her, on the other hand, would not have been.  Much of the time, IME, casters were quite more the latter than the former.



On this I can agree and why I mentioned throwing the baby (the nice handy imaginitive tools - illusions in particular) out with the bathwater (the save or dies and the broken ones like Shapechange, Gate and Wish - with an inexperienced DM).

I think only the most ardent of 3.x supporters would ignore or fail to recognize the difficulties of balancing casters and non-casters at high levels. In my high level Age of Worms campaign (3.x: all above 16th level at the moment) handling the wizard so as to make the game enjoyable for all is pretty much the first thing I have to address in every single encounter.

The wizard's power needed to be addressed but not necessarily completely nerf-batted. The mystery of magic in 4e is not a feature of the game as it was in earlier editions (3.x certainly started this trend much to my chagrin). 

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Garthanos (Nov 4, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Hey look, that still works.
> 
> So now you're on-board with 4e being awesome and supporting imaginative Wizards, right?
> 
> Cheers, -- N




It isnt winnable dude.


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## Hussar (Nov 4, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> Not bad really but it does change the vibe to a more supers-team feel than a sword and sorcery adventuring party. Everyone in the party being equal is a noble goal but there are certain traditional D&D'isms that added a lot of fun moments./snip(




I reject this binary state.  It's not either S&S fantasy or fantasy supers, there's all sorts of other sorts of fantasy that fit right in with D&D that ISN'T S&S.

Steven Erikson's Malazan series is a perfect example.  Every (or nearly every) main character is far and beyond better than a farmboy.  But, surprisingly enough, the characters are about on par with each other, more or less.  ((Ok, there are gods wandering around, but, let's not get too fixated.   ))

Ignoring high fantasy for the moment, you can dig back into myth and legend as well.  The heroes of these old stories performed super-human feats, that's what MADE them myths in the first place.

Yet, no one seems to say that the choice is between S&S fantasy and traditional myth and legend.

I wonder why that is.


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## GMforPowergamers (Nov 4, 2009)

The grease spell was awsome... and a great example of a spell being used well outside of it's intent becuse the player had an idea, and the DM went along... (I wish we had a clap smileing face here) now tell me if that player was a non magic casting class would he be less creative and awsome? Or is it just easier with casters to think outside the box???

See by showing that bit of awsome sauce you also show the problem...the PCs are playing two diffrent games, casters can do anything they imagin, and non casters are limited to only what a real person could do, or atleast close...

That is why just nerfing the wizard would do nothign for D&D...takeing a power level 11 class like wizard to level 6 only helps if a power level 2 class like fighter is brought up to level 6 as well...witch I think they atleast got pretty close to.


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## GMforPowergamers (Nov 4, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> When everyone is a wizard then, effectively;  no one is.






Garthanos said:


> That is a villains quote you realize ;p




It is actualy the whole (ok one of the) theme of the movie...Dash in the car points out when it is brought up early in the movie, then later when Mr Incredable and Invsable woman are argueing it gets brought up again (in the vain of dash compeating) then of cource syndrome's threat...

the end result is up to the audince to decide, but I always hold the dash talk in the car in my heart when I think about life...

Dash "We're special"
Invsable woman "Everyone is dear"
Dash "thats just another way to say no one is"


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 4, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> The grease spell was awsome... and a great example of a spell being used well outside of it's intent becuse the player had an idea, and the DM went along... (I wish we had a clap smileing face here) now tell me if that player was a non magic casting class would he be less creative and awsome? Or is it just easier with casters to think outside the box???



This perhaps more than anything else separates the magic from the mundane. Magic does give the player a nice set of tools to work with that by their very nature give them an inventive advantage over their non-caster counterparts. That's not to say that non-casters and in particular the player's behind them can't pull something inventive out of the box, it's just not as easy. I'm a representative pool (8 ball) player and while I can play OK with a rack cue, having my own playing cue (a Predator P3 at 17.5 ounces with a medium hard Moori tip for those who know about such things), makes a huge difference in terms of control and the subtle yet consistent action I can put on the cue ball. A good cue like a caster gives you so many more options... and deservedly so.



			
				GMforPowergamers said:
			
		

> See by showing that bit of awsome sauce you also show the problem...the PCs are playing two diffrent games, casters can do anything they imagin, and non casters are limited to only what a real person could do, or atleast close...
> 
> That is why just nerfing the wizard would do nothign for D&D...takeing a power level 11 class like wizard to level 6 only helps if a power level 2 class like fighter is brought up to level 6 as well...witch I think they atleast got pretty close to.



I agree that they have balanced the casters with the non-casters very well bringing them down and up respectively within the constraints of the 4e gamespace.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Garthanos (Nov 4, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> the end result is up to the audince to decide, but I always hold the dash talk in the car in my heart when I think about life...




The villain was a misunderstood little boy and so was dash... it was both.


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## Bluenose (Nov 4, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> This perhaps more than anything else separates the magic from the mundane. Magic does give the player a nice set of tools to work with that by their very nature give them an inventive advantage over their non-caster counterparts. That's not to say that non-casters and in particular the player's behind them can't pull something inventive out of the box, it's just not as easy. I'm a representative pool (8 ball) player and while I can play OK with a rack cue, having my own playing cue (a Predator P3 at 17.5 ounces with a medium hard Moori tip for those who know about such things), makes a huge difference in terms of control and the subtle yet consistent action I can put on the cue ball. A good cue like a caster gives you so many more options... *and deservedly so.*



​The idea that writing "Wizard" on your character sheet (as opposed to writing "Rogue" or "Fighter" ) means that you *deserve* to have more options is not one that I consider particularly valid. The particular situation you describe at the banquet is one with many possible solutions which could have been tried and which require player ingenuity and character skill, and all of them are pointless when the wizard can bypass them with a spell which is after all a class ability.


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## Garthanos (Nov 4, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> And rightly so!... although I'm still not jiving with all of this at 1st level. Count me a sucker for the occasional peasant to hero thing.




I have a minion costume in my closet for you...I always despised playing a peasant.  I do NOT get the appeal of playing a character who dies at the drop of a coin.

Honestly, every member of my family has a bow. I have nice quick draw with it and a narrow pattern at 20 paces and my kendo is a fair talent as well (The sword collection in my living room spans to the library ). Quite honestly I want the heroic of movies and literary fiction and heck yeah legends and myth!!!, I dont really want to play me. When I game I want larger than life. 

And its great that I am encouraged to free form visualize the details of how my characters power is implemented with "any class".

They did more than one thing right.



Herremann the Wise said:


> PS Garthanos: clicked on your link and found some good stuff. Well done!




Thanks!


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## Fanaelialae (Nov 4, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> On this I can agree and why I mentioned throwing the baby (the nice handy imaginitive tools - illusions in particular) out with the bathwater (the save or dies and the broken ones like Shapechange, Gate and Wish - with an inexperienced DM).
> 
> I think only the most ardent of 3.x supporters would ignore or fail to recognize the difficulties of balancing casters and non-casters at high levels. In my high level Age of Worms campaign (3.x: all above 16th level at the moment) handling the wizard so as to make the game enjoyable for all is pretty much the first thing I have to address in every single encounter.
> 
> ...




Except that illusions were some of the worst "I win" buttons out there (provided you had a lenient DM).  

A level 1 wizard could use a silent image spell to "conjure" an enormous dragon that could cow anyone and everyone into submission.  Of course, some DMs would simply reply that "everyone knows there aren't dragons in these parts" and have everyone automatically disbelieve.  (I've personally seen both scenarios at the game table.)  The functionality (or abusability) of a spell should never be reliant upon whether your DM is a push over or a hardnose.

FWIW, today's Dragon article (Wizard Spells of the Feywild), introduces a level 2 Wizard Encounter Utility that allows you to create the illusion of a medium or smaller object or creature.  Illusions were hit by the nerf bat (because in conjunction with an inexperienced/lenient DM they could easily become game breakers) but they're present and more are slowly trickling in.

Oh, and I completely agree with Bluenose.  Writing Wizard on your sheet shouldn't be a "creativity license" that no one else can even apply for.


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## ExploderWizard (Nov 4, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Ignoring high fantasy for the moment, you can dig back into myth and legend as well. The heroes of these old stories performed super-human feats, that's what MADE them myths in the first place.
> 
> Yet, no one seems to say that the choice is between S&S fantasy and traditional myth and legend.
> 
> I wonder why that is.




A hero can do deeds beyond the capability of normal folk. A heroic fighter can take punisnment that would kill more than a dozen men and single handedly slay creatures that could wipe out entire villages. As a hero living in a world where there is magic, he or she doesn't have to use or manipulate magic to be such a hero. The magical powers of a wizard are very different from those of the martially focused hero. 

The martial hero shouldn't be doing the things a wizard does and the wizard shouldn't try and fight with weapons like the fighter. 

There should be situations that require magic to succeed and there should also be situations where magic will be of little use. Having every hero accomplish the same tasks with a differently flavored power is like having a superhero team with just different fluff and costumes. 

The more common magic becomes the more it transforms into a kind of accepted technology. The whole concept of a wizard as a mysterious practitioner of magic is lost if every hero is essentially a spellcaster.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 4, 2009)

The constant reference to this quote is pointless and circular.



GMforPowergamers said:


> Dash "We're special"
> Invsable woman "Everyone is dear"
> Dash "thats just another way to say no one is"



One thing we might note is that every member of their adventuring party WAS special.  Mr. Incredible didn't head shot every big bad fight, obviating the need for the rest of his family.  They overcame things as a team once they became such.  That was actually a better delivered message of the film than that ham-handed club-to-the-head about excellence and mediocrity.

All of the player characters and a subset of the GM characters are all "special" relative to regular people.  This was true in every edition I've played to some extent.  The debate here (such as it is) is whether or not the wizard gets to be MORE special than everyone else.

So everyone needs to stop trying to score points with that quote.  In the context of a *game* about heroes that has absolutely nothing to do with ordinary people... I do not think it means what you think it means.


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## Hussar (Nov 4, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> A hero can do deeds beyond the capability of normal folk. A heroic fighter can take punisnment that would kill more than a dozen men and single handedly slay creatures that could wipe out entire villages. As a hero living in a world where there is magic, he or she doesn't have to use or manipulate magic to be such a hero. The magical powers of a wizard are very different from those of the martially focused hero.
> 
> The martial hero shouldn't be doing the things a wizard does and the wizard shouldn't try and fight with weapons like the fighter.




Totally on board with you up to here.



> There should be situations that require magic to succeed and there should also be situations where magic will be of little use. Having every hero accomplish the same tasks with a differently flavored power is like having a superhero team with just different fluff and costumes.
> 
> The more common magic becomes the more it transforms into a kind of accepted technology. The whole concept of a wizard as a mysterious practitioner of magic is lost if every hero is essentially a spellcaster.




And here we part company.  There should be situations that "require magic to succeed"?  First off, how is that not extremely heavy handed DMing?  Shouldn't those decisions be left to the players?

Why is screwing over one class and then another considered a good thing?  If magic is required, then the non-caster classes get to watch from the benches.  If magic is of little use, then the caster gets to sit down.  Why is mechanically forcing players to take a time out considered good design?

If I, as the player, choose to not participate, that's one thing.  That's totally up to me.  But, when the DM turns to me and says, "Oh, sorry Hussar, today, you get to watch Bob over there do everything", that's just really bad game design to me.

Yes, I come to play.  That means I want to play as much as possible.  That doesn't mean I'll never die or anything like that.  That's fair enough.  That's a consequence of play that makes sense.  But, "Sorry, you're a rogue so you get to watch while everyone else deals with these constructs" isn't a logical consequence of the game.  

Again, why does writing "wizard" on my character sheet automatically give me more options in play?  Why is that a good thing?


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## ExploderWizard (Nov 4, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Again, why does writing "wizard" on my character sheet automatically give me more options in play? Why is that a good thing?




Why does it give you more options? Why can't it give you different options? Why is that a bad thing?


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## Jack99 (Nov 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Well, since orc chiefs have 12 hp, a single fireball would take care of the main part of an orc lair. There might be an ogre or a troll with them, I suppose. That's not what I would consider grinding so much as shopping with extreme prejudice.



Tossing a 10th level fireball into the cave of orcs is not clever if you are hunting for potions (talk about a videogamey game btw). Since you would probably destroy those same potions in the process. 


Celtavian said:


> Depends really. Alot of creatures had far fewer hit points in 1e/2E. Thus damage spells were pretty effective.
> 
> Some of us were creative with our spell strategies. That didn't necessarily mean doing damage. It was more fun to have a spellbook that allowed you to figure out  a spell strategy for helping the entire party do the job.
> 
> ...



Wall spells are plentiful in 4e and work just as well, and can even be used creatively. Regarding the older editions, lots of stuff done with spells was so much creative as bending the rules. If you had a easy-going DM, you could break the game, if you didn't the same spells could be almost useless.

Of course, this was rarely an issue, because there were so many spells that could break the game by RAW


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## Hussar (Nov 4, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> Why does it give you more options? Why can't it give you different options? Why is that a bad thing?




Well, pre-4e, it did give me more options.  Far more options.  A wizard or a cleric had a list of options as long as their spell list.  What options does a fighter have that a cleric doesn't?

I would think that the 4e power system is an example where you have different options but relative parity in the number of options and a relative parity in the scale of those options.

I have no problem with the idea of one class having different options than another.  That's fine.  But, why should casters get several times more options than non-casters?


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## MrMyth (Nov 4, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> A hero can do deeds beyond the capability of normal folk. A heroic fighter can take punisnment that would kill more than a dozen men and single handedly slay creatures that could wipe out entire villages. As a hero living in a world where there is magic, he or she doesn't have to use or manipulate magic to be such a hero. The magical powers of a wizard are very different from those of the martially focused hero.
> 
> The martial hero shouldn't be doing the things a wizard does and the wizard shouldn't try and fight with weapons like the fighter.




And they _don't_.  The high-level fighter is a pretty awesome dude who can take incredible punishment and dish it back out. Any supernatural performance will typically be coming from, say, an Epic Destiny - such as literally becoming a Demigod, or an incarnation of battle, or something else that _does_ get to go beyond the natural at epic levels. Or from items. Or from multiclassing, or mastering Ritual Casting - something that _should_ put him on similar territory to the Wizard, just like multiclassing did in 3rd Edition!

The two operate differently and have different flavor, both have different strengths and weaknesses and can be more or less useful in different circumstances. Either can apply creative ideas to combat either through clever use of powers and utilities, and imaginative use of stunts and the DMs use of page 42. It's just that those ideas no longer instantly win a combat, unless the DM decides they should - no longer are they built around finding loopholes in the rules, but instead rely on shared imagination and narrative flexibility. Which I think is a _strength_ of the edition, not a weakness.



> There should be situations that require magic to succeed and there should also be situations where magic will be of little use. Having every hero accomplish the same tasks with a differently flavored power is like having a superhero team with just different fluff and costumes.




As an aside, I noticed that you constantly make these superhero references without it having any actual support to back it up. It's very frustrating. That said, I disagree entirely that in order for characters to be meaningful, you have to outright design situations that only one character can solve. Sure, have situations that play to the strength of different characters, but limiting all options so that only one choice can save the party - having the wizard cast the right spell, for example - is just poor design. 

And to draw your comments back towards 3rd Edition, the reason the Wizard needed to be neutered was that he typically had a trump card to avoid ever being in a situation where you needed the fighter or the rogue instead of him. Sure, there were situations supposed to be like that - an Iron Golem, for example, should be entirely there for the fighter to dispose of. Except the wizard knocks it down with Grease, blinds it with Glitterdust, and then blows it apart with Orbs of Force. Too many trump cards, not enough restrictions - that wasn't being 'more magical', that was taking advantage of poorly designed rules that let one character be the star of the show. 

Now, the wizard can be the archmage with myriad options at his fingertips, master of countless rituals and the ability to call forth magic at any given moment and apply it in creative ways... without relegating the rest of the party to the back seat. I can only see that as a good thing.


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## MrMyth (Nov 4, 2009)

Also, an anecdote, since I saw someone commenting earlier in this thread (or a related one) about how sad it was that wizards no longer ever chose "Fireball": 

I was playing a mid-heroic LFR game last week, and the final battle consisted of us getting the drop on the bad guys - finding them holed up in a warehouse. Our wizard kicked the door in, and tossed a fireball right into the middle of the room to tremendous effect. The spell gets passed over quite a bit in optimization forums and the like because it doesn't really do much other than a bit of damage - but the real strength, especially at level 5, is that it is simply an enormous area. Half the enemies never got to act that fight, in large part because of the wizard simply scorching the earth before they ever got to go. 

A lot of folks overlook that, but filling a room with fire and roasting everyone in it is just as viable a tactic now as in previous editions, and that moment in the LFR game felt just as classic as chucking a fireball into an enclosed room in my early days of playing D&D.


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## ExploderWizard (Nov 4, 2009)

MrMyth said:


> As an aside, I noticed that you constantly make these superhero references without it having any actual support to back it up. It's very frustrating.



4E without modification does have a superhero feel compared to the early (non 3E) editions. It is just an opinion. City of Heroes(A supers MMO) = Striker/Defender/Controller/Leader = 4E roles.




MrMyth said:


> That said, I disagree entirely that in order for characters to be meaningful, you have to outright design situations that only one character can solve. Sure, have situations that play to the strength of different characters, but limiting all options so that only one choice can save the party - having the wizard cast the right spell, for example - is just poor design.
> 
> And to draw your comments back towards 3rd Edition, the reason the Wizard needed to be neutered was that he typically had a trump card to avoid ever being in a situation where you needed the fighter or the rogue instead of him. Sure, there were situations supposed to be like that - an Iron Golem, for example, should be entirely there for the fighter to dispose of. Except the wizard knocks it down with Grease, blinds it with Glitterdust, and then blows it apart with Orbs of Force. Too many trump cards, not enough restrictions - that wasn't being 'more magical', that was taking advantage of poorly designed rules that let one character be the star of the show.




I quite agree that 3E casters overshadowed other classes. The problem wasn't being "too magical". You are correct about the lack of restrictions. Getting rid of declared casting prior to intiative, the wide availability of wands and movement during the casting round, powered up the caster beyond what they should have been able to do. Older edition D&D spells were very powerful but tricky and risky to attempt in combat. Getting a spell disrupted and lost isn't fun so it was ditched. 



MrMyth said:


> Now, the wizard can be the archmage with myriad options at his fingertips, master of countless rituals and the ability to call forth magic at any given moment and apply it in creative ways... without relegating the rest of the party to the back seat. I can only see that as a good thing.




As long as any given moment takes at least 10 minutes, you are accurate. The PC's always have as much time as they need because they have narrative control and being time pressured isn't fun. I can only see that as a snooze fest.


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## LostSoul (Nov 4, 2009)

I think that Warlocks are the ones with all the good spells these days, the spells that can be used creatively.  Usually to warp someone's mind.

The Wizard has a few, I guess.  Faced with a chasm?  Use Bigby's Icy Hand to pick you up and carry you across.



ExploderWizard said:


> As long as any given moment takes at least 10 minutes, you are accurate. The PC's always have as much time as they need because they have narrative control and being time pressured isn't fun. I can only see that as a snooze fest.




I think getting those extra few minutes to cast a ritual can be an exciting challenge.


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## MrMyth (Nov 4, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> 4E without modification does have a superhero feel compared to the early (non 3E) editions. It is just an opinion. City of Heroes(A supers MMO) = Striker/Defender/Controller/Leader = 4E roles.




Fair enough, everyone is entitled to an opinion. I definitely found that 3rd Edition, and the emphasis on optimization - as well as the _requirement_ of having different roles, rather than just the guidelines for it - had a far more video-game/super-hero feel to it, in my experience. 




ExploderWizard said:


> As long as any given moment takes at least 10 minutes, you are accurate. The PC's always have as much time as they need because they have narrative control and being time pressured isn't fun. I can only see that as a snooze fest.




I think you've misread my statement, there. 

