What would you say is the biggest problem with Wizards, Clerics, Druids, and other "Tier 1" Spellcasters?

[Hussar]

The whole time pressure thing is so much bokum. It really doesn't work.

Take a standard 3e adventure with enough encounters to advance the group 1 level. You're looking at about 10-15 encounters. Note, several of these encounters will be non-combat, so, the actual number of combat encounters is likely closer to 8-10.

Now, a standard speed group should be doing 4 combat encounters (or so) per day. Meaning they should finish off the adventure in about 3 game days. Ok, fine. That's the fastest.

An especially slow group, with only one combat encounter per day, still finishes the adventure in 10 days. That means there's only seven days between the absolute fastest and absolute slowest groups. The vast majority of groups will fall somewhere in between. After all, the fast group could get held up after a bit of bad luck and only do two encounters one day. It's very unlikely they'll do more than 5 or 6 in a given day unless the encounters are very, very easy.

So, over the course of 20 levels, you're still only talking a difference of about 150 days, tops. Five months over TWENTY levels. It's a pretty rare campaign where that's going to make that much of a difference. Travel time will likely be far more than a few months over twenty levels. Never minding down time which is pretty reasonable.

I mean, is it really unreasonable to have a week or two of down time per level? Really? Because that's all it takes for the casters to get their mojo going - about one week of down time per level. They can either craft or buy their way out of Vancian limitations.

Unless people play the D&D version of 24, you are going to have down time.

 

[stevelabny]

I think most of the answers have already been given but I'll answer anyway.

1> Magic shops / the Economy : Just because an item has a price, doesn't mean a player can buy it whenever they want. Magic shops should pretty much not exist, and even if the setting calls for them, it should put limits on powerful items. And the D&D economy just simply cannot be used as a "rule". The DM must override it when necessary because it makes absolutely 0 sense from peasants and meals all the way up through artifacts. Which means you also have to consider...

2> Crafting : I personally don't "get" people who like to play crafters. And I have never seen anything other than scribe scroll used in game. BUT I acknowledge its could be a problem in the rules as written IF you give PCs unlimited time for crafting. If players have crafting feats, then the DM has to be careful about how much time he allows and what effects spending that time to craft has on the game world.

3> Not building characters from the ground up: This is something I always bring up when people complain about Rope Trick. When building a character from 1st level, no wizard would ever take Rope Trick. You want other more useful spells at low level, and by the time you get to higher levels there are better spells to choose from. When characters get created at high levels all sorts of wonky stuff happens that would not have happened in normal play.

4> Control over treasure including spells: A wizard only gets to choose 2 of their own spells per level, if there is a spell a DM doesn't like or is part of a busted combo.. If the player doesn't select it as one of his 2 choices..the DM needs to make sure enemy casters don't have it in their spellbooks or leave scrolls of it lying around.

5> Two hands. You have two hands. : I see a lot of players talking about having potions, scrolls, wands etc for every occasion. And somehow they're always available when needed. NO. You get an item for your left hand/sheathe, an item for your right hand/sheathe, an item strapped to your back, 2 or 3 items attached to your belt or lower leg etc, And MAYBE a fancy bandolier thing that can hold a few items. Everything else is in your backpack, good luck searching through it in the middle of combat. Or going back to your pack mule. BUT all the "exposed" items need to remember...

6> Item saves. Potions/Scrolls on your belt? Don't forget that if you roll a 1 on your save, they have to make a save too. Yes, stealing or setting fire to a player's backpack or spellbook isn't something you can do repeatedly, but at least once during a campaign? Sure. And I really hope everybody takes precautions if they're going underwater. Remind players of these things and you'll see how quickly they stop carrying around a ton of magic items "just in case."

7> Monster skills. Any spell (or ability) that forces a monster skill check is over-powered against monsters as written. Unless the DM is slapping some class-levels on them, or re-statting them, they simply do not have enough skills.

7> The CR/EL system is a guideline and levelling speed is way too fast: A group of 4 wizards, a group of 4 rogues, a group of 4 fighters, a group of 4 clerics and a "standard" mixed group will have 5 completely different outcomes against encounters of the same level. An EL 7 fight against undead will be completely different for clerics and rogues. And the same is true with a mixed group with different feats and spell selections. Tailor encounters to your party's strengths and/or weaknesses. You might feel the need to bump up XP for this, but it doesn't matter. The XP system is just as bad as the CR/EL system and the economy. As just pointed out, leveling in 3-10 days is just embarrassing.

8> Divine casters get every spell: If I would house rule ONE thing, it would be this.

