D&D General Why Do You Think Wizards Are Boring?

[billd91]

Not so much boring as frustrating. At least for me as a dm.

1. Eating WAY too much time. Everyone else finishes their turn in a minute or two. Then the game grinds to a halt while the caster player screws around with placing fifteen different area effects in just the right place only to end the turn with a fire bolt.

Depends a lot on the player. When I play a caster, I work at keeping my turns as short and decisive as I can to not hog time… actually, I do this with any character type because fighter-types with multiple attacks can suck up a lot of time too, particularly in the 3e days, or anyone with a pet/ henchmen/ retainers…

2.Endlessly asking for stuff. Hey can you do up my familiar for me? I know you don’t have this book but can I have this spell from that book? On and on and it never ever stops.

You can get this from any highly invested player. Probably the biggest offenders in my campaigns are 2 players, one who almost always plays a half elf bard, the other who plays lots of highly involved characters (current one is a dwarf fighter). Neither has ever played a wizard in any campaign I’ve been in over the last 25 years.

3. Every problem gets solved by a spell. Instead of even considering a mundane solution, the first response is always “let’s just cast a spell”.

To use an archaic term, they are magic users. Seems kind of on point for them to, you know, use magic.

 

[Incenjucar]

Casters also get all the AOE half-on-miss and ongoing effects, so they eat up so much more time than non-casters, and wizards are just absurd on this.

 

[Hussar]

To use an archaic term, they are magic users. Seems kind of on point for them to, you know, use magic.

Not really though. Back in the pre-3e days, you had so few spell slots that by and large, you weren't solving every single problem with a spell. Plus the addition of ritual magic means that it gets even more pronounced.

Now, spells get used in every single situation. It's the default.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think you'll find that it's not that they are boring that bothers people about them. It's that they are so far from boring that they wrap around to nearly boring again by comparison. They step on a lot of toes while they're at it. They take all the toys in the sandbox. They're bullies and nerds at the same time!

No, here actual boring. Not “so good it’s basically boring” or anything like that.

Every has spells. That isn’t special. That isn’t interesting. Wizards should be interesting, but they get no incentives to be studious, to spend time researching and experimenting, and less than it may seem to seek out other wizards and lost tomes, even, because tbh 2 per level ain’t that bad power-wise.

Give wizards a form of signature spell in tier 2, and I’m interested.
Give wizards something like a system for crafting spells, and extra benefits with Arcana and other lore skills (but especially arcana), like letting them mess with magical effects with an arcana check, or basically cast identify quicker with an arcana check, etc, and I’ve got Wizard characters I want to play.

Make them feel like the people who invent most of the new magic, who best understand The Weave (or equivalent explanation for why and how magic exists), who can lay waste if they can steal the time to prepare but are still competent and useful when they can’t, and vanishingly few people would find them boring.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So full stop, my favorite class in the world is wizard. I absolutely love including them in my worlds, I like dropping them in as NPCs, and I love what they can do to and for players. But recently, I've heard from some folks who think wizards are boring. So if you think wizards are boring, please elaborate! Why do think wizards are boring? How do you run / play them? What are they lacking that would make them interesting? What classes do you think would make a better chassis for the wizard fantasy? What do you think the wizard fantasy is?

I'm not setting this up to debate you, I just want to hear your opinion. I may ask clarifying questions, but mostly I want to understand where you're coming from.

If you don't think wizards are boring, feel free to share that and describe your experience!

Some of these have already been said by others.

1. Wizards are simultaneously too versatile and too powerful. As a result, they crowd out other ways characters could be spellcasters that could be much more interesting, and also deprecate non-caster alternatives that simply can't compete.
2. Failure to deliver on the premise. The idea of the wizard is someone who develops spells by researching. Nothing--literally nothing--about the Wizard supports spell research. You spontaneously manifest extra spells as you level, and you copy the spells of others. That's not research! That's at best rote-memorization, and at worst plagiarism!
3. Over-dependence on spells...despite, not because of, the thematic origins. The fiction that inspired the D&D Wizard has "wizards" who wield swords, use skills, rely on magic items, and in many other ways DON'T work like any D&D Wizard ever has, to the D&D Wizard's detriment. It's more interesting to have a mix of talents.
4. Blandness. Because of the "too versatile" from point #1, the Wizard cannot have much character to it. It's merely a container for spells....but any class can be a container for spells, while also having diverse options for other flavors. It's not bad to have one subclass that is "unflavored oatmeal," but to have a whole class of it, that's another story.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think there are some valid points being made, but I‘ve got a different perspective.



