Dealing with spellcasters as a martial

[Satyrn]

In Tartarus, perhaps, waiting to be summoned?

Ah. The party played on the DM's generous rulings on stealth, too. Nice!

 

[TheSword]

A couple of points.

- Kicking unsheathed swords isn’t the same as kicking a football. Particularly if it’s magical. What happens when you miss the hilt and slice your toes off, or kick the hilt in such a way as to cause the blade to swing round and sever your Achilles’ tendon.

- Who says the wizard carries the arcane focus all the time? They only pull it out when they need to cast a spell with a free material component, then if it’s free why wouldn’t they also have a spell component pouch.

- I’m fundamentally against the need for every encounter to include minions. In some circumstances a high level wizard should be able to hold their own for a round without getting rugby tackled. Even if most times they do have them around.

- No one saw orcs grappling Gandalf in combat, he had a weapon and used it. The old trope of wizards being helpless has gone with 3rd ed (arguably 2nd). Welcome to a world where wizards can at least stand up straight and hold a weapon. We don’t need a second concentration mechanic, hence spells not provoking. You can still interrupt the powerful magic that they’re concentrating on by damaging them.

- Grapple builds are already very good. There is no need to make them any better than they already are. It’s enough to knock someone prone and sit on them without stacking further debuffs on top.

- I think Erechel is severely overestimating what wizards can do. The days of wizards zipping around like dragon flies ended with concentration. Are you aware that if you break concentration now you fall like a stone? You can’t stack those spells, and summoning minions is highly limited. He’s also ignoring the way most spellcasters are interacted with PCs in published campaigns - which is not from 150 feet away firing fireballs.

- With scrolls and wands reduced and spell slots dramatically reduced, wizards aren’t the versatile casters they were and they don’t have solutions to every problem if they are played honestly by the DM who has given them a set spell roster. While I do have a narrower definition of DM metagaming than some posters... NPCs knowing the party’s weaknesses when they haven’t seen them or had an opportunity to learn them definitely IS metagaming.

- I’m all for interesting improvised actions. That doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you like. In tonight’s adventure we were tied up and manacled. We said we wanted to try and slip free. The DM said sure you can get free of the ropes with a sufficiently high athletics or acrobatics check but you can’t get free of the manacled. Period. They’re too tight and they’re made of iron.

- This debate just sounds like a player who thinks they have come up with a wonderful plan and has been shot down. Of course you can run it in the campaigns you DM... but I suspect that isn’t why you want it. As a player you want to stick it to Wizards when you fight them not sure why but good luck taking it to another table.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Kicking unsheathed swords isn’t the same as kicking a football. Particularly if it’s magical. What happens when you miss the hilt and slice your toes off, or kick the hilt in such a way as to cause the blade to swing round and sever your Achilles’ tendon.

It's a sword, not a chainsaw!

But, point taken, wouldn't expect to score a field goal with one, no matter how good a kicker you may be.

Who says the wizard carries the arcane focus all the time?

The player of the wizard the nth time the DM tells him his spell doesn't go off because he didn't declare he had used his object interaction to take it out.

I’m fundamentally against the need for every encounter to include minions. In some circumstances a high level wizard should be able to hold their own for a round without getting rugby tackled.

In some circumstances - flying, in a prismatic sphere, on the other side of a chasm, atop a parapet, etc - he certainly could. He doesn't even need to be high level for all of 'em.

No one saw orcs grappling Gandalf in combat, he had a weapon and used it.

Sure, because he had a magic sword, was a warrior in his youth, and because casting spells in melee - even for a grounded angelic being - should be folly! He was swinging Glamdring, not roasting orcs wholesale with Burning Hands.

- I think Erechel is severely overestimating what wizards can do. The days of wizards zipping around like dragon flies ended with concentration.

You've got a lot of balance eggs in that concentration basket. Not /that/ many spells require concentration. Some of the ones that do aren't all that big a deal, anyway...

With scrolls and wands reduced and spell slots dramatically reduced, wizards aren’t the versatile casters they were

Spell slots have been reduced significantly ('dramatically' is pushing it) by comparison to 3e, and, at high levels (when casters were notoriously OP) only, relative to the classic game. At low-mid levels, 5e casters have more spells than 1e wizards. (And, of course, they have vastly more than 4e casters, who were, comparatively balanced.) What's more, wizards prep from their spell book, but cast spontaneously - that's the most versatile official casting method in the history of the game, hands-down. Vancian casters risked 'wasting' slots if they prepared a spell they turned out not to need that day - that almost can't happen to a 5e wizard, who would have to find /all/ his prepped spells useless before he started being unable to use slots! Traditional wizards risked interruption with every spell, 5e casters risk losing concentration only with a very few spells, and only after they have taken effect.

Every edition but 4e has made casters more powerful than the one before, and /every/ edition, even balance-happy 4e, made casting easier & safer, across the board.

That's a trend that has not been without effects on the play of the game. One of them is that characters that used to avoid melee like the plague (actually, more assiduously than the plague, you can always cast Cure Disease!) and needed a stout 'wall' of melee types for protection back in the day, can now just wade in with everyone else... it changes both story and party dynamics rather dramatically.

I’m all for interesting improvised actions. That doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you like.

It means you get to /attempt/ whatever you like!
Grabbing someone and trying to stop them from speaking and waving their hands around shouldn't be outright impossible. Dicey, perhaps, depending...

