Has the Vancian Magic Thread Burned Down the Forest Yet? (My Bad, People)

[ProfessorCirno]

Well I'm certainly convinced. The wizard is so damned powerful you don't need to play anything else. Let's just get rid of all the other classes. Let's just call the game Wizards And Dungeons and be done with it. A wizard is just the mini god and will clean anybody else's clock. I certainly will never play any other class nor any other games ever. Playing a wizard is an automatic win! playing a wizard means nobody else can win at anything else. One wizard is equal to a thousand thousand fighters at first level and only increases in godly manliness at each level thereafter!

HOORAY!

This but unironically is the path 3.x took.

Edit:

And you know what? The Rogue does even better against wizards. They have Improved Evasion, Stealth, and Sneak Damage.

Seriously, how does any of this help at all?

Evasion? The smart wizard isn't throwing fireballs. Stealth? I cast light. Sneak damage? You can't sneak attack someone who you can't hit.

 

[Diamond Cross]

This but unironically is the path 3.x took.

That's a bunch of crap and you know it.

Evasion? The smart wizard isn't throwing fireballs. Stealth? I cast light. Sneak damage? You can't sneak attack someone who you can't hit.

Not all wizards have the same spells. Evasion allows the Rogue at 2nd level and higher, a rogue can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. If she makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if the rogue is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless rogue does not gain the benefit of evasion. Improved Evasion works like evasion, except that while the rogue still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks henceforth she takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless rogue does not gain the benefit of improved evasion. Advantage goes to the Rogue.

And any good Rogue has a Ring of Invisibility.

Light does not necessarily ruin stealth. Especially if there are lots of places to take cover from. Again, it all depends on terrain and other variable circumstance that you people are ignoring. Those are very generalized statements and poor arguments. And the Rogue could have items that provide Spell Resistance or other benefits.

And what makes you say a rogue can't hit a wizard? Wizards do not have high AC and Rogues can hit them from behind while the fighter is attacking from front. It's actually pretty easy to hit a mage because they don't have high AC. Even with magic items.

So all this stuff about wizards being so uber they just can't be beat is completely ridiculous and sheer crap.

They are powerful people, but they are not gods and any fighter worth their salt will beat a wizard and also have items to help them against wizards as well, such as a Brooch Of Shielding and shields that provide energy resistance or spell resistance.

For every spell there is a counter. There is both counter spelling and spell disruption just to name two. For every move by a wizard there is a counter. You just have to know what it is and use your brains.

But nobody's listening. Things don't need to be changed, people just have to play smarter and be aware of their options. And there's lots of them,

 

[ProfessorCirno]

That's a bunch of crap and you know it.

Nope.avi

Your entire argument boils down to "No see, if wizards are played terribly..."

I very pointedly used "Smart wizard" in my example. One who is flying because overland flight is cheap and easy and lasts all day. One who has a plethora of scrolls to handle utility or less essential spells because they can make those and have the gold to do it.

That you think SR and AC are worth anything at all in 3.5 speaks volumes on it's own. AC scales like garbage - the best defense is spells. Mirror Image is a better mitigation of attacks then AC is, as is displacement, as is Stoneskin, as is Flight, as is etc etc etc. SR is hilariously easily bypassed as well.

I think this is where the discrepancy lies. Certainly if a wizard is never prepared and only throws out fireballs or blasting spells, they aren't that powerful. But if your wizard is doing that, they aren't good at being a wizard.

 

[Leatherhead]

No, they aren't. Wizards are deus ex machina or antagonists that go down like a chump. The protagonist is never a D&D wizard. Magic is never the answer to anything in fiction and mythology - and frequently is the answer to nothing.

Well duh, such fiction is supposed to appeal to "the common man." You know the dumb peasant who is being oppressed by the system and whatnot.