1) Having magic at 'any given moment' was my reference to the existence of at-will powers and renewable encounter powers (as well as cantrips). Not eventually 'running dry' of the smallest magics, combined with the ability to use those combat and utility powers in creative ways (as well as in conjunction with DM use of page 42) allows for more imaginative use of abilities than simply having to find a loophole in how powers are described, and forcing the DM to accept it. The mention of rituals was seperate from this, and are just another tool in the wizard's bag of tricks.

2) Narrative control doesn't mean the PCs get to choose when story happens and when it doesn't. It means they have a variety of ways to influence things and suggest creative uses of power for the DM to accept. "I throw my ray of cold at the waterfall as the enemy rushes through, to temporarily freeze him in a block of ice." Letting players have a bit more voice, along with encouraging DMs to be more open about how powers work and what they can accomplish, frees the game from earlier more rigid limitations. 

3) I'm not sure where the comments about a snooze fest come from. The pacing of a game and encounters is something that will vary from DM to DM, and if anything, 4E does more to encourage regular encounters rather than the approach of '15 minutes of spellcasting and then sleep for 8 hours'.


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## TwinBahamut (Nov 4, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> It is actualy the whole (ok one of the) theme of the movie...Dash in the car points out when it is brought up early in the movie, then later when Mr Incredable and Invsable woman are argueing it gets brought up again (in the vain of dash compeating) then of cource syndrome's threat...
> 
> the end result is up to the audince to decide, but I always hold the dash talk in the car in my heart when I think about life...
> 
> ...



Really, that scene is just there to emphasize that Dash is someone who needs to grow and mature more. His mother is the one who is right.

Yes, the idea of is a theme of the movie, but only in the sense that Dash and the villain are both mistaken in that same belief, and that Dash's triumph is how he gets over it, and the villain's failure is that he does not.

Also, it is important to not forget the most important theme of the movie is the idea that what makes a person a hero isn't their powers, but what they do with those powers. Mr. Incredible isn't a hero because he is strong, but because he is a good man who cares about his family. He is at his best when he is a loving father, and at his worst when he is obsessing over the glory days when he used his powers more. Similarly, the villain's acquisition of super powers through his gadgets doesn't make him a superhero, and doesn't change the fact that he is a pathetic, vile little man.

Anyways...

I really do think that 4E has taken the best approach. Every class really is special in 4E, since no two classes play out similarly at all. Sure, the wizard is a bit different than he used to be, in no small part because he is no longer trying to encompass every magical archetype at once. But now, because of the variety in the Arcane Power Source and different options in class choices, you can actually have a team of "wizards" who each do very different things without stepping on each other's toes, which I think is a huge advantage over older editions. What is more, classes like Fighters and Warlords are just as strong and creative as the Wizard, but they play very differently and do different things.


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## Henry (Nov 4, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> 4E without modification does have a superhero feel compared to the early (non 3E) editions. It is just an opinion. City of Heroes(A supers MMO) = Striker/Defender/Controller/Leader = 4E roles.




I've often wondered about this - compared to AD&D casters, PCs can't attack multiple times in a round, fly for more than a few minutes, teleport more than 30 or 40 feet, or target anything more than about 50 feet away in most cases. They have to get in the mid-teens before they can even think about flying or teleporting more than 5 minutes away, whereas casters from 5th to 10th level in AD&D can do all these and more. They can toss fireballs half a football field away; some spell effects go the length of football fields even at 2nd and 3rd spell level. Heck, a 9th level caster can (rules as written) use teleport and summon monster as offensive weapons. I know it's just an opinion, but to me the power curve to me went WAAY down as opposed to up.


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## ExploderWizard (Nov 4, 2009)

Henry said:


> I've often wondered about this - compared to AD&D casters, PCs can't attack multiple times in a round, fly for more than a few minutes, teleport more than 30 or 40 feet, or target anything more than about 50 feet away in most cases. They have to get in the mid-teens before they can even think about flying or teleporting more than 5 minutes away, whereas casters from 5th to 10th level in AD&D can do all these and more. They can toss fireballs half a football field away; some spell effects go the length of football fields even at 2nd and 3rd spell level. Heck, a 9th level caster can (rules as written) use teleport and summon monster as offensive weapons. I know it's just an opinion, but to me the power curve to me went WAAY down as opposed to up.




9th level in 1E AD&D was getting close to epic 4E by comparison. The number of normal playable levels has gone up so each "bracket" has more levels in 4E than 1E had but the power curve is similar. AD&D 1-4= heroic, 5-8= paragon, 9+= epic.


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## Garthanos (Nov 4, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> 9th level in 1E AD&D was getting close to epic 4E by comparison. The number of normal playable levels has gone up so each "bracket" has more levels in 4E than 1E had but the power curve is similar. AD&D 1-4= heroic, 5-8= paragon, 9+= epic.




Interesting ... I think the coversion is more like add 4 levels to the above... wizards in 4e start out playably competant in feel. Fighters and rangers have attacks starting out like cleave that damage more than one enemy (but it doesnt cascade as fast). At epic level my swordmage will beable to attack everyone he sees.... atleast once ;-) Bring on that army of minions I really want to use that power.


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## StarFyre (Nov 4, 2009)

People complain that this or that isn't fun...stuff like losing a spell while it was cast in older editions.

One of best battles, and memories of D&D, was a huge, epic clash, at a mountain fortress, where we ended up defending (with our PC's bodies!!) the cleric trying to finish a 1 turn (10 rounds in 2e) casting of a scroll.

It was brilliant, with lots of true tactics (setting up trip wires, archers on the battlements, a shield wall (ala Gladiator), etc) and it was tons of fun.

It's sad that anything that requires a bit more of true tactics, skill or thought is considered unfun...

Sanjay


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 4, 2009)

You could have the exact same play experience today by protecting the guy casting a ritual.  The only problem with a sustained combat like that is you run out of encounter and daily powers eventually and fall back on repetitive at wills.

On the other hand, that's no different than the Fighter making a full attack every round.


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## Garthanos (Nov 4, 2009)

StarFyre said:


> One of best battles, and memories of D&D, was a huge, epic clash, at a mountain fortress, where we ended up defending (with our PC's bodies!!) the cleric trying to finish a 1 turn (10 rounds in 2e) casting of a scroll.
> Sanjay



Sounds fun, I think there has been a lot of cool ideas around use of specialized rituals as plot devices and similar things in 4e. And it is exactly talking about ways to allow all the characters to be enablers and involved in the process of completing those rituals ...its about a we win philosophy. 
Which is very much 4e in spades. Delaying the enemy, aquiring components(could involve bloodying them so you have a blood sample), doing research and making bargains to acquire a true name... then travelling to the right location and preventing interuption of the final special..and situationally useful magic... which wins the day... with a lot of help from your friends. Is very much something 4e can simulate very very well.

OK "very very" is an exageration and some of the mechanics for it seem to be in the forever adjusted category ;-). I mean a skill challenges flux a lot. (they probably werent play tested enough using newbies and havkers).


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## Herremann the Wise (Nov 4, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> I have a minion costume in my closet for you...I always despised playing a peasant.  I do NOT get the appeal of playing a character who dies at the drop of a coin.



The appeal for me is part challenge and part the satisfaction of earning special abilities rather than having them handed to you on a silver plate to begin with. I enjoy lots of different styles of character growth but that's why occasionally I enjoy to play that one. Variety...spice...life... and all that.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Dausuul (Nov 4, 2009)

Henry said:


> I've often wondered about this - compared to AD&D casters, PCs can't attack multiple times in a round, fly for more than a few minutes, teleport more than 30 or 40 feet, or target anything more than about 50 feet away in most cases. They have to get in the mid-teens before they can even think about flying or teleporting more than 5 minutes away, whereas casters from 5th to 10th level in AD&D can do all these and more. They can toss fireballs half a football field away; some spell effects go the length of football fields even at 2nd and 3rd spell level. Heck, a 9th level caster can (rules as written) use teleport and summon monster as offensive weapons. I know it's just an opinion, but to me the power curve to me went WAAY down as opposed to up.




The power level starts out higher, but the slope of the curve is much shallower. I think the break-even point is around level 5. Below 5th, 4E characters are stronger than 1E-3E characters of the same level. Above 5th, they're weaker.


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## Voadam (Nov 4, 2009)

MrMyth said:


> Fair enough, everyone is entitled to an opinion. I definitely found that 3rd Edition, and the emphasis on optimization - as well as the _requirement_ of having different roles, rather than just the guidelines for it - had a far more video-game/super-hero feel to it, in my experience.




Are you saying 4e has guidelines for roles while 3e has requirements of different roles?

Could you explain that a little? I'm not seeing the basis for such a statement.


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## TwinBahamut (Nov 4, 2009)

Voadam said:


> Are you saying 4e has guidelines for roles while 3e has requirements of different roles?
> 
> Could you explain that a little? I'm not seeing the basis for such a statement.



I can understand that. Basically, the rules of 3E really require that the team have at the very least a primary Divine caster such as a Cleric or Druid, and strongly recommends a Wizard (though a Sorcerer or Psion may suffice). This is not explicit, but your average group of players will have a very hard time going through the game using the rules as written without those specific classes. If the game is heavy on stealth and traps, than either a caster skilled with anti-trap utility spells or a Rogue is pretty necessary.

Really, the 3E designers have admitted several times that the game was basically entirely designed with a four person team of a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric in mind. For example, designers spoke about how the rules in Savage Species were only written and tested based on how monster PCs would work using those four classes, and they didn't really examine how a Druid or Ranger monster PC would play out (even though those classes probably make more sense for the average monster PC than Rogue or Wizard). They just didn't bother to tell anyone that in the game books themselves. This had some messy repercussions regarding the design of most of the later classes, in my opinion. It is because of the problems caused by 3E's party assumption that 4E developed explicit class roles, which ultimately allows more flexibility in the class composition of the party.

In short, where 3E basically forces you to have a Wizard and Cleric and assumes you also have a Rogue and Fighter, 4E only requires a Leader and Defender at minimum, with a balanced team of all four roles being recommended.

Of course, because of things like healing surges and rituals, a 4E party really doesn't need to have any class in particular, or even a particular role, in order to get by.


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## Victim (Nov 4, 2009)

Dausuul said:


> The power level starts out higher, but the slope of the curve is much shallower. I think the break-even point is around level 5. Below 5th, 4E characters are stronger than 1E-3E characters of the same level. Above 5th, they're weaker.




I don't know about 4e characters being more powerful at low levels.  I don't recall seeing many 3e characters have trouble besting equal numbers of kobolds in relatively even ground.  4e characters are on the whole more durable, especially at low levels, but their standard opponents are similarly tougher and tend to have better damage.


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## Cadfan (Nov 4, 2009)

StarFyre said:


> People complain that this or that isn't fun...stuff like losing a spell while it was cast in older editions.
> 
> One of best battles, and memories of D&D, was a huge, epic clash, at a mountain fortress, where we ended up defending (with our PC's bodies!!) the cleric trying to finish a 1 turn (10 rounds in 2e) casting of a scroll.
> 
> ...



How much of that tactical activity was the cleric involved in?  Not counting table talk.

I think your example is probably unrepresentative.  By this logic being in a coma could be a fun and exciting game mechanic, as long as all the players who weren't in a coma were doing something awesome.


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

Victim said:


> I don't know about 4e characters being more powerful at low levels.  I don't recall seeing many 3e characters have trouble besting equal numbers of kobolds in relatively even ground.  4e characters are on the whole more durable, especially at low levels, but their standard opponents are similarly tougher and tend to have better damage.




There standard opponents now include minions.. which slews the entire concept of a comparison. It can definitely make 4e characters feel mightier. Depending on how the DM uses them (a few too many at low levels and they are nastier than they seem)


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> The appeal for me is part challenge and part the satisfaction of earning special abilities rather than having them handed to you on a silver plate to begin with.



Ah instead of my arrogant why would I want to be a peasant you... get but I earned my power! somebody just gave you yours... heh thats cool.

Apprentices were children in medival environments... at age 18 a medeival had been an adult 4 to 6 years. The begining AD&D character felt  like both a minion and competance wise mostly like an apprentice.... and was sometimes in there thirties.

Minions can be high level (they just arent blessed with heroic luck).

And going down as easily as you did in D&D who would want to invest any well actual thinking/energy towards what the character is supposed to be like? Mechanical simplicity does not intrinsically mean character simplicity obviously but.. fragility and ease of mechanical reproduction were an active discouragement sometimes even if you didnt like cardboard characters.

Any of the above could ofcourse be a peasant or not ;-)...


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## pawsplay (Nov 5, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> Apprentices were children in medival environments... at age 18 a medeival had been an adult 4 to 6 years.




Most likely they would marry and have children in their 20s, with the permission of their parents.



> The begining AD&D character felt  like both a minion and competance wise mostly like an apprentice.... and was sometimes in there thirties.




The only hard rule was that they were considered to be at least 17, even in the case of elves.


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Most likely they would marry and have children in their 20s, with the permission of their parents.



timed thusly because by then they could afford a family.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> No, a wizard is mundane because he can't turn someone into a toad. The idea that complaints about the wizard are based only on inter-PC envy is mistaken and frankly insulting. Rather than psychologizing our fellow players, how about we talk about what is different about the _class_?




That lack of "feel" is one thing that disappointed me about Wizards in 4E.  Now, admittedly, I had some issues with spell changes made in 3.5.....but I say that as a DM that never had issues with players abusing spells that some other DMs had problems with (Polymorph et al).

Everything seems limited to "blow this up", "move this there", etc.  It just doesn't scratch my itch the way magic did in earlier editions.

I want magic to feel magic...4E doesn't do it for me....but no, it's not about one person being "better".....I always found in 3E that fighters were some of the most lethal characters in the game, and never understood the idea that they sucked compared to wizards.  Maybe my players just weren't optimizers...I don't know.  I do know that the fighters were the ones who with a few good hits, or a critical, could kill off an important enemy in one round, and could take a beating and keep going.  They *were* vulnerable to charms, but that was fine...they had to have a weakness....but even with spells like Stoneskin, fighters were turning wizards into hamburger rather easily.  The only time that wizards excelled was when they had 10 rounds more than everyone else to set up a whole bunch of buffs....but my players rarely did that....usually buffing began on the fly, in combat.....so by the time the wizard had his third or fourth buff spell active, the fighters had chopped up most of the opposition.

It doesn't mean anyone's wrong....they're very different games.  This one just doesn't appeal to everyone.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Nov 5, 2009)

Inyssius said:


> Yeah, that's a druid spell now. Good point.




And why?  In fantasy literature, it's usually Wizards who do that.....whereas druid spellcasters are far less frequently discussed at all....let alone turning people into toads.

Banshee


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## nightwyrm (Nov 5, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> And why? In fantasy literature, it's usually Wizards who do that.....whereas druid spellcasters are far less frequently discussed at all....let alone turning people into toads.
> 
> Banshee




How many fantasy literature makes a distinction between wizards and druids? Unless the setting is distinctly celtic in origin, one rarely sees the caster described as a druid.  Even if the caster is a nature oriented one, they would just fall under the umbrella term of wizard or witch.

For example, the main protagonist sorcerers in the Belgariad would all be classified as druids in D&D.


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## Victim (Nov 5, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> There standard opponents now include minions.. which slews the entire concept of a comparison. It can definitely make 4e characters feel mightier. Depending on how the DM uses them (a few too many at low levels and they are nastier than they seem)




Well, that's why I said STANDARD enemy, to exclude minions, elites, solos, etc.  But 4 or 5 HP isn't all that different from 1 (especially for attacks that include an attribute bonus to damage), so it's more like ALL the (unadvanced, unleveled) kobolds and goblins were minions before, dying two at time to cleave.


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## Voadam (Nov 5, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> I can understand that. Basically, the rules of 3E really require that the team have at the very least a primary Divine caster such as a Cleric or Druid, and strongly recommends a Wizard (though a Sorcerer or Psion may suffice). This is not explicit, but your average group of players will have a very hard time going through the game using the rules as written without those specific classes. If the game is heavy on stealth and traps, than either a caster skilled with anti-trap utility spells or a Rogue is pretty necessary.
> 
> Really, the 3E designers have admitted several times that the game was basically entirely designed with a four person team of a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric in mind. For example, designers spoke about how the rules in Savage Species were only written and tested based on how monster PCs would work using those four classes, and they didn't really examine how a Druid or Ranger monster PC would play out (even though those classes probably make more sense for the average monster PC than Rogue or Wizard). They just didn't bother to tell anyone that in the game books themselves. This had some messy repercussions regarding the design of most of the later classes, in my opinion. It is because of the problems caused by 3E's party assumption that 4E developed explicit class roles, which ultimately allows more flexibility in the class composition of the party.
> 
> ...




I'm not seeing this difference of guideline versus requirement between the editions.

The basic roles have not really changed between the editions, 4e is just explicit about labeling some roles.

In 3e if you don't have a cleric or druid as a healer then you have a paladin, ranger, bard, or UMD rogue with wands of cure light wounds with only minor healing in combat or you use potions and pull back after fights to heal up.

I've played in a group where as a ranger with a wand I was the only healer for multiple levels of play and it went fine.

In 4e if you don't have a leader you are limited to second wind in combat and then have to survive until out of combat. I like surges as they make wands unnecessary. They are an improvement in not needing a healer.

In 3e if you don't have a trapfinding rogue you use certain magics to get around traps (fly over pits, neutralize poison to get around poison, heal the damage taken, clerical find traps will not help you) or you take the effects of the traps and soldier on (the barbarian trap finder method).

In 4e if you don't have a rogue or someone with thievery do you have more options than in 3e? 

You said defenders are required in 4e, but it feels just like 3e to me, heavy combatants are useful but if you don't have someone in that role it can work it will just be different style of combat engagement without a tough shield wall hacking into the opposition.

In 3e UMD allows use of low level utility magics, sorcerers can use arcane items to fill out their needs for spells they don't know, cleric and druid magic does many things a wizard's does (divination, buffing, combat magic, terrain control), archer characters can provide the ranged artillery. Winged boots replace the need for a fly spell with other magic items serving similar functions for most any character. Wizards are useful and powerful but I don't see them as required in 3e but only guidelines for them in 4e. 

Isn't the joke that the optimal party in 3e that can handle anything is all clerics or druids?

I like the 4e DMG analysis of different party compositions based on different missing roles, but I think it applies to 3e as well.

Significant differences:

4e healing surges allow less need of a healer role.

4e thievery can be mastered with a single feat. In 3e trapfinding tough traps is limited to a Rogue class feature combined with skills.

4e anybody can do utility magic with a feat and appropriate skill. In 3e magic is fairly class specific with some overlap between spell lists plus at higher levels you can fake it with UMD skill, mitigated a little with easy multiclassing for weak magic use.


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## pawsplay (Nov 5, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> How many fantasy literature makes a distinction between wizards and druids? Unless the setting is distinctly celtic in origin, one rarely sees the caster described as a druid.  Even if the caster is a nature oriented one, they would just fall under the umbrella term of wizard or witch.
> 
> For example, the main protagonist sorcerers in the Belgariad would all be classified as druids in D&D.




Whereas the only spellcasting druids in literature I can think of would be Merlin, of the Arthurian saga, and the druids in the Shannara books, who are associated with the magic-user/wizard archetype in D&D.


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## Fanaelialae (Nov 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Whereas the only spellcasting druids in literature I can think of would be Merlin, of the Arthurian saga, and the druids in the Shannara books, who are associated with the magic-user/wizard archetype in D&D.




How many wizards from literature can you name who actually turn people into frogs though?  I think the trope of turning cursing people as frogs is more a witch thing (for which D&D has no official class).

Thematically, baleful polymorph makes sense as a druid spell.  You're transforming someone into a cute and harmless _animal_.  Even in 3x, it was on the druid's spell list as well as the wizard's.  

4e just gives classes different spell lists to differentiate them, so they had to pick one or the other.  (If you really want a wizard capable of casting "Folks to Frogs" you only need 2 feats to multiclass for it, or playing a hybrid wizard/druid is also a viable option.)


