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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 4717180" data-attributes="member: 704">Some counter points to Hejdun's earlier comments.Disclaimer:  I am reaching a conclusion that no amount of well worded anecdotes or number crunching or debate will fully overcome any gamers in game experiences.The reason casters often have the option of doing this in practice is because of two things;  The 2 hour adventuring day, affordability of low level scrolls, and the general ineffectiveness of low level spells vs level appropriate opponents.  The Rogues spot and listen are better than the casters, but the casters Invisiblity and Silence type spells are better then most opponents Spot and Listen rolls, so the point is moot.Not all CR appropriate opponents are going to have access to dispel magic, especially if the DM prefers to use monsters without class levels.Fair point.  However CR appropriate opponents without Spell resistance only have saving throws.Save or Die spells are viable whenever the player has the means to either pump up the DC of the required saves, and / or use spells that target a weak saving throw.  However, the usual complaint about Save or Die is from players, not DM's.  Players tend to be unhappy when a single die roll can screw them.  I would agree that on the whole such spells are balanced."I Win" spells are generally conditional in such a way that they are useless against some opponents, but are very often going to be quite useful against many other possible opponents.  Force Cage may have shortcomings, but it is still very viable against a dragon.  Breath weapon may suck, so that just means you first make sure you have sufficient resistance to the breath type before you get in close.  Cost of components is generally a lousy way to balance a spell, but getting gold is hardly a problem at higher levels.  It may not be cheap, but it wont make or break the players either.The simplest use of Contingency is to guarantee an escape given a precondition.  Yeah, it can be worked around.  But it can still save the caster precious actions in combat.  Why prebuff when you can just in time buff.</blockquote>In ConclusionIn reality, I never had nearly enough spell slots to do everything that I wanted to do, or wished I could do, or needed to do.  And you always had to pick exactly the spells you need for the day in advance, meaning that every wrong choice materially decreases your power.  The Paladin in our group was extremely important even up to the last combat.  We'd frequently get into a situation where we'd be fighting enemies who I could try to blast, but doing so would take 2-3 high level spells that I would really like to save, and I'm not even sure if it'll work, and the Paladin can chew them up in a few rounds anyways.Secondly, you aren't acting in a vacuum.  I spent a lot of my time Dispelling Magic because we were fighting something that kept throwing Blade Barriers in the way, or trapping us with Walls, or going Invisibile.  At least half of time in combat was spent countering enemies' abilities instead of setting up my theoretically awesome combos.[/QUOTE]Wizards who make a habit of creating spell scrolls will circumvent the problem of needing to memorize a spell that they may absolutely need but are not likely to use.  While there are some spells that are obvious wrong choices at time, some spells are never the wrong choice.  Most wizards have a semi-standard selection of spells that sledom change, outside of some customizations specific to the current adventure.  The DM will know what the fighter is capable of for most of the adventure, only having to update this when the character levels up.  Characters with mutable spell selections are much harder to account for.You do not act in a Vacuum, but neither does the DM.  It is very difficult for a DM not to metagame to some extent.  They may not hyper optimize encounters to screw the players (at least the good ones do not do this).  But they will often make sure to avoid encounters that they know will be a waste in time.  A DM only needs to be burned really badly once to start avoiding things that just will not work.  The DM generally wants to challenge the players, and it simply takes much more work to make sure that the Wizard and will be challenged.END COMMUNICATION[/QUOTE]

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