Casters vs Mundanes in your experience

[Neonchameleon]

No, I'm sorry, that's just role-playing justification for power-gaming. Which is fine if that's what you want to do. But if you're playing the same character over and over, and you're bored with it, stop blaming the game system for forcing you to.

The game system is no more forcing me to do that than it's forcing my rogue not to bounce around on a pogo stick or wear plate armour that my rogue is not proficient in. It is, however, strongly encouraging my rogues and wizards to play in certain ways because those ways are just more efficient.

There is never going to be a game system where every option is perfectly balanced against every other. When a game has been over-analyzed to death the way 3x has, people are going to find optimal strategies. But D&D is not chess. You can play whatever strategy you like.

Of course there isn't going to be a game system where every option is perfectly balanced against every other. This doesn't mean that it isn't a goal to aim for.

And as I have said, you can play any strategy you like as long as you don't care in character whether you live or die. If you do care then looking for good strategies is simply playing smart. And wizards are smart.

And as an additional note - there is no form of role-playing that transcends your ability as the human player to make a choice. I've seen many players justify anything from productive-but-rigid behavior, like your spell preferences, to destructive-and-hostile behavior, like party-killing, because "that's what my character would do." Sorry, but you chose to play that character that way.

I have set you a challenge. Give me a set of character justifications taht would lead to caring little enough about living or dying that I won't be looking for powerful spells. It's not a case of "That's what my character would do" so much as "That's the best way to survive. And people who don't care about survival are ... unusual." (I've had a paladin who'se life's ambition was to go to Valhalla fighting an overwhelming foe. He succeeded.)

But there is a vast difference between the excuse "That's my character" and "Unless I have specific abnormal motivations, this is the sensible thing to do".

The three that spring to mind are "deathwish" like my paladin, "arrogant jackass" who is so overconfident that he's giving the monsters a chance, and "fanatic" who cares more about how the dark lord is stopped than whether the dark lord is stopped.

Now I can play all those. But restricting me to such a narrow range of character options is ... weird. Are wizards meant to have the same level of RP restrictions as Paladins? If they are then why isn't this written in the rulebook. And if they aren't then isn't it a shame that in practice they do.

If a game isn't fun for you because you've "solved" it, like the guys who solved Connect 4, then you don't have to play. But that's not the game's fault.

No. It's the designers fault for coming up with an unbalanced system and then failing to patch it when it became screamingly obvious that the system was unbalanced. Also those same designers who have made it almost impossible for Spike to play happily alongside Johnny and Timmy. And a good Melvin (as I believe I am) will veer between Timmy, Johnny and Spike. The wizard is set up for Spike-play so a Melvin will normally play a wizard as a Spike even if they are quite happy playing a beguiler or bard in a much more Johnny style. Or a sorceror or barbarian as a Timmy would.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Funny I'd think that a wizard with no spells(or scrolls) would be just as 100% dead.

Any character that loses hit points is in trouble, and fighters and wizards can't get hps back by themselves. But each could have a cleric buddy or just potions.

And can a wizard really be a walking library of scrolls? Do they have the time and money and xp to do that like twice a week? Or are they going to Scroll Mart and getting the scrolls BOGO free?

Again this comes back to another side of the '15 minute day' problem, where the wizard can scribe 'a dozen or more scrolls' in a day that gets condensed in to one hour.(''He guys I need to make some scrolls, lets just say we hang out in town for two weeks, ok?'')

And I won't bother with the 'target the scrolls', as I know most DMs ''don't think that is fair'' and it's like targeting the spellbook or component pouch.

What? A scroll, like any other magic item, takes a minimum of one day to create. And is created at half the GP cost of one to buy. But to put things into perspective, scrolls are dirt cheap.

A level 1 scroll costs 25GP and level 2 150GP. A +1 sword costs 2300GP and +2 8300. You can buy half a library of level 1 and 2 scrolls for the cost of a low level magic weapon. Literally 50 L1 scrolls and a further 7 L2 for a single +1 weapon.

And as for wands, a level 1 wand costs 750gp and level 2 4500 gp - which means you can make it for half that and a work week. You're telling me that the PCs literally get attacked every day - all the time you need for a L1 wand?