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 5, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> I can understand that. Basically, the rules of 3E really require that the team have at the very least a primary Divine caster such as a Cleric or Druid, and strongly recommends a Wizard (though a Sorcerer or Psion may suffice). This is not explicit, but your average group of players will have a very hard time going through the game using the rules as written without those specific classes. If the game is heavy on stealth and traps, than either a caster skilled with anti-trap utility spells or a Rogue is pretty necessary...




As I pointed out pages upthread to Hussar, 3Ed does not make such an assumption in the rules, but its obvious that many people have assumed that this is so.

IME, the game is perfectly playable with a party when one or 2 of the roles is minimized (the aforementioned successfully completed RttToEE campaign with no divine spell availability over 2nd level) or even completely void (one campaign with just Warriors, a campaign-specific variant of the BttlSorc, and a Divine Caster, and another with just Warriors, a Monk and an Arcanist).


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## fuzzlewump (Nov 5, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> That lack of "feel" is one thing that disappointed me about Wizards in 4E.  Now, admittedly, I had some issues with spell changes made in 3.5.....but I say that as a DM that never had issues with players abusing spells that some other DMs had problems with (Polymorph et al).



I don't think you addressed Rituals in your post, so how do you think they fit in to your generalization that spells only blow stuff up or move things? Most common I think people find that they aren't powerful enough, which leads me to believe it's not about the 'feel' for most people, it's about the power that wizards have traditionally had.


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> The only hard rule was that they were considered to be at least 17, even in the case of elves.




Wizards were also presumed noteably older ... and I vaguely recall thieves being younger? perhaps that latter was a house rule.


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

Victim said:


> Well, that's why I said STANDARD enemy, to exclude minions, elites, solos, etc.  But 4 or 5 HP isn't all that different from 1 (especially for attacks that include an attribute bonus to damage), so it's more like ALL the (unadvanced, unleveled) kobolds and goblins were minions before, dying two at time to cleave.




Hmmm  sorry I have to compare back to AD&D instead of 3e, so I am off... you didnt get an attack against a second enemy at level 1.  Of course since a fighter had so few hp that he was defensively barely better than a minion it was a crap shoot.. even against minimal enemies you only had slight advantage... unless pure luck was on your side.


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## Hussar (Nov 5, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> Hmmm  sorry I have to compare back to AD&D instead of 3e, so I am off... you didnt get an attack against a second enemy at level 1.  Of course since a fighter had so few hp that he was defensively barely better than a minion it was a crap shoot.. even against minimal enemies you only had slight advantage... unless pure luck was on your side.




Well, yes and no.  Yes, the fighter may have had less hit points (depending on the luck of the dice) but, let's not forget, the orcs and kobolds are hitting far less often and far less hard.

A 1e fighter at 1st level isn't too put out to get an AC of 4 (chain+shield is hardly a difficult assumption.  Banded is quite possible for an AC of 3) and the orc or kobold had a THAC0 of 19.  That means the orc's only hitting about 25%.  If the fighter has a dex bonus, that goes down by 5% every point of AC bonus.  A 16 Dex (again, not a huge assumption IME) is worth a -2 AC bonus, and now the baddies are only hitting about 10-15% of the time.

And, let's not forget, the average damage for an orc is only 4 points.

Compare to a 3e orc, where his effective base THAC0, because of his strength, is 16 and the AC of the fighter at 1st level isn't all that different with a 16 or 17 AC being about average.  That means (in 1e terms) the orc is now hitting on a 12 or a 13, instead of a 16 or an 18.  Plus, our orc is now doing an average of 9 points of damage per hit.  

IOW, the orc is hitting twice as often and twice as hard.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that 1e 1st level characters were these fragile little flowers that folded if you sneezed at them wrong and 3e 1st level characters could waltz all over every encounter.  IME, 3e combat was far more lethal (barring save or die) than 1e.  I rarely killed PC's due to hit point loss in 1e.  In 3e, it's ridiculously easy to obliterate a PC at just about any level with an EL=Par encounter.


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## cattoy (Nov 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> The only hard rule was that they were considered to be at least 17, even in the case of elves.




Didn't TSR publish a module with a pregen wizard that was younger than that?


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Well, yes and no.  Yes, the fighter may have had less hit points (depending on the luck of the dice) but, let's not forget, the orcs and kobolds are hitting far less often and far less hard.



Less often = crapshoot I mentioned.


Hussar said:


> A 1e fighter at 1st level isn't too put out to get an AC of 4 (chain+shield is hardly a difficult assumption.  Banded is quite possible for an AC of 3) and the orc or kobold had a THAC0 of 19.  That means the orc's only hitting about 25%.  If the fighter has a dex bonus, that goes down by 5% every point of AC bonus.



Dex bonuses didnt start kicking in until you had very high attributes... people used to 4e with 12 actually meaning something different than 10 would be confused by having to wait till the very high end (attribute values 15+) to see actual bonuses.

The die rolls during character creation were also an incredibly significant part of that crap shoot. It was very easy not to have Dex on a fighter high enough to boost it.



Hussar said:


> A 16 Dex (again, not a huge assumption IME) is worth a -2 AC bonus, and now the baddies are only hitting about 10-15% of the time.
> 
> And, let's not forget, the average damage for an orc is only 4 points.
> 
> ...




Well I can't compare 3e ...but it was indeed also ridiculously easy to obliterate PC's if you werent blessing them with super extreme attributes in AD&D at level 1 (and the fighters attacks could not hit two at a time no cleaves unless they were 2nd level and attacking 2 zero levels for instance.) 

A relatively normal  roll 4 take the highest three 
16 str ,11 int, 15 con, 14 dex, 13 wiz, 12 cha  is a very average pc fighter who got +1 on hp and +1 on to hit (and +2 damage?)  no garantee on bonus armor class or hp at all. -- I am operating on memories from back in the very early 80's.

And the above character could have still had 2 hp and die so easily.

Some people came up with even nicer than 4d6 take highest three. 
For instance doing that plus re roll all ones started to become common. 

Win the attribute or hitpoint dice lottos and you were a little more survivable... but the good news was most people threw away characters some if you didn't have 2 attributes 16 or better and i seen some just plain dice cheating.  I saw DMs see one rolled on hit points and said.... nyeah reroll that please.

18 strength was common and 16 dex was common and 14/16 con was common  but not necessarily because the game rules said they should be. House ruling to give everyone max level one starting hp became common too.

An AD&D fighter without winning the dice lotto or cheating at it took 2 hits to go down(or only 1). Thief, Magic User, Cleric went down to 1 hit which with poor armor class (for the non cleric) would likely be 1 attack. 

Of course you had what? three choices in character creation so one dies boom make another.


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

cattoy said:


> Didn't TSR publish a module with a pregen wizard that was younger than that?




The dmg had a die rolling method for magic users that I recall would not generate anything less than 21 ... modules they is fluff ;p

But then again age can be handled just fine as purely fluff
the point for me was the ages implied definite adulthood but the
character competance didnt feel up to par... you werent a knight
you were a page. You werent a wizard you were an apprentice.


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## nightwyrm (Nov 5, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> A relatively normal roll 4 take the highest three
> 16 str ,11 int, 15 con, 14 dex, 13 wiz, 12 cha is a very average pc fighter who got +1 on hp and +1 on to hit (and +2 damage?) no garantee on bonus armor class or hp at all. -- I am operating on memories from back in the very early 80's.




With 1e/2e rules? Your 16 str gets you a +1 to damage and that's it. To hit bonuses don't start till str 17. You don't get bonus hp till your con goes to 16 and you start getting AC bonuses when your dex reaches 15. So at the very least I'd switch your con and dex.

With TSR editions, your stats were pretty much meaningless unless you get 16 or above.
(unless you're a caster in which case every point in your casting stat counts, but only due to how it affects which and how many spells you can learn)


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## Obryn (Nov 5, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> With 1e/2e rules? Your 16 str gets you a +1 to damage and that's it. To hit bonuses don't start till str 17.



Yep, although if you look in Temple of Elemental Evil, some of the human opponents get bonuses for Strength scores as low as 15 for no good reason.  Regardless, you still get increases to encumbrance, BB/LG, and opening stuck doors.



> You don't get bonus hp till your con goes to 16



15.  And unless you're a Fighter (or Fighter subclass), anything over 16 won't net you more HPs.  But again, there are other stats tied to Constitution, like the remarkably important Resurrection Survival and System Shock rolls.  The latter, especially - you don't want that friendly Polymorph spell to prove fatal!  Also, if you're a dwarf, gnome, or halfling, you get some insane saving throw bonuses.



> With TSR editions, your stats were pretty much meaningless unless you get 16 or above.
> (unless you're a caster in which case every point in your casting stat counts, but only due to how it affects which and how many spells you can learn)



Only with AD&D.  OD&D and BECMI/BX/etc. lines have bonuses starting much lower.  AD&D and AD&D2e were the ones with massive stat inflation.

-O


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> With 1e/2e rules? Your 16 str gets you a +1 to damage and that's it.




Thanks my memory of 20+odd year old details is not 100% the gist remains.


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## MrMyth (Nov 5, 2009)

Voadam said:


> Are you saying 4e has guidelines for roles while 3e has requirements of different roles?
> 
> Could you explain that a little? I'm not seeing the basis for such a statement.




TwinBahamut covers it pretty well, but basically: In 3rd Edition, a Cleric (or equivalent healer) was pretty much required. Having a spellcaster, at mid-late level, was really strongly encouraged. Having a meatshield, at early-mid level, was very important. Having a trapsmith could be outright required in some adventures. Some of these requirements were more important than others, and you could build some parties that compensated for being unbalanced in other ways (the party of all-flying archers, for example). But those were the exception, and the average group would be really bad off if they didn't have a balanced party - or, especially, was lacking a primary healer.

4E goes ahead and outright defines the roles and what they represent to the group - but also takes measures to avoid them being _necessities_. Even without a cleric, you still have Second Wind. Strikers are nice, but everyone is still contributing damage (even while healing/debuffing/etc), and enemies will go down eventually. Etc.

Having a balanced group is still generally _ideal_, but I think 4E gives you a lot of room - intentionally - to never feel locked into having someone 'forced' to play a role. It is hard to discourage that mentality entirely, but you _can _get away with it now - as opposed to my memory of seeing someone 'have to' play the Cleric for the group in earlier editions.


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## Melkor (Nov 5, 2009)

As the thread starter, I thought I would come in and post a little update.

Although we haven't had a chance to get together and actually start the campaign we are talking about, I was able to convince my buddy to play a quick encounter (he said: "I'll give you an hour for 4E").

I downloaded the "Stick in the Mud" Chaos Scar module, and used the Quickstart/Shadowfell pre-gens starting him at the first encounter.

He was really bitter at first, making comments like "4E is not D&D, it's Pokemon", and this feels like "Chinese Checkers" or a "Boardgame", but then he really seemed to get into the combat, and actually got excited about a thing or two.

Ironically, the Wizard PC was the first to score a kill, and while we had to stop before the encounter finished, I could tell he actually had fun.

That said, after the game he told me: "It's a fun game....I don't deny that, it's just not D&D". He's willing to try it out for a while though, so I guess that is a good thing.


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## TwinBahamut (Nov 5, 2009)

Voadam said:


> I'm not seeing this difference of guideline versus requirement between the editions.
> 
> The basic roles have not really changed between the editions, 4e is just explicit about labeling some roles.
> 
> ...



I wouldn't say that anything other than a pure Divine caster works anywhere near as well. Sure, other classes can almost make up for the healing difference (though they never get the really good healing spells), but something like a UMD Rogue can never make up for the lack of a Cleric's ability to use status restoration effects like Remove Disease, Restoration, or the extremely valuable Raise Dead and Resurrection. Even a secondary healer like a Bard can't remotely make up for the loss of a Cleric when it comes to condition restoration. If the PCs are fighting things that inflict curses, use poison, spread disease, and inflict ability score damage, which are all pretty common in 3E, then a Cleric is necessary.



> In 4e if you don't have a leader you are limited to second wind in combat and then have to survive until out of combat. I like surges as they make wands unnecessary. They are an improvement in not needing a healer.



See? You are agreeing with me here. 4E has elements that make a dedicated healer a bit less necessary. Of course, the fact that 4E makes all the condition restoration spells which force a team to have a Cleric into Rituals also helps a lot. Now, if you have a party member who is suffering from a disease, any party member with the Ritual Casting feat can help.



> In 3e if you don't have a trapfinding rogue you use certain magics to get around traps (fly over pits, neutralize poison to get around poison, heal the damage taken, clerical find traps will not help you) or you take the effects of the traps and soldier on (the barbarian trap finder method).
> 
> In 4e if you don't have a rogue or someone with thievery do you have more options than in 3e?



You are equating things that are not remotely the same. 3E requires a Rogue. 4E requires a character trained in the Thievery skill. Those are very different things. Sure, it may be a bit harder to deal with traps in 4E if you don't have a character with the Thievery skill, but there are several classes that have it as a class skill, anyone can get trained in it at the cost of only one feat, and all uses of the Thievery skill can be done untrained barring DM fiat. Compare this to the following quote from the 3.5E SRD: "Rogues (and only rogues) can use the Search skill to find traps..". If you want to find and disarm traps in 3E, you need a Rogue, but literally anyone in 4E can do the same with just a few skills.

This brings up a point regarding Clerics and Leaders. Sure, a 4E team needs a Leader about as much as a 3E team needs a Cleric (it may not be strictly necessary, but it really, really helps), but a Cleric and a Leader are not equivalent to each other. In 3E, you really need either a Cleric or one of the few other full Divine casting classes (which all strongly resemble the Cleric), but in 4E you only need a class that fills the Leader Role, which is a broad category of classes of which many are very different from the Cleric. In 3E, the more a class with healing magic is different from the Cleric, the less effective of a healer it is, but all 4E Leaders have a solid baseline of healing capability.

I honestly don't care whether you call these things requirements or guidelines, but there is a massive difference in how limiting they are. 3E requires or strongly recommends specific classes, and 4E only really asks that you have one character's class be chosen from a reasonably large list and that at least one character has the Ritual Casting ability. That is the central point.


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## TwinBahamut (Nov 5, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As I pointed out pages upthread to Hussar, 3Ed does not make such an assumption in the rules, but its obvious that many people have assumed that this is so.



You pointed out, and Hussar agreed, that it is not _explicitly_ called out in the rules, which is true. There is no point in any 3E core rulebook that says the game assumes you have a party of a Fighter, a Rogue, a Cleric, and a Wizard. That doesn't change the fact that it is indeed an _implicit_ assumption of the rules, and that the designers have stated several times that it is the case.

Of course, there is also a difference between what the rules implicitly assume and what they implicitly require. The 3E rules assume the team has a Fighter, but a Fighter is nowhere close to being required in that system. This is mostly because there are plenty of good alternatives for the Fighter (many of which are stronger than the Fighter), but few for the Cleric or Wizard (most of their alternatives are much weaker).



> IME, the game is perfectly playable with a party when one or 2 of the roles is minimized (the aforementioned successfully completed RttToEE campaign with no divine spell availability over 2nd level) or even completely void (one campaign with just Warriors, a campaign-specific variant of the BttlSorc, and a Divine Caster, and another with just Warriors, a Monk and an Arcanist).



Honestly, I don't care if it is playable or not. The big problem with 3E is that there are a large number of challenges that are simply unanswerable without certain classes. To get back to the point of this thread as a whole, these challenges tend to be the kind that are only solvable by dedicated magic users. If you have mages of any kind in your team (like you claim to have had in your "minimized" teams), then you really are not missing the basic requirements for the system. A team of nothing but a Fighter, a Barbarian, a Monk, and a Marshall would probably have a lot of trouble against fairly normal challenges in 3E, but an equivalent 4E team (replacing Warlord for Marshall) would work just fine.


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## MrGrenadine (Nov 5, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> The big problem with 3E is that there are a large number of challenges that are simply unanswerable without certain classes. To get back to the point of this thread as a whole, these challenges tend to be the kind that are only solvable by dedicated magic users.




4e requires the same variety of characters.  Fighter/ Wizard/ Cleric/ Thief has transformed into Defender/ Controller/ Leader/ Striker, but the concept is the same--a party can best handle a wide variety of challenges if there is a wide variety of skills represented.

For instance, isn't the fact that monster defenses scale past character attacks at high levels make leaders a necessity?  And Strikers are needed if ever the party runs into a Solo, and heaven help a party without a Controller if they're swarmed by 20 minions...the list goes on.

I never saw a 3e campaign that absolutely couldn't be finished without a Wizard--that would be poor game design, because even if the party had a Wizard, what if he or she was killed or incapacitated?  Throw in the towel?  Instead, I saw parties that had to think outside the box when the Wizard wasn't present, (or Rogue, or Cleric, or Fighter, or Druid/Spellsword/Thaumaturge, etc) .  And I imagine I'll see the exact same situation in 4e. 

The Wizard in and of itself is not the problem in 3e--it all comes down to player error, player selfishness, and/or poor DMing or campaign design.  And 4e, for all its balance, can't possibly protect a party from those things.


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## Garthanos (Nov 5, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> 4e requires the same variety of characters.  Fighter/ Wizard/ Cleric/ Thief has transformed into Defender/ Controller/ Leader/ Striker, but the concept is the same--a party can best handle a wide variety of challenges if there is a wide variety of skills represented.




It feels far easier to style things the way I want them these days. When I wanted my AD&D "cleric" to be a fighter wizard it was teeth pulling time... If I wanted him to be Odins (very warlord like) Priest, it was also teeth pulling time... I couldnt have a spear, and even now I have to spend a feat to get it ... grumble grumble, but I can. You can say that is a question of "Bad DMing"
 but the game now encourages more open flavor management by the player. Classes have tighter flavor than roles.


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## MrMyth (Nov 5, 2009)

Voadam said:


> In 3e if you don't have a trapfinding rogue you use certain magics to get around traps (fly over pits, neutralize poison to get around poison, heal the damage taken, clerical find traps will not help you) or you take the effects of the traps and soldier on (the barbarian trap finder method).
> 
> In 4e if you don't have a rogue or someone with thievery do you have more options than in 3e?




Well... yes. In addition to freeing up the ability to get access to skills, 4E also adopted an encouragement that no problem has only one solution. Traps can typically be taken apart by a skilled rogue... or simply beaten apart or plowed through, or often magically disabled, etc. The goal is that having the ideal role should help solve a problem, but not be required to do so (unlike in 3rd Edition).



> I like the 4e DMG analysis of different party compositions based on different missing roles, but I think it applies to 3e as well.




~shrug~ It may simply come down a difference in experiences. But my experience in 3rd Edition - especially in the RPGA, where tables are made or broken by having the right classes - was that 3rd Edition had much stricter requirements for party composition. That has not been my experience in 4E. Several elements of the rules seem outright designed to avoid that issue, and I've been pleasantly surprised in playing LFR, and seeing tables have remarkable success with non-standard parties. The same sort of tables that would lead to a TPK previously...


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## Majoru Oakheart (Nov 5, 2009)

MrMyth said:


> ~shrug~ It may simply come down a difference in experiences. But my experience in 3rd Edition - especially in the RPGA, where tables are made or broken by having the right classes - was that 3rd Edition had much stricter requirements for party composition. That has not been my experience in 4E. Several elements of the rules seem outright designed to avoid that issue, and I've been pleasantly surprised in playing LFR, and seeing tables have remarkable success with non-standard parties. The same sort of tables that would lead to a TPK previously...




This is my experience as well.  In Living Greyhawk, there were lots of HARD encounters.  Encounters specifically built using a combination of feats, classes, monsters, terrain, spells, and so on to defeat any party that wasn't built well.

A particular example always sticks out in my mind: 2 Dread Wraiths and 4 Spectres in an encounter for 12th level characters(EL 15).  During this encounter, there was an "evil aura" that made it so no one could see further than 25 feet away from them no matter what light sources they had.  The PCs were on a 10ft wide path with forest on both sides that was described as taking 3 squares of movement for each square you moved and doing damage to anyone who tried due to sharp branches and brambles warped and twisted by the evil aura.

