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

[AbdulAlhazred]

You mean a rule like this? From GG's DMG? That I already quoted, above?

"It can thus be understood that spell casting during a melee can be a tricky business, for a mere shove at any time can spoil the dweomer!"

You're IMHO confusing commentary with a RULE. This is stating that it 'can' (this should be MAY or IS really) be tricky. Thus there is SOMEWHERE a rule which describes mechanically how it is tricky.

Most spells can be cost during the course of a single melee round,
although some - porticularly high level ones - require more time.
Casting a spell requires certain actions, and if these are interrupted, the
spell cannot be cast and it is lost from memory. A good example of this is a
magic-user about to cost a fireball spell being struck by on arrow when in
the midst of the spell. Magical silence or physical gagging will prevent
verbal (V) spell completion. Magical immobility prevents any spell
casting. Physical restraint, including grappling, grasping, binding, etc.
prevents proper somatic (S)spell completion, for gestures must be exact
and movements free and as prescribed. Despite these restrictions, there is
no doubt that spells in general are potent offensive and defensive
weapons, providing the caster does not hesitate, i.e. he or she must know
which spell is being cast when the melee round begins.

Note that this is purely descriptive, but does contain an example of being hit and thus damaged and unable to finish the spell.

Unless combat is spell versus spell, many such attacks will happen near the
end of a melee round. This is because the spell requires a relatively
lengthy time to cast, generally longer os spell level increases, so high
level spells may take over a full melee round to cast. Furthermore, if the
spell caster is struck, grabbed, or mogicolly attacked (and fails to make the
requisite saving throw - explained later), the spell will be spoiled and
fail. Spell combat includes cleric and magic-user, as well as monster-
oriented spells. Curative spells are handled likewise.

Reiteration of the same points, with a bit more precision. Notice how in THIS case a save is mentioned and the criteria is spelled out as 'struck, grabbed, or magically attacked'. Of course this may not be ALL possible conditions, so now, we can go on to the DMG

Page 65 of the 1e DMG contains the RULES for spell casting in melee (labeled as such). They specify the concrete things that will actually prevent or spoil spell casting. As far as enemy action goes the only things specified is that the caster cannot be HIT by an attack or fail a save during casting. It is quite clear that it is POSSIBLE to cast spells in melee, otherwise why would the section even be labeled 'casting spells in melee combat'?

There's no ambiguity at all whatsoever. In 1e (and I could dig up the corresponding rules for 2e but it is redundant) you CAN cast spells while being meleed. You cannot gain your dex bonus and your spell is spoiled if you are hit, that's it. Now, presumably pushing someone requires some sort of hit. 1e doesn't have a rule for that actually, so we're left to our own devices there, at least until 2e, which does have such rules.

 

[Lanefan]

Anecdote re unbalanced high-level wizards:

Last weekend I ran a session where a couple of lowish-level types were raiding the lair of a high-level wizard (and had been amazingly lucky to get that far). The wizard teleported in, the two remaining PCs were not surprised and got in his face right away, and he never cast another spell. He was reduced to physical melee for the rest of his (rather short) life simply because he could not cast in combat - all he'd accomplish would be to generate wild magic surges when - not if, but when - he got interrupted by the two people trying to beat his face in. (note that he could not outrun the PCs either) The PCs had some magic but nothing specific vs. wizards.

And the level disparity between the PCs and their foe was immense!

Nope, 1e balances them just fine, thank you.

Re: needing torches in a dungeon:

And? That style of play is ... rare these days. From the 3.5 SRD's alchemical equipment:

Sunrod2 gp1 lb
Sunrod

This 1-foot-long, gold-tipped, iron rod glows brightly when struck. It clearly illuminates a 30-foot radius and provides shadowy illumination in a 60-foot radius. It glows for 6 hours, after which the gold tip is burned out and worthless.

People haven't been worrying about how long torches last since that thing was added to core 3.5

OK, so 3.5 messed it up. 5e can still fix it.

If at-will cantrips are not in core, front and centre, I'm going to have issues. It's a strike Bob Crow would dream of against the game. And people who've been playing D&D longer than I've been alive have, at my table (and spontaneously) said that at will spells are something they really like.