9> five minute workday: Can't be allowed regularly. Other players have to police it. DM's have to police it. Attempting a mission but stop to rest and recover spells? Sorry, now the hostage is dead, the trail's gone cold, the ritual is complete and the bigger evil is here, reinforcements have come, etc etc. Sure, there are times where it is a good idea, and times when PCs can get away with it with no negative effects. But the PCs should not always be able to determine exactly when its safe and when its not.


10> Misconceptions, misunderstood rules and theorycraft : Too many people have read rules and not played, or heard of broken/over-powered things on the internet and assumed they're true. I'll use Grease as an example for this... almost every single person who says this spell is overpowered thinks that being prone means you are vulnerable to sneak attacks and this is simply not true. But it has persisted for 10 years.

11> DMs are too nice to casters : I'll throw in the loss of spell drawbacks here. If haste aged players, it wouldn't be cast constantly. But for the most part, the general feeling of the player base is that if the DM steals spellbooks, or has all the bad guys target the wizard, or constantly has enemies use counterspells or ready to attack the caster, or has big bads who scry and attack party weaknesses, or use tremorsense against invisibles or flying minions against flyers, or anything else that specifically screws with players - the DM is a bad, lazy DM who is playing to "win" instead of telling a story. And this community think has infected DMs who have mostly become too scared to play hardball.

12> Poor play. If a caster is taking the time to make a few spells from his spell list, they're probably more beneficial in the hands of a rogue with Use Magic Device than in the hands of the wizard, in the same way that healing potions are better in the hands of party members other than the cleric. But modern players have decided that specializing is better than versatility and that buffing up one party member is better than splitting buffs, and pretty much let the casters run the show.

13> And most importantly, a wizard can't do EVERYTHING. If the wizard has a bunch of 5 minute workday workarounds like teleport x2 or rope trick or whatever, or if he has a bunch of defensive spells like invisibility, fly, stoneskin, etc or he has a bunch of utility spells to shame other party members... he can't also have an unlimited amount of offensive spells that exploit every possible enemy weakness.

This goes back to the theory and the 5MWD and the two hands and possibly every other rule, but no matter how many spells a caster has per day, there is no way they are able to handle everything over multiple encounters.

 

[pemerton]

stealing or setting fire to a player's backpack or spellbook isn't something you can do repeatedly, but at least once during a campaign? Sure. And I really hope everybody takes precautions if they're going underwater. Remind players of these things and you'll see how quickly they stop carrying around a ton of magic items "just in case."

<snip>

the general feeling of the player base is that if the DM steals spellbooks, or has all the bad guys target the wizard, or constantly has enemies use counterspells or ready to attack the caster, or has big bads who scry and attack party weaknesses, or use tremorsense against invisibles or flying minions against flyers, or anything else that specifically screws with players - the DM is a bad, lazy DM who is playing to "win" instead of telling a story.

For the same sorts of reasons as were mentioned upthread in relation to expensive components, I'm not a big fan of this approach to "balancing" casters.

It's fine in an old-style AD&D "stable of characters" game, where if my main magic-user suffers spellbook destruction I just pull out my cleric or my fighter while the MU spends the game time and gold required to rewrite a spellbook. But it sucks in a single-PC-as-the-locus-of-player-protagonism game.

There's nothing wrong with adversity, but in a game that focuses on the GM putting adversity in front of the PCs it should (in myview) be happening to all of them, not just the casters, and it shouldn't be done in a way that, in effect, precludes a player from engaging meaningfully with the gameworld via his/her chosen PC.

Attempting a mission but stop to rest and recover spells? Sorry, now the hostage is dead, the trail's gone cold, the ritual is complete and the bigger evil is here, reinforcements have come, etc etc. Sure, there are times where it is a good idea, and times when PCs can get away with it with no negative effects. But the PCs should not always be able to determine exactly when its safe and when its not.

As I posted upthread, the issue with this is it doesn't speak to the players and the game context.

So the trail's gone cold. What happens now in the game? Does everyone pack up and go home? Does the campaign end and we roll up new PCs? In general, the GM is going to have to put something interesting in front of the PCs, and so the players will still have a game to play.

Of course there are ways of framing the ingame situation so that the players will care enough about the hostages that they will make less than fully mechancially optimal choices for their PCs in order to make it possible for their PCs to stage a rescue, but in this case the game has to be forgiving enough that it's not a suicide mission.

So timelines on their own are not enough (not to mention [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s analysis in his post upthread). You also have to look at how the resource aspect of the game works, and how the game relates ingame events and the passage of time to the motivations of the players (not the PCs) as they sit around the table and make choices for their PCs.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

One thing to note about the slew of magical items: The Handy Haversack. Using it is a move action that doesn't provoke AoOs and what you need is always on top.

