Originally posted by samcifer:
Okay, since 5th Edition is reported to play more like the 2nd and 3rd editions of D&D, I started collecting the books for 3.5 Ed. and after learning that Tieflings are playable there as well as in 4th, I wanted to re-create my 4th Ed. Tiefling Mage in 3.5.
What I'm looking to do is have the most number of spells per day available, but it seems like I have to choose between total number of spells known and maximum number of spells per day to cast. If that's the case, then I feel that spells per day would be better since unlike in 4th Ed., I can use the same spell multiple times per day.
My issue is in figuring out how to do this is that I've read through the Player's handbook 1 (I have PHB2, but have only glanced through the Wizard stuff in it so far until I finish book 1), but the book reads like stereo instructions translated from a foreign language compaired to the 4th Ed. books.
How can I maximize the number of spells per day for my character? I want a Wizard who can both do damage with attack spells as well as have access to control spells like Sleep,Charm Person, etc. in addition to using things like Flaming Sphere and Fireball.
I've been reading and re-reading the books, but cannot make clear sense of what has been written in them.
Thanks in advance.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Welcome!
Be advised that the 3e gameplay is very different from 4e - both on the character building and combat expectation fronts. For instance, tieflings by default have a +1 level adjustment, which means that your (say) level 5 wizard is actually level 4, having weaker spells as a result. (This drawback is so powerful that "thou shalt not give up caster levels" was jokingly referred to as not one but two separate "Commandments of Optimization" years ago.) There is a "lesser tiefling" that is identical to the normal tiefling, except its type is Humanoid instead of Outsider (native); the lesser tiefling has a +0 level adjustment like all the PHB races. (EDIT: The reason for a type change being enough to get this thing from "about as powerful as a human" to "much more powerful than a human"? First, outsiders are immune to anything that specifically targets humanoids, like Charm Person. Second, and more important here, inexpensive transformation spells like Alter Self allow you to change into other creatures of your type; for a human, this generally means you can turn into goblinoids or the like, but for native outsiders, it means you can become demons (within reason). With a 2nd level spell slot.)
Also, in general, 3.5 didn't care about damage spells outside of a very narrow range. There's no "bloodied" condition or similar - a monster with 1 HP fights exactly as well as one with 300 HP. It takes phenomenal skill with character building to develop spellcasters based on damage that are able to deal enough of it to actually kill monsters before they could fight back. (For instance, Color Spray or Sleep will put large numbers of weak monsters unconscious at level 1, at which point you can slit their throats at your leisure, while a damage mage's 1st level spells tend to deal 1d4+1 or 1d6 damage and leave them standing instead.)
Finally, be advised that wizards are easily the most complicated class in the player's handbook to both learn to build and learn to play. There's maybe only two others that may be harder, period - the archivist (which is basically a divine wizard) and the artificer (which relies on complete knowledge of every spell list, including the sorcerer/wizard list, as well as item creation stunts). While 3.5 has a greater degree of control over character creation (especially through multiclassing and prestige classing), this also leads to increased complexity - and wizards have even more complexity than most. You did not pick an easy first character.
(PS: You can probably set this aside until you've got the basics of the system down, but the Noob Guide is still worth a bookmark. I can give better, more tailored advice if you ask specific questions, though.)
With those general, broad, points passed along, let's get to the nitty-gritty. EDIT: I didn't mention this, but I'll keep this discussion to the core books, since the size of the 3.5 library can be daunting.
Here's the basics:
1) Maximize your Intelligence above all else. (A 3e wizard could get by with 8s in every score except Int and Con and still be a juggernaut.) This gives you more bonus spell slots (see the table in chapter 1) as well as makes your spells harder to resist. (Certain other spells, such as Telekinesis, also reference your Intelligence in other ways.)
2) Make good use of scrolls, wands, and staves. Scribe Scroll can be used to "bank up" situational spells that you don't need to cast over and over; wands (and the Magic Item Compendium's "eternal wands", which don't use charges but only work twice a day) can store low-level spells that you do want to use over and over, and staves can store higher level spells that also benefit from your own spellcasting ability. (That is, scrolls and wands always cast the spell at its weakest possible strength - lowest caster level, lowest DC. Staves inherit your CL and DCs, more or less.)
3) Consider spell specialization. Regular wizards can specialize in a single school of magic, giving them an extra spell slot of each spell level for that one school only, at the cost of not being able to cast any spells from one other school. There's a few other ways to "super-specialize" (the core rules only do this through Red Wizard) and get even more slots for that specific school, but this often gets prohibitive except to advanced players. (For instance, a specialized illusionist can actually give up Evocation and still cast every Evocation spell ever printed, in some cases without any preparation at all.)
4) This is a bit subtle, but it's important if you're a troubleshooter mage instead of an artillery platform: you can leave some of your slots "open" and fill them with spells later in the day. This is described in the Magic chapter, and honestly it could be explained better, but basically, if you have 15 minutes, an open and unused slot of the right level, and your spellbook, you can prepare any spell you know in it at any point during the day. (This is roughly similar to 4e's idea of ritual casting, if it helps visualize things.)
And, on the more complicated front:
5) Certain magic items directly increase your spells per day, but most are really, really expensive for the benefit. The core examples are the Rings of Wizardry and the Pearls of Power.
6) Certain spells, such as Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, can be used to restore spent spell slots. With proper application of metamagic (and familiar, with the right spells), you can refresh almost all of your spell slots on the fly.
7) There are ways to reduce the cost of metamagic feats. (A new player probably won't need to know about metamagic, but it's absolutely critical to learn as you get more experienced as a player.) This allows "higher-level" spells to be cast in lower level slots, in effect creating more room for better spells. There are no ways to do this in the core rules, but they're pretty common elsewhere.
8) There's also some cheesy loops that allow wizards to duplicate themselves, with the duplicates bringing copies of your spell slots with them. (Core has something close to this via Simulacrum or Astral Projection - the former with your own slots (as a few levels lower) and the latter with your wand/staff charges.) Optimizers have devised sophisticated techniques to produce basically unlimited spells this way. I don't expect you to do this - I just wanted to include it to illustrate how complex wizards can get.
If it helps as well, here's a pretty basic wizard handbook that gives sound advice and, importantly, explains why it's sound most of the time. If it looks complicated, that's because the wizard is complicated; I'm sorry about that.
I hope this is enough to go on for now.
Originally posted by Krusk:
If you are looking for something relatively similar to a 4e wizard consider reserve feats in Complete Mage. They give you a minor spell like ability (similar to a spell) useable unlimited times so long as you have a spell of the approperiate type prepared.
For example, one lets you summon small/medium or large elementals so long as you have a summoning spell prepared.
Easy Tips for a first time wizard.
Remember that the wizard class is actually super forgiving for new players. Its just also super complicated. Forgiving as in, if you pick the wrong spells go buy some scrolls and add them to your book. Now you can get good spells instead. Every town you are in you should probably plan to buy a couple of spells.
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
Other than +Bow and the cool generalist option, Elf sucks (just for -2 Con mostly). The smart elves are the best if you really want to be an elf. Whisper Gnome, Strongheart Halfling and Human are among the best racial options for a Wizard.
Conjuration and Transmutation are easily the strongest schools, don't give up either and you'll probably want to specialize in one of them. Evocation and Enchantment are weakest, followed by probably Necromancy and Illusion. You'll want to keep Illusion to get access to any lost Evocation spells that MIGHT be worth keeping, but mostly you can spend a feat on Craft Contingent Spell to avoid having to keep it, so if you go Focused Specialist (which gives up a third school), you can give up Illusion and not suffer much.
For metamagic be sure to look at Transdimensional Spell, and Sculpt Spell. Being able to hit all of your intended targets and NOT your allies is damned handy. Also Archmage is cool but only really because of Arcane Reach and Mastery of Shaping, there's a few other goodies like Spell Like Ability but the first two are STRONG.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Originally posted by Krusk:
I like grey elf specifically. You take a con hit which sucks, but get an int bump which is ideal. Plus, if you've got a bow and spells, why do you care that much about con?
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
Shadow Evocation and Greater Shadow Evocation, they can be used to get you access to Contingency and Force Cage (two of the very few usable Evocation spells). However, Craft Contingent Spell is largely better than Contingency, except in that it costs a feat and if you want another spell slot of each level per day than a feat and access to Illusion spells might just be worth it. You'll probably miss having spells that cause miss chance at times but otherwise it's not a bad cut.
Originally posted by RogerWilco:
Also, if you really want to have a ton of spells, there are Prestige classes that let you combine two clasting classes. In general this makes your character weaker but more versatile. Some examples include the Arcane Hierophant, the Mystic Theurge and the Ultimate Magus. A character like that is even harder to play than a regular Wizard, but if done right can be very powerful and easily have over 100 spells per day, before applying some of the mentioned tricks.
I still have an old character of mine online (very not optimized) that uses the Arcane Hierophant http://home.hccnet.nl/g.a.renting/Throvannor.pdf
The character's full spell list is included in the PDF, it should give you an idea of what is possible, there's about 35 pages of spells, with ~25 spells per page. This was my first 3E character.
As a side note: try downloading the PCGen character builder, it's free, and make a Wizard using just the srd3.5.
Originally posted by Krusk:
Just to re-emphasize the serious lack of power that comes with playing any of the dual caster classes (Unless you use debatably legal dirty tricks to get in early)
Originally posted by Krusk:
Just to re-emphasize the serious lack of power that comes with playing any of the dual caster classes (Unless you use debatably legal dirty tricks to get in early)
Originally posted by StevenO:
Arcane Hierophant: 17/13 with a basic Druid4/Wiz3 entry (think that's legal) followed by AH 10 and then capped with more druid. Throw in MT and it can become a 17/17 casting split.
Mystic Theurge: The basic entry is Divine3/Arcane3 so you follow MT 10 with four more levels advancing one or the other. Of course you really suck early.
Ultimate Magus: Basic entry can be spontaneou1/prepared4 or spont2/prep3. Some make consider using Practiced Spellcaster to manipulate the single caster advances as dubious but this can end up with 17/10 casting (either side high) or 18/9 with prepared casting high.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Well, After looking through the PHB list of illusion spells, so far they don't sound like the kinds of spells I'd want. The Shadow Evocation spells are limited because you can't use them to duplicate high-level evocation spells. Only level 5 or lower, so Delayed Blast fireball, and Meteor Swarm are out, which are two spells I'd love to cast. I'd also drop Necromancy. Not sure of a 3rd school to drop. Wish I could ditch Divination, but I want to keep Transmutation, Evocation and Enchantment. Reluctant to drop Abjuration as I would like access to Dispell Magic. That's the one thing I really hate about the 3rd editions, that you have to handicap yourself just to do more per day, thereby loosing access to some of the best spells.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Also, did you notice what I pointed out above with staves and wands and scrolls? Chances are you can dramatically improve your stamina even without school specialization. I wouldn't recommend this for damage spells (as mentioned, I actually wouldn't recommend damage spells at all), but it's still an option for most any wizard. These prevent most forms of handicapping, particularly when ou consider the diversity and freedom in character construction relative to 4e. There are still constraints (i.e. if you're playing a wizard, play something with full casting), but it's still much more freedom than you'd think on a first reading.
Then there's the difference between the wizard (able to know a billion possible spells and configure the hell out of them with metamagic) and the sorcerer (knowledge of a few specific spells, but able to cast them over and over and over). They use magic items identically, so maybe your "wizard" would actually be best fit with a sorcerer. "Class" is a metagame construct - much moreso in 3e than in 4e.
If you're willing to look outside of the core books, the classes you might want to consider are Warlock (the 3.5 warlock was the first magical base class to make use of "at-will" as its thing) or Warmage (cast spells like a sorcerer and know every spell on your list, but your list is narrowly focused around evocation and conjuration). Both are from Complete Arcane. There's also much more complex options out there, such as shadowcraft mages (usually wizards; these guys can (spontaneously - as in, without preparation) cast Shadow Evocation / Shadow Conjuration effects of any spell, including 9th level spells up to and including miracle in some extreme cases. They're insanely complicated to build and run, though, and don't hit full steam until level 10-ish.).
Be advised that what you can do with magic in 3e vastly outdoes what you could expect from spells in 4e, so you'll need to recalibrate your expectations a bit. An 8th level spell could be Delayed Blast Fireball, yes... but it could also level entire fortresses or turn anything into anything else. In general, you don't really want to care about hit points, attack bonuses, or damage as a wizard: your spells rewrite the fabric of the game world's cosmos already, and you can win entire combats in a single spell. (I'm not kidding - even a new player with a lower-levelled wizard can cast one spell and basically end the encounter, or at the very least turn the tide and set the conditions under which everyone else fights. What appears to be a regular ol' mass-melee brawl can easily be reduced to you casting one spell and then cleaning your nails while the spell finishes off every hostile in the room. Compare to what you might expect from 4e, which followed a different design philosophy.
This may sound a bit unconventional, but do you have the wizard's 4e stats available? I'm familiar enough with the system that if I could see the character, I could try to do a reverse-engineering demonstration for you.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Specilization prohibs ANY use of spells from prohibied schools when you Specialize, according to the PHB section on Specilization in the Wizard's section. It say "Spells of the prohibited school or schools are not available to the wizard, and (s)he can't even cast such spells from scrolls or fire them from wands." I take that to mean that under no condition whatsoever are you ever allowed to use a spell that belongs to a prohibited school, so I take that to mean that rings and staves are also out for this.
I assume that school specilization is what you meant. I've got the magic item compendium coming now, so maybe it can show me items that boost my stats to gain more S per D.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Look at it this way. A scroll is basically a spell slot that contains one spell at its weakeast. A wand contains 50 copies of the same spell, also usually at its weakest. A staff contains 50 charges which can be used to cast a few different spells, as strong as you could normally cast them. Pearls of power are "potions" that restore one spell slot each day. And so on and so forth.
With ideas like this in mind, you will only run dry if you are doing marathon adventures and are thinking of your spells the way you did in 4e. In 3.5, your highest level spell slots more or less instantly wins the encounter when you use any of them. Really, you should not be looking at spells for the damage they deal - you should be looking at spells for how they prevent the enemy from fighting back. Given the PHB alone, I would almost never cast Fireball when I could cast Stinking Cloud,(x) for instance.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Weeellll... I'm making a damage-oriented spellcaster and Stinking Cloud does zero damage, so it's out for me.
Wish there were better written books for 3.5 so I could actually understand how things work. 4th Ed. is written much more clearly. I'm really hopeful that 5th Ed. will be easier to understand than the 3rd Editions. If it's not, I won't be able to play it.
... Of course, I've only read through the PHB1 so far, but the 4th Ed. PHB was WAY easier to understand. For all that people like to bash 4th Ed., at least it's possible to understant without having to have PhDs in the sciences.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Sorry if it sounds like I'm being childish, but spellcasting in the 3s seems needlessly complicated and the PHB words things so complexly that I can't make any sense of it. The process is litterally backwards from 4th Ed. and described with few examples. Anyone know of anything other than D&D for Dummies that I can look to so I can learn how spellcasting works other than links already provided here? I'm looking for something that gives examples and explains things in layman's terms. Even though I'm about to turn 41 (this Thursday
) and have been a gamer all my life, 3.0 and 3.5 might has well be written in Japanese (caligraphy, no less), as far as I can make sense of them.
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
If you want to deal damage you're going to be heartbroken by 3.5, it's all but a total loss. You can hit things, but you have to jump a lot of hoops to hit things hard enough to matter.
Basically look at it this way, you win a fight when the bad guys can't hurt you anymore. For a Conjuror that's when they're Greased, Webbed, Grappled by tentacle monsters, or whatever other aweful thing you've inflicted on them is done doing what it does. For an Evoker they're not done hitting you until they are at -1 HP (even at 0 they can hit you once more). There are actually even some exceptions to the -1 HP thing, like Boars, anything with Diehard and the Deathless Frenzy feature of Frenzied Berserker.
Still not convinced? Consider something like The Mailman in Tempest's Signature, and take every advantage you can get for efficiency.
Look also at metamagic reducers like the following feats, Arcane Thesis, and Metamagic School Focus. Also classes like Incantatrix and Ultimate MAgus can do a lot with metamagic. The later can pair with Assassin for the Wizsassin build in Tempests sig which can do some fairly impressive damage with spells, via sneak attacking with metamagiced up blasting spells.