This is one of those odd situations where something being widely liked doesn't necessarily indicate it to be the best option.

At-will cantrips - where cantrip is defined in the 1e UA trivial-effect sense - aren't that big a deal*. At-will cantrips using the 3e definition of cantrip as a fairly useful effect is overkill - particularly if the intent is to scale back wizard power rather than augment it.

* - well, except Present, which I broke so badly back in the day it got promoted to a 2nd-level spell.

Lanefan

 

[Sunseeker]

Sunrods should really be far less revalent and much more expensive than they are. They certainly shouldn't come for free in a backpack.

I could live with a "glowstick" that sheds dim light in 10-15 feet as a non-burning, easily available light source, but sunrods really are too much.

 

[Hussar]

Meh, really? We want to worry about light? 3rd level cleric makes permanent light sources. So, we're only talking about tracking light for 2 levels. Is it really an issue?

Lanefan - if the wizard was so much higher level, why didn't he have stoneskin up? No daily buffs at all? No wands or potions? Not really a surprise that he gets ganked then.

High level wizard should be running an AC in the early negatives - Bracers of Defense, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, etc - how did the PC's actually hit him?

Anecdotes that "Well, there's no problem with balance because my group managed not to have a problem" don't really prove anything. For every anecdote you bring up, someone can bring up a counter one where wizards totally owned the situation.

 

[slobster]

Anecdotes that "Well, there's no problem with balance because my group managed not to have a problem" don't really prove anything. For every anecdote you bring up, someone can bring up a counter one where wizards totally owned the situation.

No single anecdote should prove anything, but it's still nice to hear them. For all that I have big theoretical ideas about what DDN should do, a little bit of actual playtesting (even of a past edition) can do a lot to illuminate why some things that seem like they should work fine cause problems in play, or the inverse where things that look terrible on paper resolve themselves with no fuss come gameday. If nothing else it provides some illumination on where you might find some simple solutions that you wouldn't have necessarily come up with yourself.

And hey, we all like to talk about the game. Sharing war stories is just fun.

I worry that I spend too much time theoreticallizing and loose sight of the fact that I've had great fun with the game so far, and taking a step back sometimes gives me a much better perspective.

Now I'm going to invalidate all that high-minded claptrap I just said and admit that I still have a problem with the balance of spellcasters, and have a lot of hope that DDN will fix that .

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Meh, really? We want to worry about light? 3rd level cleric makes permanent light sources. So, we're only talking about tracking light for 2 levels. Is it really an issue?

Lanefan - if the wizard was so much higher level, why didn't he have stoneskin up? No daily buffs at all? No wands or potions? Not really a surprise that he gets ganked then.

High level wizard should be running an AC in the early negatives - Bracers of Defense, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, etc - how did the PC's actually hit him?

Anecdotes that "Well, there's no problem with balance because my group managed not to have a problem" don't really prove anything. For every anecdote you bring up, someone can bring up a counter one where wizards totally owned the situation.

Yeah, I had a 2e group that was like 4th level gank a 12th level wizard that had very little equipment too. OTOH my SECOND encounter that I made in 4e was the party taking on a level 7 Carrion Crawler. Clever tactics, they beat that bad boy good and hard. Went on through the rest of the dungeon too without a rest. It was fun! AD&D has no monopoly on you can set up situations, works in all editions. I've had numerous encounters with 6-7 or more level higher opponents. Many of them don't require killing the guy too, that's the fun. Much harder to do in AD&D as you can't ignore a source of damage at all. And just the way you can get unstuck and move around in 4e is such a boon.

 

[MacMathan]

Anecdote re unbalanced high-level wizards:

Last weekend I ran a session where a couple of lowish-level types were raiding the lair of a high-level wizard (and had been amazingly lucky to get that far). The wizard teleported in, the two remaining PCs were not surprised and got in his face right away, and he never cast another spell. He was reduced to physical melee for the rest of his (rather short) life simply because he could not cast in combat - all he'd accomplish would be to generate wild magic surges when - not if, but when - he got interrupted by the two people trying to beat his face in. (note that he could not outrun the PCs either) The PCs had some magic but nothing specific vs. wizards.

