Response to Psionics Nerf (Move from inappropriate placement in House Rules thread)

[irdeggman]

I completely agree and did not overlook that. A prepared caster can also cast all his high level slots on one encounter, and can do it more quickly if he has some quickened spells. How does that make spontaneous casters better off with one encounter per day than a prepared caster?

This assumes that the wizard has prepared the correct spells for the situation. This is where spontaneous casters come into play. While they know fewer spells they are free to choose which ones to cast.

A fixed caster must prepare the ones he thinks he needs ahead of time and then memorize them with the proper metamagic feat applied to boot.


If it is a situation where the party is trying to accomplish a well know objective then the wizard will usually come out ahead, having prepared the correct spells ahead of time.

Also when it comes to counterspelling a spontaneous caster has an advantage.

 

[KarinsDad]

Not even, but I'm curious as to why you would think so.

What happens with 5 encounters? 6? 7? 8?

With your house rule, the DM could STILL:

dare to throw one too many encounters at them that day

and the player could still be out of PP or spells in a latter encounter. This can especially be true for a dungeon crawl.


All your house rule does is hinder a Psion and a Sorcerer. And it crushes a Bard who now becomes a backup fighter with virtually no spell casting. It prevents them from using up too much PP or spells too early as long as there are only 4 encounters. It is totally debatable as to whether this is a mistake on the part of the player to do so (without the house rule). If the first encounter of the day is the mega-encounter at the end of an adventure sequence against the BBEG and his henchmen, the psion or sorcerer (or another team member) could be screwed.

PC 1: "Why didn't you help against the BBEG?"
PC 2: "I did. I manifested an augmented Force Shield, but then I was out of power points. Besides, I didn't die. Only the Cleric and Rogue died."

And, if there are more than 4 encounters, a Psion could still use up too much PP with your house rule.

The problem you are fixing with your house rule is not a game mechanics problem. It is a decision making issue for players.

No different than a Rogue deciding to not check for traps this time and having one blow up in his face because he did not bother to look for it.

The problem is all in your head, it is not in the game mechanics.


Encounter 1 for 10th level PCs:

PC Leader: "Sorcerer and Wizard, how many 5th level spells can you cast?"
Wizard: "3"
Sorcerer: "1"
PC Leader: "How many 4th level spells can you cast?"
Wizard: "4"
Sorcerer: "2"
PC Leader: "Ok, the Wizard takes on the BBEG and the Sorcerer, see if you can take out a henchmen or two."

It's practically as if the Wizard is two or more levels higher than the Sorcerer with regard to durability per encounter.

All you've done here is make the Wizard the Nova high level spell caster and nerfed the Sorcerer into a support role. You've taken away one of the significant advantages that a Sorcerer has over a Wizard (more spells available at each level) and totally changed both class balance and group dynamics by doing so.

On the surface, your house rule sounds reasonable, but it really horks up game balance. Most people consider Sorcerers and Bards already on the low end of the class balance scale, but your nerf bat takes them totally out of viable contention.

In our games, there are sometimes extremely challenging mega-encounters that use up nearly all of the party resources and those could not exist using your house rule without major modification or TPK.

 

[Nifft]

Spontaneous casters have easier access to spontaneous metamagic. This is the #1 most overlooked aspect of Bards, Sorcerers and Warlocks, but it is their greatest strength. Spontaneous metamagic not only gives them more flexibility, but it also allows them to "Nova at will" as well (e.g. "You want me to cast 4 Empowered Scorching Rays in a row? No problem. Oh, you meant 4 Empowered Fireballs in a row? No problem." ).

4 is a good number to choose, since Wizards can do 3 in a row easily... and Wizards can choose to Quicken their 3 (for double the spellcasting rather than merely *1.5 damage).

I'm referring to Metamagic Rods, of course. "Oh, you need two fireballs in a row this round? Okay, empowered fireball and quickened fireball." 10th level Wizard can do something like this 3/row. A Psion can spend three feats (plus two Metapsionic) to do this once per combat.

Cheers, -- N

 

[KarinsDad]

4 is a good number to choose, since Wizards can do 3 in a row easily... and Wizards can choose to Quicken their 3 (for double the spellcasting rather than merely *1.5 damage).

I'm referring to Metamagic Rods, of course. "Oh, you need two fireballs in a row this round? Okay, empowered fireball and quickened fireball." 10th level Wizard can do something like this 3/row. A Psion can spend three feats (plus two Metapsionic) to do this once per combat.

Which is why in my opinion Metamagic Rods and Sudden Spell feats should not exist.

The Wizard gets his cake and eats it too.

Where are all of the good Sorcerer items and feats that make him as good a Wizard as a Wizard like Metamagic Rods make a Wizard nearly as good a Sorcerer as a Sorcerer? Arcane Preparation so that he can Quicken a few spells? Purchased scrolls? There's something wrong with the balance here.

 

[Nifft]

Which is why in my opinion Metamagic Rods and Sudden Spell feats should not exist.

The Wizard gets his cake and eats it too.