You're going to need to focus on ray (or other ranged touch) spells, or work hard to push your save DC's into the stratosphere or again you're yet further nerfed for damage. You also can't afford to have your CL be anything but the highest it can possibly be, or you'll fizzle out against opponents with SR.
Originally posted by samcifer:
I know CL is Caster Level, but DC and SR?
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Difficulty Check (in this case, the number opponents need to roll when they attempt saving throws against your spells) and Spell Resistance (if a foe has spell resistance, you need to make caster level checks to affect it with any direct applications of magic).
One of the differences between the editions is in their priorities; 3rd Edition tries to be a fantasy world simulation, while 4th Edition tries to be a game (though the benefit of extra experience also helps its mechanics, since it was made later). 4th Edition is clearer and simpler, while 3rd Edition is richer in detail but more complex.
My favourite example of the difference is comparing the time stop wizard power in 4th Edition with the time stop spell in 3rd Edition. The former is mechanically beautiful in its simplicity, but can't achieve some of the weirdly wonderful effects of the latter because its aim is to act like an elegant chess piece, rather than like an actual distortion of time. Both approaches have their merits, and we can hope that 5th Edition will learn valuable lessons from both.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Just warning you about this.
*Caveat: I built the cousins' characters for that session (and stuck to archetypes, so it was easier for them to understand what their characters could do). Learning to play is much easier than learning to build characters well, honestly.
There is a bit backwards from 4e (namely, you cast a spell at a fixed difficulty class, and your opponent rolls a "saving throw" to resist it, while in 4e, you'd make an attack roll against one of their defenses - which, I might add, I like, but was actually backwards from how D&D had done it earlier. 4e's was a good move, but it was 4e that was "backwards", not 3e), but most of it really isn't. Take it slow and consider it a different game, rather than a different version of the same game.
Oddly enough, one of the best written books on the subject was Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress. It's clearly written with a different audience in mind than you (it spends a lot of its introduction, and some of the anecdotes, clearly attempting to appeal to girls who don't want to be seen as nerds - traditionally, this is a hard market segment to aim D&D towards), but its charming style can be viewed as one extended series of examples about 3e D&D, from the very rudimentary (i.e. "these dice look weird") to the somewhat more complex (there's a segment or two discussing combat as it unfolded), and even several of the "culture" elements (i.e. the social atmosphere that unfolds at game night). The biggest drawback is that it tries too hard to hit that market niche (and yes, I'm using marketing terms rather than demographic ones for a reason), and at times plays up stereotypes that make my feminist side itch. But it clearly means well, and it does a good job expressing a rather complex ruleset in a casual style. (It also doesn't pretend that the game isn't complicated, but it does kind of gloss over most of that, since the narrator's focusing on playing the game rather than running the game.)
Another possibilty is to consider Star Wars: Saga Edition (hear me out here!). It's not "D&D" (so you won't have a problem confusing it with your pre-existing expectations), but it is a d20 system similar to 3e. It shows a lot of 4e's design decisions (i.e. you make attacks vs enemy defenses, instead of them saving vs your attack's DCs; skills are trained/untrained as opposed to skill points; the magic system is unified across everyone with no special cases; the idea of "per encounter" is prevalent throughout, etc.), but still plays very similarly to 3.5. It's been jokingly called 3.75 for a reason. It's basically the perfect bridge between the systems, all things considered.
A third possibility is to watch a game in action, or to get a pre-built character and practice that way (3e is much easier to play than it is to build for, if you're new to the system). FWIW, my group games online and puts its game session logs up on a wiki; a bit of googling for the screen names / campaign name listed in my signature should find it just fine.
As for spellcasting, I could try to whip up a tutorial for it in particular, if you'd like. About 70% of it for wizards is literally just "cross off the spell for the day, then follow the rules in the spell"; you'll need to know how to aim a spell, but realistically, all the stuff about components and concentration and counterspelling and similar can be ignored while you're learning. Having a DM on hand would also help: D&D is much easier to play than it is to run, and you're (in effect) trying to learn both at the same time. Having a DM means that when you play, you can just say "I cast Scorching Ray" and he'll take care of the rest, prompting you as needed; trying to master every element on your own means that you're learning all of that backend while also learning how to play the game in the first place. That's a much harder task than it needs to be.
EDIT: Actually, that's perhaps the biggest difference between the editions, right there: 1st and 2nd editions (in their various forms) usually deferred to the DM's judgement calls whenever there was any form of conflict in the rules. 3rd and 4th decided to have the rules do more heavy lifting, which empowers the players since they can predict how a rule works without having to learn to read their DM's mind. 4th, however, took this to the extreme, with everything being handled by the rules, more or less (the DM's judgement was still needed, but almost all of the possible interacions were codified in the rules instead of being given as guidelines). 3rd, by contrast, leaves more of the adjucation to the DM. This means, in part, that someone learning 4e is encouraged to learn just about everything, but the size of that "everything" is smaller. Meanwhile, someone trying to learn 3e has to learn less of the game's rules, but the system is bulkier to begin with.
Don't think you have to learn everything. Honestly, most of it can be skipped over at a table unless your DM is asleep. Hell, I still have to look up lots of things, and I've been playing the game since it came out (and am one of those "PhDs in the sciences" types you're ribbing on earlier (physics degree, M.Sc, and working towards Ph.D.)). It helps if you have a good tool for that too.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Not sure if it's a toaboo subject, but do Pathfinder Wizards operate the same as 3.5 and 3.0 D&D Wizards?
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Pathfinder spellcasting, by and large, is very similar to 3.5 casting - in fact, most of its underlying structure is identical. (In the case of psionics, which I'm more familiar with, literally only one underlying rule was changed.) The spells themselves changed quite a bit, though, and the classes got much more complicated to build. They also got a big power boost, which in all honesty they really did not need, but now I'm editorializing.
Did you check my link in the earlier post? Having a source with all of the errata applied and all of the key terms hyperlinked can be a huge help when learning the game. That said, the SRD has almost no examples in it (the official SRD itself is literally just nuts and bolts), so it might not be ideal.
I also remembered there's an extended example of low-level play in the Dungeon Master's Guide. It's in the DMG because, as I said earlier, it's needed to run the game, but not to play the game, so to speak. 3.5 assumes a DM in control in more places than 4e did, and the decision to put the gameplay example (with all of the little decisions the DM needs to make spelled out in the text) in the DMG is indicative of that.
I'm serious about writing that quick tutorial for you if you'd like. I'll focus on the "new player wanting to play a wizard" angle and see what I can do later today (I'm not expecting any students to come during my office hours, so I'll need something to pass the time.). If you have any specific questions that came to mind over the last day or so, just ask, and I'll work them in.
*
[sblock] Rumor has it that when WotC started 4e's design, they brought on a mathematician formerly involved with Magic: The Gathering, who created an entire system for them. It got torpedoed for unknown reasons very late in the process. Some recognized its value, though, and rushed it - and I mean seriously rushed it - to get it published under 3.5 as the Tome of Battle. It says a lot about the quality of the material that the Tome, despite an immensely fast development cycle, still managed to be one of the best books ever written for 3.5, and I'm genuinely sad that it wasn't the foundation for 4e (although there are some distinct similarities).[/sblock]
EDIT: The more I think about it, the more I think what you really need isn't the wizard, but rather the warlock (Complete Arcane). The 3.5 warlock has all of its "powers" at-will, and (without multiclassing!) is all right on the damage front (particularly up to about level 5, after which monsters tend to have a lot more HP than you can reasonably whack away at), before eventually diversifying into tactical spellcasting (levels 6-11 are dominated by stacking conditions from blasts and separate area invocations (i.e. Chilling Tentacles), usually while managing flight or invisibility; they can keep the damage flowing pretty well here thanks to Eldritch Chain and Eldritch Cone, but the monsters tend to just have a LOT of hit points), and finally diversifying into being master artisans (their 12th level class feature allows them to create any magic item they want, more or less, which means that after 12 levels of practice with the warlock, you can keep the same character and just build your own sorcerer/wizard staff and bring their spells to the table as well).
They're also easy to play - one of my least math-savvy (now former) friends played one I built for her after only an hour of instruction. (I called it a "sorceress" and reflavored one of the "must-have" warlock magic items (the chasuble of fell power) as a spellbook that she'd read from**, to give the feel of an arcane incantation rather than innate magic, but it was still the warlock.) She had no problems with it, conceptually or mechanically. I don't think you'd have any problems with this either, honestly.
** (Don't read this unless you're already familiar with the 3.5 warlock)
[sblock] Since I know I'm going to get questions from experienced players about this item, the game was level 7.
I took the Tome of Worldly Memory (1500 GP, +5 to any Knowledge check, 3/day; it's a standard action if you've got 5 ranks in that skill, otherwise it takes 1 minute) as the base item, and also considered it a masterwork tool for several different Knowledge skills.
I then took the chasuble of fell power (8000 GP, shoulders slot, +1d6 Eldritch Blast damage; warlocks don't often budget for weapons, so that freed up enough money for this), switched it from "shoulder slot" to "held", and gave it a move action (manipulation) activation instead of a constant boost (though it remained usable any number of times per day). This effect was added on to the Tome of Worldly Memory to give this "sorceress" a spellbook. (I was tempted to allow it to be used multiple times to enhance the next blast - but she didn't want to spend a long time reading spell incantations when she could be blasting things.)
(Costwise, this works out to around 8500gp, since the changes to the chasuble weakened it. Considering that 7th level warriors might very well have +2 weapons (8300gp and change), it seemed to be passable.)
As I described it to her, she had the option of casting a normal arcane blast (note the name change!) on the run, or taking the time to stand still and read a spell from the book to empower her magic. She could also read a "spell" from the book to grant her knowledge about an enemy's strengths of weaknesses (the main thing I was using Knowledge for in this particular adventure) or to answer more difficult questions outside of battle (I built her character, and gave her 1 rank in most knowledges, but 5 in Arcana, The Planes, and Religion - this had the side effect of meaning she was more useful identifying minor devils, dragons, and unnatural beings, things that no one else in the party had much of a chance of identifying.)
Simply put, the party all thought she was a wizard, including herself. (This point was easier to make when she eventually found a magical staff as well - the idea of finding a staff and being able to cast new spells just worked for her.) I just used the rules for the warlock to do this.
[/sblock]
And here's a dirty secret about 3e: Reflavoring is the order of the day. You're not stuck interpreting one character with only one class. I'm playing a character right now who has a hard-to-control innate psionic ability, fueled by her emotions and nightmares but honed by study and determination; she's also kind and charming and uses that to act as a social face for the team. The normal class used to describe this, almost perfectly, is Wilder. However, I'm handling it using Psion, with the Overchannel feat, because Psion works off of Intelligence and I see her as more intelligent than charismatic. Her fluff is still that of a wilder though.
In your case, you could interpret your "wizard" using the "warlock" class. You can call him a wizard, describe what he's doing in terms of wizardry, and so on, but the rules handling those actions are still the warlock ones.
I know the goal is to learn to play a wizard. I'm just pointing this out because - once more - wizards are insanely complicated, even at a basic level. By doing something like a warlock interpretation first, you'd learn enough of the system to try again with a wizard, without getting hung up on the same snags that are holding you back now.
Originally posted by samcifer:
I'm at work right now, but I'll look over the site later (probably Thursday or Friday, which I took off for my b-day as Tuesday nights are rather hectic for me. ) But yes, a beginner's guide to creating (and possibly building to maximize) Wizards would be very helpful. I asked my partner for the Pathfinder Core Rulebook for my b-day, so hopefully I'll get it. (Sometimes he surpirses me with something different... no... not THAT way. lol)
Originally posted by Krusk:
A warlock is also a lot easier to play a blasty mage, which seems to be what you want. A wizard can do it better, but its a lot more complicated and generally a bad option.
A warlock can fire eldritch blasts every round for OK damage, and do some cool stuff like fly and turn invisable at will.
Originally posted by samcifer:
For the guide, what would really help would be a few gameplay senarios written out, say a Wizard in a battle with a few enemies.
P: "Okay, I cast Sleep on the Orcs."
DM Rolls saving throws... "Okay, two of the Orcs fall asleep, but the third shrugs it off." DM moves awake orc up close "Take that!" (the orc swings at the Wizard with his club. "You take 4 HP of damage."
P: "Ouch! Okay, I move directly away from him 15 feet, then shoot Magic Missile at him..."
Etc., etc...
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Here's the nutshell for those; I'll give basic wizard tips later.
Learning Spells
Wizards "know" any spell they have scribed in one of their spellbooks. They learn all 0-level spells and 4+Int Mod of these at level 1, and an additional 2 spells of any level they can cast each time they gain a level in wizard. They can also scribe new spells into their spellbooks from other sources - given enough time, a wizard could easily amass a library of spellbooks. However, most new players can get by just fine with the spells you learn from levelling, which are completely free.
Most of the time, your spellbooks will be your spellbooks, and not borrowed or coded or anything, so you can freely read from the spellbook without having to make any checks or cast any spells. The rest of this tutorial will assume you're using a spellbook you wrote, which is easily the most common case.
Preparing Spells
You have a number of different "slots" for spells of each spell level, set by your overall casting ability as a wizard. A 5th level wizard, for instance, has 4 0th level slots, 3 1st level slots, 2 2nd level slots, and 1 3rd level slot by default. You get bonus spell slots from having a high Intelligence (Int 16, for instance, gives one bonus 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spell slot.) These slots are considered "open" if they could hold a spell, "filled" if you prepared a spell in them, or "spent" if they held a spell that was cast.
You can only prepare a spell if your Intelligence is at least 10 + the spell's level. However, you still keep the higher level spell slots. (A 5th level wizard with 12 Intelligence could only prepare 2nd level spells, but would still have a 3rd level slot.) This distinction matters most when you're using metamagic feats, but for now, we'll stick to the basics - you can prepare a spell in any slot of its level, or higher. You could, for instance, prepare Scorching Ray (2nd level) in a 2nd level or a 3rd level spell slot. It'd behave identically when you cast it, though.
Wizards are "prepared" casters, meaning that unlike most 3.5 spellcasters, you prepare each spell slot independently. If you only prepare Scorching Ray in one slot, you can only cast it once in the coming day. To cast it multiple times, you'd need to prepare multiple copies of it (or use an effect that restores a spell slot.)
Preparing a spell means having the spellbook on hand after an extended rest. The extended rest restores all your spent spell slots to their normal, open state (there's a slight caveat here if you were interrupted during the rest, but we'll ignore it). You can also abandon spells that you've prepared at this point, switching their slots back to their normal open state. If you have a calm environment after an extended rest, you can fill up your open spell slots after 1 hour studying your spellbook. This is also the time you'd spend preparing spells with metamagic if you're using that; more on that will come later.
Interestingly, wizards can leave some slots open during preparation. While this means they bring fewer spells to the table during battle, it means that if they run into a weird challenge outside of battle, and the wizard knows a spell that can solve it, he can prepare it and cast it right there on the spot. (This is similar to 4e's idea of ritual casting.) This takes at least 15 minutes to do, though.
Casting Spells
At its core, casting is just crossing off a spell and following its rules. Really, that's it.
There's a bit more to it: for instance, you provoke an opportunity attack by casting, and if you take damage you need to make a Concentration check or the spell is lost (a "lost" spell is one that is crossed off as if you'd cast it, but has no effect.). You also need to be able to concentrate (see the Concentration skill for more) and have the spell's components on hand (typically this is just a spell component pouch, the ability to gesture freely, and the ability to speak in a strong voice; it varies a bit from spell to spell, listed in the spell's description. V means Verbal, S means Somatic, M for material (these are usually all handled by the pouch, unless it says otherwise), F for focus; sometimes you'll also see DF for "divine focus", but only divine spellcasters use those.)
All that said, though, you can probably ignore that for now.
The main things you need to know are spell casting time, ranges, areas, and targets.
