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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5912060" data-attributes="member: 54877">I still think the key is the action economy.  And thus their recent suggestion that taking damage stops the big guns without costing them is on the right track, but clunky, as I believe Lanefan indicated when he talked about the wizard dredging up all that magic energy to cast, but if hit he ... starts over.   The only real cost that matters all the time once the fight starts is actions.  All the stuff about gold and danger and limited slots and so forth helps around the edges, but it doesn't solve the ultimate issue.  So if we want to let the wizard hit hard, make him take multiple actions to do so, but neither overly nail him nor boost him via circumstance. This has the not inconsiderable side effect of heightening excitement while making the rest of the party feel more important.  In round 4, the wizard finally got off his mega fireball of death, toasting half the remaining elite orcs completely and giving the rest pause.  Into this hesitation charged the fighter and cleric, which sent the rest of the orcs running, their morale broken.  By round 4 or so, that's fine.   I think such a system can be designed to acknowledge a fairly decent balance (not perfect, but enough so that gold, danger, etc. can handle the rest well enough), while still handling the flavor objection.  A powerful spell builds over time.  Attacking or hitting the wizard doesn't kill it, but it does cost him actions.  He doesn't drop the spell and start over, but suspends it while he dodges the worst of that axe blow.  Maybe you need a 3E-style concentration check (with the mods not allowed to go berserk) in order to not lose an action when hit. Or some better variation on that.  All we really need is that powerful magic can't be cast in less than 2 rounds, and if monsters are allowed to get in the wizard's face, no one knows exactly how long the powerful magic will take.  It's eventually going to go off and do something spectacular, but not knowing when, we don't know the shape of the fight until we get there.  If the fight is essentially won by the time the wizard finally gets the spell out, it's still gone--released in frustation or allowed to fizzle away.</blockquote>

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