Wizards: Squishy or All Powerful?

[JoeGKushner]

The funny thing, in in 4e, I totally 'gork' this type of experience.

Yeah - as mentioned, "doing damage" is usually a suboptimal choice for 3.X wizards.* Rather than a spell which removes, say, a quarter to a half of an enemy's hit points (like a MM against a low-level target), it is far, far better to completely shut that enemy down: Sleep, Color Spray, Grease, etc.

In a game where the action economy is so important, removing a significant portion of your enemies' actions tends to almost always be a stronger choice. For example, in a standard dungeon room fight, it is far better to put a wall (even a temporary one) in between half of the opponents and your party than it is to fireball the majority of bad guys (or, alternatively, put half of them to sleep). This essentially uses one spell to create two mini-encounters, and if the entire encounter was designed to be a balanced challenge, each individual mini-encounter will be a cakewalk.

Also, this isn't really limited to wizards - clerics and druids are also just as much benefactors of the "magic makes me hard to kill" rules; they just don't start out with Scribe Scroll or get bonus item creation feats as they advance.

* See also my Pathfinder Magus playtest notes in the PF forum, wherein I rather quickly sub out my Burning Hands spell for another Shield and my Ray of Frost for Daze.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Wizards come equipped with the Scribe Scroll feat for free. By definition they can leverage scrolls better than other characters can leverage potions. Pulling equal to the wizard means sacrificing a precious feat.

Interestingly, I would much rather use the Unearthed Arcana variant that exchanges Scribe Scroll for the fighter bonus feat list; I find that having Improved Initiative is well worth loosing access to Scribe Scroll. Perhaps it is my cheap nature but I never want to spend the resources -- gold, experience, and time -- to craft a scroll. While 12.5 gold and 1 experience point for a 1st-level scroll at caster level 1 can be relatively minor, I was surprised by how often crafting a handful of these scrolls left me just shy of gaining a level or just short of the gold I needed for a permanent magic item (Handy Haversack, Headband of Intellect, etc.). The issue became more pronounced with crafting 2nd and 3rd-level scrolls.

I also find that the scrolls I do end up with -- often from treasure, rarely purchased outright -- tend to sit on my character sheet as my memorizations or my hirelings (the other PCs ) tend to be better at achieving my goals than the scroll is.

 

[Puggins]

In 3.5 it costs xp to make magic items as well as gold.

But you didn't actually lose it, it was just a measure of how much you could make.

Hmm, maybe I'm misinterpreting you here. If I am, apologies. You do indeed lose the experience points. If my 2nd level wizard with 1400xp wanted to scribe a scroll of feather fall, I would spend 12g5s and 1xp, taking me down to 1399xp.

Frankly, the cost is fairly negligible. Scribing dimension door at a 7th level CL costs 28xp, barely 0.3% of what you need to get to 8th level. It's unlikely you'll ever lose a level up, even with scribing a healthy number of scrolls.

 

[Puggins]

As I said, post PHB spells were far from balanced - from the uberdamage conjuration orbs (full damage ignoring spell resistance yay), assay resistance to eliminate spell resistance yay. swift/free action defensive spells (presumably greater mirror image is one of these?).

I bet most of the 'wizards are too uber' people had games which allowed more than just the PHB spell list.

That's certainly possible- having not seen a wizard played that way in 3.5e, I can only speculate.

However, notice that of the spells I list, only two (greater mirror image and dimensional portal) are not in the PHB. All the offensive spells are straight PHB. If I hadn't had either of those, I would've resorted to more painful alternatives, like stone skin and dimension door. I certainly would have had stone skin working at 9th+ level, since the component cost at that level was really reasonable.

I think the SC spells made making a tough wizard easier and more obvious, but I think that you can get most of the way there using just the PHB if you planned well.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Hmm, maybe I'm misinterpreting you here. If I am, apologies. You do indeed lose the experience points. If my 2nd level wizard with 1400xp wanted to scribe a scroll of feather fall, I would spend 12g5s and 1xp, taking me down to 1399xp.

No, you're not misinterpreting me.