As for scroll mart, if you use the worldbuilding advice in the DMG then yes. Scrolls are under the cost-cap for most places because they are so cheap.

 

[Elf Witch]

It seems that some people are saying that yes, there are broken wizard options. But since you can choose not to employ them, it isn't a problem.

My opinion is that broken options are broken even if you aren't currently taking advantage of them. We should be able to have a system with a minimum of broken options (none being the goal) so that we can stop having this conversation, and instead talk about all the cool but not overpowered character concepts we are able to play.

There are also broken options for other classes as well take a look at Planar Shepard. There is a build based on small character using a dagger that has exploding die. There is one with a fighter that lets you start critting on an 9 and lets you every time you hit you get to add two more hits add this to the extra attacks a fighter gets and you are looking at some really high levels of damage.

I agree broken options are broken and I would like to see less broken options in the new game.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I have set you a challenge. Give me a set of character justifications taht would lead to caring little enough about living or dying that I won't be looking for powerful spells. It's not a case of "That's what my character would do" so much as "That's the best way to survive. And people who don't care about survival are ... unusual."

Easy. "I apprenticed with the only wizard in my home town, and as a result my barred school is Conjuration." What you're saying is more analagous to saying that AD&D forced you to play rangers and paladins because they were more powerful classes than fighters.

One more time, I will repeat my original point - I think playing a single, narrow set of options because they are the most powerful option available is BORING. Not wrong, not a design issue - BORING.

I don't know what your habits are, but your choices remind me of the people who spend all their time on the char-ops boards looking for the most powerful builds. Which, to my tastes, has been to the detriment of the hobby.

Since you keep referring to MTG articles - what you are describing is the mentality of the player who has to play, say, only blue/white control decks in every single game, even outside of tournaments, because that's "the strongest option". And then you blame the game designers when the game is boring and repetitive.

Maybe, just maybe, some people don't think wizards and clerics are broken because they and their players didn't set out to break them.

 

[Elf Witch]

I like magic users too. The problem isn't the idea of magic users. It's the 2e and 3e Wizard. And Druid. And Cleric. (Arguably also the Artificer). The ones who have pretty much free reign on which spells from the huge spell list they prepare. It is not a coincidence that these are all tier 1 classes.



I don't understand why going into Vietnam you'd arm every GI with a gun. That has to be boring. Why don't you arm some of them with bows?

And I don't pick certain spells for every caster. I prefer bards or beguilers to wizards. Because if a bard is preparing for a fight they don't get to rifle through a list of overpowered spells.



And this has what to do with the price of oil in Nantucket market? You noticed that on my default spell load out above there were only six direct combat spells? Six spells out of seventeen non-cantrips, or approximately a third. The attitude isn't about being uber powerful in combat - that would involve all spells being combat spells. It's about being good at combat if you need to fight at all. It's enough to go two fights with your mageslayers and pull their weight in two more fights with relatively miserly spell use. The fighters can do the actual killing.



Objection: Oxymoron. This is part of the problem. Blaster style casters took a serious nerf between 2e and 3e - hit points and weapon damage inflated. Blast damage did not. So blasters took a de facto serious nerf.



This is sounding close to the caster I outlined.

A default loadout expecting some trouble (but not actively dungeoncrawling) at level 7 would probably include two Evard's, two Stinking Clouds, and two Glitterdusts. This would leave me with room for Greater Invisibility at level 4, Fly and Haste at level 3, and Invisibility, Detect Thoughts, and Rope Trick at level 2. Plus my level 1 spells (probably Change Self, Alarm, Enlarge Person, Silent Image, and either Unseen Servant or Mage Armour depending whether I'm wearing a Mithral Twilight Chain Shirt or not).
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That's just it. You as a wizard pretty much can end the fights and do everything else. If you do not have decent combat spells as a wizard then that is a personal in character choice. It is explicitely saying "I'm going to be risking my life but am purposely not going to prepare for that."



I read things very differently from you there. What I read isn't that mundane characters are weaker than casters in myths and legends, but that protagonists always look weaker than the BBEG - whether or not the protagonists or the casters were mages.

If Odysseus was weaker than Circe then we absolutely can assume that Odysseus was of a lower level than Circe. Because that is what level measures. Power of a character.