Which leads a bit into another point: Some of the perceived problems are quality of life changes since D&D is primarily a game meant for enjoyment. Getting rid of the aging from Haste, for example, was a quality of life change because having such a drawback tends to detract from enjoying the game.

Another thing to look at is the fact that 3.X is a different game from 1 or 2 in both audience and execution. Things that may have been thought of as okay before suddenly become quite different when looked at from the more simulationist/wargame view that has all sorts of numbers flying around and such. In short, one has to factor in the audience and their experiences too.

 

[delericho]

Though I see some issues with certain spells take magic missile would you start t at first level with only one missile or with three?

One missile, doing 1d6 + Int (or Cha) mod damage.

However, what I would really envisage is something like Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, where each spell presented a Heightened (and Diminished) version in the spell text. So, you can get two (or three) missiles if you want - just prepare it as a 2nd level spell.

I like the idea of fireball or lighting bolt spells like that damage staying static . But I think certain spells that have rays or blots should go up. Otherwise they will either be to powerful for lower levels or totally useless at higher levels.

Doesn't work. If some spells increase with level and some do not, you might as well just remove the ones that do not - they're obselete before they've even been published.

Even as things stand, the optimisers have identified that some spells do 1dX plus the caster's level, while others do a number of dice depending on level - and that spells in that first category aren't worth taking.

I am not sure I like the idea of having to trade out a spell for the use of a scroll. There have been far to many times that having a scroll helped save the day when the cleric or wizard were out of spells.

Part of my fix was to give casters more spells at low level, which should reduce the likelihood of this. But if the caster truly is out of spells then they really should suffer - that's the trade-off for those spells being awesome.

(Oh, one other thing - amongst the various metamagic options, I would suggest options to prepare a spell for use on an At-Will or Per-Encounter basis. So, if the player of the Wizard really doesn't want to risk running out of spells he has that option - with the trade-off that he would have to stick to weaker spells.)

I think it would be better to make scrolls cost a lot more and make them rarer.

The problem here is that, as Hussar pointed out to me on another thread, beyond very low levels scrolls represent an entirely trivial expenditure - using WbL, a mid-level Wizard can easily afford about 100 low-level scrolls, effectively bypassing Vancian casting (and, in the process, effectively rendering the Rogue's skills useless).

So if we're going to fix the issue by "making scrolls cost a lot more", that actually means multiplying the cost by a factor of at least 10.

(Incidentally, the rarity isn't a problem. In general, allowing the Wizard to use any spell once isn't a problem (even if it's a much higher-level spell than he could normally cast). The problem comes about when the Wizard can craft/buy multiple uses of spells.)

Some of these I agree with but some I don't. For example making a mage have to go to base camp or back to their library makes running certain style adventures impossible. We have spent weeks in a dungeon or out on the road traveling. Your way makes the mage not only weak but takes all the fun out of play. You could end up having the mage doing nothing but firing crossbolts for several sessions.

Agreed.

I don't think it is over powered to allow wizards to learn two spells every time they level get rid of the bonus spells and control how many spells they can cast a day is a better control. There is nothing wrong with a wizard eventually knowing a lot of spells as log as they are limited on how many they can cast in a day.

And agreed.

I do agree that druids and clerics should not know every spell that always seemed broken to me they should have to pick what they know along the lines of a sorcerer.

Agreed, except for the very last. I would actually present an option of three different casting mechanics: Prepared (like the Wizard), Spontaneous (like the Sorcerer), or Mana-based (or whatever; works like the Psion). The first time a character takes a caster class he chooses one of these options.

In each case, the caster trades off long-term flexibility (max spells known) against short-term. That is, the Wizard can know many spells, but only prepare a few per day (with no substitutions later); the Psion knows very few, but can cast them in any order provided he has the power points available. (The Sorcerer, of course, lies somewhere in the middle.)

But I agree - no caster should simply know all the spells for his class. That made sense in BD&D, and perhaps even in 1st Ed, when there were only a handful of spells; when there are hundreds of spells at each level it's pretty crazy. (Plus, that immediately gets rid of the whole "all Clerics look the same" problem.)

 

[stevelabny]

It's fine in an old-style AD&D "stable of characters" game, where if my main magic-user suffers spellbook destruction I just pull out my cleric or my fighter while the MU spends the game time and gold required to rewrite a spellbook. But it sucks in a single-PC-as-the-locus-of-player-protagonism game.

