The (Generalist) Rogue, Bard, and Wizard. One of these things is not like the other.

[JamesonCourage]

I'm fine with Specialists (except perhaps the Summoner...the Summoner can turn generalist quickly...have to be careful with the iteration of that one), its just the impact of the Generalist relative to the other Generalists that I wanted to examine. The Wizard is 1A in my rank of favorite classes and if I were ever to be a PC, Wizard would be the class I played.

Wizards are fun (I like skilled mundane characters more, but I can have a lot of fun with spellcasters). The Summoner might get out of hand, yes, without limitations. I found this out quickly while designing my RPG. You do need to be careful there.

I fully understand it was TLDR. I wish I could have snipped it but I wanted to be thorough.

I understand that. I read the long (all things considered, on these boards) "Combat as War vs. Combat as Sport" original post a bit back with absolutely no problem. There's a difference in writing style that just makes it so that certain posters are less likely to receive my full attention on these boards. You're not alone in that count, though. I have the urge to skip/skim your posts, pemerton's, Crazy Jerome's, and, to a lesser degree, Balesir, for example (though I tend to read pemerton's until he starts using the "indent" feature and quoting people, where I then skip/skim). Other posters, I have no problem reading (Neonchameleon or Hussar, for example).

I guess I feel prone to reading posts from who I'd consider to be thoughtful posters who shy away from an academic writing style. That's not to say that the posts are poorly written; it's just that they're very easy to read while still having a meaningful conversation.

Not a whole lot you can do about your writing style, so, if nothing else, thanks for the tl;dr. I did read the opening, skimmed the grades/summation of each class, and then read the ending.

Some good stuff throughout your post from a resolution standpoint. I definitely don't want to cut scrolls out of the game. In fact, I don't want to cut out any portion of the game for the Wizard. I love each aspect of the Wizard. I would just like some effects constrained, and some effects more hard-coded/less open ended, so their impact on Exploration and Social pillar gameplay is not so total (by way of ominscience or astral-taxi).

Totally agreed (about my resolutions being good some of the time, and about what you'd like to see). I do hope that they tone down the spellcasters from some things they could accomplish in past editions. As always, play what you like

 

[Manbearcat]

I guess I feel prone to reading posts from who I'd consider to be thoughtful posters who shy away from an academic writing style. That's not to say that the posts are poorly written; it's just that they're very easy to read while still having a meaningful conversation.

I understand so there is no need to justify your skipping of my posts. I too appreciate concise, clear, non-verbose posts that are unburdened by relentless caveat and explanatory language within explanatory language.

For what its worth, I have tried over the years to adjust it/prune it to a more conversational, "water-cooler" prose but it just doesn't take. Its maddening but I've just accepted that this is what you get with my background/behavioral conditioning and after a stretch, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

...back to the thread.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I understand so there is no need to justify your skipping of my posts. I too appreciate concise, clear, non-verbose posts that are unburdened by relentless caveat and explanatory language within explanatory language.

For what its worth, I have tried over the years to adjust it/prune it to a more conversational, "water-cooler" prose but it just doesn't take. Its maddening but I've just accepted that this is what you get with my background/behavioral conditioning and after a stretch, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Yep, I know what you mean. Personally, I'm glad I have the writing style I have, but it varies. When I wrote my book of short stories, each story had its own style, and only one of those was a "conventional" style of writing (in that it was easy to read). The first short story was needlessly verbose, but, hey, I can't help it. It was what I felt was necessary to the story while writing it.

As a side note, I do try to get the general feel of what you're saying. I think you're a thoughtful, productive poster, and I'm interested in your contributions to this site. So, keep up the good posts

...back to the thread.

This will be my last post on it, then! As always, play what you like

 

[Minigiant]

Personally I this each caster should have a spell known limit of 10+ Ability Score.

Then School Specializations, Element Specializations etc don't count to.the limit.

So a 16 INT wizard can only know 26 spells.

A 16 INT fire evoker can only know 26 non-fire non-evocation spells but cannot learn any cold or conjuration spells.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My take-home is that spellcasters get too many spells, can cast them too easily, and that their spells are too powerful. None of which would be particularly difficult to change while retaining all the essential capacities of a wizard (and retaining specialization as a choice).

Sounds like a simple matter of taking the 'worst' of the wizard at each edition.

So:

1) spells/day comparable to the Dying Earth. 1 for inexperienced apprentices, going up to 4 or so for higher level ones, and 6-10 for the greatest wizards of all time. No 'at-wills' or 'rituals.'

2) Spellcasting in melee basically impossible; interruption with ranged attacks pretty easy; out-of-combat spells limited by expense, profoundly rare materials that must be quested for, and difficult-to-meet "stars are right" sort of requirements; really powerful spells represent a danger to the caster and his allies and could 'ping' their location for dreadfully powerful magically-aware enemies.

3) Spells carefully designed and clearly written, using well-defined jargon and standard phrasing to keep them from being mis-interpreted or used 'off label,' and facilitate prompt errata to any that prove problematic.

