How would you houserule (nerf) magic at high levels.

[Greg K]

It has been my experience that the other players have expectations that the wizard will have certain spells. What do you mean you don't have fireball or teleport.

I wanted to play a more utility style caster less of a blaster. I envisioned a character with a lot of book learning so I poured ranks into knowledge skills and even with the DM's help made a couple of new ones. My spell choice was more about defense and aiding the party. I used buff spells on the melee folks. I had a few offensive spells. But my wizard was not about fighting.

I got a lot of complaints from some of the other players about this choice. They felt that as party wizard I had an unspoken obligation to take the most powerful offensive spells.

I got chewed out one day by the player playing the rogue because I didn't know knock and we were trapped and he couldn't for the life of him roll well enough to pick lock/disarm trap.

Depends on the players and the group. The groups I have played with don't have those expectations. The one exception was one player, whom I have written about before, who was later removed from the group.

And, as for the guy complaining about the rogue, I would have told him to f off and play his own character.

 

[Dice4Hire]

No, just an example of you missing the point. The discussion is spider climb taking over for climb skill, not climb skill taking over for spider climb.

This isnt about standing on the ceiling shooting a bow, but using spells to replace skill checks.

In which case, for a skill check that is not just wandering damage, the spell is not any better than the skill. I did not say the climb skill is the same as the spider climb spell in all cases, I was talking about the situation at hand.

This makes no sense.

Whether it is 'wandering damage' or what, the 1st level spell is vastly superior to the climb skill, to a ridiculous degree.

It would take a dozen ranks or more, so a character of 10th or even higher level to match the simple first level spell. That is the point of this discussion, and my post.

Maybe you read my post backwards. I am not sure what you are talking about.

 

[JoeGKushner]

In your opinion, at what level does this happen?

1st
5th
10th
15th
20th

And what set of stats do you need to accomplish it? I'm very curious because as I've noted, our experiences are very different.

In my own experiences, most of the wizards go squish real quick if they're not careful. Without thinking about it too much I can recall two 10th level deaths. One in the City of the Spider Queen where in one of the optional encounters at the tombs at the start of the adventure, the group encounters a 10th level vampire. He cast a fireball, gets high damage, and the wizard is toast.

In one game of the Shackled City, another wizard cast ye old lightning bolt in the first round and won iniative and yup, one dead wizard.

These are reasons I note that in my experience, the wizard's ability to POTENTIALY do things means squat in actual game play.

Then, and I don't mean this rudely, you have not seen a well played wizard.

System mastery was an intentional part of 3e's design focus. I think, however, that the developers themselves weren't very good at it. I think 4e is closer to their goal - system mastery makes better characters but not godly ones, and the lack thereof makes not as good characters but not worthless ones.

But in 3e, system mastery makes wizards who all but completely ignore SR, and never blast (because blasting is a terrible idea), but instead control the battlefield or throw out don't-get-to-save-just-die spells. They can easily - without spending any feats - skyrocket their DCs to the stratosphere, and they have far more spell slots then they know what to do with. It can become easy to never spend all your spell slots even as early as level 4.

It's true that if you haven't seen a wizard who really knows what they're doing, you may not have seen these problems. But in those cases that simply means you haven't seen it, not that it doesn't exist - it means you haven't yet seen someone with the system mastery. And again I stress - this was a desired function of 3e.

The bigger problem is how easy it is to accidentally trip and fall into one of the godly characters. See, 3e's balance problems don't lie with Pun Pun or CharOps. Those are strawmen. 3e's balance problems lie with a new player who says "I think I'll make a druid, and natural spell looks cool." or a new player who makes a wizard and says "Well, I want my intelligence to be as high as it can be, and this color spray spell looks really cool."

 

[Elf Witch]

Depends on the players and the group. The groups I have played with don't have those expectations. The one exception was one player, whom I have written about before, who was later removed from the group.

And, as for the guy complaining about the rogue, I would have told him to f off and play his own character.

So in all your games you have played no one ever questions why a player choose to take a feat or a spell? My point with the player playing the rogue was not that he was being a jerk which he was, but more how he wished I had knock. Knock is an example of a spell that some see as being an example of the wizard taking away specialness from another class.

I keep reading how wizards need to be nerfed so that they don't step on other players feet, outshine everyone else and be the only class that can drive the narrative.

What I am wondering is since the party as a whole usually benefits from the wizard's magic does that make up for this supposed negatives ? And if given the chance would other players really want to see the wizard nerfed?

 

[I'm A Banana]

What I am wondering is since the party as a whole usually benefits from the wizard's magic does that make up for this supposed negatives ? And if given the chance would other players really want to see the wizard nerfed?

I would like to see better "niche protection." Which isn't the same as a nerf.

Why shouldn't the rogue have Knock, or at least an ability that works with the same reliability and skill? And why shouldn't they have a Spider Climb equivalent? And why does a wizard get it? A wizard should generally not be climbing around and opening things, right?

Narrative control like that is powerful, and I'd like to see it given to the classes that are supposed to be in control in a given situation. A bog-standard wizard should not be in control when stealthily exploring the ruins. The rogue should. The wizard should be in control when the party finds a tome of ancient lore, or a strange green liquid in the pools outside the shrine to Juiblex.

