Five Suggestions to Limit Wizard Power

[Incenjucar]

The traps are largely removed by using low level monster summoning spells from wands.

Yep. Heck, in Baldur's Gate, I'd spam summon spells so that the uber mages in that game would waste all of their magic on my summons while I was in the next room, and they're about as automatic as a trap.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

The 3rd Rogue got two major features: Sneak Attack and Lots of Skills. It's the Lot's of Skills that get trampled all over by the wizard. Let's look at the 3.5 SRD Skill list for the class. For the record, a lot of this is theory crafting. Theory craft doesn't always apply one to one in actual play.

Charm Person (1st) and Suggestion (2nd) covers most of the Cha / Social Skills
Knock (2nd)and Open/Close (0th) can cover most of the door opening things you might require (Knock has a range of 100 ft + 10 ft per level, so you can be a good distance away from any possible trapped door).
Spider Climb (2nd), Jump (1st), Fly (3rd), and Gaseous Form (3rd) can handle almost all of the movement based skills
Detect Thoughts (2nd) can cover sense motive
Invisibility (2nd) covers hide
Alter Self (2nd) and Disguise Self (1st) covers Disguise
Silent Image (1st) gets you pretty close to forgery (assuming you can keep concentrating on the document at hand)
Comprehend Languages (1st) gets Decipher Script
Various Divination spells greatly help Search and Spot, though these are not great 1 to 1 matches
Wizards can already use magical devices, so that's covered
Prestidigitation (0th) covers Sleight of Hand
Wizards already have access to Craft, Knowledge, and Profession
Animate Rope (1st) will probably cover most usages of Use Rope

What skills does that leave us?

• Appraise (Int)
• Disable Device
• Listen (Wis)
• Move Silently (Dex)
• Perform (Cha)

Can a good DM overcome this? Absolutely. The problem isn't that these spells exist. It's that these spells can be easily accessed either through lots of spell slots and cheap, player produced scrolls and wands.

None of the spells listed are beyond 3rd level, most are 2nd or 1st. Scribing a 3rd level spell cast by a 5th level wizard cost 15 XP and 375 gold. A 2nd level spell cast by a 3rd level wizard: 6 XP and 150 gold.

Are you going to spend your 2 spell slots per level on these spells when you have a rogue in the party? You can't bank an argument here based on spells that you might get.

Let me break some things down for you.

Charm Person/Suggestion: Many people don't appreciate you casting spells at them and what you are going to get away with is up to the DM.

Knock/Open and Close: You aren't always going to have a long stretch between you and the door and it doesn't remove traps. Open/Close can;t affect doors that weigh more than 30 pounds, which most solid doors do and it doesn't affect doors that are stuck or have a bolt or something similar.

Rogue drinks a Potion of Fly/Spider Climb/Jump etc or reads a scroll. Also the rogue doesn't have to trade off any of his abilities to get to do the above. Are you seriously going to be walking around with these spells memorized? Also, its not practical to make your party wait 15 minutes for you to add in the spell to your open spell slot, the rogue can have that taken care of in seconds.

Alter Self and Disguise Self give you bonuses to disguise. A rogue will usually end up with a higher disguise than the wizard with the spell active.

Silent Image being used for forgery is subjective.

Decipher Script allows for reading more than just languages. Comprehend Languages only works for languages.

Prestidigitation is not comparable to Sleight of Hand.

Not really sure why you decided to throw Use Rope in there. Other classes get this skill.

With a Rogue's UMD skill he is most likely going to have potions and scrolls for anything that his skills can't cover. Again, the rogue will always out utility the wizard.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Yep. Heck, in Baldur's Gate, I'd spam summon spells so that the uber mages in that game would waste all of their magic on my summons while I was in the next room, and they're about as automatic as a trap.

Summoned Monsters deal with pressure plate traps, not those that involve actually interacting with something.

People really seem to be forgetting things that actually happen during game play.

Baldur's Gate was a video game. You aren't comparing like for like.

 

[Incenjucar]

Summoned Monsters deal with pressure plate traps, not those that involve actually interacting with something.

People really seem to be forgetting things that actually happen during game play.

