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

[Tony Vargas]

tting 18 dex's? Hell, if he has an 18 dex, he chose the wrong vocation.

AD&D? Brownie familiar or magic boots or magic gloves or a combination of a few other things. 3.5? 14 DEX plus Cat's Grace.

 

[billd91]

Like I said, for every "We ganked the wizard" story, there's one where the wizard got the party.

If that is strictly the case... then we have a balanced game.

 

[billd91]

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.

Taken alone? It proves nothing much except that the result is possible. Taken collectively and you've got play testing that will help you gauge whether the result is probable and how probable. An even split among results and you've got reasonable balance.

 

[Bluenose]

If that is strictly the case... then we have a balanced game.

Assuming you think one person being able to defeat a group represents some sort of balance. And that you think a Fighter/Cleric/Thief/Other Class of the same level would be as likely to get the same result.

 

[nogray]

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've made this sort of statement before, and I am genuinely curious as to where it is coming from. I read and reread the sections on initiative and combat in my 1e DMG and PHB, and I just can't find it (or anything like it).

Specifically, a while back in the thread, Hussar posted a link:

It's better because it doesn't require fifteen pages of explanation and clarification. CF: http://www.multifoliate.com/dnd/ADDICT.pdf

Now his statement of 15 pages of explanation is an exaggeration. (The linked document has a ten page explanation, followed by a lengthy example of a combat with surprise round. Still, your following statement was a largely inaccurate characterization of the linked document:

You don't remember it because they aren't. Initiative in 1E is rather simple. Roll D6. The winning side goes first. Casters in melee subtract casting time from the roll. That's pretty much it. Most of the above document concerns surprise which is a whole 'nother animal.

The linked document has two pages on surprise, then a page and about a half on determining encounter distance, then regular initiative concerns are discussed from pages four to ten; this includes spellcasting in melee. After that, there is a six-page example combat (the first three pages of which deal with the surprise segments) and some charts. Everything in the document seems to link to (giving page references) and agree with rules from the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide.

The quoted section from the AD&D books is as follows:

PHB pg. 104, under INITIATIVE:
The initiative check is typically made with 2 six-sided dice ... [most of the time] the group with the higher die score will always act first.

DMG pgs. 66-67, under Other Weapon Factor Determinants:
Compare the speed factor of the weapon with the number of segments which the spell will require to cast to determine if the spell or the weapon will be cast/strike first, subtracting the losing die roll on the initiative die roll from the weapon factor and treating negative results as positive. ... If combat is simultaneous, there is no modification of the weapon speed factor.

What that means to me (and this is backed up by the example that I omitted from the DMG text, above) is that one of a few things happens:

• The melee side rolls higher on their d6: The attackers go first, and the spell is spoiled (assuming hits that do damage).
• Both sides roll the same number on the d6s: The speed factor of the weapon(s) is compared to the casting time of the spell; that which is faster wins. (In the DMG example, it is a long or broad sword, with a SF of 5, vs. a fireball, with a casting time of 3. In this case, a tie on the init roll means that the spell goes off first.)
• The caster rolls higher on his d6: You do some subtraction, here. The upshot is that the spell goes off if abs(SF - init roll) >= cast time. (Greater than meaning that the spell goes off first, equal to meaning that the spell and melee are resolved simultaneously; abs refers to "absolute value.")

While researching this, I did make some interesting rediscoveries (to me, anyway). Spoiler-blocks below for some amusing corner cases.

[sblock="attack routines"]Things with differing numbers of attacks in their routines don't check for initiative in the normal sense. They instead take turns. If Speedy Sally (with three attacks per round), Average Anna (with two per round), and Ponderous Pam (with just one) are in a three-way battle, you only check for initiative between Sally and Pam; their results are checked to see which goes first in the middle part of the round. Combat will always go as follows:

Sally
Anna
Sally | Pam <-- this is where initiative matters; both act, but which third and which fourth?
Anna
Sally

This most easily happens if, for example, Sally is throwing darts (Rate of Fire 3), Anna is throwing daggers (RoF 2), and Pam is throwing hand axes (RoF 1).[/sblock]

[sblock="speed factors and occasional multiple attacks -or- why awl pikes are dangerous"]On the first round, as opponents close with one another, only weapon length matters in who attacks first. Once in the general melee, regular (one die for each side) initiative commences. It's here that some interesting things can happen.