Meanwhile, the Dread Wraiths have Spring Attack, a movement of 60 ft flight, were incorporeal, drained 1d8 con per hit, and life sense.  This allows them to ignore all the terrain, "see" the PCs even while in the darkness, and move up to the PCs(with reach) and retreat into the dark woods each round.  Since they used touch attacks, they hit almost everyone on a 2.

The Spectres are almost as bad.  They drain 2 levels on a hit.  In one round, it was possible for them to give someone 8 negative levels.  They did need 7s to hit most people of this level though, instead of 2s.

This encounter without a cleric is basically impossible.  It's nearly impossible unless you have a cleric with Death Ward prepared.  Preferably 2 or 3 Death Wards.  Of course, the average Living Greyhawk party had a cleric with Death Ward prepared.  Because it was such a useful spell, you ALWAYS had it prepared.

Whereas, I've played in LFR adventures without a cleric, without even a leader and we've survived some pretty hard encounters.  They just seemed easy for us because we made up for the lack of healing with an overwhelming amount of damage(we were instead striker heavy) and killed the enemy before they even did significant damage to us.


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## billd91 (Nov 5, 2009)

MrMyth said:


> ~shrug~ It may simply come down a difference in experiences. But my experience in 3rd Edition - especially in the RPGA, where tables are made or broken by having the right classes - was that 3rd Edition had much stricter requirements for party composition. That has not been my experience in 4E. Several elements of the rules seem outright designed to avoid that issue, and I've been pleasantly surprised in playing LFR, and seeing tables have remarkable success with non-standard parties. The same sort of tables that would lead to a TPK previously...




See, I'd take that as evidence that the adventure design for those RPGA scenarios was the deficient element, particularly since they should know darn well they could be faced with a scratch party of any allowed character classes in any proportion.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 5, 2009)

billd91 said:


> See, I'd take that as evidence that the adventure design for those RPGA scenarios was the deficient element, particularly since they should know darn well they could be faced with a scratch party of any allowed character classes in any proportion.



What were they supposed to do?  Throw out 50%+ of the monster manual and all of the traps just because they couldn't plan on having the assumed party structure?

That would have made for some varied adventures.


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## billd91 (Nov 5, 2009)

Canis said:


> What were they supposed to do?  Throw out 50%+ of the monster manual and all of the traps just because they couldn't plan on having the assumed party structure?
> 
> That would have made for some varied adventures.




_Tremendously_ varied adventures because even with a limited set of monsters, the setup and story of the adventures is functionally unlimited. Limiting the monsters is most relevant if the adventures are little more than glorified monster mashes.


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## Belen (Nov 5, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Fair enough. Mine is that your definition isn't shared by the majority of players, and doesn't take into account that we're playing a game.




The wonderful thing about previous editions was that different classes fit different styles.  If you did not like the strategy of a 2e Wizard, then you could choose another class.

I think that the existence of 4e proves that those earlier systems were doing something right.


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## Voadam (Nov 5, 2009)

MrMyth said:


> Well... yes. In addition to freeing up the ability to get access to skills, 4E also adopted an encouragement that no problem has only one solution. Traps can typically be taken apart by a skilled rogue... or simply beaten apart or plowed through, or often magically disabled, etc. The goal is that having the ideal role should help solve a problem, but not be required to do so (unlike in 3rd Edition).
> 
> 
> 
> ~shrug~ It may simply come down a difference in experiences. But my experience in 3rd Edition - especially in the RPGA, where tables are made or broken by having the right classes - was that 3rd Edition had much stricter requirements for party composition. That has not been my experience in 4E. Several elements of the rules seem outright designed to avoid that issue, and I've been pleasantly surprised in playing LFR, and seeing tables have remarkable success with non-standard parties. The same sort of tables that would lead to a TPK previously...




I think it does come down to different experiences.

My favorite trap was a puzzle/riddle one that connected up to Norse runes. IIRC if you solved the riddle the answer told you the safe path through the runes unscathed. If you had a rogue he could attempt to disable runes one at a time. If you had dispel magic you could try to suppress individual runes. If you couldn't figure it out you could plow through them and take damage but not be killed or completely stopped, if you ran really fast and jumped you would leap over a bunch of runes and only suffer through a few of them. Lots of options for moving through it.

This was in Doom of Odin a 3.0 adventure.

I never played in an RPGA game so I can't comment on those and didn't have those types of experiences.


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## Voadam (Nov 5, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> This encounter without a cleric is basically impossible.  It's nearly impossible unless you have a cleric with Death Ward prepared.  Preferably 2 or 3 Death Wards.  Of course, the average Living Greyhawk party had a cleric with Death Ward prepared.  Because it was such a useful spell, you ALWAYS had it prepared.




12th level clerics generally have four fourth level spells. Death Ward is good. So is Freedom of Movement. There are other good ones too.

I'm not sure I'd design an encounter to expect the party to have a death ward ready to fight a ton of hit and run incorporeal drainers.


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## MrGrenadine (Nov 5, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> This is my experience as well.  In Living Greyhawk, there were lots of HARD encounters.  Encounters specifically built using a combination of feats, classes, monsters, terrain, spells, and so on to defeat any party that wasn't built well.




I've found that in 4e, encounters specifically built using a combination of feats, classes, monsters, terrain, spells and so on will defeat any party that wasn't built well.

In fact, this is true of every iteration of the game, including, I would wager, every house-ruled version you could find.

What you describe is perhaps bad encounter design, but not a problem intrinsic to the system, since its possible to create endless fun, challenging, exciting encounters in 3.5 that don't require any particular class.


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## Fanaelialae (Nov 5, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> I've found that in 4e, encounters specifically built using a combination of feats, classes, monsters, terrain, spells and so on will defeat any party that wasn't built well.
> 
> In fact, this is true of every iteration of the game, including, I would wager, every house-ruled version you could find.
> 
> What you describe is perhaps bad encounter design, but not a problem intrinsic to the system, since its possible to create endless fun, challenging, exciting encounters in 3.5 that don't require any particular class.




4e monsters don't have feats.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 5, 2009)

billd91 said:


> _Tremendously_ varied adventures because even with a limited set of monsters, the setup and story of the adventures is functionally unlimited. Limiting the monsters is most relevant if the adventures are little more than glorified monster mashes.



True in one sense, and incredibly over-stated in the other.

There are lots of creatures in the 3e monster manual who had a clear designation in a rock-paper-scissors relationship with certain PC classes.

Remember that this is RPGA we're talking about.  It's not a good DM designing (or re-designing) around his oddball group.  It's mass market.  There's a lowest common denominator effect.

And you have to remember part of the marketing angle of all this is *to show off the content*.  If you throw out every monster that really, really screams for a cleric, you're not showing off lots of content.  If you throw out every monster that would completely hose a rogue-heavy party, you're not showing more than half of the content   If you throw out everything that requires a rogue... well you have no traps at all in your low level dungeons, which just doesn't even fit the milieu, wot?

Yes, you can design great, engaging adventures for oddball parties if you know their quirks.  But if part of your mandate is to show off the cool stuff the company is writing....  That's not going to fly.


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## TwinBahamut (Nov 6, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> 4e requires the same variety of characters.  Fighter/ Wizard/ Cleric/ Thief has transformed into Defender/ Controller/ Leader/ Striker, but the concept is the same--a party can best handle a wide variety of challenges if there is a wide variety of skills represented.



If you honestly believe that an assumption of four specific classes and an assumption of four categories of classes are "the same variety", then I really don't think I can say anything to persuade you. 

Still I may as well make a simply mathematical comparison. Assuming a four person party that adheres strictly to the "requirement" and a total of five classes for each 4E role... Under the 3E requirement, every party would have exactly the same class composition. Under the 4E requirement, there would be 625 different valid party combinations. Bending these requirements would give both editions a roughly equal amount of an increase to party variety, so the advantage always goes to 4E. I would never call that an equal amount of variety.



> For instance, isn't the fact that monster defenses scale past character attacks at high levels make leaders a necessity?  And Strikers are needed if ever the party runs into a Solo, and heaven help a party without a Controller if they're swarmed by 20 minions...the list goes on.



The defenses issue can be answered by purchasing certain feats (that is a different debate, though). Strikers are not needed for a solo, they just make fighting a solo a bit easier. A team that gets swarmed with 20 minions is just fine without a controller, as long as the other classes have a few area of effect powers of their own (and there are a number of good powers available for Defenders and Strikers in this regard). Sure, certain roles would be really useful in these situations, but they are not even close to being necessary.

Compare this to something like trying to get past a Wall of Force in 3E. If you don't have a Wizard or Cleric (or equivalent), and you absolutely need to get past a Wall of Force, then you are totally helpless. There is literally _nothing_ you can do except give up. A team of non-casters basically have to hope that their DM will take pity on them and not present them with such challenges, even though such a challenge may be trivial if there was a Wizard or Cleric in the party. It is only because 3E reveled in such absolutes of ineffectiveness that it had classes you could call "requirements", and 4E has nothing of the kind.



> I never saw a 3e campaign that absolutely couldn't be finished without a Wizard--that would be poor game design, because even if the party had a Wizard, what if he or she was killed or incapacitated?  Throw in the towel?  Instead, I saw parties that had to think outside the box when the Wizard wasn't present, (or Rogue, or Cleric, or Fighter, or Druid/Spellsword/Thaumaturge, etc) .  And I imagine I'll see the exact same situation in 4e.



Sure, you could easily have a 3E campaign that didn't have a wizard. It just depended on a DM deliberately avoiding all the countless traps, monsters, and magic spells that completely destroy any team that couldn't deal with them. This really _is_ a case of bad game design that is merely being compensated for by decent DMing.



> The Wizard in and of itself is not the problem in 3e--it all comes down to player error, player selfishness, and/or poor DMing or campaign design.  And 4e, for all its balance, can't possibly protect a party from those things.



Honestly, the Wizard really wasn't quite the problem in of itself in 3E. It just made the problem a _lot_ worse, and other aspects of game design added on top of that. I guess it could be said that player selfishness is the real problem, but the Wizard class and 3E's overall design made it very easy for a player to mistake selfishness for playing the game as intended.

Also, I do think it is possible for good game design to help things like player error, player selfishness, poor DMing, and bad campaign design. If the rules themselves are more clear, the reasoning behind the rules is more transparent, and it is easier for DMs to make fun and well-balanced adventures, then it would help address many of those issues (since many are caused by confusion regarding bad rules and a high learning curve for the game as much as they are by any other factor). I do believe that 4E has accomplished that as much as you could reasonably ask it to.


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## pawsplay (Nov 6, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> This is my experience as well.  In Living Greyhawk, there were lots of HARD encounters.  Encounters specifically built using a combination of feats, classes, monsters, terrain, spells, and so on to defeat any party that wasn't built well.
> 
> A particular example always sticks out in my mind: 2 Dread Wraiths and 4 Spectres in an encounter for 12th level characters(EL 15).  During this encounter, there was an "evil aura" that made it so no one could see further than 25 feet away from them no matter what light sources they had.  The PCs were on a 10ft wide path with forest on both sides that was described as taking 3 squares of movement for each square you moved and doing damage to anyone who tried due to sharp branches and brambles warped and twisted by the evil aura.
> 
> ...




What, for a 12th level party? Let's imagine the party consists of a wizard, a sorcerer, a fighter, and a monk. As soon as the party figures out what's happening, the wizard casts _repulsion_. The fighter and rogue ready an action to shift 5 feet as soon as they are attacked, while the sorcerer readies a _magic missile _to blast anything that makes it past the _repulsion_. On the next round, the sorcerer readies a _wall of force_, trapping the next opponent as it tries to spring away. The wizard blasts the opponent with _magic missile _while the the fighter and monk now whale on the trapped opponent using their_ ghost touch _weapons. 

Naturally, if someone happens to know _undeath to death_, that will make the encounter substantially easier against the spectres.

For a party level +3 encounter, not too bad, really.


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## Voadam (Nov 6, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> If you honestly believe that an assumption of four specific classes and an assumption of four categories of classes are "the same variety", then I really don't think I can say anything to persuade you.
> 
> Still I may as well make a simply mathematical comparison. Assuming a four person party that adheres strictly to the "requirement" and a total of five classes for each 4E role... Under the 3E requirement, every party would have exactly the same class composition. Under the 4E requirement, there would be 625 different valid party combinations. Bending these requirements would give both editions a roughly equal amount of an increase to party variety, so the advantage always goes to 4E. I would never call that an equal amount of variety.




You think 3e really requires the party to have a fighter and not a barbarian or a paladin or a cleric taking a tank role? A wizard and not a sorcerer or psion? You see these as class requirements and not "roles" that other classes can fit?

I agree that restricting detecting traps with DCs over 20 to the rogue class is a bad and restrictive design (I've houseruled it away for years in my games), but I don't feel the trapspringer role is super important. I went through half the banewarrens module (trap filled super dungeon in 3.0) as a PC in a two person party, my ranger/wizard and a paladin and we handled things well.

I dislike the need for a healer in straight 3e but I felt it was an improvement over AD&D. In 3e about half the classes can fill a cleric/healer role well enough to do normal adventuring with the use of a cleric on a stick (cure wounds wand) starting at around 2nd level when the party will generally have more than enough gold to buy one. It doesn't get you 4th level death ward or freedom of movement, or super in combat healing for high level fights, but it gets you healing and there are items that duplicate those other spells. Lesser restoration is a 1st level paladin spell, second level cleric spell for poisons and attribute damage, easy to get in a wand or potion, etc.


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## GMforPowergamers (Nov 6, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> What, for a 12th level party? Let's imagine the party consists of a wizard, a sorcerer, a fighter, and a monk. As soon as the party figures out what's happening, the wizard casts _repulsion_. The fighter and rogue ready an action to shift 5 feet as soon as they are attacked, while the sorcerer readies a _magic missile _to blast anything that makes it past the _repulsion_. On the next round, the sorcerer readies a _wall of force_, trapping the next opponent as it tries to spring away. The wizard blasts the opponent with _magic missile _while the the fighter and monk now whale on the trapped opponent using their_ ghost touch _weapons.
> 
> Naturally, if someone happens to know _undeath to death_, that will make the encounter substantially easier against the spectres.
> 
> For a party level +3 encounter, not too bad, really.




lets also thin of a non caster party...lets say a rouge, a ranger, a fighter, and a monk...and none have ghost touch weapons...then what???

How about the casters that are a wizard without force spells, a begailer, a bard, duskblade, and monk...yea same problem...


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## pawsplay (Nov 6, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> lets also thin of a non caster party...lets say a rouge, a ranger, a fighter, and a monk...and none have ghost touch weapons...then what???




Then evolution does its work. Hopefully, by 12th level, they've noticed they don't have a cleric and have taken some appropriate steps. 



> How about the casters that are a wizard without force spells, a begailer, a bard, duskblade, and monk...yea same problem...




The duskblade can use arcane strike to annihilate the spectres. As dread wraiths cannot see invisible, the beguiler's invisibility will grant them full concealment, causing a 50% miss chance. The monk can use ghost touch weapons, or use his monk attacks with a 50% chance of affecting incorporeal. The bard can use summon monster IV to summon 1d3 lantern archons, who do untyped damage, can ready a cure critical wounds spell to cause 4d8+12 damage to undead, can use greater invisibility as well, can use glitterdust to blind the undead, and has access to mirror image (a figment, effective against the undead).


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## Banshee16 (Nov 6, 2009)

fuzzlewump said:


> I don't think you addressed Rituals in your post, so how do you think they fit in to your generalization that spells only blow stuff up or move things? Most common I think people find that they aren't powerful enough, which leads me to believe it's not about the 'feel' for most people, it's about the power that wizards have traditionally had.




Rituals can bring back some of the feel....but why can everyone do them?  I mean, they're not just for Wizards or whatever......and they are significantly more involved to use...

I think that they do give some additional flexibility.....but my issue is that they take so much more time....it's almost like a dichotomy.....if I want to blow stuff up, well, it's easy....I've got a bunch of options for what I can do instantly.  But if I'm a Wizard who specializes in enchantments, or shapechanging, or I want to fly, or make a hole through a wall, or identify an item or whatever, now I've got to cast a ritual.  In previous editions these other kinds of effects were integral.....and could be used as easily as combat magic (with the exception of spells like Identify).

Banshee


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## billd91 (Nov 6, 2009)

Canis said:


> Remember that this is RPGA we're talking about.  It's not a good DM designing (or re-designing) around his oddball group.  It's mass market.  There's a lowest common denominator effect.




Unfortunately, because this was a Living Campaign, there was no common denominator at all. There was no way to expect one for your typical convention session.



Canis said:


> And you have to remember part of the marketing angle of all this is *to show off the content*.  If you throw out every monster that really, really screams for a cleric, you're not showing off lots of content.  If you throw out every monster that would completely hose a rogue-heavy party, you're not showing more than half of the content   If you throw out everything that requires a rogue... well you have no traps at all in your low level dungeons, which just doesn't even fit the milieu, wot?




It's not a question of throwing everything out that is best defeated by a particular class. It's a question of not overbuilding encounters with them, as in Majoru Oakheart's example of 2 dread wraiths and 4 spectres. A better encounter design would have mixed a dread wraith with something else to allow for more diversity of PC paths to success.

Part of 3e's encounter design advice includes encounters that are very difficult but become easier if you have a particular key to that encounter - some tactic available to the PCs that makes it a lot easier. But they're supposed to be a small proportion of the encounters. Using them too often, particularly because the event cannot control for the makeup of the table, should be considered bad encounter design.


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## Victim (Nov 6, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> Rituals can bring back some of the feel....but why can everyone do them?  I mean, they're not just for Wizards or whatever......and they are significantly more involved to use...
> 
> I think that they do give some additional flexibility.....but my issue is that they take so much more time....it's almost like a dichotomy.....if I want to blow stuff up, well, it's easy....I've got a bunch of options for what I can do instantly.  But if I'm a Wizard who specializes in enchantments, or shapechanging, or I want to fly, or make a hole through a wall, or identify an item or whatever, now I've got to cast a ritual.  In previous editions these other kinds of effects were integral.....and could be used as easily as combat magic (with the exception of spells like Identify).
> 
> Banshee




Well, part of it is that the wizard is no longer the go to class for everything magical.  Shapeshifting stuff tends to go to other classes, for instance.  It really sucks for class design when additional spellcaster classes are more limited versions of wizards.



> Compare this to something like trying to get past a Wall of Force in 3E. If you don't have a Wizard or Cleric (or equivalent), and you absolutely need to get past a Wall of Force, then you are totally helpless. There is literally nothing you can do except give up. A team of non-casters basically have to hope that their DM will take pity on them and not present them with such challenges, even though such a challenge may be trivial if there was a Wizard or Cleric in the party. It is only because 3E reveled in such absolutes of ineffectiveness that it had classes you could call "requirements", and 4E has nothing of the kind.




You can go around/under a Wall of Force, especially with Adamantine weapons.  Just chip at objects on the periphery until there's enough room to squeeze around the wall.


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## TwinBahamut (Nov 6, 2009)

Voadam said:


> You think 3e really requires the party to have a fighter and not a barbarian or a paladin or a cleric taking a tank role? A wizard and not a sorcerer or psion? You see these as class requirements and not "roles" that other classes can fit?



You really have not been reading my posts... I was only saying that classes like the Fighter had a "role" in 3e for the sake of that particular argument. As I've said just earlier in this thread, the only roles 3e had were the need for spellcasting, especially the Wizard and Cleric (because those two classes were basically the best at what they did), and maybe a Rogue in certain campaigns (though that can be replaced with the right spells). Of course the Fighter can be replaced. The 3e Fighter is trash. Almost any 3e party would be better off replacing any Fighter with a Cleric or Druid. There really isn't even a "tank" role in 3e, since no good weapon-using class really has abilities that can be used to protect allies.

