Wizard Build Suggestions (PHB ONLY!)

[Danceofmasks]

No, orbizards work well enough without the ability to stack several items together.
Seriously.

My wizard had -16 save penalty lock at level 17, and he started off with only 13 wis.
That's simply too much.

Spell focus + wis bonus + one item is just about as much as the game can take before it becomes overpowered.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, orbizards work well enough without the ability to stack several items together.
Seriously.

My wizard had -16 save penalty lock at level 17, and he started off with only 13 wis.
That's simply too much.

Spell focus + wis bonus + one item is just about as much as the game can take before it becomes overpowered.

There are SO many ways to get to a high penalty though that it needs a deep fix. Disallowing stacking of save penalties is too much because even dropping a -5 on solos is not really decisive enough. The build really should have focused on meta-magic more and save penalties less. The "extend a spell effect" option of OoI is actually pretty interesting and handy, but by itself its a bit limited for the defining mechanic of a build. There needs to be a bit bigger rearranging of things with the orbizard to both deal with stunlock and make it an interesting option. Though honestly as I've said I think mechanically its pretty good, at least at low levels.

 

[Danceofmasks]

But .... isn't what you're describing = power creep?

I.e. when more options become available, the effect becomes progressively stronger, until it gets borked.

Orbizard was/is a good idea. Power creep made it bad.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But .... isn't what you're describing = power creep?

I.e. when more options become available, the effect becomes progressively stronger, until it gets borked.

Orbizard was/is a good idea. Power creep made it bad.

No, because it was broken from day one. You don't need anything but the PHB to make an epic stun locking orbizard. At worst its just there are now multiple paths to doing the same thing and if your DM is willing to gift you with all the right items at the very lowest level they become available you can be there now in early to mid paragon level. Also its an odd kind of "power creep". Orb wizard is exactly as strong as it was on day one, there are now just 5 ways to stack it up to get there. On top of that there is the definitively broken "Orb of Inescapable Consequences" which DOES make it "more broken" but that's an issue of one single item that you simply toss from your game (and its one of very few).

There are also more than one type of power creep. Straight up power creep is the old "I can get a higher to-hit bonus after book X" kind of creep. That really largely doesn't exist in 4e. The expertise feats being the exception but one that applies uniformly to all PCs (almost) and was obviously intended to be a power boost from the start.

The other kind of power creep is "option creep" where the more good options exist the more you'll take and the more power you have in some sense. That really is simply inevitable. You literally cannot put out a new book and not have extra options that logically need to be on roughly a par with the existing options. If you want to never have option creep then you better just not ever play in a system that publishes ANY supplements. I also don't think this is legitimate to call power creep at all. Its more accurate to say that 4e core is not a totally complete system. Its only with the PHB2, AV1, and the first (now finished) round of Power books that the system is really complete and at its DESIGNED level of power for PCs. In other words a PHB only group is a tad underpowered really.

Power creep is when things were great and they got worse as stuff was added. We're not seeing that with 4e. The wizard is the poster child for this. PHB wizards are OK and playable but pretty limited and a bit under powered. PHB STR Paladin is an even more blatant example. These two classes really cannot be considered complete WITHOUT their respective splatbooks.

 

[Danceofmasks]

But it's not as powerful as it was on day 1.

On day 1, you can get that -16 to saves at high epic levels, by picking a +wis race, and thereby having a less-than-optimum attack/damage/ac/reflex score.

I'll say it again. My wizard started with 13 wis, and could impose a -16 save penalty at level 17.

That's "bigger bonus after book X" if there ever was one.

Another item for you here: Orb of Karmic Resonance
It's borked because its power is not level dependent.
So ... a level 23 dex wizard could carry around several level 13 versions, for that one encounter per day when you need to string together 3 auto-save-fails on the solo.

Yeah.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But it's not as powerful as it was on day 1.

On day 1, you can get that -16 to saves at high epic levels, by picking a +wis race, and thereby having a less-than-optimum attack/damage/ac/reflex score.

I'll say it again. My wizard started with 13 wis, and could impose a -16 save penalty at level 17.

That's "bigger bonus after book X" if there ever was one.

Another item for you here: Orb of Karmic Resonance
It's borked because its power is not level dependent.
So ... a level 23 dex wizard could carry around several level 13 versions, for that one encounter per day when you need to string together 3 auto-save-fails on the solo.

Yeah.

Well, I'm not sure where you're getting -16 at level 17 without an appreciable wisdom bonus from.

