Giving fighters something to do.

[Lord Pendragon]

If I told you you could do all that, wouldn't you be much happier than if I said, "You can tear things to pieces with a sword"? Not all magic should be combat-oriented in my mind, and thankfully the majority of it isn't. I think that spellcasters get enough non-combat powers that in combat they shouldn't be able to outpace the warriors.

Well, a part of the reason I disagree with you is because I disagree with the basic principles on which you're founding your beliefs. Namely, I don't think 3.5 casters outpace the warriors in combat, and I don't think the majority of spells are non-combat oriented. And lastly, I suppose that without any other qualifying factors, yes, I'd prefer to do "all that" as opposed to "tear things to pieces with a sword." But when the single most common qualifier in most D&D games is "And your quest is to kill the dragon/demon/lich/elder vampire" then point me to the rack and let me get my sword.

Being able to teleport is like being sixteen again, and the only one of your friends with his own car. It just means you're taking all your buddies where everyone needs to go. And if "where everyone needs to go" is nine-times-out-of-ten a barfight, you'd better have more than your car keys to defend yourself.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

You've got good points. But when the a very large proportion of the game *is* combat, they should have some juice.

Here's an example. 10th level wizard. Spellcasting prodigy, Spell Focus: Evocation, Combat Casting, Greater Spell Focus Evocation. Cast fireball, which he isn't high enough level to quicken, and thus he gets *one*. For 10d6. A maximum of 60 points of damage, only once a round. admitedly this can strike multiple opponents. But lets do the math. The mages Dc fore the fireball, as above, under current rules, is (with 20 int) 21. (+5 Int, +1 Spell Focus, +2 Greater Spell Focus, +Spellcasting Prodigy, +3 spell level) Note that even if he *could quicken it, the save would be the same. His Ac, if he's had time to buff, is impressive, about a twenty, assuming a 14 dex, Shield, and Mage armor. (two spells down) the mage has An average of thirty to forty hit points by this point.

10th level rogue. 20 dex. Weapon Finesse, Lightning Reflexes, Improved Crit (rapier). No items. He has Evasion, probably Improved Evasion, meaning he'll take half damage regardless. He has a +14 reflex save (+5 dex, +7 base, +2 feat), meaning he saves for *no damage* on a 6 or better. And he has more hit points than the wizard. He has threatens a crit with a rapier on a 15-20. (One fourth of the time ) His AC, again assuming no magic, is about 18. (+3 leather, +5 dex). His to hit with the rapier is +12/+7, still no magic or other feats. He hits an AC18 rogue on a 6 or better the first time. An AC 21 fighter (best possible AC without magic or exotic feats) he hits on a nine or better. Over half the time. If he manages a sneak attack (which isn't too difficult IME) he does 1d6 +1 (12 Str, say) +5d6. Or 7d6 per hit on a crit. So just hitting, not critting, the rogue can do 72 points of damage per round.

10th level fighter. Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec. Great Sword or great axe. Power attack. Str 20. Cleave. Great Cleave. Improved Critfull plate and heavy shield. He's AC 21, has a fort save of +10, +12 with Great Fort and Con 16. (He's still got feats left...) His reflex save is +4 or so. but he has 9 hp per level assuming average rolls, for about 90 hp.His to hit is +17/+12/+7, with masterwork weapon,weapon focus, and 20 str. Chances are good the fireball, even if he fails his save, just singes him (average damage 30 points). The rogue nails him for 36, maybe 72. He nails the rogue (on a 1/6/11)or the wizard (on a 3/8/13) for 2d6+10 with the sword, or 1d12 +10 with the axe. Easy hits. Up to 26 damage per hit, three hits, up to 78 damage. If he crits, that can go up as high as 156 points with the sword, or 234 with the axe. And crits are more common than one might expect. With no crit and avergae rolls, that's still 17 points per hit, 51 points per round. Add in the power attack, or magic, and it gets more hideous. Not to mention that if he gets to the mage, and hits him, the mage is casting *nothing* if he somehow isn't dead. (51 average damage vs 30 to 40 average hp, if the mage has a con bonus).