Sure, but you never make it single-PC. If you go after backpacks/unattended items, you do it for the whole party. If you require item saves, you do it for the whole party. If you attempt to sunder a fighter's sword (which happens occasionally)...you attempt to sunder a wizard's wand (which somehow never happens). If you steal a spellbook, you steal other important items... IIRC both versions of the Samurai from splat books also have item-dependent class abilities, thieves need theives' tools. etc. Obviously, you rotate the spotlight characters in every case.

Each encounter should have highlight different strengths and weaknesses of different characters so everyone gets a chance to shine and a chance to stumble. Using golems to annoy wizards is no different than using undead to annoy rogues.

Using anti-wizard tactics in combat, is no different than using heat metal on a guy in armor, or logically targeting someone's weak saves.

One thing to note about the slew of magical items: The Handy Haversack. Using it is a move action that doesn't provoke AoOs and what you need is always on top.

See, items like this are great when you have players who aren't min-maxing loophole exploiters and you're just trying to make the game flow smoother.

But in a game where you are suffering from a "caster domination problem" ? The idea that the entire party is carrying one of these things around is cheesier than wisconsin. And the only way it should ever happen is if a DM has allowed one his PCs to play a crafter. Other than that, its totally within the DMs abilities to not make them available.

Not every gaming group is created equal. A DM has to be able to recognize what he's dealing with and plan accordingly.

 

[delericho]

See, items like this are great when you have players who aren't min-maxing loophole exploiters and you're just trying to make the game flow smoother.

This is actually quite an important point. For a long time, the received wisdom was that characters had to have gear (and the right gear) in order to remain 'competitive'. Indeed, even Andy Collins believed that this was the case - he refers to it in his "Design & Development" articles about the "Magic Item Compendium".

However, the first chapter of "Trailblazer" actually analyses this 'fact' in some detail, and finds that (in the core at least), this is simply not the case. In fact, the core of 3.5e is balanced on the assumption that characters won't have access to particular items.

(Note that this only applies to the core. As the edition went on, there was something of an arms race between monster books and player books - if you throw an MM5 monster against a Core Rules only party, you need to consider the CR a few points higher than MM5 says.)

Disallow item crafting and purchase, and use the random treasure tables from the DMG, and suddenly the balance of the game changes quite dramatically.

Now, that said...

It's really not terribly good design to assume that characters won't have optimised items and then also include as a standard part of the game two easy mechanisms for characters to acquire those same optimised items.

The 'quick fix' for 3e would be to remove Item Crafting and also the ability to buy items from the game. (Oh, and use the random tables for treasure placement.) But doing so is quite likely to meet with significant resistance from players.

A better fix, albeit one that requires much more work, would be to fix the magic items so that they don't cause problems.

 

[Bluenose]

Disallow item crafting and purchase, and use the random treasure tables from the DMG, and suddenly the balance of the game changes quite dramatically.

In favour of the spell-casters. Dependence on them when non-casters have no reliable way to get magic items to let them fly is even more absolute, and saving throws fall even further behind Save DCs without magic items to give save bonuses.

 

[delericho]

In favour of the spell-casters. Dependence on them when non-casters have no reliable way to get magic items to let them fly is even more absolute, and saving throws fall even further behind Save DCs without magic items to give save bonuses.

Actually, it's not quite as clear-cut as you might think. Firstly because the random treasure tables favour items for non-casters (as they always have). Secondly, because the casters are now no longer able to use scrolls to bypass Vancian casting, meaning that every spell they cast is now traded-off against some other spell.

But still, I'm not claiming that this is an absolute fix. As I've noted upthread, the problems with primary casters go considerably deeper than can be solved with a simple, crude patch to the system.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If you attempt to sunder a fighter's sword (which happens occasionally)...you attempt to sunder a wizard's wand (which somehow never happens).

If you're attempting to sunder the fighter's sword that's a serious problem for the fighter. If you're in melee with a wizard you normally attempt to sunder the wizard. Sundering the wizard's wand keeps the wizard alive another round.

Each encounter should have highlight different strengths and weaknesses of different characters so everyone gets a chance to shine and a chance to stumble. Using golems to annoy wizards is no different than using undead to annoy rogues.

Um... yes it is. Wizards laugh at 3.5 golems; practically the entire conjuration school ignores magic resistance and magic immunity. This is the big problem - the answer to magic resistance is ... More Magic. On the other hand the weird idea you can't knock a zombie's head off utterly nerfs rogues.

Using anti-wizard tactics in combat, is no different than using heat metal on a guy in armor, or logically targeting someone's weak saves.