 

[The Shaman]

This was actually one of the things I hated most as levels got higher in 3e/3.5e . . . .

Say no more - all you have to do is put together "high level" and "3e" in a sentence, and your point is made.

 

[pemerton]

I would like to see better "niche protection." Which isn't the same as a nerf.

<snip>

A bog-standard wizard should not be in control when stealthily exploring the ruins. The rogue should. The wizard should be in control when the party finds a tome of ancient lore, or a strange green liquid in the pools outside the shrine to Juiblex.

I think this puts the key point very well (unfortunately I can't give you XP at this time).

It's also something that D&D rulebooks - 4e, certainly, but probably those from earlier editions as well - could tackle a bit more headon, both in their advice to GMs, and in the mechanics of character building.

A game that does tackle this sort of issue directly is Heroquest 2nd ed - the penalties for using a generic ability to tackle a problem are determined not by an ingame consideration, but by a purely metagame consideration - if another PC has a more specialised ability that is also relevant, apply a penalty to the use of the generic ability. This way, the player who built the more specialised PC doesn't get trodden on.

So in HeroQuest there could be a wizard with "Magical manipulation of objects" as an ability, but compared to the rogue's "Open lock" or "Disarm trap" or even more precise "Deftly handle tripwires", or the figher's "Strong as an ox with the stamina of atlas", the wizard would always be acting at a penalty.

 

[Leatherhead]

Personally, I don't care for enforced niche protection. At the more extreme ends it leads to "the decker problem." In less extreme situations it leads to nonsensical situations like the fighter doing multiple back-flips to impress a king while the bard does the bulk of the talking.

 

[Elf Witch]

I would like to see better "niche protection." Which isn't the same as a nerf.

Why shouldn't the rogue have Knock, or at least an ability that works with the same reliability and skill? And why shouldn't they have a Spider Climb equivalent? And why does a wizard get it? A wizard should generally not be climbing around and opening things, right?

Narrative control like that is powerful, and I'd like to see it given to the classes that are supposed to be in control in a given situation. A bog-standard wizard should not be in control when stealthily exploring the ruins. The rogue should. The wizard should be in control when the party finds a tome of ancient lore, or a strange green liquid in the pools outside the shrine to Juiblex.

Well how how about protecting the wizard niche? A rogue at high levels who has poured ranks into use magic device can very effectively compete with a wizard in the spell category. Not only can he use arcane spells but he can also use divine spells.

The rogue also with his back stab can compete with the fighter when it comes to doing damage in combat.

Then there is the cleric with his buff spells and access to heavy armor he can more than compete with the fighter to be the frontline tank.

It is almost impossible to totally protect niches there will always be some overlap.

As for the spells you mentioned like spider climb it is should be in the wizard repertoire. Wizards are not as strong as fighters and they don't have climb as a skill so they need to be able to climb that cliff face. They can also use it to help other classes.

That is one thing I have noticed in these conversations is that no one seems to be talking about the wizard casting spells on the other party members to help make them more effective.

I play a wizard and I routinely cast invisibility on the party rogue to help him scout better and more safely.

As for knock sure as the party wizard I could memorize this spell and use it to open doors. But unlike the rogue's pick lock ability I am limited on just how many spells I get so eventually I won't be able to do it any longer. A rogue can open locks and disarm traps all day long. And that ability does not stop him from using his other abilities. He can still use his back stab in combat and evasion to avoid damage.

A wizard who has taken a lot of knock spells has to to that at cost of taking other spells that will help protect them and help them fight in combat.

Another reason spells like knock exist is to allow the party to be able to function without a rogue.

I rarely see complaints that bards and druids getting healing. Though healing is supposed to be in the purview of the clerics. But design wise they get healing so that a party can survive without a cleric.

It stops the "we have to have this class or else we can't play" and allows more flexibility to the players.

I keep reading that wizards step on a lot of feet but in 20 years of playing the game I have never seen this at the table. I have never seen a wizard character that takes spells to be better than another character in the group. Why would a wizard take a lot of knock spells if the party has a rogue? By doing so they limit what they can do and that is not usually fun.

What I have seen is that wizards may take a spell to help boast or back up another character that is not stepping on toes that is called being a team player and helping make the party as a whole effective.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

In your opinion, at what level does this happen?

1st
5th
10th
15th

IME 15th, and not before - I've noticed no balance problems until this point, because a scarcity of spell slots still applies in some measure: players need to be a little thoughtful of which spells they prepare. Also, the really ugly spells haven't arrived en masse.

Then comes mind blank, discern location, maze, Otto's, polymorph any object and greater planar binding. For the most part, these spells are atavisms from 1E. A 15th-level specialist wizard with Int 26 (not unreasonable) gets 3 x 8th-level slots. That's a pretty dramatic increase in power. Focused specialist - eek!

15th-20th: As the main attack spells migrate up to higher levels, tons of low-level slots are liberated for utility magic.

Handily, wizards also get a bonus feat at 15th level. Nice icing on your cake.