Preparing Daily/Utility spells for Wizards

[Shadeus]

Part 1:

A 5th-level wizard is able to pick two daily spells. She has two in her spellbook from level 1 (assuming no Expanded Spellbook feat) and another two at level 5. Now the rules indicate:

p. 158
"After an extended rest, you can prepare a number of daily and utility spells according to what you can cast per day for your level. You can't prepare the same spell twice."

So a level 5 wizard has two daily spells. Let's say at level 5, she adds Fireball and Stinking Cloud to her spellbook. Can Stinking Cloud and Fireball be her two daily spells?

Part 2:

At level 2, a wizard picks out a utility spell. There's four: Expedition Retreat, Feather Fall, Jump, and Shield. The first two are daily and the latter two are encounter spells. Does the wizard pick two of these regardless if the spells are encounter or daily spells (because they are utility spells)?

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

[Roger]

Yes and yes.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[matthewseidl]

Part 1:
So a level 5 wizard has two daily spells. Let's say at level 5, she adds Fireball and Stinking Cloud to her spellbook. Can Stinking Cloud and Fireball be her two daily spells?

Yes

At level 2, a wizard picks out a utility spell. There's four: Expedition Retreat, Feather Fall, Jump, and Shield. The first two are daily and the latter two are encounter spells. Does the wizard pick two of these regardless if the spells are encounter or daily spells (because they are utility spells)?

Yes

 

[Revinor]

So a level 5 wizard has two daily spells. Let's say at level 5, she adds Fireball and Stinking Cloud to her spellbook. Can Stinking Cloud and Fireball be her two daily spells?

My interpretation is NO. According to level, means one 1st level and 1 5th level.

Ability to swap spells is supposed to give wizards more flexibility, not more power. With possibility to pack highest level spells in same slot, Expanded Spellbook becomes overkill and high level wizards will punch godlike dailies like no other class.

 

[keterys]

I'm amazed this one still hasn't made a FAQ/disclaimer of some kind. It's immediately obvious as a question, and there's totally no agreement. Do you get '2 dailies' or do you get 'a level 5 daily and a level 1 daily'? Very good question.

Survey says...

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

A 5th-level wizard is able to pick two daily spells. She has two in her spellbook from level 1 (assuming no Expanded Spellbook feat) and another two at level 5.

So a level 5 wizard has two daily spells. Let's say at level 5, she adds Fireball and Stinking Cloud to her spellbook. Can Stinking Cloud and Fireball be her two daily spells?

I'd say no to this one... it should be one 1st level and one 5th level dailies, just like the rest of the party

 

[Nifft]

If your level 1 dailies are Sleep and Flaming Sphere, I would take at least one of them, even at level 5... hell, I'd keep preparing Sleep up through 20th level.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Lurker37]

There's been official replies linked elsewhere on this forum.

All of the spells a Wizard knows of a level are taken as a package deal. If a Wizard knows two first level spells, and reaches a point where he loses "a" spell and replaces is with "a" new spell (such as level 15), he loses his suite of first level spells and replaces them with an equal number of spells at the new level.

A Wizard is only able to prepare one spell from each package per day. So a ninth level Wizard knows:
2 first level spells (can prepare one of them)
2 fifth level spells (can prepare one)
2 ninth level spells (can prepare one)

If he wants to retain a first level spell at fifteenth, he can do this by retraining, and including the first level spell in a different package. For instance, if the above PC wants to still know Sleep after swapping out his first level spells at fifteenth level, he can retrain a spell in a different package (lets say his fifth levels) so he's know:

Sleep and a fifth level spell (can prepare one)
2 ninth level spells (can prepare one)
2 fifteenth level spells (can prepare one)

 

[nortonweb]

Ok if that is the case two points:

1) how the hell do you track that?

2) I thought that 4E was less book keeping!

By level 30 this will be a nightmare!!!

 

[Xect]

Ok if that is the case two points:

1) how the hell do you track that?

You write pairs (or triplets with expanded spellbook) of spells on your sheet, then you mark one spell from each set every time you prepare.

2) I thought that 4E was less book keeping!

It is.

Compare it to the vancian method and its nothing. Even with expanded spellbook, you'll be keeping track of a lot fewer spells than a mid-level vancian wizard.

By level 30 this will be a nightmare!!!

Not really. Keep in mind that you will be clearing a lot of spells off your sheet when you exchange spells.

 

[Destil]

Ok if that is the case two points:

1) how the hell do you track that?

2) I thought that 4E was less book keeping!

By level 30 this will be a nightmare!!!

