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

[delericho]

That depends. Damage needs to scale because monsters scale.

I don't see a problem with saying a first level spell is almost completely useless against a high-level monster - by the time they're facing that monster, the Wizard will have considerably more powerful spells at his command anyway.

The thing is, the Fighter gains power on two axes (linear increases to BAB and hit points, plus access to feats); the Wizard gains power on three (they get more spells each level, they get higher level spells, and their existing spells become more powerful).

In order for those two to ever be balanced, either the Fighter needs to get a third axis for improvement (Expertise Dice, I guess), or the Wizard needs to lose on of the three. IMO, losing the "existing spells become more powerful" is probably the least painful thing to change. YMMV, of course.

<< snip a whole bunch of stuff I agree with >>

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

Fair point, and I don't really disagree, except for one thing...

I'm reasonably sure that the only reason the Warmage, Beguiler, and Dread Necromancer never got new spells added to their list was that WotC pulled the plug on the edition first. Had 3.5e continued another couple of years, I'm pretty sure they would have started getting new spells - that being an absolutely trivial way to increase the utility (and thus sales) of a new book.

For that reason, I'm inclined to consider every Caster class to have a growing spell list, at least in theory.

 

[delericho]

Another double post. Sorry.

 

[Hussar]

To me, the absolute biggest problem with casters is the spell list. Full stop. The fact that we've gone from about 10 spells per spell level in Expert D&D, to hundreds of spells per spell level is ridiculous. The bloat of spells is why there is this issue in 3e.

Imagine if you took the 3e casters - druid, cleric and wizard, and used the Expert D&D spell lists.

End of caster dominance problem. Done.

 

[billd91]

I don't see a problem with saying a first level spell is almost completely useless against a high-level monster - by the time they're facing that monster, the Wizard will have considerably more powerful spells at his command anyway.

The thing is, the Fighter gains power on two axes (linear increases to BAB and hit points, plus access to feats); the Wizard gains power on three (they get more spells each level, they get higher level spells, and their existing spells become more powerful).

In order for those two to ever be balanced, either the Fighter needs to get a third axis for improvement (Expertise Dice, I guess), or the Wizard needs to lose on of the three. IMO, losing the "existing spells become more powerful" is probably the least painful thing to change. YMMV, of course.

That is, in a nutshell, one of the 4e solutions. Damage was fixed with the level of the spell. If you wanted more damage, you used a more powerful spell - it's just that rather than having spells of all levels to select, 4e had you swapping out the spell completely as you advanced. I'm not sure that is the best or most favorable solution, though.

I'm not convinced that raising damage with spells automatically is a bad thing and not just because monster hit points rise. If a wizard is going to participate in the hit point attrition game, I don't see any real need to limit the weaker spells much. The martial characters get plenty of chances to participate. The problem is much more along the lines of the alternate track of spells - the ones bypassing the attrition game - being too good in 3e. I'd cut raise the target's saves/cut the save DC/whatever to make them easier to resist for full effect. And because constantly throwing save or die spells and having them resisted all the time would suck, I'd build in a first round-auto effect that has some modest teeth to it - like stunning the target, immobilizing it, dazing it, inflicting some damage, whatever fits the spell best. Far short of the "die" result of save or die, but useful to the resolution of the encounter as a whole.

The psionics system from 3.5 did have an interesting take on it. In order to get more damage out of the power, you had to burn more points. I think that does have a certain attractiveness to it. It would be similar to prepping the spell in a higher slot for more damage except that you get to do it on the fly. That splits the difference between using more powerful spells to do more damage and automatically increasing the damage spells do via caster level. It would necessitate moving to some sort of spell point system, though.

 

[N'raac]

There are limits to what can be done using these sorts of techniques.

First, the amount of time required to craft items is measured in days, not years. The PCs having no days off ever is as unverisimilitudinous as the world never moving on.

I'd rather a GM simply denied item crafting than allowed the players to waste feat slots on abilities the GM will render useless. However, if the Wizard can craft items, and has reasonable down time, he can craft them for the group as a whole, not for himself only. He's part of a team. How long does the Wizard last without other party members between him and the enemy?

Second, most D&D campaigns are set up so that the players can take their PCs on adventures. So if the GM shuts down one set of adventures due to the passage of ingame time (the bad guys move on, the dungeon reinforces itself to become impenetrable), how is the campaign going to progress? The GM will have to prepare another set of adventures, in which the players of the casters then get the benefit of their prepration.

