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

[satori01]

If you are trying to stab someone and you get stabbed first, your sword won't explode because you failed to hold onto it properly.

Shock from trauma is shock from trauma and traning is training.

Most people, when shot with a bow, or swallowed whole by a purple worm go into shock, and stop doing what they were doing.

That is why a Marine that loses a hand from tossing an enemy grenade away, saving the life of his squad, and then goes on to still command the squad, is worthy of the Congretional Medal of Honor.....it is a truly heroic event, and pretty rare, (at least to survive).

No matter how you slice it, I think Mearls was describing something with huge thematic implications as core and not modular. Rules of "Dangerous Magic" are fine as an optional module. What if I want to run a Jordanesque/ Age of Legends style campaign where magic is plentiful and easy....with magic pony express, and griffin taxis?

Base assumptions in fundamental systems, do affect the thematic potential of campaigns. Racial level limits leading to a decline in the Dwarves an Elves in the Forgotten Realms, or not being able to advance beyond 18th level in Krynn but you can play minataurs as a PC race are Eamples.

The core rules should be a neutral base with say Eberron being emblematic of a High Magic/Tech game and Dark Sun as the "Magic is Dangerous" Meme. Bothe styles are fun and should be supported...as modules.

 

[Raith5]

If you are trying to stab someone and you get stabbed first, your sword won't explode because you failed to hold onto it properly.

But if I'm channeling the forces of the cosmos and I get stabbed, I might want to take a second to gather my focus before I try bending reality to my whim. My whim is very fickle, especially when I've just been stabbed.

Why?

If you are fighting with a sword you could make an argument that if you get stabbed it could distract you from your planned attack. So you could say that a fighter needs to focus their mind as well.

I think it safe to presume that both fighters and wizards have some training in a capacity to focus their mind when hit.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I don't know... This sounds like a ban on cleverness.

-So you can use a combination of spells to circumvent a high CR encounter? This we cannot abide. Hit point atrition makes for more entertaining play.
I feel strangely bitter. Must be something I ate.

 

[Tom Servo]

Wow, I am really of two minds about this article.

On the one hand I don't have any major problem with any particular thing mentioned in the article. I might not agree with all of them, but I understand where most of the proposed solutions are coming from.

On the other hand, when all the points are considered as a whole I am not sure I would recognize the result as a magic-user or wizard. Maybe some sort of warlock or sorcerer, not sure.

I guess I'll see on the 24th if the class works well and keeps a classic feel to it.

 

[satori01]

Scrolls as Mearls described would be fine, but as a permanent item, not as a single use item. Instead of a Scroll of Leviatate, you received the Scrolls of Leng Zi.....the records of a monks conversation with an air elemental prince.

3E had Sorcerer Staffs, in the final magic item book...that did basically that. It was a great way as a DM to make sure certain spells were available to the group, despite individual players spell section.

In power no different than allowing a cleric to swap into Cure spells.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think the non-mention of rituals means much. There have been other indications that ritual magic is on the radar. Maybe it isn't specifically a wizard thing, or maybe it is just not something that needs mentioning in terms of basic magic system design for the wizard. There are tons of ways to make it work well. The 4e type ritual system can be added on top of pretty much anything.

Otherwise, pretty good. I'd still like to see some kind of serious consideration of having casters all be specialists of some sort and keeping overall flexibility in check that way, but we'll have to see just how much you can do with this design.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I don't know... This sounds like a ban on cleverness.

-So you can use a combination of spells to circumvent a high CR encounter? This we cannot abide. Hit point atrition makes for more entertaining play.
I feel strangely bitter. Must be something I ate.

There's a line between cleverness and exploitation. He calls out in the article what he believes are the "good" kinds of cleverness (using grease to help a grabbed ally) and the exploits that ruin games (grease and glitterdust on your iron golem, umad DM?), and that the former must be present and the latter should be avoided.

 

[Libramarian]

Spellcasting Is Dangerous: This point ventures into the theoretical, since we still aren't 100% certain how we want to pursue it (so it's just the kind of thing that we want to gather feedback on in the playtest). The current proposal is that a wizard who takes damage has a chance to miscast his or her next spell. A wizard can always instead choose to do something else or use a cantrip without risk of failure. In addition, a miscast spell is never lost. The wizard can try again next round.

Lol what -- this is dangerous spellcasting? You don't even lose your spell. You basically have a chance of losing one round's worth of action, and you can choose to avoid that chance.

And there are people arguing that this is too dangerous?

Definitely having a "we're not playing the same game" moment.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

And there are people arguing that this is too dangerous?

Definitely having a "we're not playing the same game" moment.

It IS too dangerous. Mathematically, this is horrible.

I know that in 1e and 2e the math was so all over the place that most people paid very little attention to it....and most of the monsters were so easy to defeat that losing a spell wasn't even a big deal. Unfortunately, when most enemies have 14 hitpoints and your fighter does that with one swing of his sword, the rest of the party isn't really needed to defeat that monster.

However, in both 3e and 4e when the math was a little closer(moreso in 4e, but 3e had the issue more the harder the monsters were) it was a big deal. Often each party member was expected to output X damage during each of their turns on average. So, if a monster had 200 hp, let's say you wanted to defeat it in 3 rounds(because in 4 rounds it could do enough damage to kill someone). That means that each party member in a group of 5 was expected to do an average of 13.3 points of damage per round.

Maybe that meant you missed 2 of the rounds and hit for 40 damage in the third round...maybe that meant you did almost nothing for 2 rounds and cast a spell that did 40 damage in the 3rd round.

However, it was my experience that if a DM noticed that you could wait around for 2 rounds doing nothing and cast a spell in the 3rd round and win....then enemies got stronger to compensate. After all, there was no risk to your life at all if you could just sit there for 2 rounds not doing anything.

So, if you could do 40 damage per round with a spell, you'd fight enemies that required that each party member do 120 damage in 3 rounds to defeat it.

So, a single round where you were not able to cast a spell could be the difference between life and death for at least one party member.

As far as the suggested solution...it seems alright to me. You get a disadvantage for being hit(you can't cast your big spell) but your turn isn't completely ruined(you still get to use your less powerful at-will spell instead.

 

[Leatherhead]

I am concerned.

Cantrips as At-Will Magic: This is one of those things that would have to be shredded in a test environment. Things like Multi-classing could throw this for loops. And I have to wonder if no scaling applies to the at wills too. It would would be very bad to be stuck with 1d4+1 damage basic attacks while the fighter is whooping it up with 3 (or even 5) 2d6+10 greatsword strikes.

Keep Spells Under Control/Reducing Total Spell Slots/Spells Don't Automatically Scale: The obvious problem here; Is a level 1 spell going to be worth casting past level one? These combined are throwing up a huge red flag for me.

Spellcasting Is Dangerous: That's not really dangerous, that's just difficult. But then again I was never a fan of chaos mages, giving one player of a group the ability to randomly die or cause a TPK isn't even remotely balanced.

Keep Magic Items Under Control: The scroll thing sounds kind of interesting, but I have to wonder why that kind of mechanic wouldn't be applied to the wizards spellbook proper. I would also like to know how a non-wizard is supposed to use such items. I kind of liked fighters being able to use wands.

Keep Buff Spells Under Control: An easy way to do this is to limit the amount (or power) of buff spells that a target can have. It would also significantly reduce the amount of in-game math you would have to work out.

Creativity, Not Dominance: I thought improvisation was the root of the "quadratic wizard" problem. On the other hand, if I can't improvise, I might as well just go play a video game. Improvisation is one of the most important parts of Tabletop RPGs to me.