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In Defense of the Lore Wizard
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<blockquote data-quote="Mephista" data-source="post: 7179722" data-attributes="member: 6786252"><p>I will never understand the call for "generalist wizard." There's no generalist cleric, general rogue, no general fighter, etc. What makes wizard so special? </p><p></p><p><strong>Lore Master</strong> - Giving expertise is never a ribbon ability is, not sure why you're even bring it up. Ribbons are flavorful abilities on par with the Prestigitation cantrip that have no measurable effect on Exploration, Combat or Interaction. Skill checks, by their nature, always have a measurable effect. Especially on exploration and analyzing magical things you find.</p><p></p><p>Anyways. Making a knowledge check to analyze weaknesses is kind of iffy, because it depends on a lot of factors. Especially if the monster doesn't have a "weakness," or its a unique monster that, by all rights, shouldn't have something you can just look up in a book. Unless you design a specific class feature that lets you spot something random and target it for some kind of advantage? But that's going to be above and beyond just expertise granting. From the analysis, it sounds like, for you, "weakness" means low saves as well. That's a bit curious, and it feels like your ability comes down to "player gets to see the monster's MM entry." Its really a bit wonky</p><p></p><p>You should nail down what exactly weaknesses are, how the check reveals it, etc if you're going that route. Make that the ability, and spell it out, rather than rely on the GM playing it exactly as you envision.</p><p></p><p><strong>Spell Secrets</strong> - hrm... nope. Putting aside the whole "doesn't feel wizardly" bits others have brought up, I'm just going to say this: these abilities are basically assuming you're dealing with evocation spells. Or, at least, flasy elemental spells thrown around. That's basically an Evoker in a nutshell. Your "generalist" is starting to feel like an evoker with a different skill set. Hardly a generalist.</p><p></p><p><strong>Alchemical Casting</strong> - And we continue on with the alternate-Evoker theme. AoE on spells? How does that even make sense on things like Charms or Holds or illusions or summons? Same with distance.</p><p></p><p><strong>Prodigious Memory</strong> Ehh... What happened to studying your spell book as a wizard theme? And aren't your previous abilities all about altering existing spells than swapping out your swiss army knife set? If you want to go this route, you're completely clashing with the theme of every other ability save Lore Master. Its ultimately meaningless at this point. I could see this around an entire subclass devoted to thes theme of manipulating your spellbook, but as is?</p><p></p><p><strong>Master of Magic</strong> I'm going to go with a big "nope" on this one. A general wizard archetype should not be using resurrection spells or druid powers. This isn't even related to wizard stuff anymore. Its not a wizard. </p><p></p><p></p><p>In summation - this is just a random grab bag of abilities that you personally like, but don't actually fit into the wizard.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mephista, post: 7179722, member: 6786252"] I will never understand the call for "generalist wizard." There's no generalist cleric, general rogue, no general fighter, etc. What makes wizard so special? [b]Lore Master[/b] - Giving expertise is never a ribbon ability is, not sure why you're even bring it up. Ribbons are flavorful abilities on par with the Prestigitation cantrip that have no measurable effect on Exploration, Combat or Interaction. Skill checks, by their nature, always have a measurable effect. Especially on exploration and analyzing magical things you find. Anyways. Making a knowledge check to analyze weaknesses is kind of iffy, because it depends on a lot of factors. Especially if the monster doesn't have a "weakness," or its a unique monster that, by all rights, shouldn't have something you can just look up in a book. Unless you design a specific class feature that lets you spot something random and target it for some kind of advantage? But that's going to be above and beyond just expertise granting. From the analysis, it sounds like, for you, "weakness" means low saves as well. That's a bit curious, and it feels like your ability comes down to "player gets to see the monster's MM entry." Its really a bit wonky You should nail down what exactly weaknesses are, how the check reveals it, etc if you're going that route. Make that the ability, and spell it out, rather than rely on the GM playing it exactly as you envision. [B]Spell Secrets[/B] - hrm... nope. Putting aside the whole "doesn't feel wizardly" bits others have brought up, I'm just going to say this: these abilities are basically assuming you're dealing with evocation spells. Or, at least, flasy elemental spells thrown around. That's basically an Evoker in a nutshell. Your "generalist" is starting to feel like an evoker with a different skill set. Hardly a generalist. [b]Alchemical Casting[/b] - And we continue on with the alternate-Evoker theme. AoE on spells? How does that even make sense on things like Charms or Holds or illusions or summons? Same with distance. [b]Prodigious Memory[/b] Ehh... What happened to studying your spell book as a wizard theme? And aren't your previous abilities all about altering existing spells than swapping out your swiss army knife set? If you want to go this route, you're completely clashing with the theme of every other ability save Lore Master. Its ultimately meaningless at this point. I could see this around an entire subclass devoted to thes theme of manipulating your spellbook, but as is? [b]Master of Magic[/b] I'm going to go with a big "nope" on this one. A general wizard archetype should not be using resurrection spells or druid powers. This isn't even related to wizard stuff anymore. Its not a wizard. In summation - this is just a random grab bag of abilities that you personally like, but don't actually fit into the wizard. [/QUOTE]
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