-Casting Time: In 4e, most spells took a standard action, a minor action, or a full action to pull off. This is similar in 3.5, and works exactly the same way, except that a full action is called a "full-round" action and a minor action is called a "swift" action. There are also spells that take "1 round" to cast (this is basically a full action, but you're still "casting" when it isn't your turn; the spell takes effect at the start of your next turn), as well as those that are "immediate" (an immediate-action spell can be cast at any time, even when it isn't your turn; it counts as your next turn's swift action). Spells with longer casting times exist, but you realistically won't be using these in combat.
-Ranges: These show how far away you can be from your spell's effect and still cast it. If you can see the end point and have "line of effect" (that is, no obstructions - a window blocks line of effect), you can cast your spell there. Note that your range changes as your wizard caster level increases. There's two subtle points about range. First, although you can center area spells anywhere within the range, if part of the spell would extend further away from that range, it's wasted. (That is, loosely speaking, if you center a fireball on the very edge of its range, about half of the area will be wasted.) Second, you do not actually need to see where you're aiming. (There's a difference between line of sight and line of effect; spells need line of effect but generally don't need line of sight unless they're targeted.)
-Areas: If a spell has an area, it will conform to a few different standard shapes (bursts, spreads, cones, cylinders, emanations, etc.). All of these are defined in the player's handbook. Be advised that these are three-dimensional, even though we usually just approximate with circles and triangles. (A common way to understand how these are 3D involves using a cone spell while flying, and aiming the spell down. Instead of affecting a triangle-shaped area, it will hit a large circle on the ground.)
-Targets: Each spell lists how it targets, if there's any. You CAN cast a spell on the wrong type of target (the usual example is Charm Person on a dog), but it will fail. If a spell lacks a target, you can aim it anywhere in range. If a spell has a target, you need to be able to see the target as well as having line of effect to it as normal.
Special note goes for spells that say Effect: Ray or Range: Touch. These two types of spells are the only ones that require attack rolls on your part. The former is a ranged touch attack (1d20+base attack bonus + Dexterity bonus against the target's Touch armor class); the latter is a melee touch attack (1d20+base attack bonus+ Strength bonus, against the target's touch armor class). There's a bit of finesse that can be done with melee touch spells (as you can touch at any point during the round you cast it, as a free action, as opposed to immediately after you cast it; you can also "hold the charge" and touch someone later in combat), but this is getting kind of corner-case.
Unless a spell says it requires an attack roll (or is a ray or a melee touch spell), you don't need to make any rolls to cast your spells. You just cross it off and it takes effect. That effect is determined by two things: Your caster level (any reference to "level" looks at your caster level) and your key ability modifier (Int, for wizards).
Let's go with the caster level first. Spells often scale, being better at their job if they're cast by a higher-level wizard. Fireball is a good example of this: It deals 1d6 damage per level (up to 10d6 at 10th level). However, it also says "Spell Resistance: Yes", meaning that it can be resisted by creatures who have Spell Resistance. (most low-level monsters don't have this; higher-level ones often do. It also varies by type: magical creatures usually have it, mundane usually don't). If you cast it on a creature with spell resistance, your DM will ask you for a caster level check (1d20 + your caster level). This roll has to equal or exceed the target's Spell Resistance if you want your spell to work. (Note that not all spells allow spell resistance. If you want damage without SR, conjuration is your school of choice.)
As for the key ability score, that sets the saving throw difficulty class. Creatures have a chance at dodging or resisting your spell, and this is noted by their saving throws (which correspond to Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses in 4e.) When you throw your spell at them, you also set the Difficulty Class (DC) of that spell, or how hard it is to resist. This DC is 10 + the spell's level + your key ability modifier. So, for your wizard with 16 Intelligence casting Fireball (3rd level spell), the DC would be 10+3+3 = 16. Its saving throw is listed as "Reflex Half", meaning people hit by the fireball have to make a Reflex save - and if that save result is 16 or greater, they take half damage from the spell. (This is also when effects like the rogue's Evasion would kick in, if you cast it on a rogue.) Your own saving throws work the same way, if an enemy tosses a spell at you.
...
And that, I think, is a complete primer on wizard-based spellcasting for beginners (i.e. before introducing metamagic).
I'll move on to basic wizard building later.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
*
[sblock]Note that, while intelligence about what's coming up is super-important, splitting the party to send a thief-type up ahead is not a very good way to do this. The example can be forgiven - they're level 1, and they're trying to show the basics, not ideal tactics - but this observation must be made. Generally speaking, the party is stronger together, and you can usually use other options to poke ahead.
There are guides to proper scouting - this one is a good example - but at this point I'm digressing.
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I'll try to concoct something like your example in a bit. (Be advised: In this situation, with one orc surviving, I would either have used the Withdraw action to move away (since normal movement provokes an opportunity attack) and allowed the team's fighter to deal with the orc, and/or I would have used a crossbow instead of Magic Missile (you already took out two monsters with one spell and there's one left; save your other spell for when you can make a similar difference in battle. Low level wizards can conserve their slots by falling back on the crossbow; as your levels get up there (around level 4 or so) you'll usually have enough slots to get through the day if you're preparing the right spells.
Generally speaking, D&D 3.5 assumes four "challenging" encounters per day (fewer if there's a "boss fight" style combat). Observe that a wizard's base spell slots stop at 4 per level. This implies a good first-order rule of thumb for new players: rather than spam-casting your strongest spells, you should start casting weaker ones (from more plentiful slots). Your highest-level slots can often end an encounter outright; if you need to cast many more spells, they should come from your lower level slots. (This is actually bad advice for a highly optimized wizard, but until the basics are mastered, extreme optimization can be considered a secondary goal.)
Originally posted by RogerWilco:
Weaker spellslots can also be used for long running buffs. (A simple example is Mage Armor) Selecting the right buff spells can make a huge difference for any caster.
Secondly, If you do want to play a Wizard, I took Divination specialisation, as you then only get one forbidden school. Divination is more useful than you might think. Wizards are prepared spellcasters, so are much more powerful when they know the challenges that they are going to face. Divination helps you get that knowledge.
The general rule about spells is: there is no general rule, each is it's own small reality and rule set. The more spells you have the more complex the game.
Oh, and if you think that 3E is written in a hard to follow manner, try some of the even older editions. 3E was a breath of fresh air and clarity when it came out.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Okay, so if I were to go with damaging spells, am I correct in assuming that overcoming spell resistance is one (it not the) main factor to doing as much damage as possible?
I believe that the Spell Penetration feats help towards this. What else can I do to help me to do the most damage possible with attack spells?
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
It's that:
As a result, damage spells in 3.5 are (rightly!) considered a losing game for most characters, especially when it's usually much more effective to get an opponent to stop acting by casting a spell that makes them stop acting, rather than having to chew through 200 easily-protected HP first.
Ultimately, the "textbook" on how to competently play a damage-based mage in 3.5 would be the Mailman(x). And, oddly enough, it's powerful not because it deals damage, but rather because it really understands that available actions are the most important currency in 3.5. That is, although it's a damage-based mage, it concentrates on getting extra actions from its spells - in effect throwing out four or five spells every round, and making sure those spells are all but unblockable.
The Mailman, however, uses sorcerer-exclusive options, and will not work with the wizard. This is probably for the best, because, once again, wizards have much better things to do than huck flaming bat poop at things.
If you want to play a wizard that casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down, here's probably the best place to start. Those are the spells that, upon casting, are very likely to defeat at least one opponent, and often win the entire battle outright. That's not even the best of them (the preamble points out utility, buffs, mobility, and situational support spells that can also make sure you win not just the encounter, but the entire campaign), but if you're learning the game, that's a good list to learn from.
And, interestingly, you'll note that none of those spells deal damage as their primary function. Damage really is that bad a choice for mage-types. Unless you're doing a Mailman-style action-spamming stunt, it's always better to leave damage to the chargers (and occasionally to the sneak-attack-styled characters, though Sneak Attack itself is actually pretty easily negated).
Originally posted by samcifer:
Sadly, that sucks, because it relegates wizards to mere support staff for the group. It feels kind of like:
Warrior: "Wizard, put them to sleep!"
Wizard: "Done."
Warrior shoves wizard into the mud to get him out of the way, then kills the sleeping foes. "Let's go men, time is wasting."
The wizard picks himself up out of the mud, muttering darly to himself.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Unless I go for a Wizard/(martial class) hybrid so I can set up my foes then hit them myself on my next turn.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Tangent alert!
[sblock]This may be a bit of a culture shift, but still: Component magic was the standard for D&D during its creation (along with Jack Vance's memorization-based spell system). However, it was as often as not played for laughs. My favorite example would be the described gestures and magic words needed to cast some spells in the 1e Unearthed Arcana book: these included adjusting the flavor of a dish by humming twice while making a mystic symbol with thumb and forefinger touching and the other fingers extended from the resulting circle. In other words, you made something taste better by going "Mm-MM!" and making an OK sign.
In 3e, the components are largely unchanged, which makes their nature somewhat bizarre - Fireball involves building a fertilizer bomb, Lightning Bolt uses a static electricity rod, Scrying involves a tiny electrical battery and a lens-and-screen (presumably making a magic movie projector), and so on. The biggest change was that if you had your component pouch on you, you'd be considered to have all of them with you, instead of having to go shopping for fresh eye of newt. (This did produce some curiosities, such as how perishable components or living creatures never expired, but this is yet another handwave.) It's really only an issue if you can't reach into your pouch for whatever reason, similar to how you can't cast spells with gestures if both your hands are holding weapons.
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The warrior needs to get past armor class, miss chances, damage reduction, fast healing, regeneration, and any number of things that interact with attacks or damage every time he swings, and after all of that he still has to chew through hundreds of hit points. It's only when he gets rid of the last hit point that the monster stops fighting.
The wizard has to deal with saving throws (sometimes, and this is easy to support with other spells), spell resistance (sometimes - and easily circumvented), and... that's about it. If he gets his spell off, the monster stops fighting.
Note how the goal of the warrior is the same as the goal of the wizard: get the monster to stop fighting. The wizard just ignores how many hit points are left and simply says "stop fighting", while the fighter might need to get medieval on the monster for upwards of a minute before the monster finally stops.
Just because you're not chugging six-siders against the monster's HP doesn't mean you aren't killing the monster.
Even if some of those spells - like the Sleep spell you're continually ribbing on - doesn't actually kill the guys outright, it means that anyone, even the wizard, can just walk right up and slit throats afterwards. (Note: 3.5 sleep knocks them out instantly, unlike the 4e version!) In effect, the sleep spell won the battle, with the blood spilled afterwards being mere details involved in cleanup.
That said, there is a base class that's centered around melee combat and damage-based spells. It's the PHB2's Duskblade. It does its job rather well - largely because it allows spells to piggyback on melee attacks - but that job is, again, pure damage. They don't actually win fights faster, unless you're dealing with low-HP foes who can be killed easier with damage than with win spells.
Also, third point: "hybrid" in the 4e sense is a very poor shadow of what can be accomplished with 3.5 multiclassing, by and large. It's a bit tricky in places, and full spellcasters are admittedly one of those places, but once you get a handle on the system it totally changes how you view the game. "Class" becomes a system of tools used to construct your concept, not a pre-programmed character archetype.
Originally posted by samcifer:
For the record, I did indeed mean multi-class, rather than hybrid.
So basically I need to instead focus on spells that take foes out of action rather than doing damage, if I'm to have any hope of being effective in battle.
Because of that, my Tiefling Pyro Mage would basically be repeatedly lighting matches under the chins of the enemies who keep blowing them out, and my guy goes "Stop it!" before lighting another match. "Stop it!"
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
You need to look up the guide to playing god... or I can just link it(x). This is why wizards are crazy good.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Also, I do choose Sleep for a standard spell, but it lacks the impact (damage-wise) of other, flashier spells. Does anyone know if 5th Ed. wizards are stiffed on damaging spells like earlier editions, or can they still do decent damage like 4th Ed. wizards?
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
Aside from action exploits like what The Mailman uses your other option for damage (particularly as a Wizard) is to roll a Conjurer/Incantatrix (maybe with some Archmage to expand your options). You don't NEED Incantatrix but if it's on the table it's insanely good. The trick you're going for is irrisistable damage, and really cheap metamagic to make sure you're laying down a lot of it.
We won't get into anything as dubious as negative cost metamagic. Instead we'll focus on the fact that with some low cost metamagics and the right higher cost ones reduced enough you'll be able to lay waste to opponents in the mid-high game. Sadly we're going to have to face facts and until you've got some metamagic tricks going you won't be a damage dealer (look forward to coming online around level 9 to be honest). One trick that might help you stay alive here is Retraining, if your DM allows it you can go Arcane Thesis on a Lesser Orb at 6 and then retrain that for another Metamagic Feat at 12 (when you'll take Arcane Thesis for one of the higher level Orbs as it takes over as more efficient).
Now, to try and make sense of what I'm saying, here goes.
This is a doozy
[sblock]For starters there's a ton of feats to get to know.
Level 1: you're a Human Conjurer (I like Focused Specialist, so forget Archmage, oh well). You'll want to get Extend Spell (PHB) and Metamagic School Focus (CM) out of the way now. The two feats I name are for the following reason, your really good spells, you're unbelievably strong Conjuration spells at level 1 like Grease, they last one round per level and that sucks. Metamagic School Focus lets you prep Grease 3/day with a 2 round duration, and that's something at least. You also want to take the PHB2 Immediate Metamagic replacement for your Familiar, or get a Hummingbird Familiar (it's from Dragon something or other IIRC) which is effectively Improved Initiative that stacks. Forbidden schools? You're giving up Evocation and Enchantment, they're both pretty weak with a small number of exceptions. Your damage dealing spell is Lesser Orb of Fire or Cold (I'd pick Fire because of some later choices mostly). Your damage spell does 1d8, allows no save or SR but requires a Ranged Touch Attack.
Keep going Wizard and don't forget to max out Concentration, Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft, because you need those things. I personally also like to Max out a few other creature related Knowledge skills (Dungeoneering, Local, Nature, Religeon, The Planes) to forgive some of the unavoidable metagame of knowing monsters stats, and to get to make the rolls and ask the questions at the start of each encounter.
Level 3: you sadly have to take Iron WIll (PHB) as a feat which is almost as useless as Weapon Focus for you, but get over it *. The ol' damage spell's up to 2d8.
*Or don't, there's a Magical Place known as the Otyug Hole noted in Complete Scoundrel, if your DM allows the use for 1K gp, do that instead of wasting a precious feat.
Level 5: you've got some neat options, for this build your best bet is probably to start getting some damage related metamagic online. So we're going to take Energy Substitution (CArc) (picking cold, to have options with your Fire Orb). Damage spell is up to 3d8 now.
At 6 you're going into Incantatrix (YAY!), you have to give up another school (BOO!). The school you give up can't be Abjuration or Divination, so I'm going to say bye bye to Illusion, it's main real strength was making up for the loss of Evocation in a few small exceptions to not wanting to lose that school, you'll get over it though. Cool **** already? Yep, you've got that! You'll want Energy Admixture (CArc) now (corrisponding with your Sub). Also you get a general feat! You now ha a split based on weather your DM allows Retraining (this mess clears up after 12).
6A) So now we're going to take Arcane Thesis (PHB2) (if you can retrain), . You're up to 4d8 (18 damage) now... this is weaksauce but it's a 1st level spell, so no biggie. If you've got the retrain option you can Metamagic School Focus your Orb into Admixture for 8d8 (36 Damage), this spell will also deal 50% of its subbed damage to immune creatures thanks to Piercing Cold or Searing Spell (Arcane Thesis makes it free), or diuble damage to vulnerable creatures instead of an additional 50%.
6B) GM won't allow retraining? Take Searing Spell (Sand)
Level 7: make sure you've maxed out Spellcraft, because any allied caster just got a wet spot in their pants. You can do really awesome things for THEIR spells now too. Your new damage dealing spell does 7d6 (24.5), and the old one's still good for 5d8 (22.5) which is actually impressively close, the new one tacks on a Fort Save or be Dazed.
7A) The cool trick here is if you did get access to the retrain option mentioned at 6 you can prep your lesser orb as an Admixtured orb without spending your Metamagic School focus as a 3rd and be dealing 10d8 (45 damage).
7B) You can still prep your Lesser Fire Orb as 4th 3/day if need be by using Metamagic School focus, it's something, right?