If one side or the other wins the initiative roll, combat is pretty normal, and speed factor doesn't matter one bit. One time in six, though, there will be a tie on the dice-off for init, and when that happens, the faster weapon goes first (makes sense). If the weapon speeds are more than five apart, though, the user of the faster weapon not only attacks before the slower one, he gets to attack twice before the slower one. (Note that a dagger and an open hand attack both get this benefit more often. Daggers --SF of 2-- get the bonus attacks against anything with an SF of 6 or higher, and open-hand attacks --SF of 1-- get it against anything with an SF of 3 or higher, including short swords.)

Here's a common sort of example, a duel between swordsmen:
Tom uses a two-handed sword and Len uses a long sword (and shield). Assuming equal stats and gear and whatnot, Len has the higher AC, of course, and this is traded off, supposedly, in damage loss. Indeed, that is the case unless they are attacking each other. Tom does, on average, one point more per hit than Len. Five rounds out of six, that damage advantage accumulates for Tom. Every sixth round (on average), though, Len and Tom tie, and because the long sword has a SF of 5 vs. two-handed sword's SF of 10, that means on those tying rounds, Len gets two attacks against Tom. That is an average (assuming no strength or other bonus) of 4.5 damage, which just about completely makes up for the damage advantage Tom was boasting about. (Counting the fact that Tom will miss Len more often than the reverse, it actually more than makes up for it.

That rule also has a mention that if the SF differs by 10 or more, the faster weapon attacks twice before and once simultaneously with the slower. Awl pikes are the only weapon with a SF more than 10, though, so they are the only weapon where this matters. Any weapon with an SF of 3 or less attacks three times on those tying rounds when used against an awl pike. While that first round is great for the awl-pike-user (what with it being the longest weapon in the game), it is the only weapon that opens you up to having to face three attacks, should you be fighting someone with a short sword (or faster weapon). Yikes. The moral? Switch weapons after that first round.[/sblock]

 

[Neonchameleon]

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

You mean that ambush works? Your example is pretty much the equivalent of catching the fighter unarmed and unarmoured.

Re: needing torches in a dungeon:OK, so 3.5 messed it up. 5e can still fix it.

Fair enough.

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.

Hah!

But IMO all wizards should have three at wills.

The first At Will should be Prestadigitatation. Or what you'd call a cantrip.

The second At Will should be a basic self defence spell - and solid alternative to the crossbow. I'd be happy with a 1d4 autohitting magic missile assuming the crossbow did d8 damage and was expected to hit two times in three. And probably variants a la Pathfinder for specialist wizards (Illusionists get a flash spell to blind, enchanters something to daze, etc. instead of any damage).

The third should be something either school or wizard specific. For instance Illusionists would get "Basic Image" - a 2 dimensional illusion that's not going to fool anyone (it looks like a hand-drawn cartoon). Conjurers would get "Least Servant" - something to combine the weakest elements of Unseen Servant and Mage Hand (other perhaps than duration). Necromancers would get Animate Rat - and no they can't animate more than one rat (or similar sized animal-intelligence non-flying creature) at a time with this. Diviners would be a very basic clairvoyance effect - either able to see and or hear out of any part of their body if they concentrated (stick your fingers round the corner and see out of them) or able to e.g. read a sealed letter in their hands.

The first because all wizards should be able to cast petty magic. The second because all adventuring wizards should have some self defence. The third for raw flavour.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Every other full edition has managed it. From D&D to AD&D to 2e to 3e to 4e the game improved. OK, there were stutters within an edition, 1e UA had issues, as did many 2e supplements, Essentials was a definite step down from the rest of 4e, and 3.5 was only about on par with 3.0 (better in some ways, worse in others). But new editions, if only by dropping rules bloat in their early incarnations, were always getting better.

On a tangent, I have the following ranking: 4e Essentials < 4e Classic < 4e Classic+Essentials. I have players at my table who are much happier with the Essentials martial classes and the Elementalist Sorceror than they are with the pre-Essentials version. And the mage is so much tastier than the arcanist that if it got ritual caster for free I'd never want to play an arcanist. Also MV and MV: Nentir Vale are simply better than the previous monster manuals.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

On a tangent, I have the following ranking: 4e Essentials < 4e Classic < 4e Classic+Essentials. I have players at my table who are much happier with the Essentials martial classes and the Elementalist Sorceror than they are with the pre-Essentials version. And the mage is so much tastier than the arcanist that if it got ritual caster for free I'd never want to play an arcanist. Also MV and MV: Nentir Vale are simply better than the previous monster manuals.

