Spell Hatred & 4e: A question !

[Gort]

I'm not seeing how this in anyway makes wizards not powerful. How is battlefield control less powerful than damage dealing? Just because the wizard isn't usually a spectacular damage dealer doesn't mean he's not exerting a disproportionately powerful effect on both the ways combat is fought and non combat strategies. If a caster is deciding who gets to deal damage, that's often better than dealing damage himself.

To be honest, if you look at the amount of damage a 4th ed wizard deals out (in my playtests, anyway) rather than the number of monsters he gets the "kill shot" on, he stacks up extremely well against the other classes.

D6+5 damage against up to 9 targets averages between 8.5 and 76.5 damage a round, as at at-will ability.

Compared to the fighter, who does an average of 14.5 damage with his cleave, assuming the enemies are set up right, the wizard is still an extreme damage dealer, in the right situations.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Wizards work well as Blasters, and, if you look closely, the difference between a Sorcerer and a Specialist Wizard is only 1 spell per spell level. (4+1 Domain Spell vs 6 as base), and in turn, the Sorcerer gets delayed spell access. The benefits just aren't strong enough.

Off course, in computer games like Never Winter Nights, Sorcerers and Wizards play almost the same, since there are very few non-combat spells worth casting. Wizards still have the benefit of their spellcasting ability score also being responsible for skill points. Not that Sorcerers have many spells worth taking - what good is Bluff without Diplomacy?

I've never had a problem with any of this in any edition of D&D. Why? Because it means you're not stuck with needing all of the 4 main character classes if someone wants to play something else. And every use of magic to accomplish these tasks means less magic devoted to being the blaster, which is a fine thing. Too many wizards, in all the years I've played, have just stocked up on offense and a few defenses (or now offense and buffs) without any care for utilities.

Not very convincing to me. Essentially, I can play whatever I want, since I am just window dressing for the Wizard?

 

[Hussar]

The fact that the three main casters overshadow everyone else can be seen very easily. Which party is more powerful:

3 fighters and a rogue

vs

3 clerics and a wizard?

Which party would be able to overcome more challenges, more easily?

That pretty much says it all right there.

 

[Victim]

To be honest, if you look at the amount of damage a 4th ed wizard deals out (in my playtests, anyway) rather than the number of monsters he gets the "kill shot" on, he stacks up extremely well against the other classes.

D6+5 damage against up to 9 targets averages between 8.5 and 76.5 damage a round, as at at-will ability.

Compared to the fighter, who does an average of 14.5 damage with his cleave, assuming the enemies are set up right, the wizard is still an extreme damage dealer, in the right situations.

Well, I was refering to 3.x mechanics, since we've them those in play across a broad range of levels. So far AoE damage in 4e does seem more valuable.

However, I don't value AoE damage that highly in principle. Lightly wounding 9 enemies can do vast amounts of damage and be completely worthless at the same time. Basically, 9 singed enemies take 9 attacks on their turn. Spreading out damage that doesn't kill enemies means that they're still alive, they still take actions, and they're still doing damage to your team.

Let's say we have two teams of five fighting - like the example 4e characters, HP are basically 20-30. Doing 30 damage to one guy with a spell seems like a vastly better option that hitting each foe for 6 points, since you're taking out one enemy and likely disrupting the plans of the other characters.

Granted, that example is quite extreme. Area damage generally isn't priced the same as single target damage (actually, in systems based on DR type defenses, AE damage can actually be more expensive per total point. )But I think it illustrates the point that equal amounts of damage are not necessarily of equal value, so multiplying damage per guy times the number of targets isn't always a good way to gauge impact.

Similarly, overkill damage doesn't matter either, which can often make single target spiking wasteful. Of course, when you look at a larger group context, things get really interesting:

Consider we have a monster with 40 HP. Our fighter hits for 20 damage, so he kills it in 2 rounds. Our wizard has a blast that does 15 damage. Let's say the fighter wins initiative and does his 20 dmg. The wizard then blasts the monster for 15. OOPS. The fighter will automatically kill the monster on his next turn regardless of what the wizard does. The wizard's 15 attack did not affect the time that it takes the enemy to die in any way, so the actual impact of his attack was zero damage. (Or we could switch the damage and placing for the wizard and the fighter to make the sword swinger irrelevant.) Again, this case was highly simplified as the characters were doing automatic, non variable amounts of damage.

But the point is that the value of damage depends highly on the way its dealt and the situation. Prioritizing total damage over impact can be a huge a mistake.

 

[billd91]

Not very convincing to me. Essentially, I can play whatever I want, since I am just window dressing for the Wizard?

No, play what you want because wizards and clerics can use magic to pick up the slack... at the cost of ready buffs and some artillery.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

From what I have observed it seems that the complaints against spell casters were not so much based on peak damage in combat as it was on how they are overwhelmingly 'good at everything' that may need to be done. Gameplay often ends up revolving around the abilities of the spell casters.

