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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aaron L" data-source="post: 5748493" data-attributes="member: 926">First off, I want to apologize for the frosty tone of the responses to your idea on this thread.  I didn't want to set things off like that and I'm sorry if I did. But I still don't understand, WHY is it you want to force your Wizard players to spend their money on equipment the way a Fighter does?  Wizards DO have to spend their money on equipment... but their equipment is their spellbooks.  They don't typically spend much money on things like magic weapons or armor, but a good Wizard should ALSO be spending some money on wands and staves and scrolls and the like.  How is a Wizard spending his money on offensive and defensive spells any different than a Fighter spending his/her money on weapons and armor?  The only difference is that they are all called SPELLS for a Wizard instead of being segregated into different categories.  A Wizard's spells are his weapons, armor, and everything else combined.  I don't know if there is some kind of disconnect somewhere that's telling you it's somehow different for a Wizard or something, or what.  What you're proposing for your Wizards is the same as telling your Fighters that they have to spend their Feats to be proficient with each weapon from the Martial list instead of getting all of them as part of their class abilities like the book tells them they do.That's why everyone here is objecting to your proposal, because a Wizard has nothing BUT his spells... without them he is nothing but a Commoner with high Intelligence.If you're seriously having problems with casters dominating your game for some reason, a good solution is to not allow single-classed casters, and require all spellcasters to multiclass as something else, with no more than half of their levels being in a pure magic-using class.I've seriously never come across a problem with Wizards, or any other casting class, dominating the game, except for ONE time, right after 3rd Edition came out, and I think your problem MIGHT be he same one we had.  Our DM was allowing our party to pull out of literally ANY situation and rest for a full 8 hours ANY TIME WE WANTED TO, so the casters had no reason NOT to go into any situation guns blazing alpha-striking anything and everything.  And yes, our melee combatants felt pretty useless, because by the time Joe Fighter had run up to get into the fight, the Mighty Wizard had literally vaporized the entire opposition, and then called for the party to retreat and rest for the night so we could go back into the dungeon (or whatever) to do the same thing in the NEXT ROOM.  The DM gave us no penalties of consequences for pulling out and coming back over and over again.  And in THAT situation, and that situation ONLY, were the casters dominating everything.Once our DM realized that he needed to put some consequences in for pulling that kind of stunt, like reinforcements for the enemy, time-sensitive adventures, and enemy attacks while our party was trying to rest and recover spells, did our spellcasters realize that they couldn't get away with unloading everything they had in every fight.  Not only THAT, but our melee characters got time to shine BIG-TIME during those attacks while the casters were trying to recover their spells, because the casters were totally spent and the Fighters ended up saving their butts every time.  It didn't take very long for the Wizard to realize he needed to be as cautious as the Fighters and hold back on the big guns until the situation DEMANDED the heavy artillery, and the game became a LOT more enjoyable for everyone concerned, the Wizard included, because he was starting to get bored with just nuking everything in sight every single combat. (Seriously, it was just one guy doing it, and he only kept doing it because he thought the DM WANTED him to do  it because he kept allowing it... he thought the DM LIKED it and was encouraging him to keep doing it, simply BECAUSE the DM kept allowing it.  It was just a miscommunication.)Does that sound like the problem you've been having?  Are your casters opening up with everything they've got in every fight and rendering the opposition down into glowing, radioactive soup-stock?  If that's the case then it's no WONDER you're frustrated with magic-users.  You just need to not allow then to go into every single fight totally fresh with a full spell list.If that's NOT the case, well, I don't know what to tell you.  It's your game, and if the magic-users are making you pull out your hair in frustration because they're always crazy-prepared and always have JUST the right spell ready for EVERY situation... well, maybe you need to take a closer look at exactly what spells your Wizard actually has prepared.  