A lot of this comes down to the social contract. In my games, at least, characters think like living beings. "One encounter, then rest for 23 hours, 55 minutes" is not the usual human approach. So, if the GM refuses to allow the 5 minute work day - there are time pressures, the hostage gets sacrificed and the Dark One summoned, the bad guys move on, the bad guys reinforce their position, a more proactive adventuring group gets the job done while these "heroes" are in hiding - this throws the question back on the players.

If the characters are not going to act on time sensitive issues in a timely manner, how is the campaign going to progress? It's not the GM acting in a vacuum that prevents the game progressing. It's the players' insistence on a five minute work day that prevents the game from progressing. The five minute work day exists only if the players and GM allow it to exist. Most game problems are best resolved by out of game agreement as to how the game is desired to play out.

But if the fellows climbing down the rope have had their 8 hours of rest, then they'll be coming down under cover of Protection from Normal Missiles, Mage Armour, Stoneskin etc. And as per my previous paragraph, this won't be a disadvantage for the players - they get to play out an encounter which their PCs probably win! Which is, for many, a big part of the point of playing the game.

And the villains now have the option of retreat. So what do the PC's do now? Wait for their defensive magics to drop off, and risk an ambush by the enemy, or retreat back up the rope? Maybe an enemy spellcaster Summons a strong creature who yanks the rope out of the spell - now we have a character or two on the ground, and a couple in that extradimensional space.

I'd also suggest the enemy consider Dispel Magic, but then it would have been as easy or easier to cast it shortly after locating the Rope Trick area.

In the 23 hours and 55 minutes the PC's are hiding in their rope trick, how many preparations can the enemy make around their space in the real world? The players are asserting that it's "only rational" for the characters to hole up and replenish their resources. Isn't it equally rational for the enemy to bolster their defenses and prepare an ambush, or move their plans along, or otherwise take steps similar to those the PC's would take if they were on the other side of the equation?

By the way, where do you leave your Handy Haversack, bag of holding, etc. while in the Rope Trick space? The spell description says bringing one extradimensional space into another is hazardous.

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...

However, if we remove the magic shop, then we effectively add to the power of the Crafting spellcasters. The noncasters can't get items to make them more versatile without that magical economy.

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.

To me, the real limitation is available wealth. Crafting allows the characters to swap items more economically (we only get half value in sale, but we only pay half price to craft). At the extreme, it doubles the available wealth since gold can be converted into twice as many items. That extreme relies on having every crafting feat, and all prereq spells, available, and never getting an item the crafter can't take 10 on. And the crafters with crafting feats gave up on other feats they could have taken for greater effectiveness in another area.

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.

I find most spellcasters will buy a few scrolls. I've never needed every possible spell in my spellbook, but enhancing the 4 spells per spell level I'll get advancing with some scrolls for added versatility is a given. I rarely find my characters cast spells from scrolls, though. What I do find is that, at 5th or 7th level, I stop using L1/2 spells for offense and start getting longer-lasting enhancement spells and/or more situational use spells for those slots.

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.

If there is a broken combo, why do only the PC's use it? It's amazing how easy it is for the group to decide to ban or modify a broken ability when the enemy uses it against the PC's as well as the PC's using it against their enemies.

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...

That's a big one. Even for the Haversack guy, using up a move action every round to get that item, and your standard action to use it, becomes tougher if the combat moves around.

Trimmed a few items I had no comments on

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.

What stops the enemy from surrounding the area with archers while infantry digs a pit under the rope trick area and fills it with spears, or builds a bonfire they will light when that rope drops down? Some years back (well before 3e), I recall a player persuading his teammates they needed to bed down - right here, right now - because they were short on resources. A second player didn't like the idea, but threw his hands in the air in the debate. So they bedded down. And, in the middle of the night, they were attacked by a contingent of giants.

The "bed down" player was very upset. The other fellow said "Seriously? This is like breaking into a house, packing up all the valuables on the second floor in a sack, going down the stairs and taking a nap on the couch. What did you EXPECT would happen?" Rope Trick provides a bit of an advantage, but nowhere near insurmountable to intelligent foes.

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.

Again, if that spell is so effective then enemy casters will reasonably use it too. If the players consistently use scry & fry tactics, why doesn't that Lich do the same?

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.

And when the party is actually working as a team, my experience is that the team is OK with each party member having some power. That makes the team more powerful.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't see a problem with saying a first level spell is almost completely useless against a high-level monster - by the time they're facing that monster, the Wizard will have considerably more powerful spells at his command anyway.

The basic problem is that spells like Expeditious Retreat and Levitation will always have some use. And Silent Image is never going to be almost pointless. Attack spells should fall behind in power the way utility spells do rather than just cap.

The thing is, the Fighter gains power on two axes (linear increases to BAB and hit points, plus access to feats); the Wizard gains power on three (they get more spells each level, they get higher level spells, and their existing spells become more powerful).

