Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
The Whole Implement - Wizard Powers for Arcanists
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Al'Kelhar" data-source="post: 5951916" data-attributes="member: 7884"><p>Thanks for the feedback.</p><p></p><p>My thought behind magic missile was to take it back to its original concept even further, by allowing higher level casters to fire more than one. Although in the hands of a reasonably-optimised Wand arcanist it can do reasonable guaranteed damage, it can never do more than what's really a token amount against a single target. It can sweep a room of several minions, or can knock down several bad guys who are close to death, but otherwise it's still just a nuisance. For example, a 6th-level Wand arcanist with 20 Int, 18 Dex, Dual Implement Spellcasting, and +2 and +1 wands, does 14 points of force damage each to 2 targets.</p><p></p><p>I tinkered with arcane bolt on the same basis. Really, arcane bolt is a slightly souped up magic missile. So you get slightly more of them (from 9th level), and you can fire two at a single target, thus doing a bit more damage. As some added minor bonuses, arcane bolt also pushes 1 square (if you're a Wand arcanist) and does full damage to insubstantial creatures. But it still spreads the damage around, so it's not very powerful at all. And by the time you've got a lot of arcane bolts, you're likely to have swapped the power for a higher level one anyway.</p><p></p><p>Nevertheless, I was really trying to re-enliven the "machine gun wizard" from previous editions, and I reckon the Wand arcanist with magic missile, arcane bolt, and wizard's fury fits the bill nicely.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There's a typo in the document sorry - the "<em>Orb</em> of Readiness" should read "<em>Tome</em> of Readiness", of course.</p><p></p><p>I really like the idea of a wizard who can just touch someone and they burst into flames.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Thematically, fire powers often seem to do ongoing damage, so I thought I'd try to beef scorching burst up a bit by giving it this feature. However, I didn't think I could just add ongoing damage without making scorching burst too powerful, so I decided I'd give the Wand arcanist the option - do full damage immediately, or do less damage immediately, but do some ongoing damage as well. The ongoing (save ends) damage is based on Dex, so is usually going to be less than the up front Int-based damage, but since it will burn for more than one round in 45% of cases, it can be a damage buff. And that's really the attraction now.</p><p></p><p>Also, I like the idea of a wizard that sets things on fire. Did I mention that?</p><p></p><p>I thought I might do another version of the document that sets out my thoughts and reasoning behind my suggested changes, if that would help.</p><p></p><p>Cheers, Al'Kelhar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Al'Kelhar, post: 5951916, member: 7884"] Thanks for the feedback. My thought behind magic missile was to take it back to its original concept even further, by allowing higher level casters to fire more than one. Although in the hands of a reasonably-optimised Wand arcanist it can do reasonable guaranteed damage, it can never do more than what's really a token amount against a single target. It can sweep a room of several minions, or can knock down several bad guys who are close to death, but otherwise it's still just a nuisance. For example, a 6th-level Wand arcanist with 20 Int, 18 Dex, Dual Implement Spellcasting, and +2 and +1 wands, does 14 points of force damage each to 2 targets. I tinkered with arcane bolt on the same basis. Really, arcane bolt is a slightly souped up magic missile. So you get slightly more of them (from 9th level), and you can fire two at a single target, thus doing a bit more damage. As some added minor bonuses, arcane bolt also pushes 1 square (if you're a Wand arcanist) and does full damage to insubstantial creatures. But it still spreads the damage around, so it's not very powerful at all. And by the time you've got a lot of arcane bolts, you're likely to have swapped the power for a higher level one anyway. Nevertheless, I was really trying to re-enliven the "machine gun wizard" from previous editions, and I reckon the Wand arcanist with magic missile, arcane bolt, and wizard's fury fits the bill nicely. There's a typo in the document sorry - the "[i]Orb[/i] of Readiness" should read "[i]Tome[/i] of Readiness", of course. I really like the idea of a wizard who can just touch someone and they burst into flames. Thematically, fire powers often seem to do ongoing damage, so I thought I'd try to beef scorching burst up a bit by giving it this feature. However, I didn't think I could just add ongoing damage without making scorching burst too powerful, so I decided I'd give the Wand arcanist the option - do full damage immediately, or do less damage immediately, but do some ongoing damage as well. The ongoing (save ends) damage is based on Dex, so is usually going to be less than the up front Int-based damage, but since it will burn for more than one round in 45% of cases, it can be a damage buff. And that's really the attraction now. Also, I like the idea of a wizard that sets things on fire. Did I mention that? I thought I might do another version of the document that sets out my thoughts and reasoning behind my suggested changes, if that would help. Cheers, Al'Kelhar [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
The Whole Implement - Wizard Powers for Arcanists
Top