3e doesn't have roles. It requires spellcasting and then basically lets spellcasters run wild while non-spellcasters play something of a different game.

As for the rest of your comments... I'll just disagree.


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## Ariosto (Nov 6, 2009)

> I have no problem with the idea of one class having different options than another. That's fine. But, why should casters get several times more options than non-casters?



Strictly speaking, they don't -- unless you've severely limited the options available to non-magical people (e.g., "The Model 3E comes in any color you like -- as long as it's combat.").

Setting aside such an arbitrary case of "several times", though, is not having more options what magic is fundamentally about?

How does _adding_ the ability to fly or turn invisible _remove_ a non-magical capability (any more than there's a trade-off in choosing to practice one mundane art instead of another)?

"It's a geas" gets old quickly. Rather than an absolute, "No, you can't wear armor or wield a sword", it's probably better to say, "Sure, you can -- but not very well (and it won't help your advancement as a magician)."

"Not very well" is more of a live option than the "not at all" that applies to casting a spell without special training (i.e., an appropriate class) in old D&D.

In 4e, everyone is a magically capable combatant. The wizard just happens to be a "controller" instead of a "striker", "defender" or "leader".


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## Garthanos (Nov 6, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> Rituals can bring back some of the feel....but why can everyone do them?  I mean, they're not just for Wizards or whatever......and they are significantly more involved to use...




Wizards get rituals for free periodically throughout there career and even if everyone "can" ... most wont it costs them a feat and they need to know arcana or religion ...so unless being wizardly is part of there character concept they have better uses for the feats.  There is a feat that makes all rituals based off an arcanists best skill. Wizards are THE go to guy for rituals.



Banshee16 said:


> In previous editions these other kinds of effects were integral.....and could be used as easily as combat magic (with the exception of spells like Identify).



Some of the nice rituals take a whopping 10 minutes....  
If you aren't in the middle of combat that is a trivial amount of time. and some have 24 hour effects Comprehend Language and Tensers floating disk for instance. Affect normal fire I call Gaian Pyromantic Attunement lasts 8 hours.
others 6 and 4 hours...   When you gain hours of effects the complaining about the 10 minute casting times you see on those examples seems kind of ...well I am not sure what exactly to call it.


A ritual is a cool thing.





picture courtesy of goodman games...​
Ritual casters really can do massive things already, cheapening them by making them seem easy doesn't sound cool to me.

But some of the effects are not long term or large scale... what about those?

Here is a theory .... 
One of the reasons they have limits is so you cant easily and completely over shadow roles from other classes, by grabbing the right three rituals (knock passwall ... whatever) you probably cannot do the rogues job better than a rogue ... you are slower than the rogue and it takes the right ingredients (aka money). But if you don't have a rogue in the party? those rituals are still very useful (the money is eventually inconsequential and the time is usually inconsequential but you aren't squatting all over another archetypes classic abilities quite as badly)... But.... you didn't have to spend the feat to take thievery - so you still have all your wizard awesome going on... and can spend it on say Expand Spell to increase the area of effect of your magics that feature a lot of the time in D&D. 

I recommend house ruling things especially to make rituals flavor nice for your personal game world I recommend it massively but I recommend taking care. 

I made raise the dead high enough level (16) and involve quests into a dangerous astral like grey realm by those who know the subject most so its intimidating.


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## Garthanos (Nov 6, 2009)

Wierdly even though rituals give some large scale effects.. for me having freely useable cantrips and easily adapted at-wills .... make the wizard seem very magical out of the box.

 Of course its not a Magi Missile

It isnt just about making the powers seem different either... 
When players integrate how they use there abilities well with the situation the DM has set out... we like giving special benefits beyond the normal functionality... sometimes its just a simple DM's best friend but sometimes its more extreme (alah page 42) .


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## Puggins (Nov 6, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> Rituals can bring back some of the feel....but why can everyone do them?  I mean, they're not just for Wizards or whatever......and they are significantly more involved to use...




It's important to keep in mind that there's a difference between being able to cast a ritual and being able to cast a ritual _well._

Yes, a fighter can learn how to cast rituals with some investment of time- he needs to spend two feats at the minimum, since arcana is not a class feat- but, outside of a distinctly non-synergistic build, the fighter simply doesn't have the intelligence of a wizard.

A 12th level fighter with int12, training in arcana and the ritual casting feat would be able to put up an Arcane Barrier which has an average dispel DC of 27 and break DC of 32.  Compare that to a wizard with an intelligence of 20 who has to spend no feats and can weave an arcane barrier with a dispel DC of 31 and break DC of 36.

The fighter's barrier will be useful.  The wizard's barrier will be far harder to break.  Add skill focus on to it and the DCs get ludicrously difficult.



> I think that they do give some additional flexibility.....but my issue is that they take so much more time....it's almost like a dichotomy.....if I want to blow stuff up, well, it's easy....I've got a bunch of options for what I can do instantly.  But if I'm a Wizard who specializes in enchantments, or shapechanging, or I want to fly, or make a hole through a wall, or identify an item or whatever, now I've got to cast a ritual.  In previous editions these other kinds of effects were integral.....and could be used as easily as combat magic (with the exception of spells like Identify).




Why is being able to use all magic at combat speed so important?  most of those spells can still be cast with a minimal time investment anyways.  Compare that to 3e, where you'd have to put in a good eight hours of rest if you didn't have the spell already memorized.  That passwall was great- as long as you didn't mind giving up a combat spell to memorize it.  Now the wizard sits down, opens his spellbook, fetches his components and goes at it right away.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 6, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Unfortunately, because this was a Living Campaign, there was no common denominator at all. There was no way to expect one for your typical convention session.



That's exactly what I mean.  They can't be tailored to a group.  They have to be shipped out the door in one of two states: 1) Dumbed down to the point where any group can do them, regardless of make-up; or 2) Built for the expected party.  This is writing towards the lowest common denominator.

If the group is standard make up, (1) becomes trivial and boring, while (2) is fun.  

If the group is a nonstandard make-up, depending on what skills you have available, (1) is going to vary between boring and mediocre, and (2) will shift madly between completely trivial and insanely deadly.



> Part of 3e's encounter design advice includes encounters that are very difficult but become easier if you have a particular key to that encounter - some tactic available to the PCs that makes it a lot easier. But they're supposed to be a small proportion of the encounters. Using them too often, particularly because the event cannot control for the makeup of the table, should be considered bad encounter design.



You're proving my point, which is that you were far more constrained in encounter design in 3e than you are in 4e by what classes are going to play the adventure.  I haven't played much 4e, but I haven't noticed, for example, a case where simply including certain monsters makes a cleric-less group lose bowel control at the gaming table.  That was standard operating procedure in 3e.  And don't get me started on parties without a full arcane caster.  You just don't run published adventures above maybe 3rd level without one, IME.

So, the fundamental rules of 3e created a very large space of encounter design that would be considered "bad" by the definition you're espousing.  This space includes assuming the party has access to magic above 3rd level, assuming the party can detect magical traps, assuming the party has any meaningful healing or restoration effects, and so on.  That's a lot of "bad encounter design."

You don't think that maybe, just maybe, rather than an epic possibility space of "bad encounter design" that kind of severe restriction might reflect a more fundamental limitation in the game?

I chose the word limitation here deliberately, rather than "problem."  It's not necessarily "bad" to strongly encourage certain classes.  But don't try to claim that it's less limiting than 4e.

For example, if we're making a party in 4e, someone is going to say, "We need someone who can heal."  And in the core books alone (all I have experience with in 4e), I can find both the cleric and the warlord, and neither of them is going to cause the rest of the table to groan and throw a book at my head.  Whereas in 3e, if faced with the same question, I rolled a cleric.  Full stop.  Or I took a book to the forehead.  Rolling something else might have been more fun for me, but everyone at the table remembered those encounters that ate us alive last time we used a druid rather than a cleric to heal.

This is where you accuse my DM of sucking for not adjusting for the limits of the party.  He ran published adventures by the book.  Lots of people do that.  It's what most new people do at least for a while.  It's what they have to design for.  If you have a DM who is willing to go under the hood and convert that standard Detroit model to run on vegetable oil, hydrogen cells, or a Mister Fusion, that's great.  It removes restrictions of many kinds.  But in 4e that kind of thing is merely tinkering because no single class is carrying literally game-changing effects in its pockets.  In 3e it was massive overhaul, depending on what classes were missing.


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## billd91 (Nov 6, 2009)

Canis said:


> You don't think that maybe, just maybe, rather than an epic possibility space of "bad encounter design" that kind of severe restriction might reflect a more fundamental limitation in the game?
> 
> I chose the word limitation here deliberately, rather than "problem."  It's not necessarily "bad" to strongly encourage certain classes.  But don't try to claim that it's less limiting than 4e.




I'm not claiming it is. I'm claiming that problems with encounters put out by the RPGA are because of poor encounter design for the campaign, not because 3e had some kind of strict requirements for party composition, implied or not.

I'd be of the mind that 3e is no more restrictive than 4e. After all, you don't want to throw solo after solo, or even a series of encounters made up of elite soldiers, at a party in 4e any more than you'd want to constantly throw encounters that need a special tactic available to make them easy in 3e.


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## billd91 (Nov 6, 2009)

Canis said:


> For example, if we're making a party in 4e, someone is going to say, "We need someone who can heal."  And in the core books alone (all I have experience with in 4e), I can find both the cleric and the warlord, and neither of them is going to cause the rest of the table to groan and throw a book at my head.  Whereas in 3e, if faced with the same question, I rolled a cleric.  Full stop.  Or I took a book to the forehead.  Rolling something else might have been more fun for me, but everyone at the table remembered those encounters that ate us alive last time we used a druid rather than a cleric to heal.
> 
> This is where you accuse my DM of sucking for not adjusting for the limits of the party.  He ran published adventures by the book.  Lots of people do that.  It's what most new people do at least for a while.  It's what they have to design for.  If you have a DM who is willing to go under the hood and convert that standard Detroit model to run on vegetable oil, hydrogen cells, or a Mister Fusion, that's great.  It removes restrictions of many kinds.  But in 4e that kind of thing is merely tinkering because no single class is carrying literally game-changing effects in its pockets.  In 3e it was massive overhaul, depending on what classes were missing.




I'm not accusing your DM of anything. There's a fine line between adapting the campaign for the PCs and the PCs adapting to the campaign. Ideally, both should occur so that the DM's game and the players' game have a shared common ground both can enjoy. Clearly, adapting to the campaign is something the RPGA designers, in the discussion above, DID NOT do.

I've been running the Shackled City campaign, pretty much as is, for a party with no cleric. They've got a druid, a paladin, and a dragon shaman for healing. They're not exactly hurting for healing, though they've spent a bit more money on it than they might have if they had a cleric in the party. 

Adaptations can be made by the party. The druid took on more of the healing caster role (even took a feat for spontaneous healing when she hit 12th level), the paladin has been toting around wound-curing wands since the early levels, and the dragon shaman is well-invested in Use Magic Device ranks. Not a lot of DM retooling was necessary. The players went about designing their characters and successfully adapted. That said, there isn't much about that campaign that has encounters built that need a cleric to make their encounter level manageable.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Nov 6, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> I've found that in 4e, encounters specifically built using a combination of feats, classes, monsters, terrain, spells and so on will defeat any party that wasn't built well.
> 
> In fact, this is true of every iteration of the game, including, I would wager, every house-ruled version you could find.
> 
> What you describe is perhaps bad encounter design, but not a problem intrinsic to the system, since its possible to create endless fun, challenging, exciting encounters in 3.5 that don't require any particular class.




That is not my experience.  In 4e, when you make an encounter, you are allowed to take a monster from a Monster Manual...you are allowed to increase its level up or down, but no more than 5 points.  You may be able to apply a short list of templates on it(which are discouraged by the higher ups in the RPGA due to the balance issues they COULD cause).  That's it.

Every monster listed in a book so far has not caused any problems for "substandard" groups in the RPGA yet.  I've seen some of these groups.  People who don't know how to use their powers effectively, use nothing but at wills and only have a 16 in their prime ability score.  They are able to defeat any encounter that is made for their level.  Even if the group is ALL fighters who fit the above description, they'll survive.

I've found that in Living Greyhawk, if someone showed up for a table with a 10th level 5 bard/2 rogue/2 fighter/1 cleric that the other players in the game would rebel against them and ask them to play something else to avoid killing the whole party.

Besides, it ISN'T bad encounter design.  It is a bunch of unchanged monsters out of the Monster Manual that is within the guidelines in the DMG for designing encounters.  It would already be very hard to near impossible without the terrain features.  With a couple small terrain features it becomes stupid.  But perfectly within the rules and a valid encounter.

If you were forced to limit yourself to only "good" encounter design(depending on how you define that), you remove about 90% of all the choices you have when creating an encounter in 3e.  Which is fine, but you can't expect every DM who ever makes an encounter to say "The rules say this is perfectly fine, but I'm not going to do it."

4e suggests that if you have terrain features that do damage that they are instead traps, which take XP from your XP pool.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 6, 2009)

billd91 said:


> I'm not claiming it is.



Fair enough.  I may be conflating you with some of the others here who have claimed such.



> I'd be of the mind that 3e is no more restrictive than 4e. After all, you don't want to throw solo after solo, or even a series of encounters made up of elite soldiers, at a party in 4e any more than you'd want to constantly throw encounters that need a special tactic available to make them easy in 3e.



That much is certain.  But just thumbing through the monster manual, a LOT of monsters in 3e were simplified drastically by having a certain ability present, or were particularly nasty to deal with for specific classes.

Let me try to illustrate.....

Can we stipulate that a construct-themed dungeon is possibly a rogue's worst nightmare in 3e combat?  Several entire flavors of monster are simply hell on earth for a rogue-heavy party.  The only comparison I can think of in 4e is that a rogue-heavy party will look impressive against solos but start to run into trouble with big groups of minions.  So, the 4e rogue-heavy party is limited mechanically, while the 3e party is limited by mechanics AND flavor, since the two are more intimately tied in this case.

The mechanics (these are elite soldiers, while these are minions with a solo) are mostly behind the screen, but the flavor is obvious to everyone right at the start.  So the DM might feel just as constrained or more constrained by the 4e problem, but the players are going to feel less like they got hosed by the dungeon design than they did in 3e.

That make sense?


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 6, 2009)

billd91 said:


> I'm not accusing your DM of anything.



Yeah, sorry about that.  That was me anticipating the potential _ad hominem_ rebuttal.... (i.e. "I see.  All your problems with 3e were caused by bad DMs").  I spent too much of my internet time in the last few years in the lawless wastelands.  It's easy to forget that ENWorld is a little more civil most of the time when you've been away.


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## Garthanos (Nov 6, 2009)

Puggins said:


> Compare that to 3e, where you'd have to put in a good eight hours of rest if you didn't have the spell already memorized.  That passwall was great- as long as you didn't mind giving up a combat spell to memorize it.  Now the wizard sits down, opens his spellbook, fetches his components and goes at it right away.




Good point no mental flush process... "because everybody memorizes spell x and y unless they are stupid" spell z when you rarely wanted it would be a bigger time investment than most of the current rituals... it is no longer in your forget me.. slots either you don't impair yourself in battle by having rituals even a lot of them.


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## billd91 (Nov 6, 2009)

Canis said:


> Can we stipulate that a construct-themed dungeon is possibly a rogue's worst nightmare in 3e combat?  Several entire flavors of monster are simply hell on earth for a rogue-heavy party.  The only comparison I can think of in 4e is that a rogue-heavy party will look impressive against solos but start to run into trouble with big groups of minions.  So, the 4e rogue-heavy party is limited mechanically, while the 3e party is limited by mechanics AND flavor, since the two are more intimately tied in this case.




It's true that some classes of monsters are harder for some classes than others. But I'm OK with that. The flavor determines mechanics. I actually don't like flavor and mechanics to be too dissociated and 4e pushes too far in that direction for me in a number of ways.

If I had built a construct-heavy dungeon, I'd have also put in a variety of other automated defenses (traps and the like) and ways to deactivate or get around the defenses (used by the original builders) that can be exploited even if characters can't bring their full powers to bear on the monsters.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Nov 6, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> What, for a 12th level party? Let's imagine the party consists of a wizard, a sorcerer, a fighter, and a monk. As soon as the party figures out what's happening, the wizard casts _repulsion_. The fighter and rogue ready an action to shift 5 feet as soon as they are attacked, while the sorcerer readies a _magic missile _to blast anything that makes it past the _repulsion_. On the next round, the sorcerer readies a _wall of force_, trapping the next opponent as it tries to spring away. The wizard blasts the opponent with _magic missile _while the the fighter and monk now whale on the trapped opponent using their_ ghost touch _weapons.




I can only say what happened when the two 12th level groups I saw went through that encounter(one where I was the cleric).  I can say that no one had prepared repulsion...and oddly enough I've never seen it cast at all.  No one in either group prepared Wall of Force, Undeath to Death or owned Ghost Touch weapons.  Besides, Wall of Force would have just made the monsters go through the ground to get around it.  Replusion would have caused them to retreat into the darkness and wait the couple of rounds until they had to come back and attack us.

As for the shifting 5ft when they are attacked....well, there was very little room to move.  Most of us had 3 allies, and 3 squares of brambles adjacent to us during any given round.  Plus, I've never seen someone use the "ready a shift when I'm attack" action ever.  It was brought up as a possible rules loophole in our group a while back.  Virtually everyone in our group figured that if you could either spend your standard action on full defense in order to up your defense by a small amount or you could use it to ready to make an attack miss entirely that the "ready to shift" action wasn't really a balanced or intended use of the rules.  I think someone tried it once and the DM simply said "Your shift happens before the attack, so he hasn't taken it yet.  He continues moving towards you and then attacks.  Now can we stop readying actions to do nothing?"

What did happen was that our Barbarian managed to lose 6 levels and 5 Con points in the surprise round of combat.  With -6 to his attack rolls, he couldn't hit anything.  Our Ranger couldn't get a full attack sequence off since he kept having to ready for when the enemies got within sight.  With a 50% miss chance, he hurt them...but slowly.  We had a Wizard, but he was using readying Magic Missiles when the enemies got within range.  He didn't have enough of them prepared to actually beat them.

It ended up taking a Death Ward, a Restoration(I really wish I prepared a Greater Restoration that day) and a couple of Heal spells on the Barbarian in order to win the fight.  He did the most damage on a single attack out of anyone in the party, so we kept him immune to the energy drain and kept him attacking.  It was hard...very hard.  Probably one of the hardest encounters I've ever had in 3.5e.  And without my cleric in the group, it would have been over very quickly.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Nov 6, 2009)

billd91 said:


> If I had built a construct-heavy dungeon, I'd have also put in a variety of other automated defenses (traps and the like) and ways to deactivate or get around the defenses (used by the original builders) that can be exploited even if characters can't bring their full powers to bear on the monsters.




You would.  But I can tell you that not everyone does.  Using Living Greyhawk as an example again.  There was once a series of adventures that were designed to play in order.  4 adventures in a row, all of which had nothing but constructs, undead, and oozes as enemies.  Because the theme of the adventures all involved going into ancient tombs from hundreds of years ago.

During said time there were about 2 traps.  Both of which had non-rogue ways of disabling them since the authors didn't know whether there'd be a rogue in the group or not.  In fact, both were presented as puzzles that if you couldn't figure out or didn't want to figure out, you could just disable instead.

After that series of adventures, our Rogue actually rolled up a new character since he was tired of being useless.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Nov 6, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> How does _adding_ the ability to fly or turn invisible _remove_ a non-magical capability (any more than there's a trade-off in choosing to practice one mundane art instead of another)?



It doesn't remove it so much as make it useless.

"I can hide really well.  I'm a sneaky rogue.  My concept is I sneak through the darkness unseen and unheard and stab people when they can't see me for lots of damage.  My special ability is that I'm way more stealthy than a normal person."

vs

"I can turn invisible and be completely silent with no chance of being seen or heard at all.  So I'm better at steath than you are.  Here, I'll cast a spell to make us ALL invisible so we don't have to wait out here for you to sneak ahead.  Also, I do as much damage as you do when I'm completely visible."

