Grog said:
Again, the 9th level wizards won't be in the fight. That's the whole point - they don't need to be. They add their power to the leader at the beginning of the day, and that's all they need to contribute.
They need to exist for him to use them. If he is the BBEG, the PCs can find them. It may take effort, but they are still in the game. Besides, as I pointed out, BBEGs tend to hide behind their underlings ... they don't dive out into combat before sending out their minions.
Grog said:
Cleric casts AMF, wizard teleports away until it wears off. And as for killing him with a save-or-die spell, he'll just buff himself with Spell Resistance before the fight. A caster level of 25 gives him SR 37. A 14th level caster would need Greater Spell Penetration to even have a chance of affecting him with a spell, and even then it would only work on a 19 or 20. If he wants to play things safe, he'll raise his caster level to 27 or maybe even 30. Now he's completely immune to any magic the party can throw at him.
Teleport from in an anti-magic field? Neat trick. And Mordenkainen's Disjunction takes down his buff spells. Even if the party is not 17th level, a scroll of this spell is often worth the purchase. If you're going against a Zulkir, I'd think it an obvious choice. And we must be talking a Zulkir if he has 9th level wizards at his beck and call.
Grog said:
First, he can Heighten spells up to 20th level, just so you know.
This has already been completely shot down by others.
Grog said:
And I know the DM can always kill the PCs. Again, that's not the point. I already reached the conclusion that this class was a walking TPK and decided not to use it. I'm talking about the class the way it's written in the DMG. It's absolutely ridiculous that they nerfed Spell Focus, which was not a game balance problem, and left this in. The class, as written, is unusable because if it's played intelligently (as a high-level wizard should be played) it will utterly obliterate parties that are even 5+ levels higher than it is.
The class is not balanced. That's my complaint.
This ability, if used at an extreme, is not balanced. You are completely correct on that point. Nobody has ever argued that a 15th level caster in an EL 17 encounter throwing out caster level 40 spells is balanced. The point is that this ability should not be able to be used at such extreme levels.
As for spell focus: by itself, a +2 to DCs is not very abusive. A +4 from 2 feats (SF and GSF) is abusive. The balance of the game is designed around DCs of 10 + spell level + ability score modifiers along a fairly predicatable curve as the character advances. The additional +s from greater spell focus and spell power abilities were complete idiocy. Nerfing spell focus while adjusting greater spell focus and spell power was not necessary, but it was a fine way to go.
As for the class being unusuable because the only intelligent thing to do is to use it to such an extreme level: That is like saying people should buy everything in the world because it is smart to have everything in the world. The problem with these statements is that it completelt ignores a simple component in the equation: nobody has unlimited resources. Your argument assumes that the wizard has many powerful minions running around at his beck and call. It assumes that these beings devoted a portion of their education to being able to serve that master as a battery. It assumes that they are willing to put themselves at risk as well: any enemy of the master will try to kill them to deny his battery.
As long as you assume ridiculous resources for the Red Wizard, this ability will be overpowered. If you consider real limitations, average NPC ability scores, etc ... this stuff falls into place rather easily.