And the level disparity between the PCs and their foe was immense!

Nope, 1e balances them just fine, thank you.

Lanefan

So you went easy on the PCs and did not play the wizard up to his Int score?
Anyone can do that with any monster as a DM and give players an easy win.

I thought you were a Combat as War guy also? That wizard sure did not act like it.

To suffice random anecdote is random meanwhile across all editions people are polling almost 3 to 1 as having experienced the issue in this same forum.

Don't mean to be harsh but I am very tired of people stating that if something is so at their own table it must be true for an entire editions experience with out any rational to back it up.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Lanefan - if the wizard was so much higher level, why didn't he have stoneskin up? No daily buffs at all? No wands or potions? Not really a surprise that he gets ganked then.

High level wizard should be running an AC in the early negatives - Bracers of Defense, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, etc - how did the PC's actually hit him?

I'm not Lanefan, but I'll take a gander. Maybe he doesn't know stoneskin. Stoneskin is not a core spell. Also, He may have blown his chance to learn roll. Even a 16 int leaves you with a 35% chance to blow a learn spell roll. Perhaps he wasn't expecting them. He may have simply been returning home, not expecting company. Or he might have been alerted by some alarm type spell that'd gone off countless times due to rats, weather, the occasional farm boy, etc and his guard was down. Blow all your spells just to magic missile a rat?

As for his ac, I never had a magic user get an ac into the negatives. Ever. A fighter/mu, yes, but not a straight up magic user. Bracers ac 6, rop +2, that's still an ac of 4. I think by the book, a cloak stacks with a ring (I always ruled they didn't stack, much like wearing two rings of protection.) Still, a cloak +2 gets him down to ac 2. A 5th level fighter hits that on a 14, and one of the two would have been on the flank for a +1 bonus, or from the rear for a +2. Hard to hit, but not impossible. Especially with a strength bonus or a magical weapon or two. Or if (shudder) UA weapon specialization is used.

 

[Hussar]

No single anecdote should prove anything, but it's still nice to hear them. For all that I have big theoretical ideas about what DDN should do, a little bit of actual playtesting (even of a past edition) can do a lot to illuminate why some things that seem like they should work fine cause problems in play, or the inverse where things that look terrible on paper resolve themselves with no fuss come gameday. If nothing else it provides some illumination on where you might find some simple solutions that you wouldn't have necessarily come up with yourself.

And hey, we all like to talk about the game. Sharing war stories is just fun.

I worry that I spend too much time theoreticallizing and loose sight of the fact that I've had great fun with the game so far, and taking a step back sometimes gives me a much better perspective.

Now I'm going to invalidate all that high-minded claptrap I just said and admit that I still have a problem with the balance of spellcasters, and have a lot of hope that DDN will fix that .

Oh, hey, I totally agree that sharing war stories is fun. However, they should be weighed in accordance to how much value they actually bring to the discussion. Like I said, for every "We ganked the wizard" story, there's one where the wizard got the party.

I'm not Lanefan, but I'll take a gander. Maybe he doesn't know stoneskin. He may have blown his chance to learn roll. Even a 16 int leaves you with a 35% chance to blow a learn spell roll. Perhaps he wasn't expecting them. He may have simply been returning home, not expecting company. Or he might have been alerted by some alarm type spell that'd gone off countless times due to rats, weather, the occasional farm boy and his guard was down. Blow all your spells just to magic missile a rat?

As for his ac, I never had a magic user get an ac into the negatives. Ever. A fighter/mu, yes, but not a straight up magic user. Bracers ac 6, rop +2, that's still an ac of 4. I think by the book, a cloak stacks with a ring (I always ruled they didn't stack, much like wearing two rings of protection.) Still, a cloak +2 gets him down to ac 2. A 5th level fighter hits that on a 14, and one of the two would have been on the flank for a +1 bonus, or from the rear for a +2. Hard to hit, but not impossible. Especially with a strength bonus or a magical weapon or two. Or if (shudder) UA weapon specialization is used.

