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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 461962" data-attributes="member: 2067">I dunno...this still sounds like a lot of "I don't want mages to be as powerful as other classes at low levels" kind of whining.I could be VEEEEERY wrong. I probably am. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />The reason Fireball and Magic Missle are popular isn't because they're overpowered. It's because they are effective damage-dealers in a battle. And most characters choose things that help them survive or help them kill over things that help them make ropes do a lil' jig.Arcane casters often fill the role of heavy damage-dealers. They're the ones cutting the big guys down to size, and some of the only ones that can deal with a lot of little critters at once. They need spells like Fireball and Magic Missile to be able to fill this niche. If you start to weaken these powers, you start to weaken a class that is cast in the role of explosives expert.It'd be kinda analagous to saying: "What?! A Greatsword is only a Martial weapon? What the hell? All Fighters who want to deal damage in combat should be using a Greatsword! Quick, increase it's cost so that they're not reliant on it! Make them use weaker stuff instead! Greatswords should be Exotic!"By bumping up the levels of these spells it largely forces the caster to say "well, I'll make ropes dance, because I can't do anything useful."Similarly, by making the Greatsword exotic, it would be forcing fighters who wanted to optimize their damage potential to not do that. Whoopee. Longsword-and-shield tme.The spells are popular because of the niche the arcane caster fills, not because there's something too good about them. Any time you have an option to go with something that hurts things or helps yourself over something that...say....makes pudding...as an adventurer, you want to kill and live, not make frickin' pudding.Again, to use a Fighter analogy: "Why doesn't everyone go with Power Attack-Cleave-Great Cleave? Or the Whirlwind Attack chain? Or the Shot feats (if they're ranged). Obviously, because every fighter chooses these feats, they must be too good, and thus they must be bumped up to compensate for their goodness."A Fighter who doesn't go with a chain like that isn't maximizing his butt-whoppin' powers. Likewise, a wizard who opts not to cast magic missile is loosing out on a portion of his class's *point*: to cast the spells that make the peoples fall down.I'm playing a Sorcerer without Magic Missile, and I still have fun. But I am sacrificing a good chunk of the entire niche of the class. I've turned him into a self-buffer, using Sorcerer for flavor purposes more than for big spells (he'd probably make a better Cleric, if he wanted buffs...). I've taken him out of his specialization, and, of course, he's suffering for it, as I very much expected. Sorcerers aren't supposed to buff things. They're supposed to kill things.Basically: just because something's popular doesn't mean it's overpowered. Just because fighters like using swords or rogues like hiding or clerics like healing doesn't make swords, the hide skill, or healing overpowered. It just means that it gives the player a power that is, in most campaigns, more useful than others. In most campaigns, zappin' a foe and makin' him keel over is more useful than, say, a divination. If you want the spells to be more rarely chosen, it's a campaign issue -- change the campaign to be intrigue-based, or maze-based, without that many things with hit points to blow up. Be sure to warn your players. You'll probably find more divinations and enchantments because they'll be more useful.It just so happens that most campaigns include a healthy dose of butt-kickin', and if an arcane caster can't do that, what's the point of having an arcane caster around at all?</blockquote>

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