Level 8: the Incantatrix ability you get at this level is mostly going to help your control spells, not so much your DPS, but that's fine it's still amazing.
Level 9: ANOTHER FEAT! AND ANOTHER!
9 A) Take Searing Spell Now, and use your general feat on Residual Magic(CM) for mad synergy with Metamagic Spell Trigger, you've got a magical Shotgun (A wand of Orb of Fire, lesser).
9 B) You're free to grab Piercing Cold (Frost) with your bonus feat and grab Arcane Thesis for your big gun (Orb of Fire)
Level 12 MOAR FEATS! Bonus metamagic feat goes to Empower Spell (PHB)
12 A) Time to retrain, get Piercing Cold via your Retrain and grab Arcane Thesis with your General Feat.
12 B) Residual Metamagic can come online now, and you get your Shotgun Mk2 (It's PRICEY but a Fire Orb Wand is strong).
This is all coming online weather you had to retrain it or not, you've just been more effective in the meantime if you've been able to retrain. Your new DPS spell is doing 14d6 (49) without any metamagic, you're able to Metamagic School Focus it into a 6th with Admixture Searing Spell AND Piercing Cold come for the ride FREE of charge. Let's break that down, against targets with no immunity it deals 28d6 (98), creatures with a Cold Subtype? 14d6 times two (you lose half your spell but double the other half), creatures immune to one without a subtype? 14d6+14d6 halved (73). Creatures vulnerable to one, but not cold subtype (IE Fire subtype), they take 14d6 and another 14d6 times two (147).
Level 13: Worth noting you can now muscle your way into Empowering the previous spell AND it's reached its damage cap of 15d6 (52.5 or 78.75, if empowered).
Jumping ahead further to 15, we're damn near running out of good metamagic huh? Also all metamagic costs just went down another 1! Grab Twin Spell and Maximize Spell, sure why not. Your metamagic costs are down insanely low. 2 for Admixture or Twin, 1 for Maximized, free for Empowered, Piercing Cold and Searing Spell. You can now cast 3/day with all of the above for 15d6+50% (78.75) points each of Fire and Cold, TWICE. Over 312 damage without any special vulnerabilities. We broke the 20 damage/character level threshold? That's good... we've done it with a REALLY low chance to miss, and virtually no chance to resist?! That's fantastic. It does cost one of your precious 8th level spell slots however each time you do this. Your lower level slots are still quite effective.
Finish out your days as a simple Wizard
Level 18 you've got another feat? Transdimensional Spell, so we don't miss non-corps half the time.
Level 20, bonus feat?! Quicken Spell... for those times one nasty blast wasns't enough.
If you've got access to the O-Hole trick and or Flaws it's not hard to get Archmage online, it can be done otherwise but it means leaving some other tricks on the table and slowing down the build further. It is worth doing in a high level game because it means you can get Mastery of Elements to swap to JUST Cold or JUST Fire and ensure quadrouple damage against opposed subtype creatures.
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Originally posted by samcifer:
Melf's Unicorn Arrow from PHB2 looks like a decent spell to go for. No resistance or Saving Throw against it for at least 9 damage, and at higher levels, you can throw more of them each time (up to 5). 9 Damage may not be that great, but no resisting or saving sounds like a good thing for a spell to have. There's also a spell that lets you fire actual arrows without a bow. Can't recall the name, but wonder if it's worth using. I know these may not be 'practical' spells, but they sure sound fun to use.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Unicorn Arrow is best used to carry trigger effects rather than its own damage, but no save, no resist is good too. However, a bit of context: "at least 9 damage" won't be relevant once monsters have more than 9 hit points (unless it weakens them to the point where an ally will finish them off before the enemy acts again - it's all about the actions, once again), and even the best case (1d8+8, x5 or so) is pretty weak (although it can be used to carry other damage to the target - it's a favored spell of the #1 Snoipah build in my signature for that reason). Damage doesn't exist in a vacuum. (In a bit, you'll see me look up standard monster stats and compare damage to them as a percentage, for instance.)
Incidentally, there ARE blasting spells that have this no-save/no-SR effect - the Orb spells in the Spell Compendium. They're all rays, and your classic fire blast becomes Orb of Fire (a no-save, no-SR, 1d6/level ray spell - note that rays have their own interesting interaction with metamagic). Orb of Fire actually does allow a save... but it's not against the damage. If the target fails their save, they're dazed for 1 round (dazed creatures can take no actions; it's also surprisingly difficult to be immune to dazing. The only creature type that Orb of Fire won't daze are undead, but that's not due to undead being immune to daze: it's because Orb of Fire allows a Fortitude save and doesn't say Fortitude (object).). This checks all your boxes: Damage, fire, and action control.
It's quite possible to make an effective fire mage using this spell and a few other workarounds, but it requires a bit of metamagic expertise and a solid understanding of the action economy. Give me a bit and I'll see about getting a writeup done in the style of the builds in my signature.
EDIT:
Well, look at that, I did a thing(x). I'll also be happy to elaborate more on this if you have specific questions, but for now, I'd like you to note just how few actual "fire" spells there are on this guy (seven out of 34, and only two of those are real "kill spells"), while all of the late-game spells involve no-save action-economy manipulation (allowing me to bring enough firepower to bear).
(PS: If you like the "spell to launch stuff at enemy" archetype, the one-stop-shop is and always has been Telekinesis. One of our groups has even used this as a GTFO finisher: The psion creates a crate of arrows, the artificer hastily infuses some of them with the Bane property tuned to whatever we're fighting, and the ardent uses telekinesis to launch a truly prodigious number of killer arrows at whatever we want to shut up and sit down. It was kind of action intensive, but we usually only used it against foes we needed to send a message to.)
You're level 1. You know three spells: Burning Hands, Magic Missile, and Sleep. (Color Spray is similar enough to Sleep - it's stronger but shorter-range.). Let's say you've got a final Intelligence of 18 (although as a tiefling it could probably be 20). You're fighting average CR 1 opponents - 12 hit points, Reflex +3, Will +1. (See below for where I got these numbers.)
Burning Hands deals 1d4 (2.5) damage in a 15-foot cone, with a Reflex save for half damage. The DC for a first-level spell that you cast is (10 + spell level 1 + Int mod 4 = 15). A +3 Reflex vs DC 15 will succeed 45% of the time. This means Burning Hands can expect to deal (2.5*.45)+(1.25*.55) = 1.8 damage, which is 15% of the monster's HP. However, if the monster has Evasion (which turns Reflex Half into Reflex Negates), the expected damage drops to just 1.125, or 9% of the target's HP.
Magic Missile always hits. That's it's thing - nothing resists it (except Spell Resistance, but CR 1 monsters rarely resist magic). It will always deal 1d4+1 (3.5) damage. This is 29% of the monster's HP. Unlike the other spells here, though, it's single-target only at this level - but it's still twice as effective as Burning Hands, and three times as effective against targets with Evasion.
But I still argue that Sleep blows them out of the water.
Here's the important bit: Sleep may do nothing if the target saves against it, yes. However, if the target fails its save, the target is effectively dead (the actual throat-slitting comes later, but as far as the monster's concerned, the Sleep spell was the thing that killed him). A +1 Will vs DC 15 (same derivation as above) will succeed 35% of the time. This means that 65% of the time, the sleep spell has (virtually) the same effect as "dealing damage equal to the target's hit points". You can consider Sleep to deal .65*12= 7.8 "expected" damage as a result, or 65% of the monster's HP, hitting multiple targets at the same range Magic Missile uses, with the caveat that it might be negated on a target's successful save. (This is, however, exactly the same situation a blast-damage spell has against a target with Evasion: mega damage if they fail, no damage if they succeed.) This is, on average, four times stronger than Burning Hands (or seven times stronger against evasion targets), and over twice as effective as Magic Missile - and unlike those spells, it scales based on the enemy.
(What do I mean by "scales based on the enemy"? Well, let's put you up against a "very difficult" (actual game term) "boss fight" (casual term) for 1st level characters - an ogre. These guys pack enough of a punch to break several 1st level characters in half if you let them get close. They also have 29 HP, Reflex +0, and Will +1. Against an ogre, using the same math as before, Burning Hands can "expect" to deal 2.125 damage (7% of the ogre's HP, and you're up close and probably toast next round), Magic Missile can "expect" to deal 3.5 damage (12%), and Sleep will knock him out the same 65% of the time it would against the average CR 1 (yes, ogres have 4 HD, which is weak enough to be hit by Sleep*). The thing is, since the ogre is so much tougher than the average CR 1, this works out to (.65*29) = 18.85 HP. This is still 65% of the monster's HP, but since the monster's HP increased, it's also gone from four to seven time stronger than Burning Hands, and from twice to five times as effective as Magic Missile. This means that 65% of the time, a single spell will end the entire fight with the ogre, when a warrior or battle mage would need to get something like two or three rounds worth of combat to end the fight. That's two or three rounds where the ogre is fully capable of swinging back, dealing ~16 damage against your level 1 characters if they hit (where level 1 fighters are "expected" to have about 14ish HP).
Minor caveat: This is also why we recommended boosting Intelligence for more spells earlier on. If you had 20 Int instead of 18 (doable because of your racial Int bonus), your DCs would improve by 1, which would increase the odds of your spells working (and decrease the odds of a successful save) by 5%.
*
[sblock]It's hypothetically possible to continue to use Sleep against higher-level foes, oddly enough: energy drain effects like Enervation add particularly nasty debuffs onto the target called "negative levels". One thing negative levels do is reduce the target's effective level by 1. This usually has an impact on things like caster level (i.e. a level 5 mage hit with one of these is CL 4, and can't cast 3rd level spells)... but "level" and "HD" are synonyms. A troll with two negative levels is thus vulnerable to sleep.
Of course, if you're strong enough to bestow negative levels, chances are you're also packing better (flashier!) kill spells than Sleep, so this isn't likely to actually see use, but it does appear to work.
Interestingly, negative levels themselves are kill spells, if you can get enough of them on the target. (If a target's negative levels equal their HD, they die.) I've seen evocation specialists figure out a way to use the Fell Drain metamagic at level 1, in effect completely destroying anything they aim a spell at - and leaving a corpse that will rise as a nasty undead the following day. (Fell Drain adds 1 negative level to any target damaged by the spell, and uses a slot 2 levels higher than normal. By taking Metamagic School Focus (or another a way of cheapening metamagic costs), you can reduce Fell Drain to only take up one slot higher. You then apply it to Sonic Snap, a 0th-level no-save damage spell from the Spell Compendium, and cast those from your 1st level slots. Remember what I was saying earlier about metamagic being important, and metamagic cost reducers being a big part of the "high end" of optimization? This is a pretty basic example of that.)
But I digress.
[/sblock]Viewing everything in terms of attack bonus and hit point damage is a serious case of blinders that I often find with those who have only played 4e. This is why I think converting everything to a damage equivalent might help put the sheer power of these effects in context.
In comparison: It's pretty easy to make a charging-based melee character who can deal over 225 damage with one charge on average at level 6, and that's accounting for chance to hit the average enemy Armor Class. (Note: I didn't give them a +2 Strength item, although they could afford it, since it would leave them no gear for defense or support. If I had, that would increase to nearly 250 damage in one charge.) The typical Fireball spell deals 5d6, or 17.5 damage (less than 8% of the fighter's damage!), and that's if the enemy fails their saving throw. This LOOKS like a clear win for the fighter types... but it lacks context.
17.5 damage actually is quite a lot - but it's only a lot against the right foes. Here's some data on various monster stats at different challenge ratings(x); if you're being faced with a legion of goblins, a single fireball will very likely destroy them all, while the fighter can at most splat two of them. If you're fighting a single dire lion (CR 5), then the fireball will barely singe it (and most of the fireball's strength lies in its large area, which is wasted against single targets).
Meanwhile, Stinking Cloud - a spell of the same level as fireball, which hits the same area as the fireball - costs the targets at least their next move action if they save (and quite possibly their next several standard actions, if they don't save - and it forces them to keep saving until they lose, if they stay in the area) and is guaranteed to shut down their visibility and maneuverability (which blocks enemy targeted spells, most archery attacks, and charges). You cast a spell like this, and if your team is aware of the spell and how to work with it, and you've won the battle already, turning it from a brawl into a chain of assassinations (which you can help with too, if you'd like, or you can sit back and clean your nails while the others do your dirty work for you).
I don't want to edition war at all, so correct me if I'm misrepresenting things, but in my understanding, 4e didn't so much boost the damage values as reasonably normalize them across various strategies, and consider monster HP growth in the equation. (This didn't always work - how many times has it been called "a striker's game"? - but it was part of the design.) They also removed "better" options like Stinking Cloud in this form, in favor of more damage spells that happened to have a minor inconvenience effect. Gone was Solid Fog + Black Tentacles, for instance; casting those two spells (assuming the enemy didn't have Freedom of Movement) and then going to the pub for a drink while the rest of your team just stares idly by, waiting for the death-fest to finish so they can clean up what remains of the enemy is something a 3e mage can do to show their supreriority, but a 4e mage could only approximate (at least in the core 4e PHB).
The power of a spell is all about context, not the amount of damage dice it throws when you cast it.
Okay, since 5th Edition is reported to play more like the 2nd and 3rd editions of D&D, I started collecting the books for 3.5 Ed. and after learning that Tieflings are playable there as well as in 4th, I wanted to re-create my 4th Ed. Tiefling Mage in 3.5.
What I'm looking to do is have the most number of spells per day available, but it seems like I have to choose between total number of spells known and maximum number of spells per day to cast. If that's the case, then I feel that spells per day would be better since unlike in 4th Ed., I can use the same spell multiple times per day.
My issue is in figuring out how to do this is that I've read through the Player's handbook 1 (I have PHB2, but have only glanced through the Wizard stuff in it so far until I finish book 1), but the book reads like stereo instructions translated from a foreign language compaired to the 4th Ed. books.
How can I maximize the number of spells per day for my character? I want a Wizard who can both do damage with attack spells as well as have access to control spells like Sleep,Charm Person, etc. in addition to using things like Flaming Sphere and Fireball.
I've been reading and re-reading the books, but cannot make clear sense of what has been written in them.
Thanks in advance.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Welcome!
Be advised that the 3e gameplay is very different from 4e - both on the character building and combat expectation fronts. For instance, tieflings by default have a +1 level adjustment, which means that your (say) level 5 wizard is actually level 4, having weaker spells as a result. (This drawback is so powerful that "thou shalt not give up caster levels" was jokingly referred to as not one but two separate "Commandments of Optimization" years ago.) There is a "lesser tiefling" that is identical to the normal tiefling, except its type is Humanoid instead of Outsider (native); the lesser tiefling has a +0 level adjustment like all the PHB races. (EDIT: The reason for a type change being enough to get this thing from "about as powerful as a human" to "much more powerful than a human"? First, outsiders are immune to anything that specifically targets humanoids, like Charm Person. Second, and more important here, inexpensive transformation spells like Alter Self allow you to change into other creatures of your type; for a human, this generally means you can turn into goblinoids or the like, but for native outsiders, it means you can become demons (within reason). With a 2nd level spell slot.)
Also, in general, 3.5 didn't care about damage spells outside of a very narrow range. There's no "bloodied" condition or similar - a monster with 1 HP fights exactly as well as one with 300 HP. It takes phenomenal skill with character building to develop spellcasters based on damage that are able to deal enough of it to actually kill monsters before they could fight back. (For instance, Color Spray or Sleep will put large numbers of weak monsters unconscious at level 1, at which point you can slit their throats at your leisure, while a damage mage's 1st level spells tend to deal 1d4+1 or 1d6 damage and leave them standing instead.)
Finally, be advised that wizards are easily the most complicated class in the player's handbook to both learn to build and learn to play. There's maybe only two others that may be harder, period - the archivist (which is basically a divine wizard) and the artificer (which relies on complete knowledge of every spell list, including the sorcerer/wizard list, as well as item creation stunts). While 3.5 has a greater degree of control over character creation (especially through multiclassing and prestige classing), this also leads to increased complexity - and wizards have even more complexity than most. You did not pick an easy first character.
(PS: You can probably set this aside until you've got the basics of the system down, but the Noob Guide is still worth a bookmark. I can give better, more tailored advice if you ask specific questions, though.)
