Thanks, guys, you've ruined Haste for the rest of us.

[Aloïsius]

So, we have two spells giving +4 to AC. One last 1/hour per level, the other 1 round/level. They stack. Nice. The more powerful is ? Haste, while usefull as a buff spell for a fighter, is useless for a wizard, if you compare it with Mage Armor, Shield (this one stack with Mage armor, give you +7 AC, +3 ref save, last much more longer than haste and is 1st level), blink (it does stack with mage armor, too) and fly (you can fly with a mage armor, you know, and the troll will have a hard time catching you , harder than with a mere haste).

 

[Quinn]

I'm somewhat amazed that while these hypothetical uber-fighters are dealing out 150 to 300 points of damage around with their handy-dandy 20 strengths, and +4 belts of strength, and raging, etc. that none of them are taking any damage during all of this. I mean, we must be fighting the lamest, most ineffective opponents of all time here!

So, when the bebelith has torn through the fighter's armor, or the vrock has used its mass charm and the fighter turns on his friend, or the cleric casts a hold person to immobilize the fighter or the enemy wizard is hovering 50' above the fighter, raining fireballs and ice storms down on him, how effective is the fighter then? In the average battle, how much damage do these hypothetical fighters that we've been talking about take?

The wizard, of course, is taking very little damage because he's not on the front line, and has protected himself with various abjuration spells, such as (Minor) Globe of Invulnerability, Prot. From Elements, Stoneskin, etc. and is casting Fireballs, Ice Storms, Dominate Person, Charm Monster, Chain Lightning, and so on and so forth.

I'm sorry.....how is this unbalanced?

 

[Quinn]

So, we have two spells giving +4 to AC. One last 1/hour per level, the other 1 round/level. They stack. Nice. The more powerful is ? Haste, while usefull as a buff spell for a fighter, is useless for a wizard, if you compare it with Mage Armor, Shield (this one stack with Mage armor, give you +7 AC, +3 ref save, last much more longer than haste and is 1st level), blink (it does stack with mage armor, too) and fly (you can fly with a mage armor, you know, and the troll will have a hard time catching you , harder than with a mere haste).

So it's no longer as great a personal spell for wizards. So what? It's still a great buff spell for others. I realize that some people think the proverbial lollipop is being taken away from wizards and sorcerers, but wizards aren't weak to begin with and they shouldn't have had the lollipop to begin with.

 

[Ravellion]

Shield does NOT give +3 to reflex saves. Unless the sage advice in the back of the 2nd printing PHB is "unofficial" of course...

Rav

 

[jgarcell]

Originally posted by Aloïsius
So, we have two spells giving +4 to AC. One last 1/hour per level, the other 1 round/level. They stack. Nice. The more powerful is ? Haste, while usefull as a buff spell for a fighter, is useless for a wizard, if you compare it with Mage Armor, Shield (this one stack with Mage armor, give you +7 AC, +3 ref save, last much more longer than haste and is 1st level), blink (it does stack with mage armor, too) and fly (you can fly with a mage armor, you know, and the troll will have a hard time catching you , harder than with a mere haste).

Just to add some fuel to the fire, do you realize that Shield spell is probably going to be revised as well? Andy C stated that it will now be considered a shield bonus. With that in mind, the only reason why you would get a +7 AC and +3 ref save before was because it was considered a (3/4) cover bonus. Now that it is a shield bonus, I doubt that it will still be the same. It will probably go back to a +4 AC and +1 ref save as in the 2nd editon (without the breakdown for missile weapons). This is just speculation, but I would not be surprised. Besides Haste, this was another abused spell, especially when Fighters would take a level in Wizard or Sorcerer just so that they could beef up their AC. I'm not trying to offend anyone but, as a DM I felt that these were issues that needed to be addressed.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Its Obvious...

Yeah, but what if I'm not the DM?

Simple. Then your out of luck unless you can convince your DM to agree with you.

Based on the sheer volume of posts complaining about Haste, something was obviously not quite right about it. As near as I can tell, you are most likely in the minority of people that did like Haste exactly as it was written.

Then again, maybe the pole that do like Haste are simply going to become more vocal about it.

Anyway, much of people experience regarding Rules problems are very subjective. For a rules problem to actually matter, a few things have to happen.

1) Someone has to exploit that particular aspect of the Rules.
2) The rest of the group must disapprove of the result.

