[L&L] Balancing the Wizards in D&D

[wrecan]

Yes.

That's sad. I mean to not want to play in a game that had it as an option that you didn't even have to use.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

That's sad. I mean to not want to play in a game that had it as an option that you didn't even have to use.

Well, to be fair, if they happen to make a game that caves to his demands, I'm not going to buy it, no matter how good it is. I don't believe in rewarding companies that pay inordinate attention to "squeaky wheels".

 

[JRRNeiklot]

That's sad. I mean to not want to play in a game that had it as an option that you didn't even have to use.

If it's going on at the table, it will break my immersion significantly enough to ruin my fun.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Well, to be fair, if they happen to make a game that caves to his demands, I'm not going to buy it, no matter how good it is. I don't believe in rewarding companies that pay inordinate attention to "squeaky wheels".

And, to be fair, if they happen to make a game that caves to the demands of people who can't stand not to be able to spam magic at will, I'm not going to buy it, no matter how good it is. I don't believe in rewarding companies that pay inordinate attention to "squeaky wheels".

 

[Cybit]

And, to be fair, if they happen to make a game that caves to the demands of people who can't stand not to be able to spam magic at will, I'm not going to buy it, no matter how good it is. I don't believe in rewarding companies that pay inordinate attention to "squeaky wheels".

We will have to agree to disagree then. I think it's pretty immersion breaking that someone who can summon creatures from other dimensions can't figure out a way to create some kind of small magical effect repeatedly.

 

[Minigiant]

I just want Kydios the Great to never have to touch a doorknob, read a book, or drink tea... like a filthy commoner. Kydios is better than people who cannot warp time and space. Why doesn't his teapot stay afloat and heated all day. Killing goblins makes him thirsty. He need hot tea At All Times. Candles are for commoners. 24hr light duration at level 1! He's a wizard for Corellon's sake. Why is a wizard moving a chair with his hands?

 

[eamon]

We will have to agree to disagree then. I think it's pretty immersion breaking that someone who can summon creatures from other dimensions can't figure out a way to create some kind of small magical effect repeatedly.

I can understand your preference for at-will magic, but I can't understand how it's immersion breaking. Magic might well be very strenuous, hard, dangerous, uncomfortable, painful, unreliable, or otherwise impractical such that nobody would bother to use it where a simpler tool suffices.

I.e., it's easily imaginable to have a world where noone goes around casting all the time, and instead just uses a bow or a club for low-risk mundane activity. I'd love to see that kind of setting enabled by the rules; it'd be a natural fit for something like dark sun, for instance.

Indeed, there's lots of fantasy where magic is highly rare and unusual and anything but an everyday activity.

This kind of thing doesn't have to be a deal-breaker for anyone; just have two different variants: one in which the wizard has middling proficiency with weapons, and other where at-will magic exists. It shouldn't be too hard to balance these too options; and if preferred, the group can settle on using only one or the other for setting consistency.

 

[grimslade]

When the thread is over... turn out the lights

Ahh we have discussed the topic enough to get to the WRONGBADFUN exchange. Sigh.

At-will cantrips are not immersion breaking for me. Let me repeat: fro me. Access to a night light and the ability to spice my food at-will is not so magical to my modern ears, but preferences are preferences. There will be an easy fix to it that requires little page space. A magical rare campaign will curtail it to max slots per level per day or something. Maybe you limit it to X/day and you gain another cantrip like Hairy or Ghost Step.

I hope the at-will damage spells are acquired via feat. If warlocks are allowed to go all day long with the pact pew pew, wizards will find a way via research to emulate it. So Jimmy the Cormyrean War Wizard learns to throw out Purple Dragon Lances at-will, while Mordy the Sea Wizard from Gradsul learned to summon Croaker, his Axiomatic raven familiar.

 

[Wulfgar76]

If it's going on at the table, it will break my immersion significantly enough to ruin my fun.

Oh good grief.

SO snapping your fingers to perform universe-altering magic; gating in demons, teleporting across planes and raining meteors from the sky is perfectly awesome.

But shooting little bolts of magic energy once per round - that just sucks the fun right out of the game?

 

[thalmin]

How about waiting until we have been able to playtest a bit so we know what we are arguing about, and then provide playtest feedback to Wizards of the Coast?