Magic Users too Tough??

[green slime]

I smell a Troll too.

What kind of psychotic wizard are we talking about here? He's basically locking himself up, and seperating himself from the rest of humanity and demi-humankind. He cannot see the intent of everyone approaching him, and cannot just vapourize them on the off chance that they might be hostile.... Not at tenth level.

Without magic items: a wizard is highly susceptile to Poison, Disease, whether delivered by arrow, or some other means. There are plenty of mundane ways to skewer haughty 10th level wizards.

 

[Henry]

I smell a troll.

No, trolls usually fire and forget. Besides, let's not ascribe a motive to Crow Caller's posts - I'd rather take him at face value.


...and at face value, I just don't see his side of the argument. The command spell doesn't allow a full-round coupu de grace, and besides command isn't a wizard spell. Hold Person would be a better example, though they changed it in 3.5 for this reason - a character now gets a round-by-round save to avoid a "save or die" situation. When putting one character versus another, and handicapping one and claiming it's balanced , this just doesn't add up to me. Why not instead say that the wizard doesn't have his spell book or components? And why not say they're 5 feet away, where the fighter can smash the wizard silly with readied actions? There are too many variables to just say, "this is too tough."

As stated I have played for about 10 years, and it has always been the same, only now more so, the Fighters form a human sheild whilst the MU wins the day, however now by the time you reach between 5th and 10th level (depending on specific class and situation) the MU nolonger needs the human wall.

Even back in 1st and second edition, a mage was EVEN MORE vulnerable than now. There was no need for "readied actions" - there was simply "hit the mage first, EVEN if it's with a dagger or a fist." Being able to close with the mage was a virtue next to godliness in the olden days. True, a prepared mage was a deadly mage, but no one can prepare all the time - and if that mage was exhausted after a major battle, it took him anywhere from 4 hours to 4 DAYS to regain all his spells, depending on level. I don't grant this automatic assumption that "the combat would be from 1000 ft. away, mage is prepped, fighter has no magic" - under this circumstance, of course you're going to have a mage victory, I'll grant. But by no means is this a ubiquitous situation. As an old Dragon Mag article once said, "mages with no visible targets cannot strike their enemies down." You don't let a mage know who his enemy is, until it's too late.

 

[Henry]

I smell a Troll too.

Again, let's not ascribe motives here.

...a wizard is highly susceptile to Poison, Disease, whether delivered by arrow, or some other means. There are plenty of mundane ways to skewer haughty 10th level wizards.

This is the absolute truth. A wizard is just as succeptible to these things as any character.

 

[Nail]

...I'd rather take him at face value.

Alright.

...and at face value, I just don't see his side of the argument. ..

Exactly.

What I see is a rules error leading the OP to an erroneous conclusion.

 

[Hypersmurf]

This is the absolute truth. A wizard is just as succeptible to these things as any character.

"No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style"?

Of course, the best thing about fighting a magic-user in first edition was the rules for initiative.

Subtract the speed factor of the weapon from the winning 1d6 initiative roll; take the absolute value of the result; compare the resulting figure to the casting time in segments of the spell... it was fantastic!

-Hyp.

 

[rbrt_spade]

Basicly In my thinking, who ever wins init wins the battle. With wizards having such low hp and a fighter having being able to dish out lots of damage, the wizard would be killed with a charge or full attack with ranged weapon. Personaly as a big wizard fan, Always take improved initiative to save your hide. But if the wizard wins, the fighters going to be toast by a fireball.

 

[kenobi65]

Basicly In my thinking, who ever wins init wins the battle. With wizards having such low hp and a fighter having being able to dish out lots of damage, the wizard would be killed with a charge or full attack with ranged weapon. Personaly as a big wizard fan, Always take improved initiative to save your hide. But if the wizard wins, the fighters going to be toast by a fireball.

Although, the OP was talking about 10th level characters...

A 10th level wizard could do an Empowered Fireball, which'd do an average of 52 points of damage (3.5 x 10 x 1.5). A fighter with a 10 Con (unlikely) would have an average of 59 hit points (10 at 1st level, 5.5 at levels 2-10). So, the fighter will very likely survive that first Fireball...

 

[Parlan]

Okay, another one. Encase the fighter and the wizard in two blocks of lead with only their heads exposed. Fill their mouths with fire ants and sew them shut. Then drop them into a volcano. Who wins? Does the answer tell us whether the game is unbalanced?

From now on I'm going to test all of my character builds with this method. Thanks Dr. Awkward!!

 

[Thanee]

When we ran through that module (well, the first part...the group broke up after that) our warmage had the damndest time being useful. All he could do was throw Orb spells at single opponents because he couldn't manage to beat spell resistance, and everything seems to have spell resistance in that module.

...or worse...

Picking up Assay Resistance was a really good idea for my Sorceress, altho Orb of Force does work fine on many occasions and I only learned it to have a spell to be useable just about anytime.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

This is the absolute truth. A wizard is just as succeptible to these things as any character.

More. Wizards have terrible Fortitude and Reflex saves.