But I just don't see as how a character would actually lose xp because it would be a penalty. And, if an item was very powerful, they could even lose levels.

At the very least they would never progress.

 

[Noctos]

so your telling me in 3.5 or great editions that crafting magical gear and scribing scrolls makes you dumber. That if i sat down and wrote 10 scrolls in my down time that i get to be a worse. that when i create a flaming sword and installed mirror image on it as a side ability that my magical skills get worse? I dont buy it.
build stuff for a living i don't get crappier with each desk i make.i get faster and smart about it.

 

[Mort]

No, you're not misinterpreting me.

But I just don't see as how a character would actually lose xp because it would be a penalty. And, if an item was very powerful, they could even lose levels.

At the very least they would never progress.

I believe Pathfinder eliminated the xp loss, but in 3e/3.5e you do indeed lose xp for making items (1/25th of it's base price to be exact) Here's an SRD link. . You don't lose that much relative to how much you gain, when I played a mage I scribed plenty of scrolls and managed to not fall far behind (certainly less than a level).

As I stated previously, I wish they'd gone a different direction - item creation feats seem to be a big contributor to the wizard's significant power increase from prior edditions (crafting items used to be an adventure in and of itself not a freebie given to the wizard).

 

[Mort]

so your telling me in 3.5 or great editions that crafting magical gear and scribing scrolls makes you dumber. That if i sat down and wrote 10 scrolls in my down time that i get to be a worse. that when i create a flaming sword and installed mirror image on it as a side ability that my magical skills get worse? I dont buy it.
build stuff for a living i don't get crappier with each desk i make.i get faster and smart about it.

The reasoning is quite suspect (and a pain to keep track of to boot) which is why I believe Pathfinder eliminated it.

It seems (and I certainly have no firsthand knowledge of this) that it was built in primarily (exclusively) as a balancing factor to keep the wizard from going completely item crazy. But really, I always saw the gp cost as much more limiting than the xp cost, so I don't think it worked there either.

 

[Puggins]

No, you're not misinterpreting me.

But I just don't see as how a character would actually lose xp because it would be a penalty. And, if an item was very powerful, they could even lose levels.

At the very least they would never progress.

I had the same initial reaction. But if you look at the numbers relative to your level, it really isn't painful if you stay within reason.

Let's say you're a tenth level wizard and you want to make a teleport scroll. Since the beginning of the game, you've made 10 1st level scrolls, 8 2nd level, 6 3rd level, 4 4th level, and 2 5th level scrolls, all at minimum caster level for that level. Total xp cost for making 30 scrolls: 350xp. You need to get 10,000xp to get to 11th level. The xp cost might SEEM to be painful at the time, but 350 is not an extra monster at that level. And that's for a LOT of back-up spells.

Things change if you want to start smithing tons of cool, high-level items, but even then the cost is'nt beyond horrible, especially if the choice is between making it and not having it at all (which is not generally the case, but sometimes it is).

An int+6 item costs you either 36,000gp to buy (if the DM allows you to buy it) or 18,000 and 1,440xp. 18,000gp at 10th level is serious money: if you made your int+6 item, you'd have enough to also buy an amulet of health +4 and have 2,000gp left over. So would you rather level one or two fights later and have an extra 20hp or would you rather risk the fighting with less hit points? It's not a no-brainer either way.

 

[Ourph]

Let the rest of the party handle the damage dealing eh?

Not really. A single wand of Lightning Bolt or Fireball makes the 5th level Wizard the damage dealing champ of the party. When I play a Wizard my spell slots tend to go for self-buffs, avoidance, defense and contingency-plan spells and I use disposable items and low-level spells for damage.

Of course, I'm actually willing to tuck my tail between my legs and run so that I can return (with more appropriate spell selection) to finish the fight another day. Many groups look down on the style of play, so the Wizards tend to get squished.

I bet most of the 'wizards are too uber' people had games which allowed more than just the PHB spell list.

Sorry, no. The spell list in the SRD contains some of the best options for survival-focused Wizards in the game. Yeah, the splat books contain some pretty good offensive choices. But when it comes to avoiding the "squishy" stereotype for Wizards, the PHB is where it's at.