Agreed. On the other hand a lot of DMs don't like killing PCs - and the purpose of anti-wizard tactics is to kill fast. Being killed in the surprise round is a negative play experience (which is a huge advantage of 4e hit points).

But in a game where you are suffering from a "caster domination problem" ? The idea that the entire party is carrying one of these things around is cheesier than wisconsin.

The idea that the PCs should deliberately not buy items that make their lives easier, and all buy the useful little ones like the Handy Haversack if they are available is IMO metagaming.

"Why are you not wearing this hiking rucksack that weighs nothing, sorts everything in it, and keeps it all safe. It's not as if it's expensive."
"Because it would be cheesy."

Right.

And the only way it should ever happen is if a DM has allowed one his PCs to play a crafter. Other than that, its totally within the DMs abilities to not make them available.

Believe it or not, a lot of DMs like to say "Yes" to their players most of the time. It's a principle of improv drama and of a lot of modern game design and makes the whole session flow better in most styles. (If you're playing a WFRP style crapsack world, things are different). The default assumption should be that unless the player is trying to blatantly violate the spirit of the rules (which they aren't), the DM should be able to say yes (or roll the dice) to the player doing anything within the rules and only start to worry when the PCs step outside the scope of the rules.

Not every gaming group is created equal. A DM has to be able to recognize what he's dealing with and plan accordingly.

And what he's dealing with in this case is sub-standard game design. The appropriate plan for that is to put the book back on the shelf.

The whole time pressure thing is so much bokum. It really doesn't work.

...

Unless people play the D&D version of 24, you are going to have down time.

Pretty much this. And 24 is an extremely narrow playstyle.

Doesn't work. If some spells increase with level and some do not, you might as well just remove the ones that do not - they're obselete before they've even been published.

That depends. Damage needs to scale because monsters scale. Creation effects or illusions don't. Invisibility is only ever going to become obselete when monsters routinely have See Invisible, Tremorsense, or the rest.

The problem here is that, as Hussar pointed out to me on another thread, beyond very low levels scrolls represent an entirely trivial expenditure - using WbL, a mid-level Wizard can easily afford about 100 low-level scrolls, effectively bypassing Vancian casting (and, in the process, effectively rendering the Rogue's skills useless).

So if we're going to fix the issue by "making scrolls cost a lot more", that actually means multiplying the cost by a factor of at least 10.

Very much this

The important numbers to remember are 25GP for a level 1 scroll, 150GP for a level 2 scroll, 750GP for a level 1 wand, and 3000GP for a level 2 wand. These are the important numbers. For comparison, masterwork sword is 300GP and change (or the price of 12 level 1 scrolls) and masterwork armour is in excess of 150GP.

Level 2 WBL in 3.5 is 900GP (Pathfinder is about 10% higher than 3.X) and the wizard doesn't have to waste money on armour or a sword (rememeber that they are ultimately expendible as they will be upgraded. Assume the wizard wants to be ridiculously prepared; 20 scrolls (which is two per encounter the wizard should meet at that level). 500GP if shop-bought. And it cost the wizard less than the fighter's masterwork breastplate and two handed sword. The wizard has enough scrolls to burn two per encounter in addition to normal spellcasting. (Which they probably won't).

In fact:

Level 3: 2700 GP = 18 level 2 scrolls
Level 5: 9000 GP = 24 level 3 scrolls
Level 7: 19,000 GP = 27 level 4 scrolls
Level 9: 36,000 GP = 36 level 5 scrolls
Level 11: 66,000 GP = 40 level 6 scrolls
Level 13: 110,000 GP = 48 level 7 scrolls
Level 15: 200,000 GP = 66 level 8 scrolls
Level 17: 340,000 GP = 88 level 9 scrolls

OK, so it's not that simple. Your money only increases by somewhere between a third and a half at each level. But remember I'm only looking at the value of top level spells in the calculation above. 100 1st level scrolls costs 2500 GP and a wand each of knock and invisibility (making the thief fume for about half a dozen levels) costs 6000 GP.

(Incidentally, the rarity isn't a problem. In general, allowing the Wizard to use any spell once isn't a problem (even if it's a much higher-level spell than he could normally cast). The problem comes about when the Wizard can craft/buy multiple uses of spells.)

Or they go for full spectrum dominance. But yes. Assume the wizard who expects to expend one top level scroll plus a handfull of chaff per encounter. And that in addition to their three top level spells per day. 10 encounters per level. This gets ugly.

But I agree - no caster should simply know all the spells for his class.

No caster with a growing spell list. I have no problem with the War Wizards and Healers of this world as classes.