AND

"My character is one of the best climbers in the world.  I am known for the fact that I once scaled the largest mountain in the world with my bare hands.  People use my name as a blessing when climbing."

VS

"I can fly.  Who needs to climb?  Here, I'll carry you just in case you might fall."


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 6, 2009)

billd91 said:


> It's true that some classes of monsters are harder for some classes than others. But I'm OK with that. The flavor determines mechanics. I actually don't like flavor and mechanics to be too dissociated and 4e pushes too far in that direction for me in a number of ways.



Stipulated.  That's a valid criticism.

For me, that feels like a feature, rather than a bug.  Rub off the flavor text and just re-purpose the mechanics with entirely new flavor text.



> If I had built a construct-heavy dungeon, I'd have also put in a variety of other automated defenses (traps and the like) and ways to deactivate or get around the defenses (used by the original builders) that can be exploited even if characters can't bring their full powers to bear on the monsters.



And that wouldn't just be good design, IME.  That would be _excellent_ design.  I think ENWorld regulars (as opposed to guys like me who visit every couple years when I'm actually in a game or looking for one) are used to a high level of DM and design skill.  I do not think this is standard out in the real world 

The rules should be designed (IMO) to account for the run of the mill idiots or people who don't have time to do lots of tweaking that I tend to be and run with.  In my limited experience thus far, 4e is more idiot proof, especially for the DM who's barely finding time to get a session prepared every couple weeks when he's running things out of books, much less rewriting or writing from scratch.


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## pawsplay (Nov 6, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I can only say what happened when the two 12th level groups I saw went through that encounter(one where I was the cleric).  I can say that no one had prepared repulsion...and oddly enough I've never seen it cast at all.  No one in either group prepared Wall of Force, Undeath to Death or owned Ghost Touch weapons.




I hardly know what to say. No wall of force?



> Besides, Wall of Force would have just made the monsters go through the ground to get around it.  Replusion would have caused them to retreat into the darkness and wait the couple of rounds until they had to come back and attack us.




Maybe I'm missing something, but why didn't the party just run straight through?



> Plus, I've never seen someone use the "ready a shift when I'm attack" action ever.  It was brought up as a possible rules loophole in our group a while back.  Virtually everyone in our group figured that if you could either spend your standard action on full defense in order to up your defense by a small amount or you could use it to ready to make an attack miss entirely that the "ready to shift" action wasn't really a balanced or intended use of the rules.  I think someone tried it once and the DM simply said "Your shift happens before the attack, so he hasn't taken it yet.  He continues moving towards you and then attacks.  Now can we stop readying actions to do nothing?"




I would hope the DM wouldn't say something like that, because it contradicts the rules. You can't move before and after an attack (unless you have spring Attack) and by definition the attack occured or you wouldn't have used your readied action. It is no different than making an AoO or using a counterspell. Would the DM say your counterspell is ineffective because the spell "hasn't happened yet?"




> What did happen was that our Barbarian managed to lose 6 levels and 5 Con points in the surprise round of combat.  With -6 to his attack rolls, he couldn't hit anything.  Our Ranger couldn't get a full attack sequence off since he kept having to ready for when the enemies got within sight.  With a 50% miss chance, he hurt them...but slowly.  We had a Wizard, but he was using readying Magic Missiles when the enemies got within range.  He didn't have enough of them prepared to actually beat them.
> 
> It ended up taking a Death Ward, a Restoration(I really wish I prepared a Greater Restoration that day) and a couple of Heal spells on the Barbarian in order to win the fight.  He did the most damage on a single attack out of anyone in the party, so we kept him immune to the energy drain and kept him attacking.  It was hard...very hard.  Probably one of the hardest encounters I've ever had in 3.5e.  And without my cleric in the group, it would have been over very quickly.




At party level +3, yes, it's going to be a hard fight, but I don't think you've made your case that the cleric saved you. With another wizard in the party instead of a a cleric, maybe you would have had some more magic missiles and a wall of force... if you ready a wall of force, you can use it to block just about any attack, from dragon breath to a spectre's touch. Maybe if there were another barbarian in the party, he might have had a ghost touch weapon as a backup. 

I have rarely seen a cleric take a special role against undead in my games, except for the occasional death ward. Empowered magic missile is a popular spell.


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## Engilbrand (Nov 6, 2009)

In other words, pawsplay, you're saying that a second Wizard could have been better. I'm pretty sure that the true point here is that the spellcasting classes were always automatically better. That's why 4e stepped away from that.
If Wizards were "neutered", it's only because they used to be the equivalent of the god Priapus. They needed to be "cut down to size".


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## Voadam (Nov 6, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I hardly know what to say. No wall of force?




My 15th level caster wizard does not know wall of force or repulsion either. He has web and wall of ice and even illusory wall for terrain control effects but no wall of force.

We faced a single hit and run dreadwraith once a number of levels ago (I know I was high enough level to use disintegrate even with two non caster levels). It nearly tore apart our party even with our good tactics. We flew up into a vast cavern so it couldn't sneak up at us through the walls or floor (everybody had winged boots or flying spells). The other arcane caster (arcane trickster) used readied magic missiles while I used Thunderlance (from Forgotten Realms CS I believe) with readied attacks, the paladin used his magic sword with many wiffs and the fighter/cleric used a ghost touch dagger. It was a near thing with the trickster almost turning undead from drains before we killed it.


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## pawsplay (Nov 6, 2009)

Engilbrand said:


> In other words, pawsplay, you're saying that a second Wizard could have been better.




Or a second barbarian, actually.



			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> Maybe if there were another barbarian in the party, he might have had a ghost touch weapon as a backup.




I don't want to second guess the party, but it sounds like everyone could have contributed a bit more, and you would hope someone would. "I am the rogue, I do not deal with undead," is in my mind equivalent to, "I am delusional as to the nature of D&D." If I play a barbarian who basically does melee and nothing else, I ought to at least have a few backup weapons to help me deal with the unexpected.  If you're a 12th level character and you're not ready to deal with medusa archers, vampire monks, dragons, spectres, and orc barbarians, you're just not ready.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 6, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I don't want to second guess the party, but it sounds like everyone could have contributed a bit more, and you would hope someone would. "I am the rogue, I do not deal with undead," is in my mind equivalent to, "I am delusional as to the nature of D&D." If I play a barbarian who basically does melee and nothing else, I ought to at least have a few backup weapons to help me deal with the unexpected.  If you're a 12th level character and you're not ready to deal with medusa archers, vampire monks, dragons, spectres, and orc barbarians, you're just not ready.



Or maybe, just maybe, there's a point where the D&Disms start to get in the way of fun for a lot of people rather than improving the fun.

For example, you are espousing golf bag syndrome here.  When was that EVER fun?


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## billd91 (Nov 6, 2009)

Canis said:


> For example, you are espousing golf bag syndrome here.  When was that EVER fun?




I've always had PCs carry around multiple weapons, even back in the days of 1e. Different tools for different applications. If I wasn't carrying around something sharp, something blunt, and something ranged, I wasn't well-equipped.


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## Nifft (Nov 6, 2009)

billd91 said:


> I've always had PCs carry around multiple weapons, even back in the days of 1e. Different tools for different applications. If I wasn't carrying around something sharp, something blunt, and something ranged, I wasn't well-equipped.



 Yep. The "challenge" of "HA HA HA CLAY GOLEM" was hardly created by 3e.

"_And an 11 ft. pole_", -- N


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## Majoru Oakheart (Nov 6, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I hardly know what to say. No wall of force?



One didn't seem useful in this adventure.  The wizard in question normally prepares one...despite the fact that I don't like it as a spell.  It has come in handy more than once.



pawsplay said:


> Maybe I'm missing something, but why didn't the party just run straight through?



They were faster than us, they could use life sense to track us, the darkness made it difficult to move quickly since the path was not in a straight line and we had to avoid running quickly to avoid running into the bushes.  They were not limited by any of that, given their life sense, flying, and incorporealness.  Running wouldn't have worked.  Plus, it was a Living Greyhawk adventure.  If you don't fight the encounter, you don't get the XP for it.  If we weren't going to get the XP for it, we might as well have not played.



pawsplay said:


> I would hope the DM wouldn't say something like that, because it contradicts the rules. You can't move before and after an attack (unless you have spring Attack) and by definition the attack occured or you wouldn't have used your readied action. It is no different than making an AoO or using a counterspell. Would the DM say your counterspell is ineffective because the spell "hasn't happened yet?"



Let's just say that we all agreed that although the exact text of the rules said you could ready a move or a wall of force to block someone's attack we pretty much all agreed that it was likely a bug in the rules and not intended due to the fact that a wall spell or a ready to move suddenly became a MUCH better option than most other options in the game.  There are a number of spells that add something to people's AC for one round that become kind of useless if you can throw a wall in the way of someone's attacks AS they are attacking.  Which seems counter to the balance the game creates.  We all agreed to use the letter AND the intention behind the rules.

Plus, one of our DMs(since we played mostly Living Greyhawk and had 10 or so DMs) said "If you want to accept that readying to move is a valid method of avoiding attacks, that's fine.  But the enemies will know that.  This means that all melee characters will never hit with a single attack...ever.  And as much fun as an entire encounter being: You attack, he moves out of the way is, let's just agree not to do that.  Ever.  Either that or I'm surrounding you with level 1 warriors who aren't worth XP who will get in your way all the while readying to get out of the way of your attacks while the high level archers kill you."



pawsplay said:


> At party level +3, yes, it's going to be a hard fight, but I don't think you've made your case that the cleric saved you. With another wizard in the party instead of a a cleric, maybe you would have had some more magic missiles and a wall of force... if you ready a wall of force, you can use it to block just about any attack, from dragon breath to a spectre's touch. Maybe if there were another barbarian in the party, he might have had a ghost touch weapon as a backup.



See above for "using Wall of Force to block attacks".  In our game, it was a spell that you could put across a room to prevent the Wizard in the back from affecting the combat or to put across a door to prevent the enemies from running away.  And when I say "In our game", I mean, I never say someone in Living Greyhawk do that ever.  Even when I played with high level Wizards at GenCon, as well as other conventions all over the world.  In fact, the idea that it could be used to block attacks as a side effect of the above rules loophole didn't occur to be until you said it in your post.  Even if it was allowed, it would require a new Wall of Force during each round of the combat as they simply would stay in the ground, pop out of the ground on the other side of the wall and attack.  Then spring attack back in again.

Magic items were also in short supply in Living Greyhawk.  The idea that someone had an "extra" magic item to use is...kind of laughable.  My level 15 Cleric who was just about retired had a +2 Falchion as his primary weapon.  His backup was a non-magical Adamantine Heavy Mace.  He didn't own a ranged weapon.  This didn't much matter because he had ranged spells and the ability to cast Greater Magic Weapon.  But if I ever got enough money to afford a +1 Ghost Touch weapon...I would spend it on something else.  Ghost Touch was of so limited utility that it wasn't worth spending money on it when you could have spent it on a better Ring of Protection or as a payment towards a better Wisdom enhancing item.

Magic Missiles help, I admit.  But having enough of them to deal with a Dread Wraith is unlikely.  Too many hitpoints to go through.  Either way, the Wizard would be down to nothing BUT Magic Missiles in no time.  That's the problem with losing a spell for every negative level you get.  And these were intelligent undead.  I would drain him dry in 2 rounds, assuming 3 of the 4 Spectres hit each attack.

As for the ease of the encounter.  Our party was extremely optimized.  We were used to blowing through EL=APL+3 encounters on a regular basis.  It was only the APL+4 encounters that even phased us.  But EL is a really, really poor estimate of difficulty, so that doesn't say anything.  One APL+1 encounter could be anywhere from impossible to extremely easy depending on the party makeup, the spells prepared, and the magic items they had.  Which is kind of the point of this discussion.



pawsplay said:


> I have rarely seen a cleric take a special role against undead in my games, except for the occasional death ward. Empowered magic missile is a popular spell.




Well, against most undead...no, I'm no more effective than anyone else in the party when I was playing my Cleric.  I was poor at turning.  But against incorporeal undead there were only 3 real ways to get past the miss chance: force spells, Ghost Touch weapons, and Healing spells.  A well placed Heal spell on a Dread Wraith spelled its death.  Too bad I never got one off during this encounter due to the tendency for the Dread Wraths to attack from 2 squares away.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Nov 6, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Or a second barbarian, actually.



Trust me, I would have loved to have one.  Sometimes I wished our entire party was Barbarians with one Wizard and one Cleric.  Unfortunately, I only had one Death Ward.  I believe my instructions to everyone else were "Nice knowing you".



pawsplay said:


> I don't want to second guess the party, but it sounds like everyone could have contributed a bit more, and you would hope someone would. "I am the rogue, I do not deal with undead," is in my mind equivalent to, "I am delusional as to the nature of D&D." If I play a barbarian who basically does melee and nothing else, I ought to at least have a few backup weapons to help me deal with the unexpected.  If you're a 12th level character and you're not ready to deal with medusa archers, vampire monks, dragons, spectres, and orc barbarians, you're just not ready.




In this particular battle everyone tried their best.  Most people missed.  That's just the way it goes.  We didn't even have a Rogue in this battle, everyone who played one got frustrated and created new characters a while back.

Besides, we WERE ready for all of those things.  Send the Barbarian after them and keep him up with healing and buff spells.  You'd be surprised how few things are resistant to that strategy.  He'd Power Attack and kill them in a round or two.  A couple of times before they even got an attack in.  Like that Dragon we once fought that the Hasted, Greater Magic Weaponed, Heroes Feasted, Raging, Power Attacking Barbarian did over 200 damage to in a single round.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 6, 2009)

billd91 said:


> I've always had PCs carry around multiple weapons, even back in the days of 1e. Different tools for different applications. If I wasn't carrying around something sharp, something blunt, and something ranged, I wasn't well-equipped.



I think we just have to agree to disagree about what we find fun in the details of gaming.  I like tactics that make a difference, not preparation trumping everything else.

Also... keeping around the best weapon I've found, plus the best thing with Ghost Touch, plus the best thing with a different damage type (ignoring the fact that many "slashing" weapons were just as often "bludgeoning" weapons when used for real), plus the gods only know what else....

That's how I had to optimize my tank in WoW.  And it's not fun.  I need a max survivability weapon and a max threat weapon.  And I have 4 pairs of pants, max Effective Health, max avoidance, max Block value for certain fights and high threat, and a dps set for farming or when I overgear so much that even the block pants are no good.  Ick.  And that leaves aside that I was a paladin and also needed healing pants.  No wonder I actually became a happier person when I stopped raiding.

I play games, video or PnP, to be a hero.  Cinematic action and intermittent badassery preferred.  Micromanaging inventory.... to be avoided at all costs.  If I want to micromanage inventory.... well that's one of the prereqs to keeping the lab running remotely smoothly at work.  I get enough of whatever that gives people (migraines, IME) IRL.


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## pawsplay (Nov 7, 2009)

Canis said:


> Or maybe, just maybe, there's a point where the D&Disms start to get in the way of fun for a lot of people rather than improving the fun.
> 
> For example, you are espousing golf bag syndrome here.  When was that EVER fun?




I don't know, whipping out the cold iron morningstar and the oil of magic weapon is always good for a laugh when you run into a lich. Obviously, it is both unfun and impractical for every character to cover every situation, but I really question what a 12th level character is thinking who doesn't have good options for undead, or a melee character who doesn't have an alternate weapon of a different damage type, typically a cold iron morningstar (which costs, incidentally, 16 gp). Even if you are a power attacking barbarbian who doesn't care a bit about DR because of sheer damage, you ought to at least have a backup weapon in case the first one is disarmed, sundered, or disintegrated.

So I'm espousing that, yeah, the guy with the magic greatsword should also carry a masterwork cold iron morningstar, oils of magic weapon and bless weapon, a sling, and a composite longbow. Call that whatever you want.


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## MrGrenadine (Nov 7, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> It doesn't remove it so much as make it useless.
> 
> "I can hide really well.  I'm a sneaky rogue.  My concept is I sneak through the darkness unseen and unheard and stab people when they can't see me for lots of damage.  My special ability is that I'm way more stealthy than a normal person."
> 
> ...




This is just silly. Of *course* you can think of ways that a wizard spell could reproduce a skill that another character has.  We all could.  But your carefully crafted examples that prove your own point in no way represent my own experience, and do not in any way prove that there is a problem with 3e wizards.

In your examples, the wizard trumps the rogue's ability to sneak, what? Once a day?  As opposed to the rogue being able to do the same thing at will, including in the middle of a battle?  Being able to turn the whole party invisible is a cool tactic for some situations, but it is hardly superior to a rogue being able to slip into the shadows and reemerge at an enemy's flank to bring the hurt.

As for flying, this is so completely situational as to be pointless.  Being able to do something once or twice a day is no match for being able to do something at will, without equipment, without having rested for eight hours, or having the time to read it off a scroll, or whatever.

Yes, people can game the system to make uber wizards.  But that doesn't mean there's a problem with the system.


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## LostSoul (Nov 7, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> As for flying, this is so completely situational as to be pointless.  Being able to do something once or twice a day is no match for being able to do something at will, without equipment, without having rested for eight hours, or having the time to read it off a scroll, or whatever.




Unless you're 9th level and can do it all day.  (Or is it 7th?  I don't recall casting the long-term flight before 9th; maybe I didn't have enough slots.)

I used to cast Invisibility on the Rogue because she was much better Invisible than I was.  I had enough defenses up that I didn't need to worry about it.


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## nightwyrm (Nov 7, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> Being able to do something once or twice a day is no match for being able to do something at will, without equipment, without having rested for eight hours, or having the time to read it off a scroll, or whatever.




I dispute this. Often in D&D, being able to come up with a one time excellent solution to a problem is better than having an at-will mediocre solution to the same problem. When was the last time your party had to sneak for the entire day? More likely, you'd only have to sneak past a checkpoint or a few guards. 

Adventures are rarely designed to throw the same problem again and again at the party. That would be boring. Not to mention that what would happen is that the only character in the party specialized to solve that problem would be the only one capable of solving said problem.  To use my sneaking example, if you require a party to sneak around all day, only the rogue would be doing anything. Instead, a variety of problems are designed and each is encountered no more than once or twice.


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## pawsplay (Nov 7, 2009)

In actuality, invisibility benefits the Rogue more than it does any other character. It grants sneak attack damage, and the rogue will be almost impossible to detect by hearing. Greater invisibility is even better; unlimited full attack sneak attacks! So far from making the rogue irrelevant, invisibility spells can put the rogue in the spotlight. Meanwhile, invisibility spells can allow party members to tag along at a distance, letting the rogue take point and allowing the rogue to make use of their scouting skills without the rest of the party blowing the whole thing. 

Does anyone want to claim that a wizard is a better choice for trying to bypass a _feeblemind _trap than a rogue?


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## Hussar (Nov 7, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I hardly know what to say. No wall of force?




I think this quote nails it right on the head.  If a choice is obviously superior to all other choices, that's bad design in a nutshell.  The fact that you would be shocked that someone wouldn't prep this spell speaks volumes towards the brokenness of the spell, not the creativity of the player.



pawsplay said:


> In actuality, invisibility benefits the Rogue more than it does any other character. It grants sneak attack damage, and the rogue will be almost impossible to detect by hearing. Greater invisibility is even better; unlimited full attack sneak attacks! So far from making the rogue irrelevant, invisibility spells can put the rogue in the spotlight. Meanwhile, invisibility spells can allow party members to tag along at a distance, letting the rogue take point and allowing the rogue to make use of their scouting skills without the rest of the party blowing the whole thing.
> 
> Does anyone want to claim that a wizard is a better choice for trying to bypass a _feeblemind _trap than a rogue?