The NPCs on the other hand have to look more powerful than the protagonists because that is needed to create tension. Whether they do it through being stronger, through magic, or through political power and/or arnies doesn't matter.

So instead of pulling them down a tier how about raising the the others up. That is another thing I would like to burn in a fire along with sup optimal and system mastery is the tier things that has made so many people go see see the casters are tier 1 which means they walk all over and make all the classes unnecessary to the game.

Which they don't because as I have said over and over again if this was true no one would play anything else but a caster. Unless you are claiming that everyone who plays mundanes just accept being nothing more than a henchman.

Because Vietnam is real life not a game I am not really going to die or be serious disabled in if my character is not totally optimized for winning in combat.

Make up your mind either now you are saying blaster mages are not powerful because they got nerfed and yet wizards have over powered spells. Blaster mages are very good at dealing out damage to numbers in combat. I have heard so many complaints about this too. That the wizard cast fireball and there is nothing left for the rest of the party to do.

It is obvious you don't like magic being powerful you prefer a system where magic is on the level of bardic type which is fine for you.

But just because you don't like the other end of this where wizards do become powerful that does not mean that wizards do everything and don't need anyone else nor does it mean that the other classes can't contribute and be of equal importance to the party.

 

[Elf Witch]

But, yes they are. I'm being told, that I shouldn't pick certain options. That I should pick options based on different criteria. That it's a bad thing to always pick the most powerful option.

My point is, there should never BE a "most powerful option".

No one is saying that. What I see being said that picking the most powerful combat option is not the only way to build an effective caster or any character for that matter.

There will always be a more powerful option. I don't play 4E but I have been told that there are more powerful options even if that more closely balanced system.

 

[Neonchameleon]

There are also broken options for other classes as well take a look at Planar Shepard.

Or core RAW druid. Planar Shepard is notable for being the only Druid prestige class to be stronger than straight druid.

There is a build based on small character using a dagger that has exploding die.

Exploding dn average:
Damage = 1/n(1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n-1 + (n + Damage))
Damage = 1/n (Sum(1...n)) + 1/n(Damage)
((n-1)/n)Damage = 1/n(Sum(1...n))
Damage = (1/(n-1)) * Sum(1...n)
Damage = (1/(n-1)))* 0.5 * n * (n+1)
Damage = n/2 *(n+1)/(n-1)

Which unless you're upgrading from d2 to d3 means that a higher dice is always better (or unless you're rolling d1).

Solving average damages:
D2: 3
D3: 3
d4: 3 1/3
d6: 4 1/5
d8: 5 1/7
d10: 6 1/9
d12: 7 1/11

Yes, it's fairly flat for small characters. But big ones still do more damage.

There is one with a fighter that lets you start critting on an 9 and lets you every time you hit you get to add two more hits add this to the extra attacks a fighter gets and you are looking at some really high levels of damage.

I agree broken options are broken and I would like to see less broken options in the new game.

The problem is the "broken" options I'm complaining about aren't combos and they aren't splatbooks. They are core options used in the obvious ways. I'm not talking about Bard 4/Barbarian 1/Ur-priest 4/Nar Demonbinder 1/Mystic Theurge 10 with a caster level way over 50. I'm talking about a wizard picking spells from the PHB. Is that broken or baseline?

 

[Elf Witch]

You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension. Your misapprehension is that my wizard is playing a game. I am playing a game. My Wizard is not. He is fighting for survival in a world with the darkest power. If my wizard was playing even The Most Dangerous Game then there would be an excuse for him to be risking his life and the lives of his friends, and even his world by not trying to win. And one of the ways a wizard tries to win is by picking the best spells.

If you want me to treat D&D as a roleplaying game (as I do), kindly explain to me the psychology of someone who believes himself, those he cares about, and often the very existance of his world to be threatened - and then does not do his best to win. Because in order to follow your advice and then play a wizard, that is what I must do. Stunlocking may be boring - but isn't as boring as literally being dead. Which is what you are asking my wizard to risk. I suppose the end of the world might be exciting if you like that sort of thing.

(And before you say that my wizard doesn't have the knowledge I do, I disagree. The 3.5 rules have been out for not even ten years. Wizards have been around in the gameworld for thousands, normally. Wizards are also generally very smart and very knowledgeable.)

