Speed in combat and magic

[Saeviomagy]

Something I've noticed while playing a mid-level wizard (and ghost-playing another player's cleric at the same time) is that often the following will happen:

1. I'll spend a round working out my action - looking up the spells available, picking one, and having the text ready for when the effect goes off (X2 because of ghosting)

2. The monster will have it's go immediately before me, and take an action which blows my original plan to dust.

3. I'll be forced to slow down the whole combat going through step 1 all over again.


Short of just having spellcasters delay until after the creature's go - does anyone have any solutions to this?

 

[Fingol]

Make simpler plans; try being just a firing platform. With a few feats you can cast Magic Missile from a variety of spell slots.

Simplify your choices so that all you have to choose between is direct damage on one critter or direct damage on lots.

Once you find you are getting bored because it takes you seconds to have your turn while the fighters are having trouble with the math of adding their to hit bonuses among their multiple attacks you can try making it a bit more complex again.

Start small; maybe add buff spells: buff myself or buff someone else in the party?
Maybe from there: add the option of debuffing the critters you are fighting and so on...

If you find you are again starting to spend too much time revising decisions and rereading spells; limit the spells you pack to those with only a few lines of text. If you do pack a complex one try to figure out before the session the tactical situations that you might use it for. If that situation is not there on your turn cast MM and roll your d4s.

However don't forget to pack those spells that help your group outside of combat, otherwise you might as well play a sorcerer(ess)

Ofcourse you could avoid combat all together and use the intelligence and natural wit that all wizards possess and try to talk your way out of more situations.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The only solution that comes to mind is to be very familiar with the spells you have available. This is particularly easy with a wiz/sor, since they have relatively few spells available, harder for a cleric. But if you have a very good grasp of what your spells can do, you aren't going to need to do much more than scan the battlefield, then scan your spell list really quick.

Also, (and I'm not saying you do this, but thought I should address it,) if your original plan fails, don't waste time trying to come up with another "perfect spell usage." Just fire off a Magic Missile or something, and start planning for the next round. If something comes to mind immediately, then great, but don't hold up combat trying to find another clever use of the perfect spell. Toss something out and move on.

 

[Thanee]

Yeah, when playing a wizard you should know what you can do and thus decide quickly on your action, just like a fighter who decides on how much power attack, combat expertise, trip, or whatever is being used.

You have more options, so you need better preparation.

Follow the chain of events, which is the combat round. Re-evaluate your plan for the round while the other actions are resolved. If it becomes pointless start to make up a new plan according to the new situation immediately. Also keep in mind who is fighting whom and how the situation will most probably be when your turn comes up.

Do not wait until your initiative comes up before starting to think about what action you could possibly do. You have almost a full round worth of time to do this, use this time.

Bye
Thanee

 

[kolikeos]

as a player of a 6th level sorcerer, i find it pretty easy to remember all the effects and descriptions of the spells i can cast. although it may take a week to choose new spells as i level up, it takes little to no time to choose what spell to use in combat.

"hi DM, you remember the spell from last round? the one with 6d6 fire damge?"
"yeah"
"well, i cast it exactly here, where it can hit all the goblins"
lol

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Can you provide a couple examples of your plans and what monsters blew them into dust and how?

 

[Henry]

Can you provide a couple examples of your plans and what monsters blew them into dust and how?

You need to delay until just AFTER the monsters go. Actually, you are doing this already. Depending on point of view, you are going BEFORE the monsters' next round - you're just doing it the round beforehand. But if that concerns you, just tell the DM you are delaying until just before the monster's turn, which you can do, ply your spells, and then the monster does his thing.

 

[Sir Elton]

Short of just having spellcasters delay until after the creature's go - does anyone have any solutions to this?

Yeah. Act natural.

 

[Rel]

Having played a goodly number of Wizards over the years, here are the pointers that I can offer:

1) Spend as much time as you can scrounge reading over your spell descriptions while not in the game. Preparation fuels inspiration. Look for little things in the description of the spell that you may not have noticed. You may see something that would make that spell particularly useful in a certain situation that you are likely to encounter.

2) When you think of some kind of special tactic that would work with a spell, WRITE IT DOWN. When running a Wizard, I keep a little pocket notebook that serves as his Spellbook. When I scribe a spell into it, I write the name of the spell on one of the pages in the book. Underneath that I jot down notes about that spell that will jog my memory about its effects.

3) Try to keep some spells on tap that are useful in a lot of varied situations. Direct damage spells are good because you almost always have a target that you want to directly damage. But also spells like Web, Obscuring Mist, Darkness, Invisibility, Levitate, etc. These let you escape bad situations, go places you normally couldn't, provide "area denial" for the enemies, cover a retreat or generally sow confusion among the ranks of the enemy. You can almost always find uses for these that will be helpful and doesn't require a ton of thought.

4) Remember you are not perfect. That also means that your plan needn't be perfect. A decent plan RIGHT NOW is almost always better than a perfect plan later. The fighter doesn't crit with his sword every round. You don't have to execute the perfect, tactically optimal spell every round.

5) If you just cannot possibly think of any useful spell to cast in a relatively short time, Delay or fire a ranged weapon.

 

[Janx]

welcome to life.

It's good that you spent the round planning, before your turn. And when the bad guys foil that plan, just before your turn, guess what...

they foiled your plan. You have 6 seconds game time to react. In the real world, your friends probably give you a little more time. But in the end, as a GM, I've got every right to give you a time limit and stick it to you. That's realistic. Wizards fumble and stutter in a fight, especially when they're on the front line. And especially when they're trying to do complicated stuff.

For your specific case, you need to figure out why your plans are getting foiled, and fix that. I think most of us are puzzled as to what kind of actions your planning to do, that a bad guy moving or dying greatly throughs off. Make sure you're not getting stuck in analysis paralysis. Make a plan, and do it. If it's not quite perfect, deal with the aftermath.

Janx