Did your party never summon anything with limbs?

Baldur's Gate was a video game. You aren't comparing like for like.

AI functions automatically in the presence of a summoned or non-summoned creature. Traps function automatically in the presence of a non-summoned creature. Works in real life, too, if you get a dog or a monkey or something. The differences do not affect this conversation.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

1. Reduce Spell Slots: In 3.5, Wizards maxed out at 4 slots per day per level, before bonus slots for a high int modifier. By reducing the number of spell slots per day, you begin to reduce the flexibility a wizard can have on any given day.

Yes. Go back to 1e spells per day. But this requires a host of other changes as well. It won't work if monsters still have 300 hit points.

2. No Player Created Magic Items: A first level wizard in 3.5 got Scribe Scroll. Right away, the game designers are giving Wizards a tool to break the game. This one change essentially gave wizards access to their entire spellbook at any time for the cost of a few XP. Utility or situational spells could be scribed and access at will, further expanding the versatility of the 3.5 wizard. Likewise, player created wands contribute to this problem.

As somebody else said, I wouldn't remove this entirely, but make it MUCH harder and not available until higher levels. Also, wands should be the province of Wizards only. No divine wands.

3. Remove Unlimited Spell Access and Learning:

Yes. The chance to learn spell mechanic MUST return. Not only is it a balancing factor, it prevents every wizard from having the exact same spell list. Boring.

4. Additional Cost for Class Stealing Spells:

No. Opening doors and becoming invisible are classic tropes of fantasy and should not disappear. Making knock cost twice as much as acid arrow effectively makes the knock spell disappear.

5. Make Combat Casting Difficult: This was a huge change from 2nd to 3rd. The change to initiative system, the five-foot step, and the concentration skill made casting in combat almost trivial. Wizards should have to cast spells over several initiative segments. Damage should interrupt the spell. If you want to be kind, allow a check to not lose the interrupted spell.

I agree with most of this. The segment system absolutely must return. To do so means revamping the initiative system and losing the d20. A one or two segment penalty to initiative is trivial when the possible initiative results range from 1-20 and beyond. Bring back the d6, or at worst, the d10. And get rid of partial actions. Drawing a weapon should not cost an action, it should penalize initiative. And any damage should ruin a spell. Period. Though I could get on board with a chart. Most rolls result in the spell just being ruined, a bad roll results in a wild surge.

 

[Lanefan]

The traps are largely removed by using low level monster summoning spells from wands.

And where do these wands come from?

Either the PC makes them (and PC item creation has already been noted in this thread as something that needs to be harshly reined in) or the DM gives them out in treasure hoards or magic shops; and if the DM's giving 'em out she has nobody to blame but herself.

Lanefan

 

[Doug McCrae]

The 3e wizard has four key tools:

1. Spells currently memorised.
2. Scrolls. (Maybe wands too.)
3. Open slots that can be filled in 15 mins.
4. The ability to completely change his currently memorised spell loadout given a night's rest.

Using all of these tactics together, I believe he is able to out utility the rogue to a great degree. The wizard not only has more power than the rogue - invisibility better than hide in shadows, fly better than climb, etc - he has more flexibility because the rogue's skills can't be changed, and the rogue can only max out 8. 10 at the most assuming a 14 intelligence. Bear in mind that the wizard, with his high intelligence, has plenty of useful skills too. With an 18 int he can max out 6 skills, not much fewer than the rogue.

For the wizard options 3 and 4 do take time, yes. The rogue is faster. That's why when time is of the essence, the wizard uses option 1 or 2. What scrolls the wizard creates, and what spells he memorises, are highly situational and depend upon the types of challenges he's facing in a specific campaign.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Are you going to spend your 2 spell slots per level on these spells when you have a rogue in the party? You can't bank an argument here based on spells that you might get.

If the wizard had just 2 spell slots at any given level, then no, I would not select Rogue replication spells if a Rogue is present. This is one of my arguments for lowering the number of available slots per level.