And for Spike to overwhelm Johnny, as Vyvian Bastard implies, is a simple matter of bad game design. If Johnny can not keep within touching distance of Spike then the game is pushing you towards playing Spike at the expense of Johnny. Because the in character alternatives are Spiking and seriously risking dying. And spell selection is an in character choice.

I guess if all you ever do is have combat intense games where that is all that matters then yeah you need the most powerful combat spells.

But a lot of us don't play the game that way. There are so many other aspects of the game political intrigue, mysteries, puzzles, exploration. So you need a variety of skill sets to deal with that.

A well equipped party with good tactics can do well in combat and beat the bad guys without having to have the most powerful spells.

My support sorcerer did not have powerful combat spells but her ability to magical scout and know where ambushes were being laid or just where the monsters were made a huge difference to the outcome of the encounter. Sometimes we were able to circumvent combat completely by sneaking around or coming from a different direction. Especially if the goal was not to kill monsters but retrieve an item.

Again if you feel that the only way to play is that everyone have the most combat powerful options fine but not everyone plays this way.

 

[Elf Witch]

Or core RAW druid. Planar Shepard is notable for being the only Druid prestige class to be stronger than straight druid.



Exploding dn average:
Damage = 1/n(1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n-1 + (n + Damage))
Damage = 1/n (Sum(1...n)) + 1/n(Damage)
((n-1)/n)Damage = 1/n(Sum(1...n))
Damage = (1/(n-1)) * Sum(1...n)
Damage = (1/(n-1)))* 0.5 * n * (n+1)
Damage = n/2 *(n+1)/(n-1)

Which unless you're upgrading from d2 to d3 means that a higher dice is always better (or unless you're rolling d1).

Solving average damages:
D2: 3
D3: 3
d4: 3 1/3
d6: 4 1/5
d8: 5 1/7
d10: 6 1/9
d12: 7 1/11

Yes, it's fairly flat for small characters. But big ones still do more damage.



The problem is the "broken" options I'm complaining about aren't combos and they aren't splatbooks. They are core options used in the obvious ways. I'm not talking about Bard 4/Barbarian 1/Ur-priest 4/Nar Demonbinder 1/Mystic Theurge 10 with a caster level way over 50. I'm talking about a wizard picking spells from the PHB. Is that broken or baseline?

I am not going to continue debating this with you because at this point it has become futile. In your opinion certain classes are broken. So we get it you don't like how magic is done in 3E.

I hope that 5E gives you something more to your liking.

I don't happen to agree with you. As it seems others don't either at least 50 people here don't agree. I would rather deal with 1,2,3 E magic then what 4E did to it and the game.

My hope is that 5E does not totally listen to the supposed majority or the squeaky wheels and make magic mundane and weak.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Easy. "I apprenticed with the only wizard in my home town, and as a result my barred school is Conjuration."

That's attacking the symptoms, not the cause. What you need to provide is an RP reason to not take the most powerful spells you can get. Changing the spells you can get doesn't change the fundamental RP issue. Instead you just get a different set of spells that are the powerful ones - I already banned Transmutation for being the cheesiest school.

Since you keep referring to MTG articles - what you are describing is the mentality of the player who has to play, say, only blue/white control decks in every single game, even outside of tournaments, because that's "the strongest option". And then you blame the game designers when the game is boring and repetitive.

Maybe, just maybe, some people don't think wizards and clerics are broken because they and their players didn't set out to break them.

And for the umpteenth time, the Wizard himself should be setting out to break the class. Wizards and clerics are both wise and going to be risking their lives. Do you want to risk your life with third rate equipment, knowing that first rate equipment is no cheaper?

Because risking their life on third rate equipment is literally what you are asking non-spontaneous casters to do by eschewing powerful spells.

Getting the best tools for the job as a wizard is quite literally a matter of life and death. To a knowledgeable and high intelligence person who therefore has far more incentive to get it right than any MtG player ever has. If they know that getting things right is a matter of life then why are you telling them not to treat it as one?

What I want is for Johnny, Spike, Timmy, Melvin, Vorthos, and the rest to all be able to sit round the same table happily. I want as big a tent as possible. Vorthos dislikes 4e with good reason if he's just read the PHB. Spike meanwhile tramples all over 3.X and Melvin cringes because he can see exactly the fault lines.