Lets talk Wizard!

Aramax

First Post
I am looking for suggestions on making wizards more powerful.I am running a 5-7 level top off game,so you don't have to worry about
balance at higher levels.I want to make them the most atractive of the arcane classes,but not make it so a player would never play a warlock or
sorcerer.

What I am considering now is meta-magic cantrips that would take a minor to cast and modify the spell,but don't be restrickted to this.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Why? I can understand looking at the sorcerer and thinking that it's better than a wizard; but why the warlock?

Overpowering the wizard would unbalance the game unless you corrected the other classes. I may be able to help you further on this one but I need some info:

A rough outline of the campagain.

Why you want wizards to be the most powerful.

The size of your gaming group. (If you have 6 wizards things can get... strange)

-Sporemine
 

Why? I can understand looking at the sorcerer and thinking that it's better than a wizard; but why the warlock?

Overpowering the wizard would unbalance the game unless you corrected the other classes. I may be able to help you further on this one but I need some info:

A rough outline of the campagain.

Why you want wizards to be the most powerful.

The size of your gaming group. (If you have 6 wizards things can get... strange)

-Sporemine
1) 'Dying Earth" type game where the players are 3 dimentional representitives of a 4th dimential concept that is more or less the anti-bodies of the Life Plane in opposition to the Lovecraftian gods(you asked)
5 ish players where no more than 2 would play wizards no matter how much I buff them

2) I miss the over powered wizard of 3.5 and The wizard is the dominating power of so many fictions.
 

I think I see what you're getting at.

Caution: the role of controller is cool. Striker is very different. Sorcerer is a bit awesome (which is why I play one) but keep in mind that you don't have to tag more damage dice to the wizard to make it the most powerful. Whatever challenges you put in front of them (and get creative here, it's not just cookie-cutter for any adventure), tailor them to the strengths of whoever is playing.
But, you want all the heroes to be heroes. Don't make it boring for everyone else, whatever you do. I know I hate the background; I like the spotlight. If I wanted to be a swordmage rather than a wizard... I wouldn't want to sit by while some player hogs the attention. It's a sign of bad GMing; really really bad bad bad bad bad GMing. I've suffered through nights where that happened, and if this could even remotely resemble your hopes for the scenario you describe, you should be very wary of that while you do this.

Basically you can statistically change them, or simply save yourself the math and design encounters with the Wizard in mind. My below suggestions are a bit of both. I recommend the latter option (making the adventure with them in mind) as it's easier to make them shine than hope that stat changes will do it for you.

MORE MINIONS: wizards are designed to annihilate minions. In Turtledome! (living 4e, here on the boards), I'm playing a sorcerer who used to be a wizard; we picked an arena battle vs. 100 skeleton minions. At the time, as a wizard, it would be a piece of cake to fight 100 minions (we had 2 wizards). Then I got morphed by a demiplane, and sorcerified.
What I'm getting at is that the wizard will seem more powerful if he's nailing 9 minions with one shot, which a sorcerer or warlock simply cannot accomplish. Scorching Burst, a Wizard at-will, can take out 9 monsters in one shot. Wow, that can be powerful.
Then throw in a solo brute to let the warlock, sorcerer and swordmage shine a bit. These guys do better with lots of damage on one target.

HYBRID PCS: what if the wizard is a hybrid druid? they can have a wolf form as a backup to their regular wizard abilities.

OTHER CONTROLLER POWERS: Are you using the Druid? You could allow wizards to use Druid and Invoker abilities, judging on a case-by-case basis. Decide what fits how you want wizards to be, then do it.

OTHER ARCANE POWERS: let the wizard use Swordmage powers, or sorcerer powers using Int rather than Cha. This is a bad idea, I'm warning you now, but you sound like you might want to do it.