High level wizard. No day long buffs at all. Bracers AC 6? I thought he was a high level wizard - why not 2? No Dex bonus at all? At these levels, it's not all that hard to hit negatives.

He's a high level wizard, in his home, and random farm boys can wander into his house? What kind of campaign do you run? Good grief. No wonder your baddies get ganked. They apparently have the self preservation instinct usually reserved for lemmings.

No Guards and Wards on his home? No homonculus? Not a wand on his person - something that can't be interrupted. Loses initiative every single round. Etc. Etc.

Wow, I want to play in your D&D games JRRNeiklot. I've never played AD&D on easy mode before.

/edit to add.

I'd point out JRRNeiklot, your argument doesn't really even prove what you think it does. Ok, THIS wizard failed his learn check for Stoneskin. However, using your math, 2/3rds of wizards DON'T fail. So, if we were to use this set up as a test subject, running it over and over again, the wizard will win 2:1 over the low level characters. Even granting the fighters huge advantages - always gaining initiative for example, the wizard should win twice as often as he loses.

How is this an argument that wizards aren't very powerful?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Oh, hey, I totally agree that sharing war stories is fun. However, they should be weighed in accordance to how much value they actually bring to the discussion. Like I said, for every "We ganked the wizard" story, there's one where the wizard got the party.



High level wizard. No day long buffs at all. Bracers AC 6? I thought he was a high level wizard - why not 2? No Dex bonus at all? At these levels, it's not all that hard to hit negatives.

He's a high level wizard, in his home, and random farm boys can wander into his house? What kind of campaign do you run? Good grief. No wonder your baddies get ganked. They apparently have the self preservation instinct usually reserved for lemmings.

No Guards and Wards on his home? No homonculus? Not a wand on his person - something that can't be interrupted. Loses initiative every single round. Etc. Etc.

Wow, I want to play in your D&D games JRRNeiklot. I've never played AD&D on easy mode before.

Lol.

A barred stone door is usually enough to keep most people out. For instance, my door is locked when I leave home, but that's easily enough circumvented with a good swift kick. So why don't I reinforce my door, buy a fancy alarm system and hire a rentacop? After all, I have things here I'd rather not see stolen.

Your average wizard with a tower is not going to be much different. I don't think Lanefan's wizard was some overlord, just a local wizard who built himself a tower. A tower is generally secure enough on it's own.

And yes, a magic user generally loses initiative every single round. He adds casting time. Fighter's don't. Even a lowly magic missile gives him an effective minus one to his roll. Flame arrow is minus 3, confusion minus 4.

You are assuming this was a wizard prepared for a fight and that he generally had access to battle spells. You are also assuming that he had access to every fricking magic item in the dmg. As random treasure, miscellaneous stuff like bracers rarely show up. So, a 25% chance of getting a miscellaneous item, a 3% chance it's the table with bracers, and then a 15% chance of getting bracers ac2. Yep, that's why every mu has bracers ac2.

Where all all these wizards getting 18 dex's? Hell, if he has an 18 dex, he chose the wrong vocation.

It's funny you are calling my game a cakewalk, when a few weeks ago you were calling me out for being an anomaly with my Basic game with dozens of deaths. My game is far from a cakewalk, it's just not some superpowered game where everyone has 6 18s and their pick of both spells and magic items. In other words, 1e as it was intended.

I'd point out JRRNeiklot, your argument doesn't really even prove what you think it does. Ok, THIS wizard failed his learn check for Stoneskin. However, using your math, 2/3rds of wizards DON'T fail.

No, 2 3rds of mus with at least a 15 int won't fail.
Also, stoneskin blocks ONE attack.

Even granting the fighters huge advantages - always gaining initiative for example, the wizard should win twice as often as he loses.

Yes, but he will lose sometimes.

How is this an argument that wizards aren't very powerful?

It's not. Wizards are VERY powerful. Just not the instant win button a lot of people seem to think they are.

Now, if this was Vecna or Elminster we're talking about, then the fight would be different, but the jive I got was this was just your general wizard in a generic tower somewhere. Not one min maxed to provide a challenge for 16th level characters. Perhaps Lanefan will grace us with more details.