Yup, 100% can the wizard bypass that trap better than a rogue.  1st level Summon Monster spell.  Done.  Never mind unseen servant or even Mage Hand.

Are you seriously going to try to say that a wizard can't out rogue the rogue?

A single 1st level spell - unseen servant - can bypass pretty much every trap out there simply by triggering it at range.  Combined with a wand of knock and what do I need a rogue for anyway?


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## EroGaki (Nov 7, 2009)

Hussar said:


> I think this quote nails it right on the head.  If a choice is obviously superior to all other choices, that's bad design in a nutshell.  The fact that you would be shocked that someone wouldn't prep this spell speaks volumes towards the brokenness of the spell, not the creativity of the player.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




No, a wizard could never out rogue the rogue. For several reasons:

1. Unless a trap is obvious/out in the open, how is a wizard going to know it is even there in the first place? Only Rogues can find traps higher than DC 20 (in other words, find traps period).

2. Traps come in all sorts of shapes and forms. Are you telling me that an Unseen Servant or Summon Monster spell can deal with all of them? 

Many traps are pressure sensitive, and are only activated by a certain weight. Unseen servants don't weigh anything, and they can only exert a small amount of pressure.

3. Even if the spells mentioned _could _trigger a trap and disable it, is a wizard really going to waste precious spells on something a thief could handle? Most wizards wouldn't. I know that when I play a wizard, or even a sorcerer, I'm not going to blow through my spells on trivial things like that.


Yes, a wizard can handle a few situations dealing with traps, but in doing so he wastes resources better spent on something else. A rogue can do his thing all day. A wizard, should he try to do the rogues job, will quickly find himself out of spells, plinking away with a light crossbow.


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## Garthanos (Nov 7, 2009)

We honestly had few enough times for the thiefs abilities to shine and be story significant ... that a wizard having pass-wall, knock and a form of invisibility could indeed make the thief feel really superfluous ... not sure I ever got to see a thief do his thing as often as a wizard bypass the situation entirely with a rogue like super ability, it could have been a DM who didn't think his world ought to be covered by senseless numbers of traps and locks or something like that.

In some ways it will vary from campaign to campaign.  But I seen it quite a bit.


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## Hussar (Nov 7, 2009)

EroGaki said:


> No, a wizard could never out rogue the rogue. For several reasons:
> 
> 1. Unless a trap is obvious/out in the open, how is a wizard going to know it is even there in the first place? Only Rogues can find traps higher than DC 20 (in other words, find traps period).
> 
> ...




In 3e, Unseen Servant lasts 1 hour per level.  By about 5th level and higher, that's one single 1st level spell that's likely going to last pretty much your entire adventuring day.  Hardly blowing spells.  

So, pretty much the only thing I'm going to miss is pressure sensitive traps.  Meh, oh well.  Damn, I fall in the pit trap from time to time.  

Wand of knock, wand of summon monster 1 - not exactly huge expenditures.  Heck, scrolls could likely do it too.  Open/Close is a cantrip as is Mage Hand.  These are very minor spells that the wizard probably has loads of anyway.

As far as finding the DC 20 trap, I don't.  I set off every trap as I come to it.  Have your unseen servant bang a hammer on the ground, or drag a heavy sack ahead of you.  That catches all the tripwires and likely triggers a lot of everything else.  

All for the cost of a single 1st level spell.


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## Bluenose (Nov 7, 2009)

EroGaki said:


> 3. Even if the spells mentioned _could _trigger a trap and disable it, is a wizard really going to waste precious spells on something a thief could handle? Most wizards wouldn't. I know that when I play a wizard, or even a sorcerer, I'm not going to blow through my spells on trivial things like that.




Well, I'm glad the the Rogue understands his role is to deal with the trivial things your wizard is too important to waste precious spells on.


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## Nifft (Nov 7, 2009)

Hussar said:


> As far as finding the DC 20 trap, I don't.  I set off every trap as I come to it.  Have your unseen servant bang a hammer on the ground, or drag a heavy sack ahead of you.  That catches all the tripwires and likely triggers a lot of everything else.



 Unseen Servant has a low carrying capacity.

Check out the 1st level spell _mount_. For 2 hours per level, that's your trapfinder.

"_My poor little pony..._", -- N


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## Hussar (Nov 7, 2009)

Heh, 20 pounds, IIRC, for Unseen Servant is enough to trip a lot of things.  Granted, never occured to me to use Mount.  That would work darn well too.  Although, to be fair, you can't kill an unseen servant.


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## MrGrenadine (Nov 7, 2009)

Wow, more perfect examples where a wizard spell solves a problem that could also be solved by a rogue.  Let me say this again--creating perfect examples to illustrate how wizard spells could simulate other character roles does not prove there was a problem with the 3.5 wizard.

I have never played with a player selfish enough to waste time casting spells that would do what a rogue would do--unless of course, our rogue was killed or incapacitated.  Otherwise, it doesn't make any sense.

And having the party wait around while a wizard sends an unseen servant ahead of them to check for traps sounds like the epitome of *not fun*.  I remember the days of pushing a 10' pole ahead of us through dungeons.  Also took forever...and also not fun.

Its a game.  With real people playing.  Who all want to have fun.  That should be enough for those situations to never happen.  In my experience, anyway.


Rogues I've played were great at finding and disabling traps, setting traps, sneaking and hiding for recon, slipping behind an enemy and doing major damage in the middle of a fight, bluffing, climbing, and a hundred other things.

And yes, other characters could do those things, too, but since we were a group that had the same goals we worked together to make sure everyone could participate using their skills for the benefit of the entire party.

And often, the wizard was busy casting spells in one area of the battle, perhaps protected by a fighter or cleric, while other characters used ranged weapons, or held the stairs so reinforcements couldn't aid our enemies, or fought off enchantments from enemy casters, or figured out how to free the whatsathingy from the whozewhatsit...in other words, there was so much happening, everyone was needed.

Baseball isn't broken because a player can pitch, catch, and play the outfield.  Each player has a job to do, and the way a team works is that each player does his or her own job, and lets the rest of the team do the same.

Being flexible does not equal making other characters obsolete.


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## Nifft (Nov 7, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> Wow, more perfect examples where a wizard spell solves a problem that could also be solved by a rogue.  Let me say this again--creating perfect examples to illustrate how wizard spells could simulate other character roles does not prove there was a problem with the 3.5 wizard.



 What you're trying to imply isn't happening. Hide vs. _invisibility_ isn't some obscure use of _invisibility_ -- it's the obvious use. Same deal for Climb vs. _spider climb_ (or worse, _fly all day_).

You want creative corner cases? Don't think about obvious stuff like _invisibility_. Think of all the uses of a free pony. _Mount_ can:
- brace a door (weight and strength of a pony)
- find pit traps (weight of pony)
- fill a passageway, making it difficult for pursuers (size of pony)
- determine the depth and toxicity of a body of liquid (biology of pony)
- aid in carpentry (sawpony)

The utility of *unlimited disposable ponies* is phenomenal.



MrGrenadine said:


> Being flexible does not equal making other characters obsolete.



 It does if "flexible" means: everything you can do, I can do better. In 3.5e, for a Wizard, Druid or Cleric, that is what it means.

Hell, in 3.5e, a 1st level Druid's pet could be strictly more powerful than a 1st level Fighter, and that's before the Druid casts _entangle_ and kills the fighter by throwing rocks at him.

Cheers, -- N


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## Garthanos (Nov 7, 2009)

Nifft said:


> It does if "flexible" means: everything you can do, I can do better. In 3.5e, for a Wizard, Druid or Cleric, that is what it means.
> - N




And what I am doing to defeat the bad guy doesn't help with what you are doing to defeat the bad guy (SoD) so they are completely in parallel doesn't make the caster a team player either.

So save or sucks are better than save or dies because you can argue the save or sucks do give some contribution.


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## Nifft (Nov 7, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> So save or sucks are better than save or dies because you can argue the save or sucks do give some contribution.



 Absolutely.

Beyond those, some of the no-save-just-die spells (like the various _power word_s) are good team spells.

Cheers, -- N


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 7, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I don't know, whipping out the cold iron morningstar and the oil of magic weapon is always good for a laugh when you run into a lich.



Good for a laugh when playing with people who have been playing D&D for 15+ years.  Good for a lot of strange looks and "Wait, what?  I need _what_ to even hurt this thing?" when you play with adults who are new-ish to the game.

That is, of course, unless you build an entire adventure around acquiring weapons to bypass immunity, making it into a standard literary MacGuffin situation, but if you're going to do that, you might as well make it a neat magical doodad or ritual that strips the lich of some power rather than making sure everyone who might want to hit the bad guy has a special weapon.  The first feels mythic, cinematic, and fun.  The second is taking away the cool magic weapon they found and replacing it with a crappy one for no good reason.

All these rules about weird immunities make perfect sense when you learn them at age 8 or while high in college.  Liches and ghosts are apparently under every rock such that run-of-the-mill adventurers are going out of their way to get the standard issue item that will bypass their immunities.

Because that's just how the world works.  We know we're gonna bump into one of those eventually, amirite?  And there's a blacksmith in every big town who knows how to make anti-lich, anti-demon, and anti-ghost weapons.  They're just everywhere.

This doesn't smash verisimilitude with a big, fat cold iron morningstar?

This is how much sense they make:
Picture how completely confused and thrown out of the film the audience would have been if when the orcs in Moria attacked, Aragorn told everyone their steel would be useless against Moria orcs, and they need to pull out their cold iron weapons.

If they were in a D&D-based world, Eowyn would have been able to hurt the Witch King not because of prophecy, but because she was the only one with a <insert magic metal here> weapon.

Having an anti-Lich weapon and an anti-ghost weapon and an anti-dragon weapon and so on ad nauseum is a huge D&Dism that came out of nowhere.  It's a codification of the old quest for a special material schtick that takes away all the potential wonder and coolness of such.


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## Nifft (Nov 7, 2009)

Canis said:


> Having an anti-Lich weapon and an anti-ghost weapon and an anti-dragon weapon and so on ad nauseum is a huge D&Dism that came out of nowhere.



 No. It came out of folklore.

"_No silver bullet for the golf bag_", -- N


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 7, 2009)

In other news, this...



Nifft said:


> The utility of *unlimited disposable ponies* is phenomenal.




...is the best thing I've read all week.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 7, 2009)

Nifft said:


> No. It came out of folklore.
> 
> "_No silver bullet for the golf bag_", -- N



Collapsing it all together is the D&Dism.

In folklore you don't have a group of people who carry bags and bags full of this stuff.  You have Jack the Giant Killer.  You have someone who kills werewolves specifically.  You have George who kills dragons pretty specifically.

And only occasionally do these even require special metals or magics.  Actually... pretty rarely until Hollywood starting popularizing specific ones in this century.

By collapsing all this into one person, and doing it for EVERY D&D character, you turn those individual little mystical neat ideas and turn them into a set of uninspiring rules that everyone just knows.

Instead of discovering that the big evil Lich you are trying to stop is resistant to mundane weapons, you hit a certain level and say "I might start bumping into Liches.  Time to get a cold iron morningstar.  I'll put it next to the silver-tipped arrows for werewolves."

We're all characters in that awful Van Helsing movie, apparently.  Or we're running a scene out of Abbot and Costello meet Dracula.


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## Garthanos (Nov 7, 2009)

Canis said:


> We're all characters in that awful Van Helsing movie, apparently.  Or we're running a scene out of Abbot and Costello meet Dracula.




Something can have mythic and cool sources but have its treatment be tacky and unimaginative can't it.


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## Nifft (Nov 7, 2009)

Canis said:


> Collapsing it all together is the D&Dism.
> 
> In folklore you don't have a group of people who carry bags and bags full of this stuff.  You have Jack the Giant Killer.  You have someone who kills werewolves specifically.  You have George who kills dragons pretty specifically.
> 
> And only occasionally do these even require special metals or magics.



 I'll certainly grant you this, but IMHO it's a symptom of the sheer quantity of fights a D&D character goes through relative to how many a character in folklore is expected to experience.

I mean, Jack the Giant Killer kills one giant. Likewise, Bard of Dale kills one dragon (though his black arrow is of an unspecified material, it is none the less the only thing that works against Smaug). In their settings, it is a big deal to kill one monster. In D&D, it's just a boss fight on your way to the next level.

D&D suffers from the sheer quantity of combat: you need multiple conflicts per session, and combat is the best modeled type of conflict, so you end up with multiple combats per session. If you want to have lycanthropes in your campaign, the PCs will conflict with them at some point, and if the PCs have a conflict, you'd better be ready to resolve at least some of these conflicts via combat. So, silver weapons all around.

Same for fey, incorporeals, and golems.

To remove golfbag syndrome, you need to do one of two things:

1/ Create another conflict resolution mechanic of equal utility to combat. Exalted 2e did this with social combat, and I love it for that. If you can't kill something, it's still possible to convince that thing to go away.

2/ Limit campaign scope such that fighting "special material" dudes will happen once, and afterward, the game will end. (This is what a lot of fiction does.)

Cheers, -- N


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 7, 2009)

This is moving pretty far off topic, but I think rather than limiting campaign scope, a solution is to just nix most of the immunities so that the very rare monsters that have them feel special, rather than it being expected, run-of-the-mill, and boring as heck.

Does the run of the mill lycanthrope really need to have special materials used to kill it?

When there's one, maybe two wolfmen in the entire story, that makes perfect sense.  When there are forests full of them, and the were-rats are invading every sewer system in the world, just let a regular old sword kill them without the hullabaloo.

When you over-apply magic it becomes mundane.


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## Garthanos (Nov 7, 2009)

Nifft said:


> I'll certainly grant you this, but IMHO it's a symptom of the sheer quantity of fights a D&D character goes through relative to how many a character in folklore is expected to experience.
> 
> I mean, Jack the Giant Killer kills one giant. Likewise, Bard of Dale kills one dragon (though his black arrow is of an unspecified material, it is none the less the only thing that works against Smaug).




Nyeah bilbo used a unspecified warlord/rogue trick to pass a boost to Bard remember the talking bird...  the attack was just a culmination that got through the last hit point with an heirloom weapon which may have cost twice as much because of fine workmanship... and Bard used his "Heroic Exertion" spending the max amount and a daily... which critted... very impressive but hitpoint loss is sometimes an invisible process and Smaug was weakening from volleys of arrows... which seemingly failed to find a chink but wore down the villainous luck of the beast ;

Jack had a divine blessing he was invoking... and similarly rolled a crit  

A closer example in legend is Beowulf.
Few characters in fiction and legend rely as much on doodads as D&D heros.. Beowulf figured out a chink in the seeming invulnerability of his enemy at such a horrid cost ... but it was something he had with him all along the might of his own two hands.


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## Garthanos (Nov 7, 2009)

Canis said:


> Does the run of the mill lycanthrope really need to have special materials used to kill it? .




Make it so ... radiant damage stops the vampire regenerating and prevent use of power x

Make it so ... silvered weapon weakens the were for a round after hit.

Banes dont have to be save or die like absolutes... just useful.


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## Nifft (Nov 7, 2009)

Canis said:


> When there's one, maybe two wolfmen in the entire story, that makes perfect sense.  When there are forests full of them, and the were-rats are invading every sewer system in the world, just let a regular old sword kill them without the hullabaloo.



 So, an inverse werewolf law? I could dig that.

In general, though, D&D is very much a game where you are expected to go from being a guy who runs away screaming "OH CRAP" the first time you meet a type of foe, to eventually being a guy who wades through legions of them on his way to his real target. That's a general effect of levels.

There certainly are ways to model this other than equipment: you could have a feat ("Anti-Lycanthrope Tactics") which allows you personally to punch through their DR, but that has its own disadvantages.

No solution is really perfect.

Cheers, -- N


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## GMforPowergamers (Nov 7, 2009)

I think it is time for me to tell a story...it is funny becuse it is true...

we had a game (early 3e) with 8 players 1 rouge, and 1 multi classed character with rouge in it... and a bunch of casters...

In one dungeon with 3 traps and a locked door both rouges sat out the entire night...becuse it was full of undead that ment no sneak attack, and the wizards had a wand of knock, and the cleric find traps....oh and summoning as well.

The next dungeon I had traps everywhere, a tomb of horror like enviorment...guess what happened...all sorts of 'summon X...send first...animate Y send first'

SO after 12 levels the party all agreed it sucked having a chance to fail...and the wizards didn't


ANy 5th+ level straigh caster can have a whole arsanal of 'I can do that better' built up.

a party of a Druid, Wizard, Cleric, Sorcerer was not only a match but suppior to a party of Fighter, Rouge, Bard, Barbarian...

Infact I bet that if we made a dungeon for 9th level characters...and loaded it with traps, level correct monsters and other challenges, then sent two teams through

Team 1 Druid 8, Specilist wizard 8, Cleric 8, Sorcerer 8
Team 2 Fighter 10, Rouge 10, Bard 10, Barbarian 10

that team one has the easier time...heck I bet it isn't even close...

Do the same thing in 4e, only even the levels
a dungeon of level 9
team 1 Druid 9, Wizard 9, Cleric 9, SOrcerer 9
team 2 Fighter 9, Rouge 9, Bard 9, Barbarian 9

and I bet there is little diffrence in the hardness of the dingeon (with the only real diffrence being one has no defender the other has no controler)


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## EroGaki (Nov 7, 2009)

Bluenose said:


> Well, I'm glad the the Rogue understands his role is to deal with the trivial things your wizard is too important to waste precious spells on.




Wow... just wow. Of course you try and turn it into some kind of insult.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 7, 2009)

Nifft said:


> No solution is really perfect.
> 
> Cheers, -- N



True that.  I guess I'm feeling iconoclastic this week, though, so the system assumptions are rubbing me wrong.  It'll pass.  Usually does.


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## pawsplay (Nov 7, 2009)

Hussar said:


> I think this quote nails it right on the head.  If a choice is obviously superior to all other choices, that's bad design in a nutshell.  The fact that you would be shocked that someone wouldn't prep this spell speaks volumes towards the brokenness of the spell, not the creativity of the player.




It's not an "obviously superior choice," I'm just surprised that a 12th level caster, who can cast 6th level spells, would not have this 5th level spell prepared once or otherwise something equally versatile. 



> Yup, 100% can the wizard bypass that trap better than a rogue.  1st level Summon Monster spell.  Done.  Never mind unseen servant or even Mage Hand.




If that's all it takes to trigger it, a rogue can do the same thing with a rabbit in a sack. I was thinking about a trap that was actually dangerous.



> Are you seriously going to try to say that a wizard can't out rogue the rogue?
> 
> A single 1st level spell - unseen servant - can bypass pretty much every trap out there simply by triggering it at range.  Combined with a wand of knock and what do I need a rogue for anyway?




First of all, a rogue can UMD to can access to knock and unseen servant if that's what's really called for. However, that's quite beside the point. At low levels, the wizard is unlikely to use spell slots or hundreds of gold pieces to open doors when the rogue can do that easily enough. Once the wizard is high enough level that the task becomes trivial, the rogue is high enough level that opening traps is far from their best shtick. Being able to read _raise dead_ from a scroll to raise the cleric, flank with the fighter to deliver sneak attacks and opportunist attacks, and completely evading the breath weapon of a blue dragon should keep the rogue relatively busy.

In any case you have to find a trap before you can disarm it. It's unlikely that a 12th level wizard has anything close to the rogue's ability to Spot and Search, and there are few magical options for detecting the relatively subtle emanations of a magical trap. 

When you have a character that can deliberately grease the floor and walk on it, who can attack a foe with two weapons for +6d6 sneak attack damage per attack, the fact that they may not do as much lockpicking as in the old days is probably not going to leave them sobbing to sleep at night. And you never know when some practical joker is going to set up an elaborate death trap in the middle of a an anti-magic field, or set up a door trap to affect everyone in the hallway, problems only a rogue is properly qualified to deal with.


