Discontinuity: 3e and D&D

[S'mon]

As an 8th level spell. I generally have better things to do with my 8th level spell slots than casting hopped up 3rd level spells. You may want to revise your view on the idea that metamagic feats help a wizard "keep up".

No, if you want to compete with the Fighter-15 in damage output, you better use those high level spell slots. Or put it another way - fighters don't get variable-power attacks, so it's unsurprising if it takes the best spells a Wiz can cast to match (vs single foe) the damage of a Fighter of equal level. Wizards can, like you say, do n other things also, so they can only briefly match a Ftr in his own area of expertise. If anything I find high-level Wizzes tend to dominate fighters.

 

[ThirdWizard]

No, if you want to compete with the Fighter-15 in damage output, you better use those high level spell slots. Or put it another way - fighters don't get variable-power attacks, so it's unsurprising if it takes the best spells a Wiz can cast to match (vs single foe) the damage of a Fighter of equal level. Wizards can, like you say, do n other things also, so they can only briefly match a Ftr in his own area of expertise. If anything I find high-level Wizzes tend to dominate fighters.

I agree with Storm Raven. Mind Blank, Maze, Polymorph any Object, Horrid Wilting, etc are going to be more potent for a wizard than casting an empowered maximized fireball. The fireball isn't going to have all that great a save, will be inconvenienced by fire resistance, is countered by evasion and improved evasion, and won't get through a lesser globe of invulnerability.

 

[Sanguinemetaldawn]

I think monsters did need beefing up - in fact if you compare stats in 1e MM to 1e MM2 it's clear Gygax realised this too, early on. 120 hp Orcus was ok in OD&D vs 8th level Fighting Men, but when 1e players were getting 15th level Fighter or Magic-User PCs he was no longer much of a threat.

Hmmm.
I am curious as to how you came to this conclusion.

From my understanding, Orcus as presented in the MM assumed he was on the prime plane. Slaying him there only banished him for a duration. Generally, permanent death could only be accomplished by slaying on the home plane, and that is a whole different ballgame.

Edited for spelling and clarity

 

[Catavarie]

I have to say that when I started RPGing it was with Palladium, I got the jist of things quickly and I always did, and still do so to this day, love the extreme custimization of characters, so when i first picked-up D&D 2e, i was like cool, then the trouble started, i felt like my character was way too generic, it was as if all dwarf fighters where the same, no sense of indiviuality, the combat system took me years to begin to understand, i was constantly asking my DM ok what do I need to roll? And THAC0? What the hell kind of dope were they smoking anyways? So when 3e came out i firgured well i'll grab it and flip thorugh but don't htink I'm gonna keep playing, and low and behold they changed the game to be much more intuitive for rolls, and development, and more custimizable and all without taking the 4 hours a palladium character could easily take. You now know that you want to roll high for everything, as opposed to figuring out wheither high was good or high was bad. So i have to say that I do indeed enjoy 3e and 3.5 much more than 2e, but then again I never had a chance to play the original, but if its got THAC0 then I don't want to.

 

[S'mon]

I agree with Storm Raven. Mind Blank, Maze, Polymorph any Object, Horrid Wilting, etc are going to be more potent for a wizard than casting an empowered maximized fireball. The fireball isn't going to have all that great a save, will be inconvenienced by fire resistance, is countered by evasion and improved evasion, and won't get through a lesser globe of invulnerability.

Sure - use Horrid Wilting if you have it. HW is ridiculously OTT. My point was that Wiz damage output does scale w level, just in a different way from Fighters.

 

[S'mon]

Hmmm.
I am curious as to how you came to this conclusion.

From my understanding, Orcus as presented in the MM assumed he was on the prime plane. Slaying him there only banished him for a duration. Generally, permanent death could only be accomplished by slaying on the home plane, and that is a whole different ballgame.

Edited for spelling and clarity

Except it wasn't really a different ballgame, he still only had 120 hp. So in 1e MotP they gave Orcus et al a slew of deity boosts on home plane; like x2 hit points!

My conclusion is from comparing 1e MM monsters to MM2 monsters - eg compare the MM2 daemons to the MM demons or devils. The daemons get special magic resistance, loads of pluses to their hd, far more damage output. Or look at all the 12hd beasties in MM2 clearly designed for high level play, like aurumvorax or squealer. Or compare Tiamat (48 hp!) to the Tarrasque.

 

[Storm Raven]

No, if you want to compete with the Fighter-15 in damage output, you better use those high level spell slots.

Yes you should. Like I said, you should use those 8th level spell slots for something more valuable than a hopped up 3rd level spell. Filling those slots with 8th level spells comes to mind.