Actually I think it's about time to dissect this stuff for what it really is. Half* of those stores were written in times when people believed them to be true. Furthermore they used religious frameworks to explain and justify magic. The common man doesn't use magic, that is the stuff of the holy men and women above their station, so it's right out for "the peoples self-insert" to go around performing miracles without someone else doing the divine for them. The Hero instead gets to perform the grunt-work like the people are doing day to day. In the cases where the protagonist has magic but doesn't use it, that is again to make the character more relatable. The Common Joe cannot make their enemies explode with a word, but they can (somewhat futility) sock them in the jaw or potentially out think them.

As for "the evil wizard" archetype; It's a paper thin rant that basically says "That smartass in power is the one causing all the problems in today's world, and they are league with the forces of EVIL! If only I could punch his lights out, everything would be better!"

The other half* are ripping them off for the most-part. And now I am sure some literature major is going to come in and tell me how wrong I am.

Oh, and finally, you can see the "Power solves problems" style of stories in comic books, especially the silver age ones.


*By half I do not mean 50%, I mean the part that this obviously applies to.

I'm just kind of tired of people saying games should play out like stories~

 

[Neonchameleon]

Opinions differ. So no, his friend isn't wrong.

His friend wasn't stating an opinion if what's relayed was accurate. His friend was stating something as a fact.

I guess all those creatures with spell resistance or wizards with counter spells never got much us in your campaigns like they did in mine. If you design your enemies according to the players they are facing, you can challenge even the mighty wizard.

Indeed. And you need to either make your entire ecology anti-magic or if you are challenging the wizard you are going over the rest of the party's heads.

And Pathfinder cleaned up a lot of spells that made everything an instant win.

And missed some. Which means that spells are still an instant win.

What fiction you reading? The wizard is generally better than everyone else. I want my games modeled on fiction, not on game balance where I'm worried about "being better than everyone else" as you put it.

I want my games to tell me the truth. Character level approximates power level. If you want your wizards to be better than everyone else in a balanced system, it's trivial. Set a house rule where wizards are five levels higher than everyone else in the party. This keeps balance and gets your desired result.

I watched movies like Conan where Thulsa Doom was indeed better than everyone else until Conan caught him alone and cut his head off.

Where Raistlin is indeed better than everyone else.

Where Gandalf is the only one that can go against the Balrog or battle the Witch King of Angmar on equal ground.

Thulsa Doom was an NPC. Gandalf was an NPC. Dragonlance is D&D derived fiction. If I wanted my RPGs based on the fiction you describe then yes, wizards would be more powerful than everyone else. But you would not be allowed to play one unless you were also allowed to play an angel (Gandalf), or the BBEG (Thulsa Doom).

Where Merlin is the powerful person in the Arthurian legends and could take out any of the knights if they were to go head to head.

And speaking of NPCs... Merlin gets very little time in the stories. They are all about Arthur or the Knights. Merlin's no more a PC than the corporate executive who hires you to do the job in a Shadowrun game.

I imagine you don't want versatility. You must have played with players that made you feel small and worthless if you weren't playing a wizard. That min-maxed with a DM that couldn't create challenges to counter the mighty wizard.

I don't want versatility because I can tear the guts out of almost any fictional plot with the versatility of a 3.X mid level caster. I have imagination and tactical skill. And can leave DMs carefully planned plots derailed with 4e wizards. I have no wish to play someone who is "better than everyone else" - it's not fair on the other players, it's not fair on the DM, and it in no way reflects the fiction.

I guess there's no way Pathfinder[/] game designers could reign in some of the damage done with the Spell Compendium. Which was the main culprit behind the power creep of wizards. By core wizards and arcane casters were balanced, especially once they got rid of the extra spell from haste.

And apparently you've never played at the same table as someone really using the PHB. The Polymorphs are core. The standard Illusion spells are core. Wild Shape is core. Summon Nature's Ally - Unicorn is core.

What messed up arcane casters in 3rd edition was the power creep from certain spells in the Spell Compendium and the Archmage prestige class (the first iteration). Don't act as though the wizard has been inherently more powerful for all iterations of D&D. They certainly haven't.