With those general, broad, points passed along, let's get to the nitty-gritty. EDIT: I didn't mention this, but I'll keep this discussion to the core books, since the size of the 3.5 library can be daunting.
Technically, wizards can learn an unlimited number of spells, given time and resource availability. What you're looking for is the greatest number of spell slots (aka spells per day).
Here's the basics:
1) Maximize your Intelligence above all else. (A 3e wizard could get by with 8s in every score except Int and Con and still be a juggernaut.) This gives you more bonus spell slots (see the table in chapter 1) as well as makes your spells harder to resist. (Certain other spells, such as Telekinesis, also reference your Intelligence in other ways.)
2) Make good use of scrolls, wands, and staves. Scribe Scroll can be used to "bank up" situational spells that you don't need to cast over and over; wands (and the Magic Item Compendium's "eternal wands", which don't use charges but only work twice a day) can store low-level spells that you do want to use over and over, and staves can store higher level spells that also benefit from your own spellcasting ability. (That is, scrolls and wands always cast the spell at its weakest possible strength - lowest caster level, lowest DC. Staves inherit your CL and DCs, more or less.)
3) Consider spell specialization. Regular wizards can specialize in a single school of magic, giving them an extra spell slot of each spell level for that one school only, at the cost of not being able to cast any spells from one other school. There's a few other ways to "super-specialize" (the core rules only do this through Red Wizard) and get even more slots for that specific school, but this often gets prohibitive except to advanced players. (For instance, a specialized illusionist can actually give up Evocation and still cast every Evocation spell ever printed, in some cases without any preparation at all.)
4) This is a bit subtle, but it's important if you're a troubleshooter mage instead of an artillery platform: you can leave some of your slots "open" and fill them with spells later in the day. This is described in the Magic chapter, and honestly it could be explained better, but basically, if you have 15 minutes, an open and unused slot of the right level, and your spellbook, you can prepare any spell you know in it at any point during the day. (This is roughly similar to 4e's idea of ritual casting, if it helps visualize things.)
And, on the more complicated front:
5) Certain magic items directly increase your spells per day, but most are really, really expensive for the benefit. The core examples are the Rings of Wizardry and the Pearls of Power.
6) Certain spells, such as Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, can be used to restore spent spell slots. With proper application of metamagic (and familiar, with the right spells), you can refresh almost all of your spell slots on the fly.
7) There are ways to reduce the cost of metamagic feats. (A new player probably won't need to know about metamagic, but it's absolutely critical to learn as you get more experienced as a player.) This allows "higher-level" spells to be cast in lower level slots, in effect creating more room for better spells. There are no ways to do this in the core rules, but they're pretty common elsewhere.
8) There's also some cheesy loops that allow wizards to duplicate themselves, with the duplicates bringing copies of your spell slots with them. (Core has something close to this via Simulacrum or Astral Projection - the former with your own slots (as a few levels lower) and the latter with your wand/staff charges.) Optimizers have devised sophisticated techniques to produce basically unlimited spells this way. I don't expect you to do this - I just wanted to include it to illustrate how complex wizards can get.
If it helps as well, here's a pretty basic wizard handbook that gives sound advice and, importantly, explains why it's sound most of the time. If it looks complicated, that's because the wizard is complicated; I'm sorry about that.
I hope this is enough to go on for now.
Originally posted by Krusk:
If you are looking for something relatively similar to a 4e wizard consider reserve feats in Complete Mage. They give you a minor spell like ability (similar to a spell) useable unlimited times so long as you have a spell of the approperiate type prepared.
For example, one lets you summon small/medium or large elementals so long as you have a summoning spell prepared.
Easy Tips for a first time wizard.
- Don't use a race with Level Adjustment. (tiefling is out). 2
- Max your Int. Then go for a moderate Con, and lastly an OK Dex. Everything else hardly matters. v
- Don't prepare damage spells. Maybe 1 or 2 tops. Don't listen to that guy in your group who tells you to prep magic missile as the only good level 1 spell, and don't listen when he complains that you don't have fireball prepped. He is wrong.
- Buy magic items that up your int at the expense of all others.
- For low levels don't be afraid to run away. Carry a crossbow and shoot people to conserve spells. Ill repeat, run away from most everything. If you are starting at 1st level, consider elves so you can get a bow which is better than a crossbow.
Remember that the wizard class is actually super forgiving for new players. Its just also super complicated. Forgiving as in, if you pick the wrong spells go buy some scrolls and add them to your book. Now you can get good spells instead. Every town you are in you should probably plan to buy a couple of spells.
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
Other than +Bow and the cool generalist option, Elf sucks (just for -2 Con mostly). The smart elves are the best if you really want to be an elf. Whisper Gnome, Strongheart Halfling and Human are among the best racial options for a Wizard.
Conjuration and Transmutation are easily the strongest schools, don't give up either and you'll probably want to specialize in one of them. Evocation and Enchantment are weakest, followed by probably Necromancy and Illusion. You'll want to keep Illusion to get access to any lost Evocation spells that MIGHT be worth keeping, but mostly you can spend a feat on Craft Contingent Spell to avoid having to keep it, so if you go Focused Specialist (which gives up a third school), you can give up Illusion and not suffer much.
For metamagic be sure to look at Transdimensional Spell, and Sculpt Spell. Being able to hit all of your intended targets and NOT your allies is damned handy. Also Archmage is cool but only really because of Arcane Reach and Mastery of Shaping, there's a few other goodies like Spell Like Ability but the first two are STRONG.
Originally posted by samcifer:
How can Illusion mimic Evocation? And how would Craft Contingient Spell work with that, if that's what you mean?
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
The shadow evocation spell would be the most direct example.
Originally posted by Krusk:
I like grey elf specifically. You take a con hit which sucks, but get an int bump which is ideal. Plus, if you've got a bow and spells, why do you care that much about con?
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
Shadow Evocation and Greater Shadow Evocation, they can be used to get you access to Contingency and Force Cage (two of the very few usable Evocation spells). However, Craft Contingent Spell is largely better than Contingency, except in that it costs a feat and if you want another spell slot of each level per day than a feat and access to Illusion spells might just be worth it. You'll probably miss having spells that cause miss chance at times but otherwise it's not a bad cut.
Originally posted by RogerWilco:
Also, if you really want to have a ton of spells, there are Prestige classes that let you combine two clasting classes. In general this makes your character weaker but more versatile. Some examples include the Arcane Hierophant, the Mystic Theurge and the Ultimate Magus. A character like that is even harder to play than a regular Wizard, but if done right can be very powerful and easily have over 100 spells per day, before applying some of the mentioned tricks.
I still have an old character of mine online (very not optimized) that uses the Arcane Hierophant http://home.hccnet.nl/g.a.renting/Throvannor.pdf
The character's full spell list is included in the PDF, it should give you an idea of what is possible, there's about 35 pages of spells, with ~25 spells per page. This was my first 3E character.
As a side note: try downloading the PCGen character builder, it's free, and make a Wizard using just the srd3.5.
Originally posted by Krusk:
Just to re-emphasize the serious lack of power that comes with playing any of the dual caster classes (Unless you use debatably legal dirty tricks to get in early)
Originally posted by Krusk:
Just to re-emphasize the serious lack of power that comes with playing any of the dual caster classes (Unless you use debatably legal dirty tricks to get in early)
Originally posted by StevenO:
In all fairness you can easily come up with a 17/13, 17/10, 18/9, and even a 17/17 spellcasting split in 20 levels without resorting to many of the more dubious entry tricks. Or course with some of them you will suck big time for a while as you build up. To rehash the "basic" spellcasting splits for a dual caster type:
Arcane Hierophant: 17/13 with a basic Druid4/Wiz3 entry (think that's legal) followed by AH 10 and then capped with more druid. Throw in MT and it can become a 17/17 casting split.
Mystic Theurge: The basic entry is Divine3/Arcane3 so you follow MT 10 with four more levels advancing one or the other. Of course you really suck early.
Ultimate Magus: Basic entry can be spontaneou1/prepared4 or spont2/prep3. Some make consider using Practiced Spellcaster to manipulate the single caster advances as dubious but this can end up with 17/10 casting (either side high) or 18/9 with prepared casting high.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Well, After looking through the PHB list of illusion spells, so far they don't sound like the kinds of spells I'd want. The Shadow Evocation spells are limited because you can't use them to duplicate high-level evocation spells. Only level 5 or lower, so Delayed Blast fireball, and Meteor Swarm are out, which are two spells I'd love to cast. I'd also drop Necromancy. Not sure of a 3rd school to drop. Wish I could ditch Divination, but I want to keep Transmutation, Evocation and Enchantment. Reluctant to drop Abjuration as I would like access to Dispell Magic. That's the one thing I really hate about the 3rd editions, that you have to handicap yourself just to do more per day, thereby loosing access to some of the best spells.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
It's not handicapping to keep 9th level spells out of the hands of 5th level characters.
Also, did you notice what I pointed out above with staves and wands and scrolls? Chances are you can dramatically improve your stamina even without school specialization. I wouldn't recommend this for damage spells (as mentioned, I actually wouldn't recommend damage spells at all), but it's still an option for most any wizard. These prevent most forms of handicapping, particularly when ou consider the diversity and freedom in character construction relative to 4e. There are still constraints (i.e. if you're playing a wizard, play something with full casting), but it's still much more freedom than you'd think on a first reading.
Then there's the difference between the wizard (able to know a billion possible spells and configure the hell out of them with metamagic) and the sorcerer (knowledge of a few specific spells, but able to cast them over and over and over). They use magic items identically, so maybe your "wizard" would actually be best fit with a sorcerer. "Class" is a metagame construct - much moreso in 3e than in 4e.
If you're willing to look outside of the core books, the classes you might want to consider are Warlock (the 3.5 warlock was the first magical base class to make use of "at-will" as its thing) or Warmage (cast spells like a sorcerer and know every spell on your list, but your list is narrowly focused around evocation and conjuration). Both are from Complete Arcane. There's also much more complex options out there, such as shadowcraft mages (usually wizards; these guys can (spontaneously - as in, without preparation) cast Shadow Evocation / Shadow Conjuration effects of any spell, including 9th level spells up to and including miracle in some extreme cases. They're insanely complicated to build and run, though, and don't hit full steam until level 10-ish.).
Be advised that what you can do with magic in 3e vastly outdoes what you could expect from spells in 4e, so you'll need to recalibrate your expectations a bit. An 8th level spell could be Delayed Blast Fireball, yes... but it could also level entire fortresses or turn anything into anything else. In general, you don't really want to care about hit points, attack bonuses, or damage as a wizard: your spells rewrite the fabric of the game world's cosmos already, and you can win entire combats in a single spell. (I'm not kidding - even a new player with a lower-levelled wizard can cast one spell and basically end the encounter, or at the very least turn the tide and set the conditions under which everyone else fights. What appears to be a regular ol' mass-melee brawl can easily be reduced to you casting one spell and then cleaning your nails while the spell finishes off every hostile in the room. Compare to what you might expect from 4e, which followed a different design philosophy.
This may sound a bit unconventional, but do you have the wizard's 4e stats available? I'm familiar enough with the system that if I could see the character, I could try to do a reverse-engineering demonstration for you.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Specilization prohibs ANY use of spells from prohibied schools when you Specialize, according to the PHB section on Specilization in the Wizard's section. It say "Spells of the prohibited school or schools are not available to the wizard, and (s)he can't even cast such spells from scrolls or fire them from wands." I take that to mean that under no condition whatsoever are you ever allowed to use a spell that belongs to a prohibited school, so I take that to mean that rings and staves are also out for this.
I assume that school specilization is what you meant. I've got the magic item compendium coming now, so maybe it can show me items that boost my stats to gain more S per D.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
No, I was not talking about specialization. I was talking about extending your spell slots (specializing helps with the latter, but a general wizard can extend spell slots just fine.) Also, you can't directly boost your stats in 3.5 with equipment from outside the PHB, by and large - up to +6 in enhancement items, and up to +5 through tomes. Other items with different bonus types exist but are exceedingly rare (if they show up at all, it's probably from an artificer using Item Alteration to switch the bonus types around, and that doesn't last long enough to give you bonus spells.) That's basically it, barring some cheesy tricks.
Look at it this way. A scroll is basically a spell slot that contains one spell at its weakeast. A wand contains 50 copies of the same spell, also usually at its weakest. A staff contains 50 charges which can be used to cast a few different spells, as strong as you could normally cast them. Pearls of power are "potions" that restore one spell slot each day. And so on and so forth.
With ideas like this in mind, you will only run dry if you are doing marathon adventures and are thinking of your spells the way you did in 4e. In 3.5, your highest level spell slots more or less instantly wins the encounter when you use any of them. Really, you should not be looking at spells for the damage they deal - you should be looking at spells for how they prevent the enemy from fighting back. Given the PHB alone, I would almost never cast Fireball when I could cast Stinking Cloud,(x) for instance.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Weeellll... I'm making a damage-oriented spellcaster and Stinking Cloud does zero damage, so it's out for me.
Wish there were better written books for 3.5 so I could actually understand how things work. 4th Ed. is written much more clearly. I'm really hopeful that 5th Ed. will be easier to understand than the 3rd Editions. If it's not, I won't be able to play it.
... Of course, I've only read through the PHB1 so far, but the 4th Ed. PHB was WAY easier to understand. For all that people like to bash 4th Ed., at least it's possible to understant without having to have PhDs in the sciences.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Sorry if it sounds like I'm being childish, but spellcasting in the 3s seems needlessly complicated and the PHB words things so complexly that I can't make any sense of it. The process is litterally backwards from 4th Ed. and described with few examples. Anyone know of anything other than D&D for Dummies that I can look to so I can learn how spellcasting works other than links already provided here? I'm looking for something that gives examples and explains things in layman's terms. Even though I'm about to turn 41 (this Thursday
) and have been a gamer all my life, 3.0 and 3.5 might has well be written in Japanese (caligraphy, no less), as far as I can make sense of them. Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
If you want to deal damage you're going to be heartbroken by 3.5, it's all but a total loss. You can hit things, but you have to jump a lot of hoops to hit things hard enough to matter.
Basically look at it this way, you win a fight when the bad guys can't hurt you anymore. For a Conjuror that's when they're Greased, Webbed, Grappled by tentacle monsters, or whatever other aweful thing you've inflicted on them is done doing what it does. For an Evoker they're not done hitting you until they are at -1 HP (even at 0 they can hit you once more). There are actually even some exceptions to the -1 HP thing, like Boars, anything with Diehard and the Deathless Frenzy feature of Frenzied Berserker.
Still not convinced? Consider something like The Mailman in Tempest's Signature, and take every advantage you can get for efficiency.
Look also at metamagic reducers like the following feats, Arcane Thesis, and Metamagic School Focus. Also classes like Incantatrix and Ultimate MAgus can do a lot with metamagic. The later can pair with Assassin for the Wizsassin build in Tempests sig which can do some fairly impressive damage with spells, via sneak attacking with metamagiced up blasting spells.
You're going to need to focus on ray (or other ranged touch) spells, or work hard to push your save DC's into the stratosphere or again you're yet further nerfed for damage. You also can't afford to have your CL be anything but the highest it can possibly be, or you'll fizzle out against opponents with SR.
Originally posted by samcifer:
I know CL is Caster Level, but DC and SR?
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Difficulty Check (in this case, the number opponents need to roll when they attempt saving throws against your spells) and Spell Resistance (if a foe has spell resistance, you need to make caster level checks to affect it with any direct applications of magic).
One of the differences between the editions is in their priorities; 3rd Edition tries to be a fantasy world simulation, while 4th Edition tries to be a game (though the benefit of extra experience also helps its mechanics, since it was made later). 4th Edition is clearer and simpler, while 3rd Edition is richer in detail but more complex.
My favourite example of the difference is comparing the time stop wizard power in 4th Edition with the time stop spell in 3rd Edition. The former is mechanically beautiful in its simplicity, but can't achieve some of the weirdly wonderful effects of the latter because its aim is to act like an elegant chess piece, rather than like an actual distortion of time. Both approaches have their merits, and we can hope that 5th Edition will learn valuable lessons from both.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
You can pull this off, but it's going to be very difficult, as Andarious and I mention. Monsters have incredibly high HP and decent defenses; spell DC (difficulty class - the closest analogue here in 4e is the spell's "attack roll", although I do admit this area really is backwards from 4e) is rather hard to increase, and the spells themselves really don't do a lot of damage in the first place, even with mastery of how to use metamagic.
