n00bdragon
First Post
The problem with casters isn't the number of times they can do things per day. It's the not the amount of dice of damage they do. It's the hard line win buttons. Pre 4e they just have so many spells that outright say "This happens". Sometimes you get a saving throw, sometimes not, but regardless the spell changes the fundamentals of the battle so drastically that it utterly invalidates one or more opponents.
It's not something you can fix the math of because it never has anything to do with math. Charm Person isn't broken because the wizard can cast it X times per day or whatever. It's broken because it takes one enemy from the fight and says "This guy is now my friend and will go great lengths to defend me." The bad guy can't do anything to resist this. He gets one roll. If he fails the roll he can no longer participate to aid his side of the fight and in most D&D games he is interpreted to start fighting for the other team as well to defend the caster from harm. Enemy team is minus one guy and your team is plus one guy. For one spell. On standard action.
So then a horde of people come out and say "Herp derp we will fix all the broken spells." But that doesn't work. Pathfinder tried that and succeeded miserably (or failed fantastically depending on how you look at it). Because the big name casters can access any spell in the game (wizards have to select it, clerics just have it all) then it becomes a game of squashing bubbles in wallpaper. If you nerf the most broken spell five more take its place that are nearly as good, and of course the favorite thing to put in every splat book is more spells a few of which invariably end up broken.
The problem is there's no baseline, no framework, no expectations for what spells can do and can't do. In 4e you can look at a couple level X powers and get a rough understanding of what a level X power can do. A level 1 at-will won't stun enemies or deal 8[W] damage. There's nothing like that before 4e. The only guidance to how powerful a spell is is completely arbitrary rule of thumb. Many times it just rides on history. "Fireball was a level 3 spell ever since the game started so Fireball remains a level 3 spell regardless of that's the level at which it's balanced appropriately." No one has EVER in the history of D&D stopped and asked "Is Fireball really appropriate at level 3? Would the game be better if it were level 1? If it were level 5?"
Come on people. Gygax wasn't some master game designer when he wrote this stuff. He was pulling it out of his ass most of the time. Vancian casting isn't my preferred method of doing things but if it must be the way D&D does things there needs to be a SERIOUS design discussion about moving around and eliminating a number of spells from the game and setting real standards as to what magic of certain levels can and, most importantly, cannot do.
It's not something you can fix the math of because it never has anything to do with math. Charm Person isn't broken because the wizard can cast it X times per day or whatever. It's broken because it takes one enemy from the fight and says "This guy is now my friend and will go great lengths to defend me." The bad guy can't do anything to resist this. He gets one roll. If he fails the roll he can no longer participate to aid his side of the fight and in most D&D games he is interpreted to start fighting for the other team as well to defend the caster from harm. Enemy team is minus one guy and your team is plus one guy. For one spell. On standard action.
So then a horde of people come out and say "Herp derp we will fix all the broken spells." But that doesn't work. Pathfinder tried that and succeeded miserably (or failed fantastically depending on how you look at it). Because the big name casters can access any spell in the game (wizards have to select it, clerics just have it all) then it becomes a game of squashing bubbles in wallpaper. If you nerf the most broken spell five more take its place that are nearly as good, and of course the favorite thing to put in every splat book is more spells a few of which invariably end up broken.
The problem is there's no baseline, no framework, no expectations for what spells can do and can't do. In 4e you can look at a couple level X powers and get a rough understanding of what a level X power can do. A level 1 at-will won't stun enemies or deal 8[W] damage. There's nothing like that before 4e. The only guidance to how powerful a spell is is completely arbitrary rule of thumb. Many times it just rides on history. "Fireball was a level 3 spell ever since the game started so Fireball remains a level 3 spell regardless of that's the level at which it's balanced appropriately." No one has EVER in the history of D&D stopped and asked "Is Fireball really appropriate at level 3? Would the game be better if it were level 1? If it were level 5?"
Come on people. Gygax wasn't some master game designer when he wrote this stuff. He was pulling it out of his ass most of the time. Vancian casting isn't my preferred method of doing things but if it must be the way D&D does things there needs to be a SERIOUS design discussion about moving around and eliminating a number of spells from the game and setting real standards as to what magic of certain levels can and, most importantly, cannot do.