This debate just sounds like a player who thinks they have come up with a wonderful plan and has been shot down

Well, no, his DM let him get away with it, it was sharing the experience, here, that didn't go over so well...

 

[TheSword]

Yes I meant shot down on this forum. With all due respect Tony you’re the only person in 12 pages of posts defending it and that seems to be more out of a beef against wizards in combat than because you think it is a good action. That may well be just my impression but it’s how the comments have come across.

Surely your DM doesn’t make you say “I use my free interaction to draw my x” every time you do something. If you’re not doing anything else and you say “I drink a potion” isn’t it implied that I also took it out of my bag?

I am referring to dramatic reaction in versatility since 3rd edition, as that was their peak in versatility. Yes wizards have versatile in spells known but it has limits. Level +Int is not a huge number once you’ve taken into account rituals, utilities and spells across all the levels you know. It’s better but definitely not schroedingers Wizard from 3rd with a scroll for every occasion.

Why is some PCs avoiding melee like the plague good for the game? If I’m the rogue and the wizard steps up and electrocutes the Black Knight with shocking grasp also allowing the rogue to sneak attack, or to take a share of the damage because fighter is about to go down isn’t that good party teamwork. The days of wizards cowering behind a wall of steel isn’t very heroic or practical now that the game has moved away from the kick-kick-in-the-door-and-kill-the-monsters-in-the-room style of adventure.

Yes you can attempt anything. But the DM can also say the chance of success is zero because the chains are iron and you have your arms tied behind your back/the caster is defending his throat.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yes I meant shot down on this forum. With all due respect Tony you’re the only person in 12 pages of posts defending it and that seems to be more out of a beef against wizards in combat than because you think it is a good action.

Casters, not just wizards... it's really a "kid's these day" pet peeve. When I was walking 20 miles to play D&D, in the snow, uphill - both ways, the restrictions on magic-users were just crippling. Yet, we played them, we succeeded with them, and we had some fun (a lot of it challenge) doing it.

I am referring to dramatic reaction in versatility since 3rd edition, as that was their peak in versatility. Yes wizards have versatile in spells known but it has limits. Level +Int is not a huge number once you’ve taken into account rituals

rituals don't count, all you need is to have the ritual in your book.

, utilities and spells across all the levels you know. It’s better but definitely not schroedingers Wizard from 3rd with a scroll for every occasion.

Even from 3e, it's hard to credit it as a precipitous decrease in versatility - a net decrease, perhaps, mainly in utility, mainly because of the cheap scribing of low-level scrolls, and ready purchasing of spells.

At 1st level, a 3e wizard wouldn't have any scrolls yet, and he'd be able to prepare as many as 3 first level spells (good INT, specialist), a 5e wizard can prep INT+1, probably about 4. If the 1st level 3e wizard prepped 3 different spells, he could only cast each one once, the 5e wizard, could cast the same one twice if it was the best use of his slots. If the 3e wizard prepped a spell he didn't need or failed a concentration check at the wrong time, he could waste one of those slots quite easily.

Compare that to a 1e wizard, who would likely know 4 spells (one Read Magic, which you don't even need anymore), and memorize exactly 1.

(Kids theses days!)


Another factor is usefulness of lower level spells. In 3e, damage scaled with class level on low level spells, but saves scales with slot level, in 5e damage scales on cantrips, but on spells only with slot, but saves on both also scale with /character/ level. Both make lower level spells less useful, offensively. But it's not /that dramatic/ a difference.

If 5e hadn't added at-will cantrips and scaled saves, that would've been 'dramatic.' Relative to the 3.5 highwater mark. Relative to 4e, not s'much.

Why is some PCs avoiding melee like the plague good for the game?

Gives melee types something to do.

Yes you can attempt anything. But the DM can also say the chance of success is zero

Yes, for instance, you can say "I cast lightning bolt in his face" and I can rule you fail, loose the slot, and eat an OA, and you'd wish Erechel were running. ;P


Because: KIDS THESE DAYS!!!!
ARGH!


...now, if you excuse me, I have some Carvedilol waiting for me...

 

[Krachek]

Again all the debate here stand on one table experience that some try to extend to all tables.

The OP find the wizard a kind over powered and feel they need to be check. Using all kind of nasty tactics including choking.
Why he fell wizard are OP is it’s own game. Maybe this table is more generous in the application of spells and magic.
To balance this they are more harsh on spell casting.

Overall it produce a balanced game they enjoy.

 

[Garthanos]

Casters, not just wizards... it's really a "kid's these day" pet peeve.

Hey I resent that, I tend to use mage... or wizard as a generic , the cleric hadn't become Codzilla yet.

 

[Satyrn]

Yes I meant shot down on this forum. With all due respect Tony you’re the only person in 12 pages of posts defending it and that seems to be more out of a beef against wizards in combat than because you think it is a good action.

I think it's a good action, and I'd allow it

I haven't felt like defending it, though, because I don't think it needs defending. Maybe I should've chimed in earlier, so the forum's opinion didn't seem so one-sided against it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hey I resent that, I tend to use mage... or wizard as a generic , the cleric hadn't become Codzilla yet.

All the 'old guys' (from my teen perspective) back in the day used to say 'mage' ... In the PH, that was a 16th level magic-user.

 

[Garthanos]

Back in ye old days "in theory" some of the most significant combat powers of mages could be interacted with physically. A lightning bolt could be bounced and a fire balls path too could be for shortened to the discomfort of the caster.