Just warning you about this.
For what it's worth, I've been able to teach D&D 3.5 to people ranging from my nine-year-old cousin* to math-phobic arts undergraduates, often in just one day. It helps if you view the world as simulated, instead of as a set of rules running parallel to the story.Wish there were better written books for 3.5 so I could actually understand how things work. 4th Ed. is written much more clearly. I'm really hopeful that 5th Ed. will be easier to understand than the 3rd Editions. If it's not, I won't be able to play it.
... Of course, I've only read through the PHB1 so far, but the 4th Ed. PHB was WAY easier to understand. For all that people like to bash 4th Ed., at least it's possible to understant without having to have PhDs in the sciences.
*Caveat: I built the cousins' characters for that session (and stuck to archetypes, so it was easier for them to understand what their characters could do). Learning to play is much easier than learning to build characters well, honestly.
I did warn you that wizards in particular are among the most complex classes in the entire game. This is part of why.
There is a bit backwards from 4e (namely, you cast a spell at a fixed difficulty class, and your opponent rolls a "saving throw" to resist it, while in 4e, you'd make an attack roll against one of their defenses - which, I might add, I like, but was actually backwards from how D&D had done it earlier. 4e's was a good move, but it was 4e that was "backwards", not 3e), but most of it really isn't. Take it slow and consider it a different game, rather than a different version of the same game.
Apart from D&D for Dummies?Anyone know of anything other than D&D for Dummies that I can look to so I can learn how spellcasting works other than links already provided here? I'm looking for something that gives examples and explains things in layman's terms. Even though I'm about to turn 41 (this Thursday
Oddly enough, one of the best written books on the subject was Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress. It's clearly written with a different audience in mind than you (it spends a lot of its introduction, and some of the anecdotes, clearly attempting to appeal to girls who don't want to be seen as nerds - traditionally, this is a hard market segment to aim D&D towards), but its charming style can be viewed as one extended series of examples about 3e D&D, from the very rudimentary (i.e. "these dice look weird") to the somewhat more complex (there's a segment or two discussing combat as it unfolded), and even several of the "culture" elements (i.e. the social atmosphere that unfolds at game night). The biggest drawback is that it tries too hard to hit that market niche (and yes, I'm using marketing terms rather than demographic ones for a reason), and at times plays up stereotypes that make my feminist side itch. But it clearly means well, and it does a good job expressing a rather complex ruleset in a casual style. (It also doesn't pretend that the game isn't complicated, but it does kind of gloss over most of that, since the narrator's focusing on playing the game rather than running the game.)
Another possibilty is to consider Star Wars: Saga Edition (hear me out here!). It's not "D&D" (so you won't have a problem confusing it with your pre-existing expectations), but it is a d20 system similar to 3e. It shows a lot of 4e's design decisions (i.e. you make attacks vs enemy defenses, instead of them saving vs your attack's DCs; skills are trained/untrained as opposed to skill points; the magic system is unified across everyone with no special cases; the idea of "per encounter" is prevalent throughout, etc.), but still plays very similarly to 3.5. It's been jokingly called 3.75 for a reason. It's basically the perfect bridge between the systems, all things considered.
A third possibility is to watch a game in action, or to get a pre-built character and practice that way (3e is much easier to play than it is to build for, if you're new to the system). FWIW, my group games online and puts its game session logs up on a wiki; a bit of googling for the screen names / campaign name listed in my signature should find it just fine.
As for spellcasting, I could try to whip up a tutorial for it in particular, if you'd like. About 70% of it for wizards is literally just "cross off the spell for the day, then follow the rules in the spell"; you'll need to know how to aim a spell, but realistically, all the stuff about components and concentration and counterspelling and similar can be ignored while you're learning. Having a DM on hand would also help: D&D is much easier to play than it is to run, and you're (in effect) trying to learn both at the same time. Having a DM means that when you play, you can just say "I cast Scorching Ray" and he'll take care of the rest, prompting you as needed; trying to master every element on your own means that you're learning all of that backend while also learning how to play the game in the first place. That's a much harder task than it needs to be.
EDIT: Actually, that's perhaps the biggest difference between the editions, right there: 1st and 2nd editions (in their various forms) usually deferred to the DM's judgement calls whenever there was any form of conflict in the rules. 3rd and 4th decided to have the rules do more heavy lifting, which empowers the players since they can predict how a rule works without having to learn to read their DM's mind. 4th, however, took this to the extreme, with everything being handled by the rules, more or less (the DM's judgement was still needed, but almost all of the possible interacions were codified in the rules instead of being given as guidelines). 3rd, by contrast, leaves more of the adjucation to the DM. This means, in part, that someone learning 4e is encouraged to learn just about everything, but the size of that "everything" is smaller. Meanwhile, someone trying to learn 3e has to learn less of the game's rules, but the system is bulkier to begin with.
Don't think you have to learn everything. Honestly, most of it can be skipped over at a table unless your DM is asleep. Hell, I still have to look up lots of things, and I've been playing the game since it came out (and am one of those "PhDs in the sciences" types you're ribbing on earlier (physics degree, M.Sc, and working towards Ph.D.)). It helps if you have a good tool for that too.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Not sure if it's a toaboo subject, but do Pathfinder Wizards operate the same as 3.5 and 3.0 D&D Wizards?
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
It's not tabboo by a longshot - Pathfinder is held in generally positive or at worst neutral light here, even though we're not experts in that system. (Full disclosure: I helped found the company now doing Pathfinder's psionics, Dreamscarred Press. They're now branching out, and doing an equivalent for the Tome of Battle - one of the last "crunchy" books written for 3.5, and it clearly showed its 4e influence.*)
Pathfinder spellcasting, by and large, is very similar to 3.5 casting - in fact, most of its underlying structure is identical. (In the case of psionics, which I'm more familiar with, literally only one underlying rule was changed.) The spells themselves changed quite a bit, though, and the classes got much more complicated to build. They also got a big power boost, which in all honesty they really did not need, but now I'm editorializing.
Did you check my link in the earlier post? Having a source with all of the errata applied and all of the key terms hyperlinked can be a huge help when learning the game. That said, the SRD has almost no examples in it (the official SRD itself is literally just nuts and bolts), so it might not be ideal.
I also remembered there's an extended example of low-level play in the Dungeon Master's Guide. It's in the DMG because, as I said earlier, it's needed to run the game, but not to play the game, so to speak. 3.5 assumes a DM in control in more places than 4e did, and the decision to put the gameplay example (with all of the little decisions the DM needs to make spelled out in the text) in the DMG is indicative of that.
I'm serious about writing that quick tutorial for you if you'd like. I'll focus on the "new player wanting to play a wizard" angle and see what I can do later today (I'm not expecting any students to come during my office hours, so I'll need something to pass the time.). If you have any specific questions that came to mind over the last day or so, just ask, and I'll work them in.
*
[sblock] Rumor has it that when WotC started 4e's design, they brought on a mathematician formerly involved with Magic: The Gathering, who created an entire system for them. It got torpedoed for unknown reasons very late in the process. Some recognized its value, though, and rushed it - and I mean seriously rushed it - to get it published under 3.5 as the Tome of Battle. It says a lot about the quality of the material that the Tome, despite an immensely fast development cycle, still managed to be one of the best books ever written for 3.5, and I'm genuinely sad that it wasn't the foundation for 4e (although there are some distinct similarities).[/sblock]
EDIT: The more I think about it, the more I think what you really need isn't the wizard, but rather the warlock (Complete Arcane). The 3.5 warlock has all of its "powers" at-will, and (without multiclassing!) is all right on the damage front (particularly up to about level 5, after which monsters tend to have a lot more HP than you can reasonably whack away at), before eventually diversifying into tactical spellcasting (levels 6-11 are dominated by stacking conditions from blasts and separate area invocations (i.e. Chilling Tentacles), usually while managing flight or invisibility; they can keep the damage flowing pretty well here thanks to Eldritch Chain and Eldritch Cone, but the monsters tend to just have a LOT of hit points), and finally diversifying into being master artisans (their 12th level class feature allows them to create any magic item they want, more or less, which means that after 12 levels of practice with the warlock, you can keep the same character and just build your own sorcerer/wizard staff and bring their spells to the table as well).
They're also easy to play - one of my least math-savvy (now former) friends played one I built for her after only an hour of instruction. (I called it a "sorceress" and reflavored one of the "must-have" warlock magic items (the chasuble of fell power) as a spellbook that she'd read from**, to give the feel of an arcane incantation rather than innate magic, but it was still the warlock.) She had no problems with it, conceptually or mechanically. I don't think you'd have any problems with this either, honestly.
** (Don't read this unless you're already familiar with the 3.5 warlock)
[sblock] Since I know I'm going to get questions from experienced players about this item, the game was level 7.
I took the Tome of Worldly Memory (1500 GP, +5 to any Knowledge check, 3/day; it's a standard action if you've got 5 ranks in that skill, otherwise it takes 1 minute) as the base item, and also considered it a masterwork tool for several different Knowledge skills.
I then took the chasuble of fell power (8000 GP, shoulders slot, +1d6 Eldritch Blast damage; warlocks don't often budget for weapons, so that freed up enough money for this), switched it from "shoulder slot" to "held", and gave it a move action (manipulation) activation instead of a constant boost (though it remained usable any number of times per day). This effect was added on to the Tome of Worldly Memory to give this "sorceress" a spellbook. (I was tempted to allow it to be used multiple times to enhance the next blast - but she didn't want to spend a long time reading spell incantations when she could be blasting things.)
(Costwise, this works out to around 8500gp, since the changes to the chasuble weakened it. Considering that 7th level warriors might very well have +2 weapons (8300gp and change), it seemed to be passable.)
As I described it to her, she had the option of casting a normal arcane blast (note the name change!) on the run, or taking the time to stand still and read a spell from the book to empower her magic. She could also read a "spell" from the book to grant her knowledge about an enemy's strengths of weaknesses (the main thing I was using Knowledge for in this particular adventure) or to answer more difficult questions outside of battle (I built her character, and gave her 1 rank in most knowledges, but 5 in Arcana, The Planes, and Religion - this had the side effect of meaning she was more useful identifying minor devils, dragons, and unnatural beings, things that no one else in the party had much of a chance of identifying.)
Simply put, the party all thought she was a wizard, including herself. (This point was easier to make when she eventually found a magical staff as well - the idea of finding a staff and being able to cast new spells just worked for her.) I just used the rules for the warlock to do this.
[/sblock]
And here's a dirty secret about 3e: Reflavoring is the order of the day. You're not stuck interpreting one character with only one class. I'm playing a character right now who has a hard-to-control innate psionic ability, fueled by her emotions and nightmares but honed by study and determination; she's also kind and charming and uses that to act as a social face for the team. The normal class used to describe this, almost perfectly, is Wilder. However, I'm handling it using Psion, with the Overchannel feat, because Psion works off of Intelligence and I see her as more intelligent than charismatic. Her fluff is still that of a wilder though.
In your case, you could interpret your "wizard" using the "warlock" class. You can call him a wizard, describe what he's doing in terms of wizardry, and so on, but the rules handling those actions are still the warlock ones.
I know the goal is to learn to play a wizard. I'm just pointing this out because - once more - wizards are insanely complicated, even at a basic level. By doing something like a warlock interpretation first, you'd learn enough of the system to try again with a wizard, without getting hung up on the same snags that are holding you back now.
Originally posted by samcifer:
I'm at work right now, but I'll look over the site later (probably Thursday or Friday, which I took off for my b-day as Tuesday nights are rather hectic for me.
) But yes, a beginner's guide to creating (and possibly building to maximize) Wizards would be very helpful. I asked my partner for the Pathfinder Core Rulebook for my b-day, so hopefully I'll get it. (Sometimes he surpirses me with something different... no... not THAT way. lol)Originally posted by Krusk:
A warlock is also a lot easier to play a blasty mage, which seems to be what you want. A wizard can do it better, but its a lot more complicated and generally a bad option.
A warlock can fire eldritch blasts every round for OK damage, and do some cool stuff like fly and turn invisable at will.
Originally posted by samcifer:
For the guide, what would really help would be a few gameplay senarios written out, say a Wizard in a battle with a few enemies.
P: "Okay, I cast Sleep on the Orcs."
DM Rolls saving throws... "Okay, two of the Orcs fall asleep, but the third shrugs it off." DM moves awake orc up close "Take that!" (the orc swings at the Wizard with his club. "You take 4 HP of damage."
P: "Ouch! Okay, I move directly away from him 15 feet, then shoot Magic Missile at him..."
Etc., etc...
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
CREATING wizards is going to be a challenge: I was focusing on learning, preparing, and casting spells.samcifer wrote:I'm at work right now, but I'll look over the site later (probably Thursday or Friday, which I took off for my b-day as Tuesday nights are rather hectic for me.
Here's the nutshell for those; I'll give basic wizard tips later.
Learning Spells
Wizards "know" any spell they have scribed in one of their spellbooks. They learn all 0-level spells and 4+Int Mod of these at level 1, and an additional 2 spells of any level they can cast each time they gain a level in wizard. They can also scribe new spells into their spellbooks from other sources - given enough time, a wizard could easily amass a library of spellbooks. However, most new players can get by just fine with the spells you learn from levelling, which are completely free.
Most of the time, your spellbooks will be your spellbooks, and not borrowed or coded or anything, so you can freely read from the spellbook without having to make any checks or cast any spells. The rest of this tutorial will assume you're using a spellbook you wrote, which is easily the most common case.
Preparing Spells
You have a number of different "slots" for spells of each spell level, set by your overall casting ability as a wizard. A 5th level wizard, for instance, has 4 0th level slots, 3 1st level slots, 2 2nd level slots, and 1 3rd level slot by default. You get bonus spell slots from having a high Intelligence (Int 16, for instance, gives one bonus 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spell slot.) These slots are considered "open" if they could hold a spell, "filled" if you prepared a spell in them, or "spent" if they held a spell that was cast.
You can only prepare a spell if your Intelligence is at least 10 + the spell's level. However, you still keep the higher level spell slots. (A 5th level wizard with 12 Intelligence could only prepare 2nd level spells, but would still have a 3rd level slot.) This distinction matters most when you're using metamagic feats, but for now, we'll stick to the basics - you can prepare a spell in any slot of its level, or higher. You could, for instance, prepare Scorching Ray (2nd level) in a 2nd level or a 3rd level spell slot. It'd behave identically when you cast it, though.
Wizards are "prepared" casters, meaning that unlike most 3.5 spellcasters, you prepare each spell slot independently. If you only prepare Scorching Ray in one slot, you can only cast it once in the coming day. To cast it multiple times, you'd need to prepare multiple copies of it (or use an effect that restores a spell slot.)
Preparing a spell means having the spellbook on hand after an extended rest. The extended rest restores all your spent spell slots to their normal, open state (there's a slight caveat here if you were interrupted during the rest, but we'll ignore it). You can also abandon spells that you've prepared at this point, switching their slots back to their normal open state. If you have a calm environment after an extended rest, you can fill up your open spell slots after 1 hour studying your spellbook. This is also the time you'd spend preparing spells with metamagic if you're using that; more on that will come later.
Interestingly, wizards can leave some slots open during preparation. While this means they bring fewer spells to the table during battle, it means that if they run into a weird challenge outside of battle, and the wizard knows a spell that can solve it, he can prepare it and cast it right there on the spot. (This is similar to 4e's idea of ritual casting.) This takes at least 15 minutes to do, though.
Casting Spells
At its core, casting is just crossing off a spell and following its rules. Really, that's it.
There's a bit more to it: for instance, you provoke an opportunity attack by casting, and if you take damage you need to make a Concentration check or the spell is lost (a "lost" spell is one that is crossed off as if you'd cast it, but has no effect.). You also need to be able to concentrate (see the Concentration skill for more) and have the spell's components on hand (typically this is just a spell component pouch, the ability to gesture freely, and the ability to speak in a strong voice; it varies a bit from spell to spell, listed in the spell's description. V means Verbal, S means Somatic, M for material (these are usually all handled by the pouch, unless it says otherwise), F for focus; sometimes you'll also see DF for "divine focus", but only divine spellcasters use those.)
