D&D 5E Niche protection: the wizard’s niche

[Incenjucar]

Ideally they would highly specialize in an area OR be middling generalists who use flexibility to make up for reduced power. Ideally every character should have both combat functions (control) AND utility functions in roughly equal amounts.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The existing identity being?

Bookish mage who can prepare a different spell if you give him a day's warning?

Bookish mage who can learn practically anything arcane given time, availability, and luck.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Bookish mage who can learn practically anything arcane given time, availability, and luck.

You mean learn any magic-user spell - no luck learning Improved Invisibility back in the day, for instance.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The existing identity being?

Officially, 'big spell list'.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ideally they would highly specialize in an area OR be middling generalists who use flexibility to make up for reduced power.

Back in the day, well, not all the way back, when 2e was the current ed, I'd added a number of schools, so there were lots of specialist wizard options, so added on to the default non-specialist wizard to make it more interesting, calling it the Mage.... (I also succumbed to the hoary Gygaxism of giving it a stat minimum, if you didn't qualify and couldn't specialize you were a mere 'magician')

Ideally every character should have both combat functions (control) AND utility functions in roughly equal amounts.

That would be ideal. Silo'ing resources into combat & non-combat or into the three pillars, so you don't have huge swings in what a character can do, say, in combat, by going all-in and sucking outside of combat....

 

[Tony Vargas]

Officially, 'big spell list'.

Fair. The magic-user had the biggest spell list back in the day, and I'm sure that's generally held up throughout editions. Even 4e, for a change.

 

[Scribe]

That would be ideal. Silo'ing resources into combat & non-combat or into the three pillars, so you don't have huge swings in what a character can do, say, in combat, by going all-in and sucking outside of combat....

How is removing player choice in building a character ideal?

If I want to build a Fighter that is good at combat above all, why is that a problem?

 

[Incenjucar]

Even something like:

• If you choose a specialty school, any other school above 1st level costs a slot 3 levels higher to cast
• If you do not specialize, all schools above 1st level cost you a slot 2 levels higher to cast, and you get two additional cantrips

 

[Vaalingrade]

Fair. The magic-user had the biggest spell list back in the day, and I'm sure that's generally held up throughout editions. Even 4e, for a change.

And the best part is, it doesn't matter what the actual spells are, it's just that the wizard has them and no one else can.

Want to open a lock? Jump high? Be charming? summon a pet? swing a sword good, become a monster, clone yourself, turn someone into a frog? Raise the dead, conjure a house, summon angels? Travel the planes, teleport, banish a demon, make a deal with an outer god? Crack reality and scramble it like an egg?

All the wizard's identity. Everything is the wizard.

The wizard is Phyrexia. All Will Be One.

 

[Tony Vargas]

How is removing player choice in building a character ideal?

Silo'ing options isn't removing player choice.

If I want to build a Fighter that is good at combat above all, why is that a problem?

It's only a problem if the game is not all about combat. D&D has often been accused of being all about combat, so it would only be a problem in D&D to the extent that said accusation is incorrect.

Now, if you want to build a fighter that isn't just good at combat above all else, that is a problem in every edition of D&D. Because you can't do it. (OK, you can dump STR & DEX and be a really bad fighter, but you wouldn't be very good at anything else, and, in 3e, for instance, you'd still have full BAB.)

In a balanced game not always all about combat, silo'ing would be good, it'd produce characters who can broadly participate in any campaign, regardless of its focus - it'd be good in D&D, too, just out of place, at odds with D&D tradition.