And the rogue and fighter can do their damage all day. Over and over again. As many combats as they can survive. themage runs out of spells. The more effecitve he is in combat (because of buffs and such) the less endurance he has, and he must rest more often to recover his spell list. Sometimes, (often) he must rest after one or two combats. And he probably hasn't memorized enough battle spells to deal out his damage every round of a ten round combat. The fighter will. The rogue might.

(1oth level mage as above has 4/6/6/4/4/3 spells. He's probably used two to three spells just to buff before each combat, if he wants to have the AC above. He has half his spell selection in utility. That leaves thirteen spells that could be combat spells, only some of which do the kind of damage mentioned above..and all of which are relatively easy to save against. Much more so when you add in save boosting magic. And he spent three of those spells to ready for combat. So he could conceiveably cast a spell every round. *2* of which might be fireball...Two of them are ray of frost (DC 17, 1d3 damage, and he has to roll to hit) two of them are magic missile (a danged good spell, up to 25 points of damage at this level either divided up or targeted on one enemy) 2 of them are like Ag's Scorcher (5 ' path, Ref save with the problems above, 5d6 damage max...roughly half as effective as fireball. Get rid of instakill, and 4th level direct damage spells are...Ice Storm for up to thrity points. Shout for up to thirty points. *less* damage than fireball. (Pure SRD here.)
5th level, no instakill, you have cone of cold, for, you guessed it, 10d6, in a larger but harder to use area. It can be devastating if the wizard uses another third level slot to fly, but again, only to large numbers of mooks. So. If you nerf instakill, your wizard will be reduced to crowd control or buffing (which the priest is better at) while your fighters and rogues (or monks) kill the BBEG's.


There isn't a really good answer. The system causes the problem. but we still like to play it.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

Next bit. 10th level party above (add in a cleric, of course, and they get even more powerful, but that's another rant.) Add level apropriate magic.


The BBEG should be 2 to four levels higher then the party. Maybe more. And cleverly built, because your players will milk everything they have.

Say the villain is a wizard 14. He'll be in one fight, so he can afford to blow all his spells on it. He's got Prot from Arrows. He's Stoneskinned. He's got energy resistance. (At least fire, ice and lightning). He's got Shield, mage armor, and a friendly cleric to shield of faith him. He's got Stat boosting buffs on to raise his saves, which already outpace spell dc's. He's got an escape readied, like a teleport or a wraithform. He might even have acontingency he paid someon else for, or that was provided by the even bigger BBEG. Note there's no real magic items mentioned here, just to keep the comparison even with the above. So the BBEG, who can have higher stats than a PC if you want, has Str 14 Dex 16 Con 14 Int 21 WIS 16 cHA 18.
His feats are combat casting (say concentration 17 ranks, +23 total to cast defensively), the same Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus, The Same Spellcasting Prodigy. He's got Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, and Great Fortitude. (He's still got feats left, especially if human) His saves are +10 fort with Bear's End, +10 Ref with cat's Grace, +16 will with Owl's Wisdom. The tenth level wizard Phantasmal killer's him. The dc is 19, because the wiz isn't focused in illusion, it's in Evocation. The baddie saves vs the fort on a nine and the will on a *3*. In the rare instance these *both* fail, applaud the players for their lucky crit and move on.

He targets the rogue with fort saves, the cleric and fighter with reflex saves, the fighter and rogue with will saves. He nails the other wizard with fort and ref saves. His mooks hold the fighters off him, and his familiar keeps an eye out to keep the rogue off his back. His own rogue bodyguard (possibly devoted defender) intercepts any sneak attack.

Your only problem here is not wiping the PC's out, but that can be handled with finesse. So what's the problem? Well, that and dealing with the self-buffing wonder cleric.

On the other hand,. I've lost 7 of my last 9 pc's to instakills and bad saves, and was righteously irritated, so the math doesn't say everything.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'd kinda like a system where mages get an automatic spell attack that improves as they level. It wouldn't use spell slots, but you could spend MP or spell slots or something to have improved effects.

 

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, it's the bad rolls for saves that miff me. The warrior dude got a 5 and a 3 for his save against Phantasmal Killer. The wizard I wanted to have a weakness to Fort saves because all his other defenses were top notch, and the guy was a 118 year-old withered piece of flesh too afraid to attempt lichdom. Problem is, there aren't any fort save spells that just don't kill you, it seems like.

