Dragon article -- Class Acts: Wizards

[Larac]

Insight doesn't "see through illusions." It recognizes effects as illusions. Say an adventuring party is dungeon diving, but a Goblin Wizard put up an Illusionary Wall across a path before the adventurers see it. Insight allows a person to recognize that the wall is an Illusion, rather then the whole party to wander past it. A successful Insight roll doesn't allow that person to see through it though as if it wasn't there.

For the Illusions in my game last night,

I had a Goblin Hexer who cast the Vexing Cloud (or something like that), I considered it an Illusion as it is using pops and flashes to distract and make all PCs -2 to hit.

The Wizard asked to make an Arcana Check on the spell as they had not seen it before, he rolled a Nat 20.

So I let him understand the effect and allowed him to make an Insight check to see through it (disbelieve) he passed. Let the others know what it was, both tried Insight rolls but failed, the DC of 18.

So they were still -2 to hit, until the goblin fell into two halfs.

Worked well for us.

So as I see these new spells are better than the current Wizards list, I would allow an Insight roll to reduce effects or damage, I think.

My feeling as a GM is that the spell has a half or so real side, and the other half is fake, and that is why they do more damage. But if seen through the damage on avg is less than PHB.


But to each their own.


Lee

 

[WOLead]

Your call as a DM, Larac. Fits rather well and does make sense in that form.

 

[Zinovia]

Grasping Shadows and balance

So does anyone else get the impression that the level 1 encounter spell Grasping Shadows is just too good? As the info is all free on Dragon, I'll include the writeup here for convenience.

Grasping Shadows
Wizard Encounter 1
At your command, the shadows reach out, grab hold of your foes, and wreath the area in darkness.
Encounter, Arcane, Illusion, Implement
Standard Action
Area: Burst 1 within 10 squares
Target: Each creature in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs Will
Hit: 2d8 + Int modifier psychic damage, and target is slowed until the end of your next turn.
Effect: Shadows writhe in the designated area and continue until the end of your next turn. Any creature that enters the area of the grasping shadows takes psychic damage equal to your Intelligence modifier and is slowed until the end of it's next turn.

This is doing as much damage as a couple of the single target encounter powers in the PH, but is an area with an ongoing effect. It does a lot more than Icy Terrain, but has the same area and range. While the ongoing effect is different, it's still good. Icy Terrain makes an area of difficult terrain and targets hit are knocked prone. It only does 1d6 + Int though, rather than 2d8 + Int.

There are additional questions about some of these powers. Are they too good given that they target Will defense rather than Reflex or Fortitude? I know others have raised questions about Illusory Wall, and how the attack to block foes from crossing the wall works. Should those that deal psychic damage have the pyschic keyword applied?

I like the flavor of these, as many of them sound fun to use. The question is whether they are fair compared to equivalent level spells in the PH, or is this an example of power creep already? My question is whether to allow the spells as written, modify them a bit, or just pretend the article never existed. I was really hoping that Dragon articles would have been checked for balance better, but perhaps that was naive of me. Or perhaps I'm missing something in my consideration of the relative powers of these spells that makes them not as overpowered as they seem.

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

Grasping Shadows is certainly more powerful damage-wise than most other Wizard Encounter powers, but honestly, a single turn of slow isn't amazingly good. If all the character was going to do was shift anyway, it completely defeats the effect. If it was 'slowed, save ends,' I'd wonder about power creep. But slow is the easiest condition (in my opinion) for a DM or player to work around, especially casters who use move actions for other things.

I'd also like to remind the good folks here that wizards get mage hand, ghost sound, light and prestidigitation at-will! If you're concerned about non-damaging illusions, that should take care of a lot of it right there.

 

[bganon]

I agree, Grasping Shadows is good but I don't think it's clearly above the other Wizard encounter powers at the same level. Burning hands does slightly less damage over a wider area (and without triggering OA). Chill Strike is single target but dazes, which is really one of the best effects (single action AND grants CA). Grasping Shadows seems at first more powerful than Force Orb, but Force Orb is range 20 in a game where not too many monsters (especially at low levels) actually have more than range 10 spells (or 10/20 weapons), AND Force Orb only targets enemies. Icy Terrain knocks prone, and as someone who's currently playing a rogue, I'd MUCH rather the wizard be knocking monsters prone than slowing them. I'd say Ray of Enfeeblement looks like the weakest (har, har) of the lot, but I don't have a good sense of how powerful an effect weakening really is.

Personally, if I were a wizard going for an area effect, I'd probably choose Icy Terrain or Force Orb over Grasping Shadows. And at higher levels if I got some other good area power I'd seriously consider retraining to Chill Strike.

 

[bganon]

As for Phantom Chasm vs Freezing Cloud, keep in mind that Freezing Cloud is burst 2, you get to attack everything in the cloud twice (once when you cast it and again when they start their turn), and on a miss you still deal damage and get to make the second attack. Phantom Chasm only immobilizes on a miss, which is good against certain monsters and completely useless against others.

As for the other dailies, Acid Arrow wins for pure damage over one round, Flaming Sphere wins for potential damage output over time, and we all know Sleep is full of win.

 

[Switchback]

Grasping Shadows confuses me somewhat on how to adjudicate those squares after the initial hit.

I haven't ran my Wizard yet so maybe this is an obvious AOE answer but maybe someone can help.

Is each square of the box in Grasping Shadows treated separately for purpose of enemies moving around in them after the 1st round. For instance, other AOE spells do continuing damage for those inside on their turn or count as difficult terrain or whatever, but this one doesn't. However, what happens in the 2nd round if a character that was hit in the first continues to walk through the Grasping Shadows instead of leaving the area in one move?

Can that enemy just walk freely around the affected squares after that first turn? What if he ends his turn only having moved one step within the shadows, would he then be subject to the slowing again on the 3rd turn?

What about a enemy that was missed on the initial cast, if he starts to move within the Shadows squares, is he considered to be 'entering' them for the first time since he was never hit?

Some of the answers that present themselves would seem counter-intuitive if the effect of the AOE is only on the initial cast for those inside. I.e. You could have a goblin lets say start out in the top half of the effect, walk right through the rest of it on his turn to get out, and then on the same turn back into the effect again and he would suddenly be considered to be 'entering' it again and suffer damage and slowing even though he was able to leave it just fine on the first half of his move?

 

[Henry]

It is not just you. While still not up to the bar set by Paizo when they were publishing it, it is getting much better of late, and seriously tempting me to give them money for the stand alone issues.

They said as much back in March or so -- can't remember who, maybe Chris Youngs, but they said they intentionally had to sandbag until release because most of the stuff they were working on was rules-intensive 4e stuff, rather than edition-neutral. Now that they;re ungagged, they can start pumping out the goodness. And so far, they've hit the right note - fill the darned gaps that 4e has so that people can complete more character concepts. I liked the warforged, I like this illusionist stopgap, and now if they could get into dragonmarks, I'd be all set....

 

[Shroomy]

FYI, this article was errata'd in the 364 compilation.

 

[Seeker_of_Truth]

FYI, this article was errata'd in the 364 compilation.

Could I get a link to the errata? I wasn't able to find it.