Something which you seem to think is a bad thing if I'm to take your own words. But there are some bad offenders in Core starting with Silent Image and Alter Self.

And in Pathfinder every class in the game save for the rogue is powerful in their own right and stands up fine compared to the wizard. In fact, at this point in time the player playing the wizard in our group is rather underwhelmed with the class because the Invulnerable Raging barbarian and the Two-hander fighter are beasting through about everything we face while he is often engaged in a support role because it's more effective for him to help them kill the enemy rather than do it himself.

Yes? Your point? The goal of strategy is not to defeat your enemy, it's to make him irrelevant. Evocation doesn't cut it in 3.X. Save or Die, walls, other means of rendering foes irrelevant does.

And the most annoying arcane caster at the moment is the friggin bard.

Heh. The 3.5 bard was the class I ran a DM ragged with. Mostly because he told me that bards were useless so I went through the system and learned to play one. And then there was the Bard/Druid/Artificer 4th level team that took a campaign that was meant to be for 5 5th level PCs at a run. (Literally - between Inspire Courage and all carrying temporary bane weapons and a night attack, we were taking the dungeon before the orcs could draw their weapons).

The bard is incredible versatile and does such an incredible job of boosting the group he's making it a pain in the behind to stop the melee characters from stomping everything in their path.

And this is what the wizard should be doing. The melee characters could be replaced by animal companions or crafted golems.

Games can change. Pathfinder's changes eliminated a lot of the no brainer arcane combos that became problematic in 3rd edition.

A lot != all. And from the sounds of things, your wizard isn't being played as smartly as the bard.

It wasn't the system that was bad, it was certain spells and certain prestige classes that messed up 3E.

And certain classes. Wizard. Druid. Cleric. Artificer.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah, it's sheer utter nonsense that the wizard is better than everybody else. The wizard does have a lot of power, but it's meant to be that way for the wizard is meant to be artillery. The wizard's greatest weakness is that they are not close combat people.

So the wizard's greatest weakness can be overcome by hiring bodyguards.

In fact. I'd bet that if you took three low or first level fighters against one mage without his spells, the fighters would win. The mage must be a minimum of tenth level. There must be no magic items either, for both sides. other than that, there is no limit to other equipment.

And I bet that if you took one first level wizard against five tenth level fighters and hogtied and blindfolded the fighters the wizard would be able to slit their throats. Which is about equally as hypothetical a situation.

The point to this is to illustrate the great weakness of the mage.

That if you take away all of their power by taking away their spells and arbitrarily leaving the fighters the tools of their trade they have problems. Likewise if you take away all of a fighter's power by hogtying them they have problems.

Since a Wizard can not wear armor,

Oh, but they can. Mithral Chain Shirt (which is, of course, non-magic). With a mithral buckler. No ACP therefore no problem. Make it a mithral twilight chain shirt and it doesn't get in the way of spellcasting. Mithral Twilight Chain Shirts are the 3.5 version of Elven Chain.

Do the math. The fighters would win.The fighter really overshadows the wizard.

Of course, single lightning bolt would take the fighters out. Maybe. Even if the Wizard did have his spells, he could still lose them because of these rules that many are overlooking:
So, facing three first level fighters, that's a potential of three times of losing the spell. However, of course, a single lightning bolt would take them all out which is why you would need one of them to be an archer. And this is a tenth level wizard we're talking about.

Try invisibility. The wizard gets away. And wins the next day.

I wonder if these anti-Vancian magic people have actually played a wizard or just read about the class and never played it.

Given quite how hypothetical your examples are I wonder if you've ever seen a well-played wizard.

in short....

FIGHTERS KICK ASS! They are not a useless class to play.

At tenth level I've beaten up a weapon specialist fighter with a bard in melee. (Twinked out Inspire Courage, Inspire Greatness, alter self for the AC - the bard had as many hp (including temps), as good an AC, and did as much damage with his harmonic crystal echoblade longsword).