Choosing 4 attack spells out of 8 known (2 per level), and 7 out of 14 known utility (2 per level) at 30th?

A no bonus spells, school spec or ring of 3E wizardry wizard has 36 dailies to track out of at a absolute bare minimum 45 spells.... not counting cantrips.

The 30th level 4E guy has about as much to choose as a 8th level 3E cleric... who's only picking domain spells and half their normal spell choices (again, no Wis bonus).

 

[Rashak Mani]

I'm still confused... someone make it clearer please ?

 

[Revinor]

I'm still confused... someone make it clearer please ?

Think about it in the way of slots, not known spells. Just like old good 3rd edition.

As 5th level wizard, you have one 1st level daily slot and one daily 5th level slot, plus one 2nd level utility slot. You know 2 spells from each level and you can choose which one of them to put in according slot. Just like in old editions, except slots are now numbered by your levels instead of 'spell levels', plus you get only 2 or 3 choices for each level instead of possibly infinite.

On top of that, you have fixed at-will and encounter powers - which you should understand more like innate abilities with different recharge times rather than old good wizard spells.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Referring to the big page-filling chart on p.29 of the PHB will help a ton. I had missed that on the first readthrough.

That chart shows you the number of at-will, encounter, utility, and daily powers your character has available at any level. It's the same for all classes. The Spellbook class feature just gives you the flexibility to change what goes into those slots.

Although... crap. I'm still confused as to how this actually works out. I believe that the guidelines on p. 28 as to when you can gain new powers and/or trade old ones for new ones leads to a hierarchy of powers (so you have powers from various levels).

I do think that you'd want to keep that hierarchy since otherwise the wizard would be able to just load his dailies up with the highest level ones in his spellbook; I just can't find where the rules explicitly say that's how it works It just says "You can't prepare the same spell twice".

It's funny, because the WotC customer service bit quoted above works like how I'd expect it to do... but actually looking at what they're saying, I don't see that anywhere in the actual rulebook, and it seems like it'd be a pain to keep track. Heck, I'd be tempted to let them just freely fill their slots out of their spellbook; worst case, it means that for example they could have two lvl 5 dailies at lvl 5 when other classes only get a 1 and a 5. That's a pretty big bonus but I'm not sure if it's overpowering, and it'd make it a lot easier to keep track of this stuff.

 

[Alkiera]

My understanding is that a 5th level wizard has a first level slot and a 5th level slot. He can prep 1st and 1 5th, or two 1st level spells in those slots(note the text where it says 'or a lower level one, if you choose').

Of the various classes, the wizard is about the worst for damage scaling by level (oh, the irony, too ironic), so dropping a 5th level spell for a second 1st level might be just what you want.

Another thing I noted, is that the Expanded Spellbook feat only applies to daily attack spells, not utility powers. I thought that was a little odd, but makes it slightly less of a 'must have'.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I'm still confused... someone make it clearer please ?

I was thinking that this could help:

Everytime a wizard is able to pick one of two spells, give the player an index card with the spell info written on opposites sides of the same card. The player can then put his card on the table with the chosen spell facing up.

That way, the player can pick and choose from the options gained at each level (since the pairs are on opposite sides of the same cards.

 

[Alkiera]

That works great until they take the Expanded Spellbook feat and get to choose 3 spells. 8)

From my post on the other wizard spellbook thread (About wizard/warlocks):

From the reading of the Spellbook text, and the section on powers(pg 28/29), it only mentions removing spells from your spellbook when you replace them via retraining or leveling at 15, 19, etc. But it says 'one spell' even in the spellbook section. So when you hit 15, you replace 1 spell in your spellbook(maybe 1st level, but it doesn't matter) with the 15th level spell. You leave other spells of that level alone. To get additional spells of 15th level, you need to 'retrain' to swap them out, at 1 per level. So at 15, you could have 2 15th level spells, if you used retraining to swap in the second one. At 16, you could have 3.

Hrm. From reading in detail; you get to choose new daily attack spells at 1, 5, and 9 only. 15th, 19th, 25th, and 29th are all basically 'free' retrains. Thus you'll only ever have 6 daily spells in your spellbook, unless you take the feat Expanded Spellbook, which lets you have 9 Daily spells. Similarly for Utility powers, you'll have 10 (expanded spellbook doesn't do anything for Utilities); the powers you get from your paragon path or Epic Destiny do not count as 'levels where you get to select a spell' since you are given exactly one spell to take; there is not a choice.

 

[deleteme123456]

Well, at least WOTC clarified that you do only get a 1st level and 5th level, never 2 5th levels: http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1396