Have run and/or played in a 3e/3.5 game with no wizard? List thoughts/experiences

[Voadam]

The two games I'm running have no wizards in the party.

One is a Freeport pirates and cultist nautical city themed game.

One is a Wildwood wilderness themed game.

The closest to the wizard archetype in the Freeport game would be the beguiler, the cloistered cleric, the (currently in character creation) truenamer, and the bard.

In the Wildwood game the closest would be the sorcerer/warlock.

I have not significantly adjusted the game or scenarios based upon the lack of a wizard in either party, though I house ruled from the start in the Wildwood one that everybody is illiterate without a feat and that wizards require literacy to use a spellbook but can prepare spells as if they were a level higher if they did not have spellbooks. I forget if I changed an NPC wizard to a sorcerer or if he was that way to start in the published module.

Not having a wizard has not caused any problems that I am aware of.

 

[steenan]

I played in a campaign with no wizard - but we had a cleric and my utility sorcerer (with many multi-purpose spells, like shadow conjuration or polymorph), so we didn't feel any lack. I needed to sacrifice some combat effectiveness, but it ended up being much more satisfying.

Currently, I'm running a game with no arcane caster in the party at all. They have a cleric and a psion and are doing fine. Lack of arcane spells is a problem sometimes, but they usually find a way around it. It has some advantages from GM POV - they don't teleport around, so there is much more opportunity for encounters, both social and combat.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Our current 4E game has no wizard. Our party makeup is:

Dragonborn Fighter
Eladrin Ranger (me)
Tiefling Warlock
Elven Cleric
Halfling Rogue

We have just started KOTS and had two combats so far. We haven't noticed any real problems without having a wizard but the campaign just started. The Warlock is fey pact and my ranger is an archer so we have two ranged strikers. I have decided to join the party with a wizard if my ranger dies just to try it out.

 

[Morrow]

My current group tends to be pretty light on wizards.

Our Freeport game went a long time without any full arcane caster. By 14th level the party had six levels of sorcerer and six levels of bard between them. Then a new player brought in a wizard and it completely changed the dynamics of the game.

Our Eberron mystery game went six levels with just a rogue, a ranger, and a monk, until I brought in a wizard cohort.

Our Savage Tide game has gone six levels with a barbarian, a druid, a cleric, and a rogue.

We're about to start a new 3.5 campaign with a barbarian, a fighter, a cleric, a druid, and a bard.

The first thing we miss without a full arcane caster tends to be the big flashy evocations. At higher levels we notice the lack of teleport type spells. Also, for reasons I don't understand we tend to be light on divinations even though you would expect the cleric to cover that.

The lack of wizard or sorcerer does tend to change the tone of the game somewhat. Big, fantastic magical things are still happening, but those tend to be things that are happening to the party rather than things that they are doing themselves.

We played the Age of Worms campaign for quite a while and made it from 1st to 13th level with a wizard (which I played) I'd say that at the mid and high end the game was just more unpredictable. If the wizard was having a hot streak, making good spell choices, getting through SR, and everyone was blowing their saves, we could really bowl over the opposition. If things weren't going his way he was just the squishy guy hiding behind the paladin. Judicious use of divinations like arcane eye made dungeon crawling a completely different experience. We weren't so into the scry-buff-teleport trick, but we did use divinations to decide how to prepare, and would occasionally decide that a particular part of a dungeon was going to suck, so we'd just teleport around it.

 

[Minicol]

Never saw a wizard at any tables since I gave up on LGH four years ago.

Right now, we have two clerics and a bard, and no other spell users. things are going fine, even though we tend to avoid the dungeon full of monsters style of adventuring.

 

[Hussar]

Depending on what supplements you use, two clerics and a bard are pretty darn strong. Trading a wizzie for a cleric is not really trading down.

 

[LostSoul]

I played in a game without a Wizard for a while.

Once we got a Wizard (which replaced my dead Ranger) the party was way more effective.

 

[BlackMoria]

My current 3.5 campaign is The Age of Worms adventure path and we are near the end with party members now 19th level.

We have no rogue and the only arcane caster is the artificer who does double duty as trapfinder and magical support.

Truthfully, things are going just fine. The only drawback is the artificer goes through wands and staves and other items like a wino with a bottle of gin, so there is more down time required for the artificer to replenish or create items. A real surprise to me just how well it is going, since AoW can be a real ballbreaker for groups that have arcane casters.

Doable, yes.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, I've only had a single session with a *true* wizard in 3E. After a lethal encounter with a Frost Worm the player quickly decided to try something else. But we've always had at least one character that could stand in for one reasonably well:

- When the campaign started the party had a sorcerer. He was the main damage dealer.

- Somewhere along the way we had a Mystic Theurge that was a cleric/wind mage, the
latter being a homebrew class combining features of specialist wizards and druids. It was a good support character but not much of a healer or damage dealer.

- Currently, it has a psion and a wilder. Both can deal huge amounts of damage but the psion is mostly forced to use defensive/utility powers.

I don't think the party would be able to survive for long without a 'wizard-like' character. Especially now in the level 11-13 range there are lots of monsters that would almost certainly mean a tpk without one.