I'm in favour of the 13th age system - what you can put in your spell slots moves up over time.

In order for those two to ever be balanced, either the Fighter needs to get a third axis for improvement (Expertise Dice, I guess), or the Wizard needs to lose on of the three. IMO, losing the "existing spells become more powerful" is probably the least painful thing to change. YMMV, of course.

Even that won't do it because of scope. The fighter is only ever going to get better at swinging a pointy bit of metal. The wizard on the other hand can move mountains.

Fair point, and I don't really disagree, except for one thing...

I'm reasonably sure that the only reason the Warmage, Beguiler, and Dread Necromancer never got new spells added to their list was that WotC pulled the plug on the edition first. Had 3.5e continued another couple of years, I'm pretty sure they would have started getting new spells - that being an absolutely trivial way to increase the utility (and thus sales) of a new book.

For that reason, I'm inclined to consider every Caster class to have a growing spell list, at least in theory.

Perhaps, and perhaps not. Did the Healer get extra spells in 3.5? I'd have a hard cap on spell lists by class.

Imagine if you took the 3e casters - druid, cleric and wizard, and used the Expert D&D spell lists.
End of caster dominance problem. Done.

Not completely, but close. (Dzilla's Wild Shape is still going to be a monster I think).

That is, in a nutshell, one of the 4e solutions. Damage was fixed with the level of the spell. If you wanted more damage, you used a more powerful spell - it's just that rather than having spells of all levels to select, 4e had you swapping out the spell completely as you advanced. I'm not sure that is the best or most favorable solution, though.

Close. The wizard got a spellbook and a limited number of daily spells to prepare. If you didn't think you were going to use it again you cut it out. But as a general case, yes.

I'm not convinced that raising damage with spells automatically is a bad thing and not just because monster hit points rise. If a wizard is going to participate in the hit point attrition game, I don't see any real need to limit the weaker spells much. The martial characters get plenty of chances to participate. The problem is much more along the lines of the alternate track of spells - the ones bypassing the attrition game - being too good in 3e. I'd cut raise the target's saves/cut the save DC/whatever to make them easier to resist for full effect.

That and the spells that not just make the enemy a punch bag, those that make the enemy irrelevant. Even in 3.X the fighter can keep up in the hit point damage game with the wizard - and if they can't this isn't hard to fix. The problem is that it's almost the only game the fighter can play - and it's a waste of time for the wizard to bother with as they have games that can either (a) bypass the monster's hit points easily or (b) bypass the monster easily (and at a push the entire continent the monster is on).

 

[delericho]

The basic problem is that spells like Expeditious Retreat and Levitation will always have some use. And Silent Image is never going to be almost pointless. Attack spells should fall behind in power the way utility spells do rather than just cap.

But does that actually matter? Do all spells of a given level really need to be equally useful throughout the lifespan of a campaign?

If low-level 'blasty' spells become useless but 'utility' spells remain useful, what we're likely to see is the Wizard reserving his top-level slots of the 'blasty' magic, and filling the low-level slots with 'utility' spells. I don't really see that as a problem.

(I should also note: I also think Wizards get exactly the wrong number of spells, pretty much throughout the campaign. At the lowest levels, they get too few; at the highest levels they get too many. At mid-levels they're probably about right... provided you remove bonus spells for Int and the use of scrolls and wands.)

Even that won't do it because of scope. The fighter is only ever going to get better at swinging a pointy bit of metal. The wizard on the other hand can move mountains.

Indeed. It's a necessary but not sufficient step.

In addition to removing the "level variables" from the spells, and reducing the number of spells the high-level Wizard gets, it will also be necessary to broaden the options available to the non-Casters.

Well, it's that, or eliminate huge swathes of the spell list.

Perhaps, and perhaps not. Did the Healer get extra spells in 3.5? I'd have a hard cap on spell lists by class.

IIRC, there's actually a sidebar in the "Spell Compendium" saying something about adding spells to classes like the Warmage. So it's possible that I'm being unfair to the designers at WotC.

Provided they did indeed put in place that hard cap, and provided they actually stuck to it, I wouldn't have a problem. I'm just sceptical that they'd be able to actually stick to it - there are both creative and business reasons to have supplements add spells to any and all lists, so I think it might be quite hard to swim against that tide.

That and the spells that not just make the enemy a punch bag, those that make the enemy irrelevant. Even in 3.X the fighter can keep up in the hit point damage game with the wizard - and if they can't this isn't hard to fix. The problem is that it's almost the only game the fighter can play - and it's a waste of time for the wizard to bother with as they have games that can either (a) bypass the monster's hit points easily or (b) bypass the monster easily (and at a push the entire continent the monster is on).

