advice for an old 2e wizard player in 3e

[Hygric]

Hello all,

I have a player that turned his nose up at DnD in the last months of 2e. We have finally conned him into giving 3e a try with the promise of being able to use an old character of his, a Drow fighter / mage that used to be one of the great magical powers of my campaign world (back in the days when Archmage was more than a prestige class).

After converting, the character is a female drow 2nd level fighter, 21st level wizard. The player, unfortunatley, is dissatisfied with a percieved large drop in power for a wizard from 2e to 3e.

Anyone have some good advice for a 2e player about how to effectively play a high level 3e wizard?

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Drop in power?!?!

Uh... Okay, I'll try.

At 21st Level, the character should be casting Epic Level Spells. Do you have ELH, or did you just extrapolate past Level 20?

Did she load up on Metamagic or Item Creation Feats? If Item Creation, than I can see a slight issue, but that's the Player's fault, and putting time and funds into item creation as the game progresses should change that. Also, did he pay full price for items he could make himself? If Metamagic, than he simply needs to use them a bit more to get the feel of it. The Eldritch Might books should help as well (I, personally, retooled most of them for the "upper levels" of 13+, so getting them after 20th Level should work fine).

Other than that, I can't really determine what the problem might be without seeing the character itself.

 

[Mark]

When characters weren't as balanced in 2E, the wizards may have had certain advantages over other classes of the same level. It may be that the player enjoyed the disparity and is not having so much trouble with wizards as gaming with other players on an even playing field. Nevertheless...

Aside from getting to know the changes in the spells that used to be so familiar, they should take a hard look at how DCs and concentration work, IMO.

As a DM you might lessen the blow by devising some plots that focus more closely on their character, and that character's strengths. Giving them more opportunities in the spotlight early on might help ease the transition.

Hope that helps!

 

[Hygric]

Yup, we have the epic level book. And as for a drop in power, note a said a "perceived" drop in power, not an actual one. I think the problem is that the player is used to spells that blow the enemy to pieces in one hit and the old straight damage wizard simply doesn't work as well any more.

Micarlin (the character in question) has a mix of item creation and metamagic. The player pretty much took whatever item creation feats were needed to cover what she had made in 2e. The main thrust of her metamagic has been silent spell (including two lots of the epic silent thingie). She always was a stealth wizard (until a city block explodes around you that is).

Mark: good ideas, I don't think that the player fully understands the ramifications of the DC system yet. Might have a sit down and talk about that.

 

[Mark]

The META stuff might be important too since this can give the chaarcter some areas in which they are above the norm, though it might detract from the character as a whole. Item creation is going to reduce the immediate impact of the character, but may be just the thing to piquing the interest of the player if your campaign leans toward the role-play side of the gaming equation.

 

[Zappo]

Eh, just tell him what Haste does and he should be happy.

 

[Voadam]

At 21st level casting if he wants to do massive damage he should have empower spell. Everything has more hit points and the spells do about the same so to do as much super blow ups he needs to boost them with metamagics. With Empower he can now do a 20d6 fireball, as well as have a bunch of 15d6 ones and more than a few 10d6 ones.

Archmage is a pretty good prc for a character who was a powerhouse mage beforehand, bumping up DCs, shaping spells and changing elements as appropriate, but it takes 3 feats to get there. At his levels, he won't be giving up much epic wizard stuff for the archmage powers.

 

[Bastoche]

I think he should remove the 2 fighter's level. I don't see the point of having 2 fighter levels considering the character's overall bab. If it's a weapon thing, simply use a feat to buy the weapon proficiency he wants (and if it's longsword, he already got that one for free being an elf). In 2e, you couldn't really be proficient with every weapon, so...

Make him understand the value of will save based spells against fighters and rogues and the fort save based spell against other spellcasters. Evocation is not as good as it used to be in 3E and I glad of that !

On a sidenote, I've found that it's always better to re-design a character rather than just converting it.

 

[Ravellion]

Yeah, just tell him he should be able to fire off 3 spells in one round, then ask him whether he still thinks that his character has dropped in power.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I'd keep the two Fighter levels, but sub out at least ten of those Wizard levels for a casting Prestige Class.

Archmage is a very good suggestion, since those special abilities really do make a Wizard stand out more. Alienist seems like a good choice for a Drow, and lets her get away from the classic Drow Wizards-- giving her an edge amongst her comptetitors.

On the other hand, if she's very much a Fighter/Mage, she could lose some spellcasting power to get into Spellsword, which would let her wear magic chainmail and cast. That would make her less vulnerable, and the Spellsword's special abilities are decent.

Planeshifter also carries some extra-cool special abilities that'll make her feel better about her powerlevel, and makes sense for a high-level Drow spellslinger.