It might have been different for your group but other experiences on the balance between the two seem quite legit to me. Interestingly, 4E has taken all that away and, also interestingly, I no longer see the rush to play the arcane caster that there used to be. Pre-4E there were always enough players interested in a wizard or wizard-like character that my group had to rotate who got the spot campaign to campaign.

Absolutely agreed.

You overlooked the main points I was making which are.

Magic can be disrupted.

Fighters can be ignored.

Mages are not up close combat.

Well, yes. That's what hirelings are for.

And spells run out.

So do hit points.

And it works.

Oh no it doesn't! Which is the whole point. The smarter and better with the system wizards get the better they get at circumventing these limits.

Regardless of the stupid arguments of the power of magic is exponential. So what?

So ability to hit things with a sword isn't. If fighters and wizards scale at different rates, if they are balanced at level 1 they aren't at level 10 and if they are at level 10 then they aren't at level 1.

I'm very frustrated that people are overlooking these things.

We aren't.You are getting frustrated because we are pointing out that you can point out in neon signs things you claim that balance wizards - but they don't work and we have either seen them not work or made them not work by playing wizards ourselves.

Sure, magic is difficult to fight against, but not impossible. If it were impossible then all literature would be about wizard fights and there'd be no characters like Conan who kicks wizard butt, regardless of the differences between literature and rpgs.

D&D is not Conan. Just because D&D magic isn't balanced doesn't say anything about magic in Conan's world. The problem is that pre-4e D&D magic is overpowered. If you give all spells a casting time of a minute or more then the pointy end of a sword can kill even a mage who casts Wish. Despite wizards ruling the world.

And if things were easy it wouldn't be fun or even worthwhile to play the game now, would it?

And that is why I don't play 3.X wizards. Because it is easy.

Nothing worthwhile is easy.

Which is exactly the problem.

Perhaps in 3e, but not in earlier editions. A wizard had to be very careful which spells he cast and when. Generally speaking, most spells had a casting time equal to their level. A fireball has a casting time of 3. That's 3 segments in which your spell can be interrupted by a kid with a rock. Higher level spells are even worse. Meteor swarm looks good on paper, but you have to be within a bow shot to cast it. Great if you can open with it, but that's two rounds of standing there with no dex bonus. Magic users have the potential to be very powerful, but it's rarely realized.

Magic is at its strongest when out of combat. Agreed.

It's definitely better to be a wizard due to the benefits that a your spells provide you that other classes lack. But whereas the sorcerer knows a limited selection, the wizard is able to draw from an enormous spellbook. Many of the downsides that you listed to being a wizard can be easily mitigated (if not practically ignored) by a smart player. So good upper level mages will never let a melee fighter get close.

QFT.

Which is a fourth huge balance because a wizard can not have spells without his spellbook.
Yes, smart players will make it difficult for their opponents. Not everybody is smart though, and there's also inexperienced players as well. The only way to "balance" this is to simply not allow this to happen in the game. Which is sheer utter nonsense.

So the most complex classes (wizards, druids, clerics, artificers) should only be played by inexperienced players? That's just perverse.

And if everything's the same then nobody learns how to use strategies and the game is not fun to play.

You want a game that isn't fun to play? Noughts and Crosses/Tic Tac Toe. That's because the game is solved. It's a draw with two best opening moves and then only one choice after that (allowing for symmetry). The game comes closest to being fun for people who don't know the strategies.

I've never seen this. I've only seen people who wanted to play wizards because it was fun to play them, not to have a super powerful impossible to beat god character for bragging rights.

I don't want to play 3.X wizards because they are super powerful impossible to beat god characters. It's more fun to play something that .

But I know there are power gamers out there who probably would. But then again, any power gamer takes the best advantages they can to dish out as much damage as they can to be the biggest baddest tough guy around, and they can do that with any class.

And any smart adventurer takes the best advantages they can. Because that is what keeps them alive.

Heh, in my experience the balance of being a wizard is called 'Dogpile the guy in a pointy hat!'

