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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6430999" data-attributes="member: 4937">The point is not to quibble over semantics.  The point is that a discussion of house rules isn't really helpful when discussing existing balance, nor is a discussion of ad hoc fiat rulings even useful in discussing fixing balance (which to this point, I'm not convinced needs fixing).  A lot of people have addressed the poster with the equivalent of, "I don't have the problems you have, because we don't use the rules."  That's great, but does not refute the OP's assertion.   Worse, some people don't seem to realize that they aren't using the rules.I would argue that this is false contrast.  Story and rules aren't separate aspects of the game.  The story shapes the rules and the rules shape the story.  Claiming that the story trumps the rules is basically saying that your rules are bad, because the whole and entire purpose of rules is to enhance the story.This taken at face value would assert that all rules are bad.  In fact, since its all a straw man, all you are showing is that trivially stupid rules and poor play practices (the DM is enforcing a rule he doesn't actually know, and spending 45 minutes of in game time learning to run the game he's supposedly moderating) make for bad story.Those are both debatable statements.  5E seems to want to make better stories by having better rules.  If ignoring the rules consistently made for better stories, you should throw the rule book out the window.   But I don't think you can ignore the role of balance in creating stories that are enjoyable for everyone, and because of that, it's useful to talk about whether the rules need to be better, and if we agree on that, then in what fashion.As a neutral observer with no stake in the argument, I'm inclined to summarize the thread as, "If you play a wizard deliberately suboptimal, they are at low level rather suboptimal."  The conclusions I draw from peoples arguments are:a) The game system is young, so you have few 'good' spell choices at low levels.  Take the key ones, or accept that you've forgone your best choices.b) A few of the existing options for wizards are traps, which is to be avoided in any system.  This is particularly bad for Wizards because having a poor spell selection when you have few spells to select from drastically decreases your utility.c) On the whole, the wizard seems to represent a compromise between 1e, 3e, and 4e.  That's probably for the best.d) The OP has inadvertently made choices that poorly suit his own personal play style - which seems to be heavily influenced by 1e/3e and the expectations of same.</blockquote>

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