But the main point I made I think got lost in there somehow. The EFFECT of a save penalty is exactly the same as it was the day PHB was printed. If you stunlock someone today its the same effect as if you stunlocked them 18 months ago. There is no increase in power of the effect. Its just an easier effect to get. It was broken then and its broken now. Honestly on the day that read the PHB fresh out of the store and got to "Orb of Imposition" I flagged it as a problematic mechanic. Imposed penalties of that kind (where its a universal action penalty) is just bad system design to start with. Its not an issue of power creep, its an issue of a FUNDAMENTALLY bad design decision. Save penalties should NEVER have stacked and the orbizard should have been built with that in mind from day one and given a method of action that didn't rely on a broken game mechanic. Its kind of worthless to call it power creep. Where is it creeping up from? Infinity to more infinity? lol.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I think you're missing the point.

Your argument:
Oh, yeah, PCs in 3.5e could always do instant kill effects. Not power creep.

Reality:
If there were an instant kill effect at level 3, it'd be retarded.

'cos that's power creep.
It's not creeping from infinity to infinity, 'cos level 28 is where orcus can reduce you to 0 hp with a look, whilst permalock at paragon levels is retarded.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you're missing the point.

Your argument:
Oh, yeah, PCs in 3.5e could always do instant kill effects. Not power creep.

Reality:
If there were an instant kill effect at level 3, it'd be retarded.

'cos that's power creep.
It's not creeping from infinity to infinity, 'cos level 28 is where orcus can reduce you to 0 hp with a look, whilst permalock at paragon levels is retarded.

Huh? Where did 3.5e come into this?

My argument is simply that no new capability was created. stunlock existed in PHB-only. It existed after AV1 (which is really 95% of what you'd be complaining about here). You can do it about 5-6 levels earlier than you could before. OTOH the real issue wasn't even total guaranteed stunlock, it was the fact that if ANY level of orbizard with a WIS 20 hits ANY key monster with say sleep then its down to a 50/50 shot the monster is knocked down for a while. Once you hit even 8th level in just PHB those odds are high enough to be a serious problem for the DM's encounter design because any time your solo is totally out of action for 2-3 rounds the encounter is shot. There are numerous things wrong with that picture and OoI is only one of them. Its an aspect of the game that has broken mechanics. Its worthless to complain there is power creep related to it when it was seriously broken IN THE FIRST BOOK.

In any case the whole debate is fairly pointless and off topic. If players are willing to not be abusive with their orb builds or are willing to run a fairly nerfed orb wizard via house rules (which can still be interesting) then all the stuff in AV1 really doesn't do anything worth getting worked up about.

 

[Nifft]

Yeah, CoD is in many ways as good a choice as MM. The range is adequate for 95% of cases and the effect can come in handy now and then at low levels or for that oddball situation where its really worth a standard action to make sure a minion dies. However MM will be pretty good in those situations as well, so its kind of a tossup. Neither one would be my first choice if I had AP available.

That percentage may be accurate for your games, Mad Arab, but for other people the relevant question ought to be: do you expect to engage enemies at ranges 11-20? If they're not sure, they can ask themselves:
- Can my whole party engage in long-range archery? If so, I should make myself able to participate.
- Am I the only one able to hit things at that range? If so, is it a big deal -- in other words, are the other party members low-mobility or high-mobility? If they're low-mobility and you're the only one able to hit range 11-20, then it may be useful to do so.
- Is there a real archer in the party? If you have exactly one archery Ranger, you may want to just let him handle the 11-40 range (which includes the 11-20 range).

Cloud of Daggers asks these questions:
- Is my Wisdom bonus +2 or higher? If yes, this power is as good as MM on a hit, and it was always better on a miss.
- Do I have anything else to use my Orb class feature with yet? The first (save ends) Encounter power in the PHB is at 3rd level. It sucks to have a class feature you can't use.

Expanded Spellbook CAN be a good option for a Wizard who is geared towards being a super utility caster

If Expanded Spellbook gave you more Utility powers, it wouldn't suck. As written, though, it does suck.

Cheers, -- N

 

[KarinsDad]

I disagree with KarinsDad. There is no considerable power creep.

You must not be looking at all of the different ways to get a skill into the stratosphere.

Or, ways to make an Orb Wizard nearly unstoppable against a solo.

Or, the fact that a Battlerage Fighter is almost immune to minion attacks.

Or the sheer number of ways of getting conditional bonuses to hit. The PHB had very few ways to get a bonus to hit.


It's Splatbook 101. The more splatbooks a DM allows, the more ways there are to abuse the system. It is, basically, inevitable.

Granted, WotC is cleaning up some of it with errata, but there are still a lot of dpr builds out there that are easily broken that did not exist with just the PHB.

And to me, the way for a DM to fix it is to disallow certain game elements. Most of these are magic items, a few are feats.