- Scry->Buff->Teleport tactics that cause DM's to break down in tears.
- Swiss army knife spell book can solve literally everything. NPC not cooperating? Use Charm or Dominate. Need Stealth? Use Invisibility.
- Need reliable damage? Wizards have plenty of spells that will do at least half damage. Great for that high AC target.
- Need to kill more than one target at a time? Wizards have area of effect spells.
- Need to take out a single hard target? Save or Screwed!

Given the way the logistics of running the game work out, Fighters may often do better, especially if there is a single strong target.

But against mulitple targets that can eat 1 or 2 shots from the fighter before going down, the Wizard types will take control. Either all the cannon fodder dies from the AoE spells, or they are taken out of play by Save or Screwed battlefield control spells. By about level 12, a spell caster can have a selection of spells that will let him adapt to nearly any combat situation.

To put it more simply, 3.X spell casters tend to be able to do too many things way too well relative to the other characters.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[apoptosis]

I'm inclined to agree with Monte Cook: 3e spellcasters (particularly Clerics) get precisely the wrong number of spells.

If primary spellcasters got fewer spells, then they would be forced to conserve them far more than is currently the case. There would be more place for the Rogue in high-level games, because the find traps spell is a very limited commodity. Clerics really wouldn't be able to apply a dozen buffs to each party member, because he'd have to be sure to keep back a few spells in case a cure critical wounds spell suddenly became necessary. Of course, the down-side to this approach is that a spellcaster without spells is rather dull, and especially harsh on the Wizard, who can't even serve as a credible backup melee character.

Older editions generally had wizards have fewer spells (and scrolls and wands were more difficult to obtain, at least the ones that you particularly wanted).

I preferred that wizards had fewer spells to cast but that they were powerful. Made wizards more difficult to play (and play with) for the general populace though, so I can see why others did not like this idea.

4e is really removing spells as something different than other class abilities. For me this is not a particularly good option but for others it seems to make them happy.

 

[roguerouge]

My major complaint is that their balancing factor with the fighter comes into a campaign far too infrequently. When the wizard/cleric/druid is out of spells, everybody stops what they're doing and rests. It doesn't matter that the fighter and rogue can keep going: we're going to rest because they don't have their spells. Heck, it's so important to survivability, it doesn't matter if the PCs are on the clock to save someone: The captured princess gets another day in captivity because the wizard's down to 0th level spells.

 

[Felix]

To put it more simply, 3.X spell casters tend to be able to do too many things way too well relative to the other characters.

They do have a lot of options, but they can't do them all at the same time. The spell slots they use for utility they aren't using for blast'em spells; the single hard-target spells they memorize is an area-effect spell they don't have for the horde attacking them. Every choice they make has an opportunity cost that often isn't counted when assessing how powerful the class is.

In my experience a Wizard will find that about half of his spells are useless in a given day; you simply don't run into the circumstance that would warrant casting that spell. At very least, you cast that spell with less than ideal conditions. (For example, casting Fireball to damage a single hard target because you don't have any of your single-target spells remaining.)

A wizard will also want to take advantage of his ability to leave spell slots open to be filled on-the-spot if he needs a particular spell. It will take 15 minutes to memorize, so that spell slot is useless in a fight when you need something right now.

So yeah, the wizard has a lot of versatility and his spells can do many things other classes are based around. But it is extraordinarily unlikely that he will be able to use all of his spell slots optimally; the DM would almost have to tailor the encounter to suit his spell selection. I agree with you that wizards are powerful, but weight them with the opportunity cost of spell selection as well as the benefit; they don't play nearly as powerfully as they look on paper.

 

[Anson Caralya]

My major complaint is that their balancing factor with the fighter comes into a campaign far too infrequently. When the wizard/cleric/druid is out of spells, everybody stops what they're doing and rests. It doesn't matter that the fighter and rogue can keep going: we're going to rest because they don't have their spells. Heck, it's so important to survivability, it doesn't matter if the PCs are on the clock to save someone: The captured princess gets another day in captivity because the wizard's down to 0th level spells.

That doesn't sound like a real against-the-clock situation to me. Let's introduce some consequences (to the PCs) for delay and see what happens.

This general approach lets one character dictate the pace of the adventure, whether it's appropriate for the group and the goal or not. If the DM doesn't force the issue with the structure of the adventure, the other party members should -- if your characters are a mix of depletes-resources-quickly (primary casters) and depletes-resources-slowly (everybody else), the way to make the most progress before needing to rest is to hold much of that primary caster power back, let the slow-burn characters do as much as they can and then swoop in with the big guns when everyone else is starting to run low on power. Said more directly, those with limited resources should manage their expenditure to help the party as a whole make as much progress towards their goal as possible before calling it a day.