What (else) got the shaft in 3E?

[Lord Vangarel]

I always specialize, though..

That's my point. The penalty in exchange for the benefits are so small why not specialize?

 

[jhanzur]

People still do that?? As soon as we got the 3rd edition books we type-exed that one right out of the book

Yeah, we had a slight problem with the costs, especially at low levels, so we went with 50gp instead of 100gp increments. Anyone know if this might be changed in the "Revised" edition?

 

[GuardianLurker]

Wow... you take away the spell scribing costs for Wizards, and you've officially made Sorcerers pointless.

Even if you take the scribing costs away completely (something I *don't advocate), Sorcerors still have almost twice the spell-slinging power that wizards do.

Heck, as far as that goes, Sorcs' Spells Known has a slight edge over a Wiz's Spells/Day.

Plus, of course, Sorcs still get spontaneous casting and meta-magic on the fly.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Re: Re: Re: What (else) got the shaft in 3E?

That's very, very true. A 3rd level Barbarian Ogre is "officially" a CR5 creature. Give him some half-decent equipment (better-than-hide armor, a greatsword) and trust me, he's more than a match for most 5th level fighters. I heard that a couple barbarian levels added to ogres made them death machines . . . and tried it out on my PCs.

I heard right.

I personally can't stand the Barbarian class. I find fighter levels better. 2 fighter levels gives you 2 fighter feats and 1 general feat. I can't remember if ogres have 1 feat or two but if they have Power Attack and Cleave already this should allow the ogre access to "Great Cleave", "Sunder" and "Large and in Charge".

Replace the standard Ogre weapons with Huge Keen Falchions and let a couple of these buggers loose in a party. Then you get to watch the ogres cut through them like wheat with Great Cleave and a VERY good chance of getting double damage from a crit hit. They can use Large And In Charge to prevent the PCs from closing easily on them and use Sunder to break the PC's weapons.

Tzarevitch

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

Even if you take the scribing costs away completely (something I *don't advocate), Sorcerors still have almost twice the spell-slinging power that wizards do.

Heck, as far as that goes, Sorcs' Spells Known has a slight edge over a Wiz's Spells/Day.

Plus, of course, Sorcs still get spontaneous casting and meta-magic on the fly.

I don't agree... not when Wizards can specialize.

At 10th level, a specialized Wizard can cast 4 fourth and 3 fifth level spells (not including any ability bonuses). At 10th level, a sorcerer can cast 5 fourth and 3 fifth level spells.

BUT, that sorcerer only knows a maximum of 2 fourth and 1 fifth level spell! That's really limiting.

Toss in the fact that a Wizard would get 2 bonus feats by 10th level... and you get one crappy little Sorcerer.

 

[Asheron]

Wow... you take away the spell scribing costs for Wizards, and you've officially made Sorcerers pointless.

hehe, ok what I meant was we lowered the costs dramatically.....but I'm with GuardianLurker that there's more to the sorcerer than being free of scribing costs and that they have many advantages compared to the wizard.....but hey that's another discussion

 

[Desdichado]

What? No one mentioned the half-orc with the net -2 ability penalties?

I'd agree, half-elves have little to recommend them, unless you can create a compelling roleplaying reason. In my opinion, it's kinda hard to create a really compelling reason that hasn't been done yet.

I totally disagree on your normal vs. prestige class comparison: only badly written prestige classes are "better" than normal classes; the point of a prestige class is to make a character more narrowly focused, IMO, and most of them do that fairly well. For my money, though, I'd rather be a little more broad.

I also agree with you on the monk, though. That's my least favorite base class, in part because it's hard to do anything really well.

 

[the Jester]

Re: Re: Re: Re: What (else) got the shaft in 3E?

I personally can't stand the Barbarian class. I find fighter levels better. 2 fighter levels gives you 2 fighter feats and 1 general feat. I can't remember if ogres have 1 feat or two but if they have Power Attack and Cleave already this should allow the ogre access to "Great Cleave", "Sunder" and "Large and in Charge".

Tzarevitch

Actually, two levels only gets you two fighter feats- the one general feat that you're thinking of is the first level starting feat, which ogres don't get. Three levels of fighter will get it for them though.

 

[National Acrobat]

I am getting ready to play in my 4th 3E campaign and I have dm'd one 3E campaign and one thing that has been consistent in all of the circumstances is the total lack of sorcerors. We had one person play a sorceror in the first 3E game we ever played. By 5th level he was taking levels in rogue because he hated the limited amount of spells known. Since then, all of our arcane casters have been specialist wizards and our parties are all top heavy with clerics. There are 10 of us in the group, so out of 5 campaigns, we have had a minimum of 45 characters (9 players x 5 campaigns) not counting deaths and we have yet to have a second sorceror. All of us who are the 1e and 2e veterans seem to prefer the larger range of known spells that are available to wizards. Plus, we eliminated the costs for scribing spells since we have had no sorcerors for years.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Spatula]

Sorry, didn't mean to. It's just that I think, especially as levels advance, the non-specialist wizard suffers in comparison to the specialist. What I'd like to see is something that makes the non-specialist as equally attractive to play again. For example how about feats that only the non-specialist wizard has access to?

How about the ability to freely choose the spells you learn when you gain a level? Only general wizards can do that.

How about the freedom to use all wizard spells, all wizard scrolls, all wizard wands, and all wizard staffs? Only the generalists can do that.

Bonus spell slots are nice. Of course, a specialist can only use his bonus slot for a spell from his specialty, which is usually a non-issue but most schools have spell levels with no good spells. I currently play an enchanter but the next mage I play will not be a specialist.