 

[Manbearcat]

3) Spells carefully designed and clearly written, using well-defined jargon and standard phrasing to keep them from being mis-interpreted or used 'off label,' and facilitate prompt errata to any that prove problematic.

Leveraging this would go a long ways. Hard-coding spells and forcing them to interface with the mechanical infrastructure of the game, rather than bypassing it, would go a long way toward:

A) Mitigating DM "Game-planning" headaches.
B) Accelerating parity between the Generalist Wizard and its Generalist counterparts by notching down their Exploration and Social Pillar "Puzzle Solving" grades down a wee bit.

 

[Ahnehnois]

1) spells/day comparable to the Dying Earth. 1 for inexperienced apprentices, going up to 4 or so for higher level ones, and 6-10 for the greatest wizards of all time. No 'at-wills' or 'rituals.'

I think that if the wizard is going to be "Vancian", this should be the case. However, I think there should be several wildly different modes of spellcasting.

2) Spellcasting in melee basically impossible; interruption with ranged attacks pretty easy; out-of-combat spells limited by expense, profoundly rare materials that must be quested for, and difficult-to-meet "stars are right" sort of requirements; really powerful spells represent a danger to the caster and his allies and could 'ping' their location for dreadfully powerful magically-aware enemies.

Casting in melee should be meaningfully difficult, but not impossible. The rest sounds good to me.

3) Spells carefully designed and clearly written, using well-defined jargon and standard phrasing to keep them from being mis-interpreted or used 'off label,' and facilitate prompt errata to any that prove problematic.

Goodness, no. Spells written narratively rather than mechanically, and subject to a great deal of interpretation, to dissuade the PCs from thinking that magic is something they can own or control. This is the perfect example of where the arbitrary nature of "DM fiat" actually adds to the tone of the game. Magic should be unpredictable.

 

[Manbearcat]

Goodness, no. Spells written narratively rather than mechanically, and subject to a great deal of interpretation, to dissuade the PCs from thinking that magic is something they can own or control. This is the perfect example of where the arbitrary nature of "DM fiat" actually adds to the tone of the game. Magic should be unpredictable.

Well, by my estimation, this is the one area (more than out-control-resource proliferation, more than the unbinding of mundane potency due to hard-coded buffs, more than unparalleled tactical mobility, action denial, negative status inducement, etc) where the Generalist Wizard marginalizes the other classes (specifically the other Swiss-army-knife classes who share the design space).

If this is to stay in the game, then other classes beside the Wizard really need abilities "written narratively rather than mechanically, and subject to a great deal of interpretation" so that "the arbitrary nature of "DM fiat" actually adds to the tone of the game" in favor of other classes' directly interfacing with the fiction outside of the mechanics within the framework of their archetype expectations.

I'm actually all for this. This would be a great way to deliver parity while universally enhancing the potential breadth of the fiction. Unfortunately, it would be my guess that most wouldn't like this resolution as it seems that many deem it reasonable only for the cosmic power of spells to be unbound by hard-coded resolution mechanics (mandating that only spellcasters can directly interface with the fiction from director stance). Spellcasters generally, and Wizards specifically, come standard issue with a Narrative module built-in to their class mechanics. We will likely have to wait for a Narrative module for something like this to materialize for other classes.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If this is to stay in the game, then other classes beside the Wizard really need abilities "written narratively rather than mechanically, and subject to a great deal of interpretation" so that "the arbitrary nature of "DM fiat" actually adds to the tone of the game" in favor of other classes' directly interfacing with the fiction outside of the mechanics within the framework of their archetype expectations.

You mean like skills? PF's combat maneuver system also handles this pretty well.

The book gives you examples of what you can do with your bonus, but there's a lot of room for interpretation in the uses/effects of a skill.

However, I disagree that all classes need to be on the same platform here. Magic is magic. Its effects should be mystical and unpredictable, from an in-game and metagame perspective. Trying to codify magic and make it into an explicit system is one of the areas where D&D has gotten worse over the years (and one of the few ways in which 3e really took a step back from 2e; the spells feel far more mechanical and far less like spells; their abusability is a direct consequence of this).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Sounds like a simple matter of taking the 'worst' of the wizard at each edition.

So:

1) spells/day comparable to the Dying Earth. 1 for inexperienced apprentices, going up to 4 or so for higher level ones, and 6-10 for the greatest wizards of all time. No 'at-wills' or 'rituals.'

2) Spellcasting in melee basically impossible; interruption with ranged attacks pretty easy; out-of-combat spells limited by expense, profoundly rare materials that must be quested for, and difficult-to-meet "stars are right" sort of requirements; really powerful spells represent a danger to the caster and his allies and could 'ping' their location for dreadfully powerful magically-aware enemies.

3) Spells carefully designed and clearly written, using well-defined jargon and standard phrasing to keep them from being mis-interpreted or used 'off label,' and facilitate prompt errata to any that prove problematic.

Well, there is a risk that you "nerf" the Wizard too much.

I kinda like the idea of a Wizard that only knows a very few spells, but these being maybe more powerful than most of the typical lower level D&D spells.

Though I also don't want to lose the at-will cantrip type of spells either.