Some people think Archers suck compared to melee fighters. Others have found that with a Greater Magic Weapon on both the Bow and the Arrow, when combined with the rapid shot feat (cannot recall exact name) and a "Mighty" bow, that Archers become too powerful. But if you play in a party that has no archers, or in a party where everyone uses that particular trick, it is difficult to see the problem.

Along the same lines, some people are continually shocked at how much damage melee types can do in a single round. But for melee types to become so powerful, a few things must happen. The fighters must have high Str, and a magic weapon, and be under the influence of several buffing items (girdle's of giant strength or bulls Strenght, several Cleric buffs). On top of that, many fighters often have a few levels of Barbarian so they can use Rage, or Rogue to benefit from Sneak attacks in Flanking situations.

If all of the fighters have access to those kinds of buffs, then of course they are going to do frightening amounts of daamge.

But if the availability of those buffs is reduced, and the point buy for the campaign is lower, then they arent that frightening.

Besides, if Mages absolutely must (and can) depend on ONE specific spell to match an assortment of fighter buffs and magic items, then something is wrong to begin with.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[LokiDR]

As for runing out of spells, well, since I use a lot of them to buff the party (create magic tatoo from FRCS, haste, circle of invisibility, see invisibility etc... I don't have that much spells (plus, I play an air elemental savant, and most of the monsters encountered are either resistant or immune to lightning, or have spell resistance. This is CotsQ. Ah, and as an air genasi, I'm only 9th level (started 8th, the DM is mean, and don't give so many xp)

Interesting. I am also playing an air genasi wizard in CotSQ, but I am considered one of the most broken characters. Have you considered that your type of outsider allows you to polymorph into other outsiders? Try being a quasit or a lilend for a while. If you own the MMII, look up the demon Kelemzu. You only need 12 HD to do it, and it works with all errata. Who needs haste to be sick.

Last night we played and the dual-wielding half-dragon fighter did 114 damage to a monster in a single round. Then he was hit, grappled, and nearly immobilized. He ended the encounter at 40 hp, from 100+. If I can stay away from an enemy and still hurt it, I say all the better. I don't have to deal with grapple checks I can't make.

The fighter's life is hard, wizards don't need to overshadow from the back with haste.

 

[Aloïsius]

So it's no longer as great a personal spell for wizards. So what? It's still a great buff spell for others. I realize that some people think the proverbial lollipop is being taken away from wizards and sorcerers, but wizards aren't weak to begin with and they shouldn't have had the lollipop to begin with.

If I was to be buffed by the wizard, I will prefer to receive one of the other spells I quoted rather than Haste (except perhaps mage armor, and, probably shield, since I may already have armor or shield). Especialy, if I'm a rogue, I will take Blink rather than Haste. I will take blink rather than two or three haste, in fact.

 

[Caliban]

IMX...

haste allowed the mage to throw spells more rapidly.

since the mage stops casting when the need is over, the only "lost spell" was the haste.

And with the availability of boots of speed, you don't even need to waste the haste. Since you don't have to use the 10 rounds of haste granted by the boots consecutively, you can easily have the boots last 2-3 fights, before you need to cast it yourself.

 

[Aloïsius]

Interesting. I am also playing an air genasi wizard in CotSQ, but I am considered one of the most broken characters. Have you considered that your type of outsider allows you to polymorph into other outsiders? Try being a quasit or a lilend for a while. If you own the MMII, look up the demon Kelemzu. You only need 12 HD to do it, and it works with all errata. Who needs haste to be sick.

The DM allow us to polymorph into creature we have already seen. I'm just trying to convince the cleric to call a Firre Eladrin (with another pretext... )

Last night we played and the dual-wielding half-dragon fighter did 114 damage to a monster in a single round. Then he was hit, grappled, and nearly immobilized. He ended the encounter at 40 hp, from 100+. If I can stay away from an enemy and still hurt it, I say all the better. I don't have to deal with grapple checks I can't make.

The fighter's life is hard, wizards don't need to overshadow from the back with haste.

I didn't ask Haste to allow wizard to overshadow everybody. I just ask Haste to be of the same power level than most other 3th level spell, such as circle of invisibility, fireball, fly, blink, or summon monster 3.
This one is a good comparison : a celestial bison will have the same number of attack than you gave to the fighter, but, as this is a new "member" in the party, the increase in power is obviously superior. (more global HP, possibility to flank, cover AC...)