All that said, though, you can probably ignore that for now.
The main things you need to know are spell casting time, ranges, areas, and targets.
-Casting Time: In 4e, most spells took a standard action, a minor action, or a full action to pull off. This is similar in 3.5, and works exactly the same way, except that a full action is called a "full-round" action and a minor action is called a "swift" action. There are also spells that take "1 round" to cast (this is basically a full action, but you're still "casting" when it isn't your turn; the spell takes effect at the start of your next turn), as well as those that are "immediate" (an immediate-action spell can be cast at any time, even when it isn't your turn; it counts as your next turn's swift action). Spells with longer casting times exist, but you realistically won't be using these in combat.
-Ranges: These show how far away you can be from your spell's effect and still cast it. If you can see the end point and have "line of effect" (that is, no obstructions - a window blocks line of effect), you can cast your spell there. Note that your range changes as your wizard caster level increases. There's two subtle points about range. First, although you can center area spells anywhere within the range, if part of the spell would extend further away from that range, it's wasted. (That is, loosely speaking, if you center a fireball on the very edge of its range, about half of the area will be wasted.) Second, you do not actually need to see where you're aiming. (There's a difference between line of sight and line of effect; spells need line of effect but generally don't need line of sight unless they're targeted.)
-Areas: If a spell has an area, it will conform to a few different standard shapes (bursts, spreads, cones, cylinders, emanations, etc.). All of these are defined in the player's handbook. Be advised that these are three-dimensional, even though we usually just approximate with circles and triangles. (A common way to understand how these are 3D involves using a cone spell while flying, and aiming the spell down. Instead of affecting a triangle-shaped area, it will hit a large circle on the ground.)
-Targets: Each spell lists how it targets, if there's any. You CAN cast a spell on the wrong type of target (the usual example is Charm Person on a dog), but it will fail. If a spell lacks a target, you can aim it anywhere in range. If a spell has a target, you need to be able to see the target as well as having line of effect to it as normal.
Special note goes for spells that say Effect: Ray or Range: Touch. These two types of spells are the only ones that require attack rolls on your part. The former is a ranged touch attack (1d20+base attack bonus + Dexterity bonus against the target's Touch armor class); the latter is a melee touch attack (1d20+base attack bonus+ Strength bonus, against the target's touch armor class). There's a bit of finesse that can be done with melee touch spells (as you can touch at any point during the round you cast it, as a free action, as opposed to immediately after you cast it; you can also "hold the charge" and touch someone later in combat), but this is getting kind of corner-case.
Unless a spell says it requires an attack roll (or is a ray or a melee touch spell), you don't need to make any rolls to cast your spells. You just cross it off and it takes effect. That effect is determined by two things: Your caster level (any reference to "level" looks at your caster level) and your key ability modifier (Int, for wizards).
Let's go with the caster level first. Spells often scale, being better at their job if they're cast by a higher-level wizard. Fireball is a good example of this: It deals 1d6 damage per level (up to 10d6 at 10th level). However, it also says "Spell Resistance: Yes", meaning that it can be resisted by creatures who have Spell Resistance. (most low-level monsters don't have this; higher-level ones often do. It also varies by type: magical creatures usually have it, mundane usually don't). If you cast it on a creature with spell resistance, your DM will ask you for a caster level check (1d20 + your caster level). This roll has to equal or exceed the target's Spell Resistance if you want your spell to work. (Note that not all spells allow spell resistance. If you want damage without SR, conjuration is your school of choice.)
As for the key ability score, that sets the saving throw difficulty class. Creatures have a chance at dodging or resisting your spell, and this is noted by their saving throws (which correspond to Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses in 4e.) When you throw your spell at them, you also set the Difficulty Class (DC) of that spell, or how hard it is to resist. This DC is 10 + the spell's level + your key ability modifier. So, for your wizard with 16 Intelligence casting Fireball (3rd level spell), the DC would be 10+3+3 = 16. Its saving throw is listed as "Reflex Half", meaning people hit by the fireball have to make a Reflex save - and if that save result is 16 or greater, they take half damage from the spell. (This is also when effects like the rogue's Evasion would kick in, if you cast it on a rogue.) Your own saving throws work the same way, if an enemy tosses a spell at you.
...
And that, I think, is a complete primer on wizard-based spellcasting for beginners (i.e. before introducing metamagic).
I'll move on to basic wizard building later.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Dungeon Master's Guide, pages 8-10, has an extended example of this, with four players and their characters (you may recognize them: Tordek, Lidda, Mialee, and Jozan, from the PHB) and their DM's inner dialogues for when he makes a secret roll or adjusts the numbers based on what's happening). The scenario is exploring some ruins, and it includes scouting ahead*, combat (very fast, before everyone has a turn to do something), and out-of-combat spellcasting (i.e. "Mialee, will you cast your light spell on this rock?" "Okay, I do." And that's all it takes!).
*
[sblock]Note that, while intelligence about what's coming up is super-important, splitting the party to send a thief-type up ahead is not a very good way to do this. The example can be forgiven - they're level 1, and they're trying to show the basics, not ideal tactics - but this observation must be made. Generally speaking, the party is stronger together, and you can usually use other options to poke ahead.
There are guides to proper scouting - this one is a good example - but at this point I'm digressing.
[/sblock]
I'll try to concoct something like your example in a bit. (Be advised: In this situation, with one orc surviving, I would either have used the Withdraw action to move away (since normal movement provokes an opportunity attack) and allowed the team's fighter to deal with the orc, and/or I would have used a crossbow instead of Magic Missile (you already took out two monsters with one spell and there's one left; save your other spell for when you can make a similar difference in battle. Low level wizards can conserve their slots by falling back on the crossbow; as your levels get up there (around level 4 or so) you'll usually have enough slots to get through the day if you're preparing the right spells.
Generally speaking, D&D 3.5 assumes four "challenging" encounters per day (fewer if there's a "boss fight" style combat). Observe that a wizard's base spell slots stop at 4 per level. This implies a good first-order rule of thumb for new players: rather than spam-casting your strongest spells, you should start casting weaker ones (from more plentiful slots). Your highest-level slots can often end an encounter outright; if you need to cast many more spells, they should come from your lower level slots. (This is actually bad advice for a highly optimized wizard, but until the basics are mastered, extreme optimization can be considered a secondary goal.)
Originally posted by RogerWilco:
Weaker spellslots can also be used for long running buffs. (A simple example is Mage Armor) Selecting the right buff spells can make a huge difference for any caster.
Secondly, If you do want to play a Wizard, I took Divination specialisation, as you then only get one forbidden school. Divination is more useful than you might think. Wizards are prepared spellcasters, so are much more powerful when they know the challenges that they are going to face. Divination helps you get that knowledge.
The general rule about spells is: there is no general rule, each is it's own small reality and rule set. The more spells you have the more complex the game.
Oh, and if you think that 3E is written in a hard to follow manner, try some of the even older editions. 3E was a breath of fresh air and clarity when it came out.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Okay, so if I were to go with damaging spells, am I correct in assuming that overcoming spell resistance is one (it not the) main factor to doing as much damage as possible?
I believe that the Spell Penetration feats help towards this. What else can I do to help me to do the most damage possible with attack spells?
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
The issue isn't SR (though that matters somewhat to all mages - just, not usually enough to bother with Spell Penetration. There are actually spells out there that manage this - True Casting, Assay Spell Resistance, and so on - and, even without them, simple techniques to increase your caster level are usually more than enough for standard monsters).
It's that:
- Monsters have immense amounts of HP compared to the amount of damage one spell can deal.
- This problem is compounded as levels increase: Most damage spells deal 1d6 damage (3.5) per level, but most monsters gain far more HP than that at each CR. (Of all the monster types, only Fey has d6 HD; all of the others have bigger than that - and that's before you factor in Constitution.)
- Most damage spells are energy-based; energy resistance is very common (especially in the mid levels and later), and energy immunity (very common on outsiders) can shut you down completely if you hoped that specializing in one type of damage would help it deal with the earlier problems.
- If all else fails, most damage spells allow saves for half damage, and saving throws are very easy to increase if the creature's the sort to wear equipment and/or take levels in PC classes (this is a thing in 3e - monsters and characters follow (mostly) the same set of rules, so it's far from impossible to see intelligent monsters with levels in player classes. In some cases this works out BETTER if they're monsters than if they're players - although until you're comfortable enough with the alphabet soup of HD, CR, LA, ECL, and so on, this won't make a lot of sense.)
As a result, damage spells in 3.5 are (rightly!) considered a losing game for most characters, especially when it's usually much more effective to get an opponent to stop acting by casting a spell that makes them stop acting, rather than having to chew through 200 easily-protected HP first.
Ultimately, the "textbook" on how to competently play a damage-based mage in 3.5 would be the Mailman(x). And, oddly enough, it's powerful not because it deals damage, but rather because it really understands that available actions are the most important currency in 3.5. That is, although it's a damage-based mage, it concentrates on getting extra actions from its spells - in effect throwing out four or five spells every round, and making sure those spells are all but unblockable.
The Mailman, however, uses sorcerer-exclusive options, and will not work with the wizard. This is probably for the best, because, once again, wizards have much better things to do than huck flaming bat poop at things.
If you want to play a wizard that casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down, here's probably the best place to start. Those are the spells that, upon casting, are very likely to defeat at least one opponent, and often win the entire battle outright. That's not even the best of them (the preamble points out utility, buffs, mobility, and situational support spells that can also make sure you win not just the encounter, but the entire campaign), but if you're learning the game, that's a good list to learn from.
And, interestingly, you'll note that none of those spells deal damage as their primary function. Damage really is that bad a choice for mage-types. Unless you're doing a Mailman-style action-spamming stunt, it's always better to leave damage to the chargers (and occasionally to the sneak-attack-styled characters, though Sneak Attack itself is actually pretty easily negated).
Originally posted by samcifer:
So which book is the guano spell in? *grin*
Sadly, that sucks, because it relegates wizards to mere support staff for the group. It feels kind of like:
Warrior: "Wizard, put them to sleep!"
Wizard: "Done."
Warrior shoves wizard into the mud to get him out of the way, then kills the sleeping foes. "Let's go men, time is wasting."
The wizard picks himself up out of the mud, muttering darly to himself.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Unless I go for a Wizard/(martial class) hybrid so I can set up my foes then hit them myself on my next turn.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
You've considered casting it yourself.
Tangent alert!
[sblock]This may be a bit of a culture shift, but still: Component magic was the standard for D&D during its creation (along with Jack Vance's memorization-based spell system). However, it was as often as not played for laughs. My favorite example would be the described gestures and magic words needed to cast some spells in the 1e Unearthed Arcana book: these included adjusting the flavor of a dish by humming twice while making a mystic symbol with thumb and forefinger touching and the other fingers extended from the resulting circle. In other words, you made something taste better by going "Mm-MM!" and making an OK sign.
In 3e, the components are largely unchanged, which makes their nature somewhat bizarre - Fireball involves building a fertilizer bomb, Lightning Bolt uses a static electricity rod, Scrying involves a tiny electrical battery and a lens-and-screen (presumably making a magic movie projector), and so on. The biggest change was that if you had your component pouch on you, you'd be considered to have all of them with you, instead of having to go shopping for fresh eye of newt. (This did produce some curiosities, such as how perishable components or living creatures never expired, but this is yet another handwave.) It's really only an issue if you can't reach into your pouch for whatever reason, similar to how you can't cast spells with gestures if both your hands are holding weapons.
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See, I think you're reading it entirely backwards.
The warrior needs to get past armor class, miss chances, damage reduction, fast healing, regeneration, and any number of things that interact with attacks or damage every time he swings, and after all of that he still has to chew through hundreds of hit points. It's only when he gets rid of the last hit point that the monster stops fighting.
The wizard has to deal with saving throws (sometimes, and this is easy to support with other spells), spell resistance (sometimes - and easily circumvented), and... that's about it. If he gets his spell off, the monster stops fighting.
Note how the goal of the warrior is the same as the goal of the wizard: get the monster to stop fighting. The wizard just ignores how many hit points are left and simply says "stop fighting", while the fighter might need to get medieval on the monster for upwards of a minute before the monster finally stops.
Just because you're not chugging six-siders against the monster's HP doesn't mean you aren't killing the monster.
Even if some of those spells - like the Sleep spell you're continually ribbing on - doesn't actually kill the guys outright, it means that anyone, even the wizard, can just walk right up and slit throats afterwards. (Note: 3.5 sleep knocks them out instantly, unlike the 4e version!) In effect, the sleep spell won the battle, with the blood spilled afterwards being mere details involved in cleanup.
Generally speaking, don't do this, especially as a new player to the system. Effective "gishes" ("Gish" being the generic term for a fighter/mage type in 3e) do exist, but building and playing them is very, very difficult in most cases. If you're not very experienced at both building and playing, you often end up with a character who's too fragile to survive on the frontlines, with magic too weak to make a difference.
That said, there is a base class that's centered around melee combat and damage-based spells. It's the PHB2's Duskblade. It does its job rather well - largely because it allows spells to piggyback on melee attacks - but that job is, again, pure damage. They don't actually win fights faster, unless you're dealing with low-HP foes who can be killed easier with damage than with win spells.
Also, third point: "hybrid" in the 4e sense is a very poor shadow of what can be accomplished with 3.5 multiclassing, by and large. It's a bit tricky in places, and full spellcasters are admittedly one of those places, but once you get a handle on the system it totally changes how you view the game. "Class" becomes a system of tools used to construct your concept, not a pre-programmed character archetype.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Stop that.
For the record, I did indeed mean multi-class, rather than hybrid.
So basically I need to instead focus on spells that take foes out of action rather than doing damage, if I'm to have any hope of being effective in battle.
Because of that, my Tiefling Pyro Mage would basically be repeatedly lighting matches under the chins of the enemies who keep blowing them out, and my guy goes "Stop it!" before lighting another match. "Stop it!"
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
You need to look up the guide to playing god... or I can just link it(x). This is why wizards are crazy good.
Originally posted by samcifer:
Also, I do choose Sleep for a standard spell, but it lacks the impact (damage-wise) of other, flashier spells. Does anyone know if 5th Ed. wizards are stiffed on damaging spells like earlier editions, or can they still do decent damage like 4th Ed. wizards?
Originally posted by Andarious-Rosethorn:
Aside from action exploits like what The Mailman uses your other option for damage (particularly as a Wizard) is to roll a Conjurer/Incantatrix (maybe with some Archmage to expand your options). You don't NEED Incantatrix but if it's on the table it's insanely good. The trick you're going for is irrisistable damage, and really cheap metamagic to make sure you're laying down a lot of it.
We won't get into anything as dubious as negative cost metamagic. Instead we'll focus on the fact that with some low cost metamagics and the right higher cost ones reduced enough you'll be able to lay waste to opponents in the mid-high game. Sadly we're going to have to face facts and until you've got some metamagic tricks going you won't be a damage dealer (look forward to coming online around level 9 to be honest). One trick that might help you stay alive here is Retraining, if your DM allows it you can go Arcane Thesis on a Lesser Orb at 6 and then retrain that for another Metamagic Feat at 12 (when you'll take Arcane Thesis for one of the higher level Orbs as it takes over as more efficient).
Now, to try and make sense of what I'm saying, here goes.
This is a doozy
[sblock]For starters there's a ton of feats to get to know.
Level 1: you're a Human Conjurer (I like Focused Specialist, so forget Archmage, oh well). You'll want to get Extend Spell (PHB) and Metamagic School Focus (CM) out of the way now. The two feats I name are for the following reason, your really good spells, you're unbelievably strong Conjuration spells at level 1 like Grease, they last one round per level and that sucks. Metamagic School Focus lets you prep Grease 3/day with a 2 round duration, and that's something at least. You also want to take the PHB2 Immediate Metamagic replacement for your Familiar, or get a Hummingbird Familiar (it's from Dragon something or other IIRC) which is effectively Improved Initiative that stacks. Forbidden schools? You're giving up Evocation and Enchantment, they're both pretty weak with a small number of exceptions. Your damage dealing spell is Lesser Orb of Fire or Cold (I'd pick Fire because of some later choices mostly). Your damage spell does 1d8, allows no save or SR but requires a Ranged Touch Attack.