 

[arscott]

An amusing anecdote -- an NPC cast phantasmal killer on one of the PCs, a bridge troll barbarian/rogue. The bridge troll failed his first save, and saw the thing he feared the most reaching towards him. Now, bridge trolls aren't ordinarily very bold, but this PC was obviously no ordinary troldfolk, and he wasn't afraid of anything. The worst thing around, in his mind, was himself.

We all had a good laugh as the character, succeeding on his second save, but obviously terrified and confused, announced to the rest of the group that he'd just touched himself.

Cheers
Nell.

What, no billygoat?

 

[swrushing]

A few notions...

i vastly prefer turning "save or die" into "save or dying" where a failed save drops you to negative hit points. this replaces the "ooops dead" downer with "ooops, SAVE ME" which is a lot more dramatic and fun.

Second, some form of hero points is definitely a good thing.

Third, lacking any of these, one needs to remember the setting should shape the encounter. In a world with things like Pk and FoD and Poly, a fighter without precautions is just not a viable threat at that level.

Just like a broken bridge, which was a threat early on, is not a threat for a party with fly spells, an unprotected fighter is just a resouce sap if he doesn't have magical protection or aide or an extremely beneficial scenario setup. Spell turning devices/spells, save bonuses, invisibility, and more are all very helpful at thwarting "targetted" spells.

 

[Elrik_DarkFury]

JackGiantkiller i couldn't agree more .
3.5 ed did everything to nerf arcane spellcasters and even with the best possible selection of feats and spells its pretty difficult to play an effective wizard.If you try to remove more of his power he will not anymore be an attractive choice compared to other classes.

Why throw a BBEG with 4 levels higher CR instead of throwing an evil party of 4 persons of CR same as the players?
That way,even an unlucky roll from the BBEG(resulting to his death probably) won't be the end of the battle or a big problem for you.

___________________
The Wizard

 

[Victim]

In my group, the person that's most adamant about nerfing spellcasters doesn't play. He can play secondary casters, but doesn't deal well with confronting the full spell list of a wizard or cleric. What he does try to play are really good fighters. In our last campaign, his character would do several hundred points of damage on smite charges. No save and die.

Nulloc's beatage was mild hyperbole, yes.

I don't mind spellcasters dealing damage to a large area of effect, and I certainly don't mind them killing mooks and flunkies. But I think the damage dice should be toned down just a little. So a fireball might deal 3d6 at 5th level. To balance this out, the mage could cast a lot more fireballs per day. I pretty much just want to tone down the necessity of super-powerful spells.

Right now a 13th level wizard only gets 1 7th level spell, so he'd better use it to kill someone tough. But if the wizard got to cast unlimited 4th level spells, and could only use a 5th level spell if he spent two full rounds concentrating on it, that would fit my style better.

Amazing suggestions, RangerWickett. Take away save or die spells AND then nerf the already rather weak damage dealing spells. I think you might be overestimating damage the effect of additional damage dice. 3d6 damage is 10.5 damage; 5d6 is 17.5. And there's a save for half - if we give the wizard 18 INT and spell focus, the DC is 18. Even characters with poor Ref saves should probably have about a 25% of saving. And many classes have better Ref saves and/or evasion. Assuming that you do full damage with a spell is like assuming that all of a full attack hits. While I didn't have Int gear for the mage, thus lowering the save DC, I also didn't have the targets loaded up with cloaks of resistance or similar items.

Now you ask, "Victim, what about area damage? If that fireball hits 4 guys for 17.5, that's 70 damage! No fighting guy can do that much in one action." I'd like to start by saying that you're wrong. In most cases, dealing X damage to 4 targets is not the same at all as dealing 4X to one target. Let's take an 8th level party fighting 4 trolls; this should be a pretty close to even fight in terms of CR and trolls are a fairly standard monster. A level 8 fireball does 8d6, or 28/14 and this time we'll give the wizard 20 INT from his level ups and Spell Focus for DC 19 attacks. Trolls have 63 HP and +4 ref. So the wizard casts fireball and hits four trolls, dealing (28*.7 +14*.3=) 23.8 damage to each troll, or about 95 all together. Not bad. However, doing 24 damage to 4 trolls doesn't kill them, or impact their combat ability in any way. In future rounds, there's still going to be 8 claws and 4 bites coming in at your team. The same amount of single target damage removes one troll with room to spare (which you'd probably need if they were trolls on potions), thereby reducing the attacks you face. Not to mention that area attacks have friendly fire issues. Fireball is a great spell to open with if the battle starts at range, but in the later rounds, friendly fire becomes an issue.

