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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 5816129" data-attributes="member: 1879">There are several ways to balance magic (by which I mean big, showy spells like Fireball or Prismatic Spray, not reasonable at-wills like MM or Ice Dagger) across time.1e did it across the life of the character so that being a 1st level mage was a poor career choice when compared to, say, shark wrestler. However if you made it past 5th level you were a squishy god amoung men.3e tried to buff the Fighter, and succeeded to an extent, especially with the Bo9S. The mistake they made was, I think, a legacy of the Vancian magic system. Magic still drove everything the party did however which led to the 15 minute adventuring work day, and was not pretty.4e realized that you can have a few big vancian effects a day, combined with useful but not overpowered at-will abilities and make a balanced mage. Then they went a step too far and made everyone a mage and their little dog too.So, 5e. I'd like to see the 5e mage built on the 4e model. A few big spells a day, but mostly limited to cool, but not powerful at-wills. There are two problems with this:1) How do you balance a big flashy ability across time? The obvious answer is to have the at-will powers be weaker than the non-magic classes at-will abilities. IE: An ice dagger does less damage or hits less than a greatsword to the face does. Of course this can then lead to complaints (which we saw all the time back in the old days) that the wizard might as well not be there once out of big spells.There are other ways to balance it though, which is to make the Wizard pay for his fun with some direct cost.This can be an opportunity coat: E.G: Any Vancian spell cast shuts down all magical abilities for (level of spell) rounds as the Mage recuperates his personal mana store. So fire off that fireball and you're back to using a dagger for 3 rounds before you can cast another spell or use your magic feats.It can be a direct cost. IE Pay level-of-spell d4 HP to cast a Vancian spell. Brutal but flavorful.It can be a risk cost. EG: All Vancian spells have (at least) full round casting times so the Wizard always risks interruption. This is good in that the rest of the players then have buy-in for the big magic moment, since they need to protect the wizard for him to even think about casting his big spell. This way his big moment becomes a big moment for the whole team. The down side is, as I've said before, if your whole schtick is one moment of glory a day, it sucks to lose it to a lucky kobold with a rock.2) If the Wizards (or Clerics) big Vancian spells are showstoppers, then this will tend to push you back into the 15 minute adventuring day. Once the big guns are gone, why risk pushing onward without a safety net? Just wait a day and get your net back. This can be offset by adventure design but that then straightjackets adventure design. Not sure what to do about this one.</blockquote>

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