MORE USE OUT OF CANTRIPS: make up scenarios where a Cantrip would come in handy. Not the only thing, like one answer for a riddle, but where it would be helpful. Specifically mage hand comes to mind. Imagine a SPHERE OF ANNIHILATION that can only be directed by Mage Hand. The sphere has to be moved into place, or contained in an item the party has, or the universe will get blown up. The other PCs can fight Orcus, or whoever. The Wizards can aid each other moving the sphere as minor actions (or move actions) while using ranged powers to attack in the same round.

TEACH THE PLAYERS HOW TO USE WIZARDS PROPERLY: um, yeah. They need to think outside the box with wizards.
 

Okay, I think I see what you mean. You liked the feel of the more complex (and more powerful) 3.5 edition wizards.

The wizard has been dumbed down a fair bit for 4e and lacks some of the more powerful builds that were once possible.

Is there a particular defining reason you want more wizards? Is it the campagain structure? Personal preference? Whatever it is, there's an easy way of making the wizard the primarily available character. There is however no easy way, (short of re-building the wizard class completely) of capturing the 3.5 feel.

You can either outlaw other spellcasters in a way that fits into the campagain, or start designing more wizard powers to allow better customization.

I'll try to think of other ways as well

-Sporemine
 



What I'm getting at is that the wizard will seem more powerful if he's nailing 9 minions with one shot, which a sorcerer or warlock simply cannot accomplish. Scorching Burst, a Wizard at-will, can take out 9 monsters in one shot. Wow, that can be powerful.
Sorcerers also have an at-will burst 1 (Blazing Starfall) and an at-will blast 3 (Burning Spray). For a Dragon or Cosmic Sorcerer, these are not bad choices.

A Chaos Sorcerer could (in theory) kill 100 minions with Chaos Bolt, but the chance of hitting each one with an even roll is rather low.

Cheers, -- N
 

More than a little can be accomplished with how you present things...

I am working on a post where, I talk about re-skinning skills as Arcane Spells, Prayers to the Divine and Alchemical activities. (you could even have power cards just as reminders)
A few examples.

With Arcana you can detect magic as an at-will (among other things) so, do your eyes glow? or a light shine from seemingly nowhere on the items revealing their hidden nature? liven things up.

I am a major proponent of tolerant re-skinning by the player... but even beyond that the wizard themselves can reskin their reality via cantrips of infinite color. He would of course put some cantrip effects mixed in when he uses intimidate in other words Intimidation makes a fairly nice generic fear spell for sorcerors and wizards.

Do your eyes become cat like when you want to use your perception skill?

I talk about skinning things on my Rose Magic page it includes some feats that allow "adaptive casting" - where the keyword of a spell can be changed,
A good link off of it... goes to something particularly for those who like the flavor of infinite spells - Have you seen this Of Course it's Not a Magic Missle, pfah! - Wizards Community
 
Last edited:

MORE MINIONS: wizards are designed to annihilate minions. In Turtledome! (living 4e, here on the boards), I'm playing a sorcerer who used to be a wizard; we picked an arena battle vs. 100 skeleton minions. At the time, as a wizard, it would be a piece of cake to fight 100 minions (we had 2 wizards). Then I got morphed by a demiplane, and sorcerified.
What I'm getting at is that the wizard will seem more powerful if he's nailing 9 minions with one shot, which a sorcerer or warlock simply cannot accomplish. Scorching Burst, a Wizard at-will, can take out 9 monsters in one shot. Wow, that can be powerful.
Then throw in a solo brute to let the warlock, sorcerer and swordmage shine a bit. These guys do better with lots of damage on one target.

TEACH THE PLAYERS HOW TO USE WIZARDS PROPERLY: um, yeah. They need to think outside the box with wizards.

What he said!!!!! that is very spot on exactly true.
Absorb the fact that the heros are heros and hit points are mostly luck and morale and similar abstractions and use more minions!!
( ... mild enhancements to minions can help if you want them to be bloodiable and slightly tougher / which allows intimidation to be more useful too).
 

Remove ads

Top