Fixing the Orb Wizard

[Anthony Jackson]

At low levels, orb mastery is pretty underwhelming -- a 16 Wis is worth an average of 37% increased duration on a standard monster (1.82 rd to 2.50 rd), 30% on an elite, 23% on a solo. Given that Wand of Accuracy with a 16 Dex is about a 30% increase in hit chance and works with any power, not just duration of save ends effects, orb mastery seems like a suboptimal choice.

At high levels, as others have noted, the reverse is true; at 20 Wis, with Spell focus, duration goes from 2.22 rd to 5.00 rd (+125%) and on a solo still increases from 1.43 rd to 2.22 rd (+56%), and the save ends effects available are also stronger. By comparison, wand of accuracy is now +50%, which is nowhere near as large an improvement. For the Epic wizard at 24 Wis, we're going from 2.22 rd to 10.0 rd (+350%), and we're doubling on a solo.

So, how does this variant sound?
Orb of Imposition (Free Action; Encounter). Trigger: a creature saves from an effect you generate. Force that creature to reroll the save, with a penalty equal to your Wisdom bonus.

At 16 Wis, that's an average of +1.1 rounds duration on a standard (+60%), +0.77 on an Elite (+50%), +0.44 (+35%) on a Solo. For the 20 Wis/Spell Focus wizard, it's +80%, +70%, and +55%. For the 24 Wis epic, it's +90%, +80%, and +65%.

That's considerably better at T1, but it's considerably weaker at T2 and T3. So, how does it compare?

 

[HazardCatcher]

That sounds absolutely perfect.



I'm still not sure all the implements are balanced though. The staff gives a meaningful bonus all the time and because the wizard will always know if the attack will hit him after he uses the staffs power, so it always works compared to the other two which just have a chance to help. Unless for some reason the wizard doesn't know what the attack value was but in our group the dm yells "does a 17 beat ac?". The wand and orb are both offensive and perhaps offensive beats defensive in terms of usefulness?

It just seems like the once the wizard takes the second implement feat he will carry his staff most of the time and just pull out a wand or orb when he's ready to use it which feels full of cheese. Combining the wand and orb to put and keep a solid status effect on a big baddy sounds cool though.

 

[Anthony Jackson]

The staff gives a meaningful bonus all the time and because the wizard will always know if the attack will hit him after he uses the staffs power, so it always works compared to the other two which just have a chance to help.

In my experience, if the party has decent tactics, the wizard doesn't get attacked all that much, making defensive powers marginal. Also, shield (utility-2, encounter) is often better than the staff power, and since they're both immediate interrupts, you can't use both in one round.

 

[Stalker0]

In my experience, if the party has decent tactics, the wizard doesn't get attacked all that much, making defensive powers marginal. Also, shield (utility-2, encounter) is often better than the staff power, and since they're both immediate interrupts, you can't use both in one round.

But if you have a staff, suddenly other utilities start looking a lot better.