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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aaron L" data-source="post: 5753374" data-attributes="member: 926">Tovec, it really seems to me that you don't have a problem with the Wizard class specifically, but that you have a problem with the very idea of magic in general.  Your complaint that Wizards can make extradimensional spaces for the party to hide in, in addition to throwing fireballs and the like?  Well, that is the nature of magic, I'm afraid.  The very nature of magic is to break the rules of the game. Indeed, while the rulebooks define the way the game works (the "physics" of the Pathfinder universe, so to speak) in intricate detail, the spell descriptions are in fact really nothing more than explanations of how magic creates specific exceptions to the rules.  Each spell is a specific exception to how the rules of the game work in general.  Characters cannot normally cause large balls of fire to explode out of nothingness.  But, with the spell Fireball, they can.  Characters cannot normally see and/or hear events that aren't in their immediate vicinity.  But, with scrying spells, they can.  Characters cannot normally unlock doors without a key or a set of lockpicks and skill in lockpicking.  But, with the spell Knock, they can.This is the nature of magic.  This is the PURPOSE of magic.  To do otherwise impossible, MAGICAL things.  If you don't like that, I would suggest that Pathfinder/D&D is the wrong game for you.  But that's a bit drastic, as you don't seem to have any other problems with the game as written.  I WOULD suggest, however, that you might prefer a game where magic-users are not allowed as Player Characters.  As you pointed out, Gandalf was an angel and FAR above the power-level of the other members of the Fellowship.  He was, in terms of an RPG campaign, the perfect example of an NPC who was along with the party, there to confront the Balrog and then gone.  He was a plot device, essentially.  (The webcomic DM of the Rings illustrates my point perfectly.)  That's why he barely used magic to help the party and instead allowed them to solve the problems they encountered themselves using their own talents.  Otherwise, if he would have used his full power, the entire battle with the cave troll and orcs in Moria would have been over in a minute.  But that was the NATURE of the Istari; they were restricted from using their full power and instead were in the world to guide and shepherd the people of Middle-Earth; the perfect description of a more powerful NPC that the GM has accompany the party. If Gandalf and the amount of magic he used is your ideal of how a Wizard should be in an RPG, than I really do heavily suggest that you limit spellcasting classes to NPCs, or at least primary spellcasters. Since the problem you seem to have is really that spellcasting characters can have access to spells that allow them to eventually do almost literally ANYTHING (which is the nature and very purpose of magic in the first place), no amount of restricting spells known is ever going to fix that for you; spellcasters will eventually gain a spell that you hate because it gives them the ability to do something that no other character will ever be able to do.I'm not trying to criticize you or put you down; if you don't like a style of game, that's your preference, and these games are supposed to be fun for us to play and if you aren't having fun playing them then there's no point to keep playing them.  But you really seem to have a problem with a basic tenet of the game itself, that Wizards (and other magic-using characters) can use magic to do things that are impossible for anyone else to do.  You don't seem to have a problem with Wizards casting Fireball or Magic Missile to do damage, but when it comes to them using utility spells to teleport, scry, open locks, or anything other than direct damage, you seem to hate the very idea of it.  Wizards in this game are built to be versatile, that's one of their foremost abilities.  Take that away from them and you'll be hurting them so much that you might as well simply remove the class.     I'm curious; would you prefer it if magic-users were only able to cast damaging and/or healing spells?  That's not meant to be a knock on you, I'm seriously curious and trying to understand where you are coming from and what your preferences are.  It really sounds to me like you're coming to the game with the mind-set of an MMORPG where Wizard are Direct Damage nukers and nothing else.  And I'm not demeaning MMORPGs, I played EverQuest for YEARS and absolutely loved it (and I'm meaning to start playing gain this year, my 70th level Necromancer Achraziel has just been sitting there collecting dust on Brell Serilis for the past year, and I only played for maybe a month that time, but I played religiously from '99 to '05.  Man, those were some GOOD TIMES!  Anyway... )No one here is trying to attack you, we're just really confused with the problem you say you have, because Wizards and other spellcasters are the way they are for a reason, and magic in the game is the way it is for a reason, and you seem to have a problem with the very reason for magic.  Magic is one of the defining features of the game (it is THE defining characteristic of the fantasy genre, period) and none of the rest of us have ever encountered the problem you say you're having.  We can't understand the problem and we're confused.  In fact, I have NEVER encountered the scry-teleport in-nuke-teleport out problem that is so popularly mentioned.  Do people actually try to pull off cheesy BS like that?  The Teleport spell actually flat-out says: "'Viewed once' is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic such as scrying."  So it's built right into the rules that you only have a 25% chance to teleport if you try that trick.  Not something I would risk.</blockquote>

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