Keep going Wizard and don't forget to max out Concentration, Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft, because you need those things. I personally also like to Max out a few other creature related Knowledge skills (Dungeoneering, Local, Nature, Religeon, The Planes) to forgive some of the unavoidable metagame of knowing monsters stats, and to get to make the rolls and ask the questions at the start of each encounter.
Level 3: you sadly have to take Iron WIll (PHB) as a feat which is almost as useless as Weapon Focus for you, but get over it *. The ol' damage spell's up to 2d8.
*Or don't, there's a Magical Place known as the Otyug Hole noted in Complete Scoundrel, if your DM allows the use for 1K gp, do that instead of wasting a precious feat.
Level 5: you've got some neat options, for this build your best bet is probably to start getting some damage related metamagic online. So we're going to take Energy Substitution (CArc) (picking cold, to have options with your Fire Orb). Damage spell is up to 3d8 now.
At 6 you're going into Incantatrix (YAY!), you have to give up another school (BOO!). The school you give up can't be Abjuration or Divination, so I'm going to say bye bye to Illusion, it's main real strength was making up for the loss of Evocation in a few small exceptions to not wanting to lose that school, you'll get over it though. Cool **** already? Yep, you've got that! You'll want Energy Admixture (CArc) now (corrisponding with your Sub). Also you get a general feat! You now ha a split based on weather your DM allows Retraining (this mess clears up after 12).
6A) So now we're going to take Arcane Thesis (PHB2) (if you can retrain), . You're up to 4d8 (18 damage) now... this is weaksauce but it's a 1st level spell, so no biggie. If you've got the retrain option you can Metamagic School Focus your Orb into Admixture for 8d8 (36 Damage), this spell will also deal 50% of its subbed damage to immune creatures thanks to Piercing Cold or Searing Spell (Arcane Thesis makes it free), or diuble damage to vulnerable creatures instead of an additional 50%.
6B) GM won't allow retraining? Take Searing Spell (Sand)
Level 7: make sure you've maxed out Spellcraft, because any allied caster just got a wet spot in their pants. You can do really awesome things for THEIR spells now too. Your new damage dealing spell does 7d6 (24.5), and the old one's still good for 5d8 (22.5) which is actually impressively close, the new one tacks on a Fort Save or be Dazed.
7A) The cool trick here is if you did get access to the retrain option mentioned at 6 you can prep your lesser orb as an Admixtured orb without spending your Metamagic School focus as a 3rd and be dealing 10d8 (45 damage).
7B) You can still prep your Lesser Fire Orb as 4th 3/day if need be by using Metamagic School focus, it's something, right?
Level 8: the Incantatrix ability you get at this level is mostly going to help your control spells, not so much your DPS, but that's fine it's still amazing.
Level 9: ANOTHER FEAT! AND ANOTHER!
9 A) Take Searing Spell Now, and use your general feat on Residual Magic(CM) for mad synergy with Metamagic Spell Trigger, you've got a magical Shotgun (A wand of Orb of Fire, lesser).
9 B) You're free to grab Piercing Cold (Frost) with your bonus feat and grab Arcane Thesis for your big gun (Orb of Fire)
Level 12 MOAR FEATS! Bonus metamagic feat goes to Empower Spell (PHB)
12 A) Time to retrain, get Piercing Cold via your Retrain and grab Arcane Thesis with your General Feat.
12 B) Residual Metamagic can come online now, and you get your Shotgun Mk2 (It's PRICEY but a Fire Orb Wand is strong).
This is all coming online weather you had to retrain it or not, you've just been more effective in the meantime if you've been able to retrain. Your new DPS spell is doing 14d6 (49) without any metamagic, you're able to Metamagic School Focus it into a 6th with Admixture Searing Spell AND Piercing Cold come for the ride FREE of charge. Let's break that down, against targets with no immunity it deals 28d6 (98), creatures with a Cold Subtype? 14d6 times two (you lose half your spell but double the other half), creatures immune to one without a subtype? 14d6+14d6 halved (73). Creatures vulnerable to one, but not cold subtype (IE Fire subtype), they take 14d6 and another 14d6 times two (147).
Level 13: Worth noting you can now muscle your way into Empowering the previous spell AND it's reached its damage cap of 15d6 (52.5 or 78.75, if empowered).
Jumping ahead further to 15, we're damn near running out of good metamagic huh? Also all metamagic costs just went down another 1! Grab Twin Spell and Maximize Spell, sure why not. Your metamagic costs are down insanely low. 2 for Admixture or Twin, 1 for Maximized, free for Empowered, Piercing Cold and Searing Spell. You can now cast 3/day with all of the above for 15d6+50% (78.75) points each of Fire and Cold, TWICE. Over 312 damage without any special vulnerabilities. We broke the 20 damage/character level threshold? That's good... we've done it with a REALLY low chance to miss, and virtually no chance to resist?! That's fantastic. It does cost one of your precious 8th level spell slots however each time you do this. Your lower level slots are still quite effective.
Finish out your days as a simple Wizard
Level 18 you've got another feat? Transdimensional Spell, so we don't miss non-corps half the time.
Level 20, bonus feat?! Quicken Spell... for those times one nasty blast wasns't enough.
If you've got access to the O-Hole trick and or Flaws it's not hard to get Archmage online, it can be done otherwise but it means leaving some other tricks on the table and slowing down the build further. It is worth doing in a high level game because it means you can get Mastery of Elements to swap to JUST Cold or JUST Fire and ensure quadrouple damage against opposed subtype creatures.
[/sblock]
Originally posted by samcifer:
Melf's Unicorn Arrow from PHB2 looks like a decent spell to go for. No resistance or Saving Throw against it for at least 9 damage, and at higher levels, you can throw more of them each time (up to 5). 9 Damage may not be that great, but no resisting or saving sounds like a good thing for a spell to have. There's also a spell that lets you fire actual arrows without a bow. Can't recall the name, but wonder if it's worth using. I know these may not be 'practical' spells, but they sure sound fun to use.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Unicorn Arrow is best used to carry trigger effects rather than its own damage, but no save, no resist is good too. However, a bit of context: "at least 9 damage" won't be relevant once monsters have more than 9 hit points (unless it weakens them to the point where an ally will finish them off before the enemy acts again - it's all about the actions, once again), and even the best case (1d8+8, x5 or so) is pretty weak (although it can be used to carry other damage to the target - it's a favored spell of the #1 Snoipah build in my signature for that reason). Damage doesn't exist in a vacuum. (In a bit, you'll see me look up standard monster stats and compare damage to them as a percentage, for instance.)
Incidentally, there ARE blasting spells that have this no-save/no-SR effect - the Orb spells in the Spell Compendium. They're all rays, and your classic fire blast becomes Orb of Fire (a no-save, no-SR, 1d6/level ray spell - note that rays have their own interesting interaction with metamagic). Orb of Fire actually does allow a save... but it's not against the damage. If the target fails their save, they're dazed for 1 round (dazed creatures can take no actions; it's also surprisingly difficult to be immune to dazing. The only creature type that Orb of Fire won't daze are undead, but that's not due to undead being immune to daze: it's because Orb of Fire allows a Fortitude save and doesn't say Fortitude (object).). This checks all your boxes: Damage, fire, and action control.
It's quite possible to make an effective fire mage using this spell and a few other workarounds, but it requires a bit of metamagic expertise and a solid understanding of the action economy. Give me a bit and I'll see about getting a writeup done in the style of the builds in my signature.
EDIT:
Well, look at that, I did a thing(x). I'll also be happy to elaborate more on this if you have specific questions, but for now, I'd like you to note just how few actual "fire" spells there are on this guy (seven out of 34, and only two of those are real "kill spells"), while all of the late-game spells involve no-save action-economy manipulation (allowing me to bring enough firepower to bear).
(PS: If you like the "spell to launch stuff at enemy" archetype, the one-stop-shop is and always has been Telekinesis. One of our groups has even used this as a GTFO finisher: The psion creates a crate of arrows, the artificer hastily infuses some of them with the Bane property tuned to whatever we're fighting, and the ardent uses telekinesis to launch a truly prodigious number of killer arrows at whatever we want to shut up and sit down. It was kind of action intensive, but we usually only used it against foes we needed to send a message to.)
Okay, let me express this in terms of damage.
You're level 1. You know three spells: Burning Hands, Magic Missile, and Sleep. (Color Spray is similar enough to Sleep - it's stronger but shorter-range.). Let's say you've got a final Intelligence of 18 (although as a tiefling it could probably be 20). You're fighting average CR 1 opponents - 12 hit points, Reflex +3, Will +1. (See below for where I got these numbers.)
Burning Hands deals 1d4 (2.5) damage in a 15-foot cone, with a Reflex save for half damage. The DC for a first-level spell that you cast is (10 + spell level 1 + Int mod 4 = 15). A +3 Reflex vs DC 15 will succeed 45% of the time. This means Burning Hands can expect to deal (2.5*.45)+(1.25*.55) = 1.8 damage, which is 15% of the monster's HP. However, if the monster has Evasion (which turns Reflex Half into Reflex Negates), the expected damage drops to just 1.125, or 9% of the target's HP.
Magic Missile always hits. That's it's thing - nothing resists it (except Spell Resistance, but CR 1 monsters rarely resist magic). It will always deal 1d4+1 (3.5) damage. This is 29% of the monster's HP. Unlike the other spells here, though, it's single-target only at this level - but it's still twice as effective as Burning Hands, and three times as effective against targets with Evasion.
But I still argue that Sleep blows them out of the water.
Here's the important bit: Sleep may do nothing if the target saves against it, yes. However, if the target fails its save, the target is effectively dead (the actual throat-slitting comes later, but as far as the monster's concerned, the Sleep spell was the thing that killed him). A +1 Will vs DC 15 (same derivation as above) will succeed 35% of the time. This means that 65% of the time, the sleep spell has (virtually) the same effect as "dealing damage equal to the target's hit points". You can consider Sleep to deal .65*12= 7.8 "expected" damage as a result, or 65% of the monster's HP, hitting multiple targets at the same range Magic Missile uses, with the caveat that it might be negated on a target's successful save. (This is, however, exactly the same situation a blast-damage spell has against a target with Evasion: mega damage if they fail, no damage if they succeed.) This is, on average, four times stronger than Burning Hands (or seven times stronger against evasion targets), and over twice as effective as Magic Missile - and unlike those spells, it scales based on the enemy.
(What do I mean by "scales based on the enemy"? Well, let's put you up against a "very difficult" (actual game term) "boss fight" (casual term) for 1st level characters - an ogre. These guys pack enough of a punch to break several 1st level characters in half if you let them get close. They also have 29 HP, Reflex +0, and Will +1. Against an ogre, using the same math as before, Burning Hands can "expect" to deal 2.125 damage (7% of the ogre's HP, and you're up close and probably toast next round), Magic Missile can "expect" to deal 3.5 damage (12%), and Sleep will knock him out the same 65% of the time it would against the average CR 1 (yes, ogres have 4 HD, which is weak enough to be hit by Sleep*). The thing is, since the ogre is so much tougher than the average CR 1, this works out to (.65*29) = 18.85 HP. This is still 65% of the monster's HP, but since the monster's HP increased, it's also gone from four to seven time stronger than Burning Hands, and from twice to five times as effective as Magic Missile. This means that 65% of the time, a single spell will end the entire fight with the ogre, when a warrior or battle mage would need to get something like two or three rounds worth of combat to end the fight. That's two or three rounds where the ogre is fully capable of swinging back, dealing ~16 damage against your level 1 characters if they hit (where level 1 fighters are "expected" to have about 14ish HP).
Minor caveat: This is also why we recommended boosting Intelligence for more spells earlier on. If you had 20 Int instead of 18 (doable because of your racial Int bonus), your DCs would improve by 1, which would increase the odds of your spells working (and decrease the odds of a successful save) by 5%.
*
[sblock]It's hypothetically possible to continue to use Sleep against higher-level foes, oddly enough: energy drain effects like Enervation add particularly nasty debuffs onto the target called "negative levels". One thing negative levels do is reduce the target's effective level by 1. This usually has an impact on things like caster level (i.e. a level 5 mage hit with one of these is CL 4, and can't cast 3rd level spells)... but "level" and "HD" are synonyms. A troll with two negative levels is thus vulnerable to sleep.
Of course, if you're strong enough to bestow negative levels, chances are you're also packing better (flashier!) kill spells than Sleep, so this isn't likely to actually see use, but it does appear to work.
Interestingly, negative levels themselves are kill spells, if you can get enough of them on the target. (If a target's negative levels equal their HD, they die.) I've seen evocation specialists figure out a way to use the Fell Drain metamagic at level 1, in effect completely destroying anything they aim a spell at - and leaving a corpse that will rise as a nasty undead the following day. (Fell Drain adds 1 negative level to any target damaged by the spell, and uses a slot 2 levels higher than normal. By taking Metamagic School Focus (or another a way of cheapening metamagic costs), you can reduce Fell Drain to only take up one slot higher. You then apply it to Sonic Snap, a 0th-level no-save damage spell from the Spell Compendium, and cast those from your 1st level slots. Remember what I was saying earlier about metamagic being important, and metamagic cost reducers being a big part of the "high end" of optimization? This is a pretty basic example of that.)
But I digress.
[/sblock]Viewing everything in terms of attack bonus and hit point damage is a serious case of blinders that I often find with those who have only played 4e. This is why I think converting everything to a damage equivalent might help put the sheer power of these effects in context.
From what we've seen of the playtest packets, it's still too early to tell. Really, 3.5 isnt' like using matches against enemies - it's about using flamethrowers against enemies that just don't care about being sprayed in fire. You've got plenty of damage, but the context in which you have to apply that makes "plenty" look meek.
In comparison: It's pretty easy to make a charging-based melee character who can deal over 225 damage with one charge on average at level 6, and that's accounting for chance to hit the average enemy Armor Class. (Note: I didn't give them a +2 Strength item, although they could afford it, since it would leave them no gear for defense or support. If I had, that would increase to nearly 250 damage in one charge.) The typical Fireball spell deals 5d6, or 17.5 damage (less than 8% of the fighter's damage!), and that's if the enemy fails their saving throw. This LOOKS like a clear win for the fighter types... but it lacks context.
17.5 damage actually is quite a lot - but it's only a lot against the right foes. Here's some data on various monster stats at different challenge ratings(x); if you're being faced with a legion of goblins, a single fireball will very likely destroy them all, while the fighter can at most splat two of them. If you're fighting a single dire lion (CR 5), then the fireball will barely singe it (and most of the fireball's strength lies in its large area, which is wasted against single targets).
Meanwhile, Stinking Cloud - a spell of the same level as fireball, which hits the same area as the fireball - costs the targets at least their next move action if they save (and quite possibly their next several standard actions, if they don't save - and it forces them to keep saving until they lose, if they stay in the area) and is guaranteed to shut down their visibility and maneuverability (which blocks enemy targeted spells, most archery attacks, and charges). You cast a spell like this, and if your team is aware of the spell and how to work with it, and you've won the battle already, turning it from a brawl into a chain of assassinations (which you can help with too, if you'd like, or you can sit back and clean your nails while the others do your dirty work for you).
I don't want to edition war at all, so correct me if I'm misrepresenting things, but in my understanding, 4e didn't so much boost the damage values as reasonably normalize them across various strategies, and consider monster HP growth in the equation. (This didn't always work - how many times has it been called "a striker's game"? - but it was part of the design.) They also removed "better" options like Stinking Cloud in this form, in favor of more damage spells that happened to have a minor inconvenience effect. Gone was Solid Fog + Black Tentacles, for instance; casting those two spells (assuming the enemy didn't have Freedom of Movement) and then going to the pub for a drink while the rest of your team just stares idly by, waiting for the death-fest to finish so they can clean up what remains of the enemy is something a 3e mage can do to show their supreriority, but a 4e mage could only approximate (at least in the core 4e PHB).
The power of a spell is all about context, not the amount of damage dice it throws when you cast it.