Now let's look at alternative spells and situations. A fighter or fighter/barbarian with 20 STR, focus and specialization in the greatsword will be pretty nasty. Attack bonus with a masterwork weapon will be +15/+10, each doing 2d6+9 (16 per hit, ignoring criticals and other feats). Against those trolls, he deals about 26.4 per full attack - without any magic items or use of the power attack feat. At these levels, the wizard will mostly get more endurance from items (more spells from INT, wands, scrolls, etc) since he can't afford metamagic items. The only short run offensive effect is a bonus to save DCs. A +2 STR item and a +1 weapon are a pretty modest investment in offense for the 8th level fighter type, but they add a nice ~8 points against the troll, again without considering power attack. Since the wizard is using limited per day resources, we can make the fighter's situation analogous and toss rage on there from barbarian. Now we're looking at attacks at +19/+14 for 22 per hit. Again ignoring critical hits and other feats, we're looked at 41.8 damage. Is 8d6 still looking like too much? Maybe the problem is that the fighters you see suck?

Quite frankly, what you want seems to be the wizard toasting crappy minions while the fighter engages in the climatic duel. But, as you mentioned in the first place, without the BBEG, the minions don't pose a credible threat. Therefore, having a wizard specialized in killing mooks and flunkies is pretty worthless, isn't it? Especially since melees with the right feats are pretty good at killing losers themselves, even while fighting the big boss. A 5th level spell that takes 2 full rounds to cast will essentially never get cast, except from invis or something.

If you want fights to have rising action, then you need to convince your players to work that way and have the NPCs act the same. Either that or add some house rules. I've heard on idea mentioned that might help. Essentially, characters get action points each round and can save them up. These action points govern the intensity of combat. Let's say characters get 4 AP per round. Taking a single attack might cost 3, charges 4, full attacks 5, 1st-3rd spells 3, 4-6: 5, 7-9: 6. Using metamagic items, smites, active combat feats, etc all increase the AP cost of actions. Crap things like total defense or use of intimidate have very low AP costs (maybe zero). This way, you have to work your way up to big attacks with either several rounds of weak attacks or a few rounds of near inactivity. You could expand the system and get more detailed too. Encourage fighting with the off hand, not using your specialized weapon, attacking to subdue, fighting defensively, etc. The idea is that the paladin has to make several weak strafing passes before coming around and unloading a 500 point smite into someone, and the caster has to cast several low spells before blasting away with a pair of Maximized Meteor Swarms or Destructions. Still, there might be some issues. I can see people working on low level buffs while saving most of their AP, essentially using the system to keep the enemies from counteracting while they buff up. Then you just get 2 rounds of buffing followed by an even more effective alpha strike.

And I still find it hard to believe that the party went 2/2 on save or die saves, especially since one of them went against a good save. No spellturning, resistance cloaks, save feats? Look at all the save or get screwed spells. Then look at all the monsters with similar abilities. How did these guys get to 16th level if they can't make saving throws?

 

[FireLance]

A thought just occured to me (ironically, after reading the thread about the negative connotations of videogames and thinking about Vivi the Black Mage from Final Fantasy IX).

Vivi had a "Focus" action which he could use in combat to make his spells more powerful. What if wizards and other spellcasters had to spend time focusing before they could unleash their most powerful instakill spells? This would mean that there will be at least a few rounds of melee back and forth before the wizard could unleash phantasmal killer or baleful polymorph.

Focusing could be a move action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Movement, including spells such as Teleport, could disrupt your focus and require you to start focusing again. Direct damage spells such as magic missile and fireball might not require focus so that spellcasters still have something to do before unleashing their most powerful spells. So, if a spell such as finger of death requires four rounds of focus before it can be cast, a wizard will have to wait four rounds before he can cast it (although he can cast other spells in the meantime). And if casting such a spell expends his focus too, it would be four rounds before he can cast it again.