But you know some things that aren't abuse so much as simple thematics and smart in character choices using just the PHB?
- A cleric or druid taking Craft Wand and creating enough Wands of Cure Light Wounds to top everyone up after each fight.
Requires having a player who wants to spend TIME and XP crafting wands. Ditto other crafting feats. We never had that. No joke, I may have played one of the only crafting casters in our group when I played the Geomancer who Brewed Potions by growing tubers in his body (a la 1990s Swamp Thing).
- An Aggressively Hegmonizing Ursine Swarm; a thematic bear druid that's wild shaped into a bear, has a bear companion, and uses Natural Spell to Summon Nature's Ally for bears. Any two of which should be able to tag team a fighter
Nobody did that. We had a couple of Druids who summoned critters, but never one so focused.
- A wizard who uses their downtime and their share of the loot with the feat all wizards get at level 1 to create a loose leaf ring binder full of scrolls and have low level utility spells basically whenever needed. And remember wizards don't spend money on weapons or armour.
See Craft Wand answer.
There’s one guy in the group who has been playing MU/Wizards since I met him back in the mid-1980s. Arguably, his spell list list for each one is as optimized as a given campaign & edition allows. He’s also a math wiz (now teacher) who crunches numbers in his head better than some can with devices.
He has NEVER had any of his PCs craft any item beyond a staff for his über AD&D Magic User.
He refused so spend time & XP to craft.
- The same wizard who doesn't prepare utility spells because they have scrolls and uses AoE conjuration spells (thus ignoring spell resistance and magic immunity) and picks the target's low save based on knowledge and descriptions (Glitterdust for Will, Web for Ref, Stinking Cloud for Fort, and Black Tentacles for grapple) and renders a lot of fights trivial.
Our Wizard specialist DID use those spells, but also economized his casting. He only cast spells to tip a fight’s odds in the party’s favor unless/until it was clear more spell casting was absolutely necessary to win. When he wasn’t casting, his characters would use whatever staves, darts or daggers the had equipped.
I can only recall a few instances when his mages were out of spells when the party rested because it was incredibly rare. He didn’t want to be caught spell-less if the party was ambushed while resting.
In addition, I will point out that the various DMs he played under in those decades were pretty familiar with his tactics, and were willing to field opponents who were either prepared to counter/withstand those tactics OR used them themselves. Sauce for goose, sauce for gander.
- Just for a cash comparison a Wand of Cure Light Wounds with 50 charges costs 750GP (or 1 day, 375GP, and I think 30XP to make), a level 1 utility scroll costs 25GP (or 1 day, 12.5GP, and I think 1XP to make) - and a masterwork sword costs 300GP or 66GP and weeks to make, while a +1 sword is 2300GP
See above.
Now, you could argue that we didn’t see these crafting tricks because of our buddy the Wizard slut. But that would erroneously assume nobody else played casters, which isn’t the case.
I, for one, almost always included a casting class in my multiclassed characters. And other players tried solo-classed Druids, Clerics, and others.
Almost nobody’s heroic D&D character concepts involved making magic items of any kind.