Because, after getting past that initial new-to-the-system NUKE EVERYTHING phase, our Wizards and Clerics usually had 1/4 to 1/3 of their spells left over after most adventures because they simply weren't useful to the situation, I've never seen a game where a Wizard used every single spell he had prepared unless he just loaded every single spell-slot with nuke after nuke after nuke.  And yeah, they DID do that, at first, but after a while literally EVERYONE who ever played a caster in our group got sick of being nothing but artillery and started taking utility spells in addition to attack spells, and had a lot more fun with the game when they did.  After once or twice when they pulled out a KNOCK spell when we came across a door we couldn't open any other way, or had some nifty utility spell that made a puzzle or trap a LOT easier to solve, they realized the fun of being versatile instead of just being unholy glowing nuclear death all the time.Now, I'm not saying that casters won't eventually be the most powerful characters in the game.  They WILL be.  It's always been that way, always has been and always will be, ever since 1st Edition, ever since OD&D.  It's the nature of the game, and the nature of the GENRE; Merlin amazing the Knights of the Round Table with powers and abilities that none of the Knights could even dream of, and Gandalf standing on the bridge in front of the Balrog yelling "FLEE YOU FOOLS!  Swords are of no use here!" and all that kind of stuff. BUT, since it IS a game and everyone needs to get a roughly equal opportunity to contribute, it's not NEARLY as bad as it is in the fiction and mythology.  Hell, THIS version of the game is LEAGUES better at it than 1E was.  Fighters are HUNDREDS of times more capable of doing cool stuff in relation to the Wizard now.  I just don't get where you say that the Wizard is ALWAYS better than the Fighter and ALWAYS going to win a fight.  Yeah, at 1st level a Wizard can have Sleep.  And any Fighter is going to have a more than equal chance of shrugging the spell off.  Even a Magic Missile that always hits and does damage won't be able to drop a Fighter in one hit, and it's a DUMB Fighter that won't have a bow and be able to drop a Wizard in one hit, that he has a better than even chance of pulling off, with almost an indefinite number of chances to try again, only his ammunition limiting him.  The Wizard has 3 spells if he's specialized in a school, the Fighter has attacks with his weapon until he's DEAD.  So yeah, each of the Wizard's individual spells are more powerful than each of the Fighter's individual attacks with his weapon, because it's a little hard to balance out the 3 spells of the Wizard with the theoretically unlimited attacks of the Fighter, but they've managed to pull it off pretty well.  But I'm babbling now. I just want to stress that spells are ALL A WIZARD HAS, and he is designed to be VERSATILE with them.  Whereas a Fighter has his main weapon, backup weapon, armor, shield, and utility equipment to play with, a Wizard has... just his spells.  And every spell you take away from that Wizard is like taking away a swing of the Fighters weapon.  And you really shouldn't FORCE a Wizard to spend his money in a certain way, buying a certain type of equipment, any more than you would force a Fighter to buy a certain weapon or armor because you thought it would be cooler if he used an axe or a glaive instead of a sword.  Every time the Wizard spends a gold piece buying a new spell or scroll, he IS buying equipment, just like the Fighter buying a new weapon or adding an enhancement to his armor.  Because a Wizards spells ARE his weapon, armor, shield, lockpicks, musical instrument, and maybe even his backpack, food, and water, too!But it's your game, and I'm not there and I don't (and can't) understand the problems you're having, I can only relate to your problems through experiences I've had in my own games.  I think what everyone here is mostly trying to say is: take a second and think, is the problem you're having really what you think it is, is it really that Wizards can have a lot of spells in their spellbook, or is it really something else?  Because, collectively, even with the worst min/maxing, power-gaming player I've ever HEARD of, none of the rest of us have ever had a problem with a Wizard KNOWING too many spells.  Because, when it comes down to it, a Wizard can know every single spell in the book (and I've played in SEVERAL games where our characters became so rich and powerful that the DM just GAVE EVERY WIZARD CHARACTER access to EVERY SINGLE SPELL IN THE PHB, WITHOUT it upsetting the game one bit) but that same Wizard can still only have maybe 5 or 6 spells of any level prepared at any one time.  And unless something fishy is going on, SOME of those spells simply just AREN'T going to be useful every single time.</blockquote>

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