In 3rd though, that's just not how things are for a Wizard. By seventh level, he's got 4 first level spell slots, 3 second, and 2 third before any bonus slots gained for high int. Furthermore, he's had the time, money, and XP to craft numerous scrolls and, if he took Craft Wand, several wands as well.

The problem isn't that the spells are too good, it's the ease of access.

Let me break some things down for you.

Drop a beat!

Charm Person/Suggestion: Many people don't appreciate you casting spells at them and what you are going to get away with is up to the DM.

Knock/Open and Close: You aren't always going to have a long stretch between you and the door and it doesn't remove traps. Open/Close can;t affect doors that weigh more than 30 pounds, which most solid doors do and it doesn't affect doors that are stuck or have a bolt or something similar.

Rogue drinks a Potion of Fly/Spider Climb/Jump etc or reads a scroll. Also the rogue doesn't have to trade off any of his abilities to get to do the above. Are you seriously going to be walking around with these spells memorized? Also, its not practical to make your party wait 15 minutes for you to add in the spell to your open spell slot, the rogue can have that taken care of in seconds.

Alter Self and Disguise Self give you bonuses to disguise. A rogue will usually end up with a higher disguise than the wizard with the spell active.

Silent Image being used for forgery is subjective.

Decipher Script allows for reading more than just languages. Comprehend Languages only works for languages.

Prestidigitation is not comparable to Sleight of Hand.

Not really sure why you decided to throw Use Rope in there. Other classes get this skill.

With a Rogue's UMD skill he is most likely going to have potions and scrolls for anything that his skills can't cover. Again, the rogue will always out utility the wizard.

For the sake of argument, I accept all of your points. Charm Person and Suggestion are slightly worse then Diplomacy and Bluff. Knock doesn't remove any traps, just unlocks a door and thus. While effectively removing the need for Open Lock, the trap is still a threat. Etc.

A Rogue has an opportunity cost for every skill he picks. 8 skill points a level is not an infinite supply. When selecting his 8 Skills, he has to decide between Open Lock or Spot, Bluff or Diplomacy, Forgery or Disguise, Use Magic Device or Disable Device, Hide or Move Silently.

A Wizard does not. He can emulate nearly the entire rogue skill list with little cost due to having a great number of spell slots and cheap self created scrolls and low level spells.

 

[Uller]

A Wizard does not. He can emulate nearly the entire rogue skill list with little cost due to having a great number of spell slots and cheap self created scrolls and low level spells.

Wouldn't simply limiting the number of spells per day accomplish what you want? After all, a wizard _should_ be able to emulate a rogue or fighter and accomplish what they can do in spectacular (albeit limited) fashion.

The party needs to infiltrate a tower by entering a high window, disabling a guard and opening a locked door...by the time the rogue climbs in the window the wizard has flown up, used hold person on the guard, killed him and unlocked the door. The thief (and the fighter, for that matter) are completely shown up.

BUT! The wizard can only pull this off once AND he must have prepared the right spells. If he showed up with all AoE and defensive buff spells, he'd be SOL.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Wouldn't simply limiting the number of spells per day accomplish what you want? After all, a wizard _should_ be able to emulate a rogue or fighter and accomplish what they can do in spectacular (albeit limited) fashion.

The party needs to infiltrate a tower by entering a high window, disabling a guard and opening a locked door...by the time the rogue climbs in the window the wizard has flown up, used hold person on the guard, killed him and unlocked the door. The thief (and the fighter, for that matter) are completely shown up.

BUT! The wizard can only pull this off once AND he must have prepared the right spells. If he showed up with all AoE and defensive buff spells, he'd be SOL.

I can setup predetermined scenarios all day long but it doesn't simulate actual gameplay. Anybody can come on these boards and setup a scenario that will cause any and all classes to fail. That doesn't give a true representation as to what really happens "in game" because we have no control over what the DM throws at us.


People seem to keep forgetting that Rogues can use Potions of Fly, Scrolls and Wands of Hold Person etc....

WHY DO PEOPLE KEEPING LEAVING THIS FACT OUT OF THEIR "WIZARD SHUTS OUT THE ROGUE" ARGUMENT?

The rogue can use more magical items than the Wizard. Oh how we seem to conveniently forgot this fact.