How long does an enemy spellcaster last against a typical party of adventurers? In my experience, not more than a few spells, 'cause everything gets thrown at him. (Including, thanks to a half orc barbarian, a kitchen sink... he actually asked if there was one, just so he could throw it at the Foozle.)

The Auld Grump

In short the balance of being a wizard is that the other side considers him too powerful to live. It's called "Dogpile Angel Summoner".

QUOTE=Diamond Cross;5479085]Not all wizards have the same spells. Evasion[/quote]

Assumes that I'm throwing a fireball or other direct damage spell. Unlikely.

And any good Rogue has a Ring of Invisibility.

At 20,000 GP. That's a high level rogue - about the point at which wizards are slinging round permanency, arcane sight, and see invisible.

And what makes you say a rogue can't hit a wizard? Wizards do not have high AC and Rogues can hit them from behind while the fighter is attacking from front.

And the wizard is up in the air, out of reach.

It's actually pretty easy to hit a mage because they don't have high AC. Even with magic items.[/quote

Are they expecting trouble?

So all this stuff about wizards being so uber they just can't be beat is completely ridiculous and sheer crap.

Oh, they can be beaten. You've managed to corner the wizard with two PCs of about his level (fighter and rogue), somehow got the heavily armoured fighter in, and dropped a teleport anchor. Whereas when the wizard comes hunting the fighter the fighter's stuffed.

They are powerful people, but they are not gods and any fighter worth their salt will beat a wizard and also have items to help them against wizards as well, such as a Brooch Of Shielding

Seriously? The fighter expects wizards to go hunting with Magic Missile?

and shields that provide energy resistance or spell resistance.

Hideously expensive and highly ineffective. The fighter's will defence sucks. So does the rogue's. And the armour SRs aren't strong enough.

For every spell there is a counter. There is both counter spelling and spell disruption just to name two. For every move by a wizard there is a counter. You just have to know what it is and use your brains.

In short, in order to go hunting a wizard you need to already know what is in his spellbook. And which spells from that spellbook he will have prepared.

But nobody's listening. Things don't need to be changed, people just have to play smarter and be aware of their options. And there's lots of them,

People are listening. We are simply pointing out that you are selecting extreme corner cases in which the fight is almost fair. The problem is that it's a game of battleships, but the wizard has a grid four times as large as the rogue (and about ten times as large as the fighter).

 

[Diamond Cross]

We aren't.You are getting frustrated because we are pointing out that you can point out in neon signs things you claim that balance wizards - but they don't work and we have either seen them not work or made them not work by playing wizards ourselves.

Yes they do work.

Every single one of your examples actually supports one of my main points, not yours. And that point is that a smart player will always take the best advantages they can to make it more difficult for their opponents in order to overcome them. That is what the game is all about. I wouldn't be playing the game if everybody was a cookie cutter impotent clone that couldn't do anything. For everything there is already a counter. That is why the system works.

You're doing things piecemeal. You're also forgetting the kinds of things that Wizards fight. There are very powerful monsters out there that takes a team of people to fight, and a wizard alone can't fight them.

Your arguments is that this shouldn't be allowed. And that these advantages should be taken away. Would you make the same arguments for sports games? Or other games?

And those arguments are your guys' arguments. The wizard is too powerful. No, it's not. That is an outright lie. The other lie is that the fighter is always static and never changes. It does. Fighters get more attacks and more feats than a Wizard does, and thus dish out far more damage at higher levels. They get extra chances to disrupt wizards' casting. More powerful wizard spells take longer times to cast. Two or three attacks in a single round gives two or three chances to disrupt that casting.



And if you have to change things so much, you might as well write your own game and try to publish it. Because changing the rules so much means it's not the same game. Whether it's D&D or not is another argument entirely.

And no, I'm not being snarky with that remark. Because if you're that dissatisfied with the rules, then why play the game?

I would not want to play in that kind of a game.