Where are all of the good Sorcerer items and feats that make him as good a Wizard as a Wizard like Metamagic Rods make a Wizard nearly as good a Sorcerer as a Sorcerer? Arcane Preparation so that he can Quicken a few spells? Purchased scrolls? There's something wrong with the balance here.

Yup. The fact that the Sorcerer can't Quicken is huge at high levels.

But the fact that the Psion can Quicken or Empower, but can only do so 1/combat (or 1/round with another feat) is kinda nice. No unlimited feat stacking (like a Sorcerer), no free lunch (like a Wizard).

Yay balanced system!

Cheers, -- N

 

[SlagMortar]

This assumes that the wizard has prepared the correct spells for the situation. This is where spontaneous casters come into play. While they know fewer spells they are free to choose which ones to cast.

A fixed caster must prepare the ones he thinks he needs ahead of time and then memorize them with the proper metamagic feat applied to boot.

If a wizard has prepared spells that are not applicable to the current encounter, that is no guarantee those spells will be applicable to the next encounter. If a wizard has the wrong spells prepared, the wizard may have "gone nova" for the day without even realizing it because he cast his only high level spell applicable to the day's encounters during the first encounter. All that means is that a wizard with the wrong spells prepared is screwed. It doesn't mean that a spontaneous caster is better at spending all its resources on the first encounter. I certainly does not mean a spontaneous caster is better off with one encounter per day than a prepped caster.

 

[IcyCool]

What happens with 5 encounters? 6? 7? 8?

I suspect that when he means that they changed the casting/pp paradigm to "per encounter", they did away with the "per day" except as a measure of determining how much you'd get "per encounter".

So the number of pp/spell slots you'd get "per encounter" would remain unchanged, whether you had 1 encounter that day or 20.

That's generally what the "per encounter" design entails.

 

[KarinsDad]

If a wizard has the wrong spells prepared, the wizard may have "gone nova" for the day without even realizing it because he cast his only high level spell applicable to the day's encounters during the first encounter. All that means is that a wizard with the wrong spells prepared is screwed.

A well run Wizard will typically have Scrolls (and possibly Wands) to handle those situations where he might become screwed. Since Wizards get Scribe Scroll for free and more feats than Sorcerers, it is easier for a Wizard to craft at least some of his own items to attempt to avoid such situations. The odds of a well designed Wizard doing a self Nova are typically less than a Sorcerer who will more often not have the appropriate spell in his repetoire at all.

Sorcerers tend to rely on generic solutions. But Wizards can craft items to handle many of those same generic solutions and avoid the issue completely. The main area where Wizards have difficulty doing this is offensive spells that have a level component. But, staves can fill in that gap somewhat.

 

[irdeggman]

If a wizard has prepared spells that are not applicable to the current encounter, that is no guarantee those spells will be applicable to the next encounter. If a wizard has the wrong spells prepared, the wizard may have "gone nova" for the day without even realizing it because he cast his only high level spell applicable to the day's encounters during the first encounter. All that means is that a wizard with the wrong spells prepared is screwed. It doesn't mean that a spontaneous caster is better at spending all its resources on the first encounter. I certainly does not mean a spontaneous caster is better off with one encounter per day than a prepped caster.

But it does mean that the spontaneous caster has more choices at a given moment than does a fixed caster.

By his very nature a wizard pretty much has to have some spells prepared that may or may not be useful at that specific encounter.

A sorcerer will not waste his spell slots but may not know the right spell for the right situation.

When it comes to counterspelling a spontaneous caster has a much better shot at being able to have the right spell at the right time than a fixed caster does. While dispel magic is always a useful spell it is not always the "best" one for counterspelling.

If a wizard knows what to expect then in almost all cases he will come out better prepared than a spontaneous caster (since he knows a lot more spells and can choose better becasue of it). But if it is a random encounter or one where the party has no real idea of their opponents' tactics and capabilites - flexability will almost always win out.

 

[Bacris]

Because the term "nova" comes from what happens to a sun (as I pointed out). That is the comparison. At least 2 other people have posted in this thread that is what they thought the term meant also.

That is where the term came from, its root in origin of the word (from usage). Making it mean something else is bastardizing the word a lot and hence absolutely messing up its meaning, IMO.

"Going nova" means pretty much what I (and others have said). It is a potential that can happen, whether or not it happens frequently or not.

Dealing a lot of damage in a short amount of time is something completely different - and that seems to be what you are referring to by "going nova", ar at least the gist of it.

We need to use words as close to what they actually mean as possible or else we will continue to have sideways discussion becasue we are actually talking about different things.

Actually, it has 2 sources. The astronomical event is one. Tempest Stormwind at the Psionics board at the Wizards site coined the phrase for psionics a while back, and it just stuck. Here's his explanation of it:

"Thats all for now, but prolly more to come."Going Nova" is a term I made up a long time ago that has since been board canon. It was inspired by two events -- an astronomical nova (a star exploding), and a maneuver in the book Ender's Game (Ender calls out "Go nova!" and his trainees pull off a very impressive burst maneuver that gets them all to safety... but leaves Ender helpless). The general gist is "burning a lot of power points in a very short time for a very impressive (but insustainable) effect." A good example would be manifesting Schism and having both minds use Overchanneled/Wild Surged powers at full ML."