I agree that things have generally gone uphill in a big way over the course of 4e. Even if you go back and start with PHB1 and MP1 and compare that stuff to PHB2 and then the other Power books. It gets more noticeable with the stuff they've released post-Essentials and even more so since HoS (which was a bit shaky in some areas).

I'm not sure I would want to state anything about given specific game elements though. For instance I have a player who's playing an Arcanist right now. Mage is good, but not always the better choice. Actually my own latest wizard build is also an Arcanist. The Mage is nice, but it can be narrow. Tome of Readiness plus some focus on rituals, etc is unbeatable for utility caster for instance. You could definitely build one starting with Mage, but it takes a couple extra feats to get there, though the end result has some minor advantages too.

Certainly is pretty clear that WotC has been lavishing a lot of love on wizards in general anyway. PHB1 wizard at low levels was pretty anemic at times.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Originally Posted by Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1e)
PHB pg. 104, under INITIATIVE:
The initiative check is typically made with 2 six-sided dice ... [most of the time] the group with the higher die score will always act first.

DMG pgs. 66-67, under Other Weapon Factor Determinants:
Compare the speed factor of the weapon with the number of segments which the spell will require to cast to determine if the spell or the weapon will be cast/strike first, subtracting the losing die roll on the initiative die roll from the weapon factor and treating negative results as positive. ... If combat is simultaneous, there is no modification of the weapon speed factor.

Interesting. That's something I hadn't noticed before, or had forgotten during my sojourn with 3e. That does make a difference, and makes daggers an intriguing choice for fighting casters; however, range weapons have no speed factor, so unless the wizard WANTS to be in melee with his d4 hd, his spells can still be interrupted quite easily. Even then, I'd take my chances firing into melee to stop a wizard's spell from going off. Every time I read the 1e dmg I learn something new. I stand by my comments, though. A wizard can be a powerful foe, but spell interruption, along with his low ac and hit points balances this quite nicely. Especially when considering high level spells which take 7,8, or 9 segments to cast. And it's really no skin off any fighter's ass to just punch him in the mouth instead of swinging his two handed sword. And yes, a prepared wizard with resources will pop in stoneskinned, mirror imaged, blurred, invisible, etc. But he can't always be prepared, nor will he always have access to those spells. For example, my magic user in the 1e game I play in (he's only level 6) has mirror image, but none of the other above spells, nor will he ever learn them unless his intelligence goes up, which is highly unlikely, at least for a long, long, time. He's a multiclass cleric, so it's not as big a deal as it would be for a single class mu.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think it is safe to say that under the right circumstances you can defeat things that are much higher levels than you are. That was the original bone of contention IIRC. IME this is true in any edition. If the DM creates a situation of significant enough advantage, you can beat far more powerful opponents. I don't think this demonstrates anything useful about any edition of the game or any type of character though. It is really trivially true in general for any game. It sure as heck doesn't prove that magic users in AD&D were weak.

In fact it kind of demonstrates the reverse, that they were lethally powerful to a degree that the ONLY way you'd get a shot at one is if the character is utterly unprepared in even the most basic ways. My thought experiment would be to compare this wizard with say a level 12 rogue. What level of competence does each require to be secure against low level intruders?

The wizard has all sorts of ways. Given the ease of knowing and casting low level spells Wizard Lock springs instantly to mind. The rogue can buy locks and employ them too of course. Stoneskin was another obvious suggestion. It might not be available, but then again researching a 4th level spell of that degree of utility (no chance of failure there) puts it on at least the verge of 'as basic as breathing'. The rogue has no answer to this within player-controlled resources. An Alarm spell would be another basic precaution, as would some Explosive Runes, etc. Anyone can make or purchase traps of course, but that is also possible for the wizard. I'm thinking wizards come out pretty well here overall. We could debate things like the value of the rogue's network of henchmen and whatnot. That would count in their favor. Still, we can't really judge how effective they are. I'd bet every time on the wizard though.