And I'd bet that you'd balk at the same kinds of arguments if somebody wanted to change your favorite rules using the exact same arguments against you.

And the fighter's get more powerful too. You're claiming they never change they're always static and a wizard is always dynamic. No, it doesn't.

On Mithral:

All it does is reduce the category of armor, from heavy to medium, from medium to light, and Mithral Chain still has an Arcane check of 10%. A Buckler doesn't have an ACP. I don't know where this Twilight ability appears. It doesn't appear in the SRD.

We are simply pointing out that you are selecting extreme corner cases in which the fight is almost fair. The problem is that it's a game of battleships, but the wizard has a grid four times as large as the rogue (and about ten times as large as the fighter).

It's not an extreme corner case because Wizards do indeed run out of spells per day. So they can and often do get caught with their pants down. Especially when exploring dungeons. A cooperative party will often allow Wizards' time to rest and re memorize their spells. If you've never seen this then you have not played wizards.

And yes, by saying that you are indeed ignoring that a Wizard doesn't have unlimited spells, they do run out of magic. You seem to think that this is a completely unlimited resource. It is not.

And, yes magic missile. Because a smart and ethical wizard would save his more powerful spells for more powerful circumstances, such as facing a party of fifty Orcs.

Hideously expensive and highly ineffective. The fighter's will defence sucks. So does the rogue's. And the armour SRs aren't strong enough.

And SR can be cast by the Spell itself. It creates SR equal to 12 plus caster level. And regardless, it still gives the spell another chance to fail.

But that's kind of weird though when compared to the Armor SR. Because
Spell Resistance is a 5th level spell. Wizards first learn 5th level spells at 9th level so that means the minimum an SR can be is 21, not 13 or 19 (12 plus 9th level Caster = 21). So that must be some kind of an error. So yeah, I'd have to go with the Armor SRs are indeed too low. But this is a real fix, not an outright change for the sake of change to my preference. There is a difference between fixing an error and changing the rules to suit one's preference.

And of course you can always have feats or items that boost Will saves.

The system does indeed work. For everything there is a counter. Every single spell you come up with can be countered by knowledgeable players. Not all wizards have the same spells, not every wizard is going to have the Invisibility spell, especially if they specialize in the school that forbids them from learning the school invisibility belongs to.

And I'm not that knowledgeable.

Good players use this to the best of their skills. By changing things around you are not allowing players to use their imagination and restricting them heavily.

And I wouldn't want to play a game that doesn't allow for these advantages.

 

[AllisterH]

Ah the good old once ever y6 months Vancian debate...

I've missed this

Personally I still believe the problem is that D&D after level 10 was never designed intentionally to be played with. At least not with melee characters. As an long forgotten earlier thread mentioned, none of the early D&D books actually had monsters suitable for high level spellcasters (remember that the Q in the GDQ series was for levels 10-14).

Furthermore, if you read Gygax accoutns of his own games, he mentions all the players being spellcasters (the various named high level spells) and having henchmen that they would use occasionally (suspiciously sounds like Ars Magica troupe play IMO).

Personally I don't have a problem with Vancian system itself....just some of the spells themselves (did not help that 3.x took off so many of the limiters when it moved from 1e/2e --the system looks the same, but the underlying/supporting mechanics have VASTLY changed the Vancian system)

 

[billd91]

Furthermore, if you read Gygax accoutns of his own games, he mentions all the players being spellcasters (the various named high level spells) and having henchmen that they would use occasionally (suspiciously sounds like Ars Magica troupe play IMO).

If that's the case, then he was forgetting one of the most well-known characters of those early campaigns - Robilar.

 

[Lanefan]

Personally I don't have a problem with Vancian system itself....just some of the spells themselves (did not help that 3.x took off so many of the limiters when it moved from 1e/2e --the system looks the same, but the underlying/supporting mechanics have VASTLY changed the Vancian system)

I rather suspect that part of the issue here is there's some whose only experience of a Vancian system *is* 3e, so no wonder they're looking at it dubiously...

Lanefan