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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5904775" data-attributes="member: 2067">Two things at work here.The first is the issue of escalation, which, yes, is part of what I think is the core cause of "wizard imbalance." If you give the wizard more stuff to do, the limitation of "not as often" doesn't apply, and if you don't change the base power level of the spells he can learn, he just gets to do more all the time anyway, which isn't what we want. The wizard needs hard limits put on their access to their spells, or they need their spells designed with more frequent use in mind. Totally agree.The second issue is the more subtle issue of what challenges we can expect in an adventure. This is where the Three Pillars come in.Speaking purely hypothetically for illustrative purposes:If a 4e character makes 30 rolls for combat in a given adventuring day, a 5e character might make 30 rolls, 10 each of Exploration, Interaction, and Combat. And, like in 4e where each combat is worth about 10 rolls per character, in 5e, each "challenge" might be worth the same. So it takes about 10 rolls (5 successes) per character to get through a trapped section of the dungeon, and that meets your "exploration" challenge for the day.A locked door is only part of that exploration challenge, just as a goblin is only one part of a combat challenge. The exploration may also have traps, or may also involve gathering resources, or may also involve climbing a wall or fording a river. Just as a goblin doesn't normally die in one hit, so a locked door normally isn't removed in one skill check. In this scenario, a wizard's Knock spell is equal to 5 successful Open Lock checks, which means that one spell might take care of the wizard's contribution to the Exploration portion of the adventure. If the wizard uses it on a simple locked door (the equivalent of a minion, requiring one success to overcome), he's wasted a lot of power. If the wizard uses it on a more complex locked door (say one that requires 5 successes to overcome?), he's used it to its full extent and done well to prepare it, and if he uses it on an advanced door (say one that requires 10 successes to overcome?), he's wasted it (assuming Knock doesn't have any "partial" effect). This hits the "smart tactics" part of the Wizard's playstyle. You need to select the right tool for the job and apply it at the right moment, or you're not being very effective. Of course, like how in 4e there's one monster per PC, in 5e there might be 1 Exploration Challenge per PC, so that knock spell can at most solve the wizard's problems -- the rest of the party still has to get from point A to point B, and the cleric isn't likely to be able to do it alone. And if the party encounters a wall that needs to be climbed, or a river that needs to be swam, or a trap that needs to be deactivated...well, the wizard prepared Knock, so he's useless for those challenges. It's very comparable to an Assassin's instant death attack. That might be equal to 5 successful attack rolls, which means that one attack might take care of the Assassin's contribution to the Combat portion of the adventure. But there's more than one monster in a dungeon, and the party still needs to slay the dragon, and the Assassin has sort of blown their load for the day.Effects like Charm Person work similarly. If they're worth 5 Diplomacy checks, that might take care of the Wizard's portion of the Interaction part of the adventure, but there's still three other party members and two other pillars that the party needs to get through before they succeed.So if the Wizard can prepare three spells per day (one for each pillar!), period, that means that the wizard mostly takes care of their share of the burden of each pillar with a spell -- assuming they've prepared the right spell, of course. And if they don't have the right spell, or they memorized nothing but combat spells, or whatever, they're ALWAYS relying on the rogue to bail them out. For this, I think 4e getting the maths right is invaluable. It allows a parity like this to exist, where before, it was vague spitballing at best. It also lets you scale to party size VERY efficiently (one monster per PC in 4e = 1 "challenge" per PC in 5e = ~ 5 successes per PC): a single player game might just have one locked door, but an eight-player game might have eight locked doors, or four locked doors, three traps, and a rust monster. It also lets you stipulate a baseline ability. "Okay. Every PC should be able to handle a typical Combat challenge of their level, so each PC should be able to get 5 successes in combat. They might do that in different ways, and some might do it better than others, but this is our baseline: 5 successes = competent."I like the ritual system, but I'd like to reserve them for more long-term magic. A wizard should be able to charm someone or create an illusion or open a door or turn invisible or blast a fireball with a wave of the hand. Stuff like divination, raising the dead, teleportation, wish, and planar biding? I think a framework like the ritual is much better then slotting them into the wizard's spells-per-day assortment.</blockquote>

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