Yep, something badly needs to be done there, too. Which is something WotC seem to have recognised with 5e (that the 'trick' spells in 3.X easily outmatch the 'blasty' spells). I'm not convinced that they have an answer, though. Indeed, I'm not convinced that there is an answer.

 

[Alzrius]

Yeah, but then that runs into another problem - DM's c-blocking the druid simply because he can. 3e doesn't really like it when DM's start shafting players like that. "Oh, you're animal companion can't come on THIS adventure because of blah blah blah." Stripping away class features like that is a quick way to have very ticked off players.

You are completely right in what you say. But, in application, it can be a potential source of some pretty serious friction between the player and the DM. After all, my animal companion is a pretty major class feature. If it's going to be a serious PITA every time I turn around, I'll simply start gaming the system - take animal companions that will travel just about anywhere, for example. After all, a bear can go pretty much anywhere you want it to, particularly when I can directly speak to it.

I don't see this as a problem with the rules, though. If the GM is screwing with a druid or ranger's animal companion "just because he can," then he is, quite simply, doing it wrong. It wasn't that 3E didn't like giving GM's that power (though, to be sure, it pushed forward ideas of player empowerment), as the quote I made before is from the 3.X DMG, it's just that it - like all editions - presumes that the GM isn't trying to be a jerk.

This works on both sides, too. Player empowerment can just as easily become player entitlement.

If the GM tells the ranger that his grizzly bear won't follow him into the desert, for example, the player can either say "that's a reasonable assumption, given the extremely high temperatures and the bear's fur coat, not to mention issues of not being a natural habitat for it," and start trying to figure out if he'll have the opportunity to leave the desert in the near future (e.g. after the adventure's over), or if he'll be there a while and should start looking for a new animal companion.

...or the player can say "oh come on! This is a world with fire-breathing dragons and demon-blooded sorcerers, but a bear in the desert breaks your immersion?! Damn it, this is a class feature, you taking this away weakens my character, and you're doing it just because?! Nuts to you, I'm going to Google "bears in the desert" and I'll bet I can find freaking dissertations saying that grizzlies will venture into deserts, then will you stop mucking up my ranger already?!"

In either case, the GM is making what I think is a reasonable call; sometimes things don't go exactly how the player(s) would like, but that doesn't mean that the GM is screwing them when that happens.

To me, the absolute biggest problem with casters is the spell list. Full stop. The fact that we've gone from about 10 spells per spell level in Expert D&D, to hundreds of spells per spell level is ridiculous. The bloat of spells is why there is this issue in 3e.

Imagine if you took the 3e casters - druid, cleric and wizard, and used the Expert D&D spell lists.

The problem here is one of "bloat vs. needing to print things to stay in business." I agree with you that having hundred, or even thousands, of new spells out there contributes to the problem of power-inflation for spellcasters; this is a microcosm of the issue with all sorts of new feats/spells/magic items/etc. out there causing power creep. But the issue is that these are the easiest new rules to make, and publishers need to keep publishing.

For me, the better compromise (in this respect) was to hard-cap the maximum number of spells that could be learned per spell level. Then, such classes could have a large list of possible spells, but once they made their choices, that was it.

 

[MarkB]

To me, the absolute biggest problem with casters is the spell list. Full stop. The fact that we've gone from about 10 spells per spell level in Expert D&D, to hundreds of spells per spell level is ridiculous. The bloat of spells is why there is this issue in 3e.

Imagine if you took the 3e casters - druid, cleric and wizard, and used the Expert D&D spell lists.

End of caster dominance problem. Done.

Very much this. The "there's a spell for that" syndrome is one of the biggest issues.

Individual spellcasting classes (or at least individual members of those classes) should be much more narrowly focused, and spells in general shouldn't have such an immensely wide range of applications.

 

[Bluenose]

Yep, something badly needs to be done there, too. Which is something WotC seem to have recognised with 5e (that the 'trick' spells in 3.X easily outmatch the 'blasty' spells). I'm not convinced that they have an answer, though. Indeed, I'm not convinced that there is an answer.

In BD&D/AD&D the opposite was true, at least at high levels. 'Trick' spells simply weren't reliable enough to use compared to 'blasty' ones to be worth using. It turns out that reversing that situation had some rather drastic consequences.

Very much this. The "there's a spell for that" syndrome is one of the biggest issues.

Individual spellcasting classes (or at least individual members of those classes) should be much more narrowly focused, and spells in general shouldn't have such an immensely wide range of applications.

It ends up creating wizards/mages that seem closer to their mythical and fictional counterparts.