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## pawsplay (Nov 7, 2009)

Canis said:


> Good for a laugh when playing with people who have been playing D&D for 15+ years.  Good for a lot of strange looks and "Wait, what?  I need _what_ to even hurt this thing?" when you play with adults who are new-ish to the game....All these rules about weird immunities make perfect sense when you learn them at age 8 or while high in college.  Liches and ghosts are apparently under every rock such that run-of-the-mill adventurers are going out of their way to get the standard issue item that will bypass their immunities.




My basic assumptions may not hold as much when you are talking about an eight year old playing a 12th level wizard in a Living Forgotten Realms Game, but I think it must be admitted that at that point, it may be difficult to generalize what, exactly, to expect.



> This doesn't smash verisimilitude with a big, fat cold iron morningstar?




Not really. If in the course of six months I battle some shadows, a young dragon, and a lair of orcs and ogres, it would shatter disbelief to think that if I intended to once again deliberately go into harm's way, I would not equip myself properly. A fighter's backpack should be better packed than a Navy SEAL's. Certainly, if I suspect I might be fighting a 600-year-old lich or an ancient dragon, I'm going to at least make an extra stop at the Sam's club to pick up some beef jerky and a 16 gp cold iron morningstar.




> Picture how completely confused and thrown out of the film the audience would have been if when the orcs in Moria attacked, Aragorn told everyone their steel would be useless against Moria orcs, and they need to pull out their cold iron weapons.




That would be bizarre because orcs don't have special immunities. However, I will observe that Aragorn has an enchanted mithril sword, and he has also been observed to use a bow as well as a dagger. Perhaps Mr. Aragorn would have something to say about you insulting his play style.



> If they were in a D&D-based world, Eowyn would have been able to hurt the Witch King not because of prophecy, but because she was the only one with a <insert magic metal here> weapon.




For all you know, that's why the prophecy was true.



> Having an anti-Lich weapon and an anti-ghost weapon and an anti-dragon weapon and so on ad nauseum is a huge D&Dism that came out of nowhere.  It's a codification of the old quest for a special material schtick that takes away all the potential wonder and coolness of such.




Perseus had a special sword capable of cleaving iron scales, a reflective shield to defeat the medusa, and a cap of invisibility. In Dragonslayer, they craft a +1 keen bane vs. dragons lance to fight one specific foe. 

D&D owes a lot to Jack Vance's stories, stories in which characters walk around with the Excellent Prismatic Spray just in case they need to make someone really dead, a rapier in case they want to hold onto the prismatic spray, and anything else they might consider useful. Pandalume lives in, essentially, a magic item warehouse that ordinarily allows him to deal with almost any threat, up to and including demi-god-like fiends. 

A better model for D&D, in which hardened adventurers roam the countryside defeating mighty opponents and delving devious tombs, is something like _Supernatural_, _Blade_, _Dragonheart_, or _Ghostbusters_. "Class nine non-repeating terminal phantasm" should be the battle cry of a 12th level character who has defeated dragons, demons, and undead sages.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Nov 7, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> In your examples, the wizard trumps the rogue's ability to sneak, what? Once a day?  As opposed to the rogue being able to do the same thing at will, including in the middle of a battle?  Being able to turn the whole party invisible is a cool tactic for some situations, but it is hardly superior to a rogue being able to slip into the shadows and reemerge at an enemy's flank to bring the hurt.



Normally you only need to use a particular skill once a day.  Most adventures are structured in terms of "encounters".  They always have been.  With there being 5-10 "encounters" per day, not all of them combat.

A typical encounter requires the use of one skill to pass.  Each encounter normally uses a different skill because DMs like to mix it up a bit.  So, a typical adventure might go:

1. The PCs must get past the guards of the castle.
2. The PCs must get into the castle.
3. The PCs must find their way through the traps in the hallways.
4. The PCs must find their way to the throne room.
5. The PCs must get past the guards inside the castle.
6. The PCs must defeat the evil overlord.
7. The PCs must escape the castle with the hostage.

A Wizard or Cleric can complete this adventure by themselves.  Even better if they combine their efforts:

1. The Wizard or Cleric casts Charm Person or the Wizard casts Invisibility Sphere and walks past the guards.  If you're high enough level and allow splat books Superior Invisibility covers pretty much everything.  If that fails, they fireball them all.
2. The Wizard casts Knock or Fly to get over the walls.  Cleric with the travel domain casts Fly or any other cleric casts Wind Walk.
3. The Wizard has a great search check for lower DC traps(or intelligently took 1 level of Rogue), also he can summon creatures to trigger traps.  Clerics can cast summon spells as well as Find Traps.  Passwall, Fly, Dimension Door let you avoid obvious traps.
4. Divination spells on both Cleric and Wizard to find their way there safely.  Invisibility and Silence continues to be of use after one casting.  Passwall and Fly let you get their easier.
5. Invisibility and Silence continues to help.  When all else fails break out the Charms, Fireballs, and SoD/SoS.  Clerics cast Divine Power and kill everything.
6. SoD/SoS for the win.
7. Teleport/Wind Walk/Plane Shift/Word of Recall

Total Spells required: 10 at most.  At the levels we are talking about(where it becomes a problem, it isn't at low levels), the Wizard has enough spells/scrolls/wands to finish another adventure(or two) of the same type again before resting.

That is, assuming they don't bypass most of the encounters with a Scrye/Teleport/SoD/Teleport out.

And it's not like any of the uses of these spells are particularly "creative".  They are all being used for precisely what they are meant to be used for.



MrGrenadine said:


> As for flying, this is so completely situational as to be pointless.  Being able to do something once or twice a day is no match for being able to do something at will, without equipment, without having rested for eight hours, or having the time to read it off a scroll, or whatever.



As I mention above, for the purposes of 90% of all D&D adventures "twice a day" is equal to "at will".  Every once in a while you run into an adventure that requires you to Fly 3 times a day and you are forced to rely on a skill to get passed.

It's really for that 10% of the time that you keep your companions around.  Someone has to jump over the pit and throw the rope back to you after you've used all your fly and short ranged teleportation for the day.



MrGrenadine said:


> Yes, people can game the system to make uber wizards.  But that doesn't mean there's a problem with the system.



I'm not sure "gaming the system" is what is going on.  Just by picking spells I think will be useful at every level I can outclass the rest of the party.  I don't count that as "gaming the system".

It's simply a problem when a game let's you play the BMX Bandit and Angel Summoner in the same group.  If you haven't seen the video, do a search on YouTube.  I'm too lazy to find it right now.  "Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit"


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Nov 7, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> If you haven't seen the video, do a search on YouTube.  I'm too lazy to find it right now.  "Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit"



That has made my week!


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 8, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Certainly, if I suspect I might be fighting a 600-year-old lich or an ancient dragon, I'm going to at least make an extra stop at the Sam's club to pick up some beef jerky and a 16 gp cold iron morningstar.



My current gripe seems to be that I don't think a cold iron morningstar should be available at Sam's Club.



> That would be bizarre because orcs don't have special immunities. However, I will observe that Aragorn has an enchanted mithril sword, and he has also been observed to use a bow as well as a dagger. Perhaps Mr. Aragorn would have something to say about you insulting his play style.



A magical sword, a dagger, and a ranged weapon makes sense.  When you add in the cold iron morningstar, the ghost touch sword, and a half dozen others I start to feel less like a hero and more like an exterminator.  In the literature, a magical sword tends to be good enough for people.  You don't put that thing away and use something else, as a general rule.



> In Dragonslayer, they craft a +1 keen bane vs. dragons lance to fight one specific foe.



Exactly.  Singular enemy.  Singular doodad for killing it.  It's not just common knowledge for every Tom, Dick, and Tanis that you need to get yourself one o' them lances.



> D&D owes a lot to Jack Vance's stories...



And that may be the problem.  Outside of these boards, I've never met or talked to anyone who read any of those.  For that matter, besides myself I know only one person who ever heard of Vance.  If D&D is trying to be a mass market game, why cling to tropes that no one knows?

I run with cats who have read Tolkien, Eddings, and maybe some Brooks when we were kids.  In high school and college we bumped into Kay, Gaiman, Dunsany, Howard, Lieber, etc.  D&D does a pretty poor job of simulating those kinds of worlds, especially where equipment and magic are concerned (rituals are a big step in the right direction, though, from what I've seen).

I like many of the mechanics in D&D, but some just really throw me out of the scenario every time they come up because they don't fit narrative logic.  My limited 4e experience indicates that they've thrown out or minimized many of the ones that don't fit with my preferences.  Maybe I'll get into a game again and discover it's not so bad.

Or maybe I'm just suffering through another phase where I get irritable with the rules of gaming systems.  I stepped out of WoW recently, too.


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## TwinBahamut (Nov 8, 2009)

Nifft said:


> I mean, Jack the Giant Killer kills one giant.



Actually, in some variations of the story "Jack the Giant Killer" he kills at least seven. Of course, he kills them all with totally different strategies and tools, from a pit trap to a cloak of invisibility and a magic trumpet. I guess that just goes to show that in folklore there is no such thing as a single thing you need to do in order to kill every monster of the same kind. Heroes of myth killed with their wits, not by exploiting well-known metallic allergies...


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## pawsplay (Nov 8, 2009)

Canis said:


> My current gripe seems to be that I don't think a cold iron morningstar should be available at Sam's Club.




Perhaps. Then again, maybe cold iron should just mean "weapons made of steel or iron," as the phrase is often used. 



> A magical sword, a dagger, and a ranged weapon makes sense.  When you add in the cold iron morningstar, the ghost touch sword, and a half dozen others I start to feel less like a hero and more like an exterminator.  In the literature, a magical sword tends to be good enough for people.  You don't put that thing away and use something else, as a general rule.




PCs are exterminators, among other things. They begin as dire rat exterminators and end up as pit fiend exterminators. For the most part, a PC is going to use his best weapon. He is likely to reach into the toolkit only when he needs a special tool for a special job. For instance, a barbarian with a +2 flaming greatsword is probably going to keep using it against low DR opponents, because the damage and to-hits bonuses compensate. On the other hand, the lich may be less impressed.



> Exactly.  Singular enemy.  Singular doodad for killing it.  It's not just common knowledge for every Tom, Dick, and Tanis that you need to get yourself one o' them lances.




Correct, but a D&D adventurer encounters this sort of problem several times a year. They don't have the task of hunting the last known great dragon in Europe, they line in a world where a dragon might move in any time local heroes or giants move out.



> And that may be the problem.  Outside of these boards, I've never met or talked to anyone who read any of those.  For that matter, besides myself I know only one person who ever heard of Vance.  If D&D is trying to be a mass market game, why cling to tropes that no one knows?




First of all, because those tropes are well known through D&D. Second, those tropes have expanded and magnified thanks to the CRPG industry and then the MMO world. Third, those tropes are not unique to Vance, they are simply present in Vance while less present in Lewis's Narnia. As the trope of specialized magic items appears in Vance's Dying Earth, Tolkien's The Hobbit and LOTR, Watt-Evans Esthshar books, and the mythological stories of Perseus and Hercules, they are pretty well-grounded.

The "golfbag" trope is less common in works like Lackey's romantic fantasy, the Arthurian tales, and the like. But those aren't swords-and-sorcery stories, so it's not surprising that the tropes of swords-and-sorcery are less prominent in other kinds of high fantasy.



> I run with cats who have read Tolkien, Eddings, and maybe some Brooks when we were kids.  In high school and college we bumped into Kay, Gaiman, Dunsany, Howard, Lieber, etc.  D&D does a pretty poor job of simulating those kinds of worlds, especially where equipment and magic are concerned (rituals are a big step in the right direction, though, from what I've seen).




In the People of the Black Circle, Conan fights a spell-hurling sorcerer and survives because of a spell-absorbing belt or vest he finds by happenstance. Dunansy's stories are practically monty haul campaigns.

You are correct that Lieber's Lankhmar has less magic and fewer monsters. That would be because of different campaign assumptions, rather than because the concept itself is illogical. If the Gray Mouser had and needed more magic items, he would certainly use them.



> I like many of the mechanics in D&D, but some just really throw me out of the scenario every time they come up because they don't fit narrative logic.  My limited 4e experience indicates that they've thrown out or minimized many of the ones that don't fit with my preferences.  Maybe I'll get into a game again and discover it's not so bad.
> 
> Or maybe I'm just suffering through another phase where I get irritable with the rules of gaming systems.  I stepped out of WoW recently, too.




4e changes some things, but remains much the same. In fact, in some ways it is, in my view, worse. The idea that there is +2 starleather and such lying here and there reminds me too much Final Fantasy and its item slots and sockets. "Golfbags", while cumbersome in some ways, are reasonable in a world where magic turns the pages of history.


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## billd91 (Nov 8, 2009)

Canis said:


> If they were in a D&D-based world, Eowyn would have been able to hurt the Witch King not because of prophecy, but because she was the only one with a <insert magic metal here> weapon.




Ahem. This is pretty much precisely why *Merry* was able to injure the Witch King. He had the blade pulled out of the barrow, forged by men of Westernesse using methods lost to the people of Middle Earth. Nothing else, other than a woman, was going to hurt him.


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## GMforPowergamers (Nov 8, 2009)

since no one has mentoned it, I say again...







GMforPowergamers said:


> ANy 5th+ level straigh caster can have a whole arsanal of 'I can do that better' built up.
> 
> a party of a Druid, Wizard, Cleric, Sorcerer was not only a match but suppior to a party of Fighter, Rouge, Bard, Barbarian...
> 
> ...




Does anyone here dispute that a team 2 levels lower full of caster in 4e was BETTER mechanicly then there higher level non caster counterparts? 

Now can someone explain how that is fair?


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## MrMyth (Nov 9, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> My basic assumptions may not hold as much when you are talking about an eight year old playing a 12th level wizard in a Living Forgotten Realms Game, but I think it must be admitted that at that point, it may be difficult to generalize what, exactly, to expect.




I think my own issue with your comments is that you seem to equate "not having the most ideal spells chosen" with... being 8 years old. 

This entire mindset of "you don't have any place playing a 12th level character without meeting a certain requirement of system mastery"... that is everything people are complaining about 3.5 in a nutshell. 

Why should I have a character with the perfect spells and equipment prepared for every possible encounter? Why shouldn't I instead just be able to build an appropriate character concept who is effective at what he does, and not have this mean my instant death when shadows come pouring out of the walls? Why can't I have a wizard who enjoys hurling fireballs at his foes, rather than driving them away with repulsion and trapping them with walls of force? 

There shouldn't be a certain list of items or spells required to succeed. There shouldn't be a "you must be this tall to ride" sign, with a certain level of system mastery needed to play at level 12. And the expectations you seem to have are very high - not just for random 8 year old players, but for plenty of people who have played this game for years. 

You might be shocked that a 12th level wizard didn't have wall of force, and not know what to say. For myself, I am similarly struck speechless by the idea that you cannot even conceive of someone player a wizard at that level without that one specific spell.


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## Filcher (Nov 9, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> since no one has mentoned it, I say again...
> 
> Does anyone here dispute that a team 2 levels lower full of caster in 4e was BETTER mechanicly then there higher level non caster counterparts?
> 
> Now can someone explain how that is fair?




You mean 3.x, right, not 4e?

If so, I agree with you 100%.


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## Filcher (Nov 9, 2009)

Canis said:


> Collapsing it all together is the D&Dism.
> 
> ....
> 
> ...




This was an interesting post to me. By and large, most mythological heroes had, what, 7-10 or fewer astounding encounters in their career? In order to even entertain the conceit of D&D, we have to come to terms with the idea that any campaign of PCs is going to encounter "an entire mythological career" nearly every level. Otherwise, the whole idea is just bunk (or you start playing E6).


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## pawsplay (Nov 9, 2009)

MrMyth said:


> I think my own issue with your comments is that you seem to equate "not having the most ideal spells chosen" with... being 8 years old.




Actually, no, that was a response to someone mentioning the play style of eight-year-olds. 



> This entire mindset of "you don't have any place playing a 12th level character without meeting a certain requirement of system mastery"... that is everything people are complaining about 3.5 in a nutshell.




That's not my position at all. I feel that by 12th level, 100+ encounters should impart a minimal mastery of the system. If you start the game at 12th level, I hope you have experienced players. If not, expect the unexpected. I would not hammer a group of novices playing 12th level characters... I would not _run_ a game at 12th level for novices, I would pick somewhere in the 1st to 3rd range so they would have some chance of understanding what was on their character sheet.



> Why should I have a character with the perfect spells and equipment prepared for every possible encounter?




Never said that. A cold iron morningstar is not the "perfect" weapon for very many characters, but it is 1) blunt, 2) also piercing, 3) wieldable in one or two hands, and 4) cold iron. It's an all-purpose tool, and owning one saves you all kinds of what-if scenarios. 



> Why shouldn't I instead just be able to build an appropriate character concept who is effective at what he does, and not have this mean my instant death when shadows come pouring out of the walls? Why can't I have a wizard who enjoys hurling fireballs at his foes, rather than driving them away with repulsion and trapping them with walls of force?




Everybody needs a day job.  But seriously, if you are going to throw fireballs, then you should look at Consecrated Spell and Trandimensional Spell, to get you non-fire damage and the ability to affect incorporeal foes, respectively. There are numerous options, but you should gear up for more various situations than just barbecuing orcs.



> There shouldn't be a certain list of items or spells required to succeed.




That is correct. But there is also no guarantee that dragons will be nice to you if you do not explore any good adventuring options at all. There is not one specific way to be a trial lawyer, but there are still competent lawyers and less competent lawyers. There is not just one painting style, but every good painter needs to develop a style that works.



> There shouldn't be a "you must be this tall to ride" sign, with a certain level of system mastery needed to play at level 12.




I'm sorry, here you're just wrong. It's not the GM who makes 12th level challenging, it's having 12 levels of options and facing CR 12 foes.



> And the expectations you seem to have are very high - not just for random 8 year old players, but for plenty of people who have played this game for years.




Maybe. Apart from the "ghoul incident" about three years ago, and one crazy critical hit against a non-raging Barbarian, the only deaths I've seen in my games were immediately proceeded by warnings from other players that the player in question might want to reconsider their actions. This is in a 1st to 18th level campaign. So I think overall my expectations are pretty realistic.



> You might be shocked that a 12th level wizard didn't have wall of force, and not know what to say. For myself, I am similarly struck speechless by the idea that you cannot even conceive of someone player a wizard at that level without that one specific spell.




It's a handy spell. I mean, seriously, at 9th level, there are lots of choices, but by 12th level, when you have 6th level spells, I think that's a good 5th level spell to know. If you are a sorcerer, sure, there are always hard choices to make, but for a wizard, getting a 5th level spell means, at most, shelling out some gold or going on a minor quest. 

Force wall blocks doorways, halts forward movement, blocks most spells, blocks dragon breath, and is very difficult to get rid of. 

I have a hard time imagining a wizard not having magic missile (unless Evocation is a banned school, of course) by 4th level. Same thing. Is there any 12th level wizard who does not know magic missile?


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## Bluenose (Nov 9, 2009)

Filcher said:


> This was an interesting post to me. By and large, most mythological heroes had, what, 7-10 or fewer astounding encounters in their career? In order to even entertain the conceit of D&D, we have to come to terms with the idea that any campaign of PCs is going to encounter "an entire mythological career" nearly every level. Otherwise, the whole idea is just bunk (or you start playing E6).




Hercules is the most obvious example of someone who had a career approaching that of a D&D character. The Twelve Labours could all be adventures, and then there's plenty of other famous deeds on top of them. Still he's an unusually active hero, and many D&D characters make him look like an underachiever.


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## Garthanos (Nov 9, 2009)

Bluenose said:


> Hercules is the most obvious example of someone who had a career approaching that of a D&D character. The Twelve Labours could all be adventures, and then there's plenty of other famous deeds on top of them. Still he's an unusually active hero, and many D&D characters make him look like an underachiever.




Odysseus.. and some others are in similar class as Herakles. I suspect. Not all the stories told about these characters become part of common parlayance. The knights of the round table had a number of members who were extraordinarily prolific. Lancelot was ummm something else in this regard.


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