1) a lot of players I’ve seen habitually playing wizards (and to a lesser extent, the other full casters) often play cookie cutter characters. One guy I know played essentially the same wizard build from 1Ed through 3.5Ed, and only changed in 4Ed because the core options he preferred had changed. (He still played a wizard, though.) Every mage PC he played, he played the same way. Watching him play a mage was as predictable as watching Tic-Tac-Toe. I would not be surprised to find people in this thread being able to predict his spell lists.

Over the same period of time, I played single-classed and multiclassed generalist wizards, Illusionists, Transmuters, Enchanters, Conjurors and Diviners. (And other stuff as well.) Even within a given caster type, no two PCs had the same spell list.



2) Some of the options that started popping up as the game evolved were shunned by players, which led to designers orphaning them. Example: I loved the Feats in 3.XEd that granted spell-like abilities: some mimicked particular spells, some allowed alternative uses for spell energy, and the Reserve Feats. I’ve used all three types in play- all were fun, and definitely broke the PCs’ feel and playstyle away from the stereotypes. But none were particularly powerful, and some were even capped. Because of that, they were largely ignored in favor of the Metamagic and Item Creation feats. As a result, most of those types of Feats disappeared, not just in subsequent editions, but even in later products within 3.XEd.

(I, for one, was genuinely disappointed when Reserve feats were abandoned right after they were introduced.)

 

[Tutara]

I think wizards are the opposite of boring, both as a player and a DM. A well-played wizard is a joy to DM for in my experience!

Wizards are their own boss: They get their powers through hard work and study, not by begging, borrowing or stealing. Like the fighter or the rogue they use their own expertise to forge their way in the world. A wizard is who they are due to what they have done and what they do, rather than who they worship or who their parents are.

Wizards progress by engaging with the world, rather than by dint of their backstory: New spells are earned through finding scrolls, interacting with peers and engaging in research (as of the last UA), rather than getting it handed to them by a bloodline, deity or patron. You do get spells on level up, which is not ideal but I suppose is a safeguard against DMs who forget to hand out scrolls and spellbooks.

Wizards are adaptable: Preparing spells allows you to tailor your character to situations as they arise. Sure, you can prepare fireball every day, but you have the option to be more interesting in your choices than classes that are stuck with the same known spells they chose on level-up. A new spell scroll found in a dungeon opens up new choices and options in a way that a +1 dagger does not. This also encourages a wizard to plan, research and engage with missions rather than just turning up and assuming the spells you chose at level up will do.

Other classes also hit some or all of these notes as well - I am not saying that they only apply to the wizard. I do feel a number of the flaws identified in this thread - choice paralysis leading to slow turns and 'stepping on toes' to be failings in the actions of players or the overly conservative design of other classes rather than the fault of the wizard class itself. The over-proliferation of magic in 5e has also dilluted their class identity a bit as well, in my opinion.

 

[Divine2021]

Wizards used to be cool and scarily obsessed with studying forbidden magic and lore. And then we advanced in editions and they became more like technicians selecting which tool works best for the job. They lost their flavor and became technocratic professionals instead of obsessed, slightly terrifying loners.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Wizards used to be cool and scarily obsessed with studying forbidden magic and lore. And then we advanced in editions and they became more like technicians selecting which tool works best for the job. They lost their flavor and became technocratic professionals instead of obsessed, slightly terrifying loners.

This is exactly my feeling. It’s all too formulaic from the standpoint of the fiction.

 

[FrogReaver]

Wizards used to be cool and scarily obsessed with studying forbidden magic and lore. And then we advanced in editions and they became more like technicians selecting which tool works best for the job. They lost their flavor and became technocratic professionals instead of obsessed, slightly terrifying loners.

How much of that is related to them getting free spells on level up instead of needing to find a new spell?