And when the Druid player turns to the DM and says, "Ok, I cast Endure Elements (1st level spell 24 hour duration) on the bear"? Does the DM stick to his guns? Or does he allow the companion to come along?
Just out of curiosity, is all this Animal Companion nerfing intended to mess with the Tier 1 Druid, or the Ranger, acknowledged as being less powerful?
Look at the above mentioned solutions to Rope Trick. I mean, seriously. Building bonfires under the rope trick? Come on. First off, how do the baddies know that rope trick is being used? Tracking? Easily fooled - you have tracks that lead out of the dungeon. Assuming of course, that the baddies can actually track in the first place and have the wherewithal to know what a Rope Trick is.
OK, first off, not every threat will have the wherewithal to do this, unquestionably. But, if Rope Trick is used by every PC group to facilitate that 5 minute work day, because after all, that’s what ANY reasonable group would do, then it seems unlikely they are the only ones ever to have thought of this. Rope Trick must be pretty well known, given any wizard or sorcerer can select it as a 4
th level spell, so awareness of the spell seems pretty likely.
Assuming someone can track (not guaranteed, but I seem to recall a Survival skill, humanoids with pets that have Scent, etc. – not every scenario, but common enough), then what precautions is the party taking? They can certainly hide their trail (and move at half speed – better chance of being stumbled across while doing so). They could lay some false trails (but, again, this is time they aren’t hiding). Terrain matters a lot, as a DC over 10 means someone needs the feat to track, lowering the likelihood a lot. But any shaman can use Detect Magic. How far do you plan on travelling before using that Rope Trick? The further you go, the less obvious it is to look for you there.
The usual reaction to a good tactic is to determine ways of preventing, mitigating or nerfing it. Is it unrealistic that infantry came up with setting pole arms to deal with charging cavalry? In a world where magic is common enough to be commoditized (you can just buy any item you want), it’s common enough to be well known, and for non-magic practitioners to work out tactics for dealing with it. Do the party archers not target the unarmored guy in the back because “he clearly casts arcane spells”? Then I expect the enemy archers can come to the same conclusion.
And I ask again – where are your Handy Haversacks and Bags of Holding? They can’t safely go into the Rope Trick’s extradimensional space. Maybe we find somewhere to hide them, but weren’t the wizard’s spell books in those containers? Good luck carrying them while climbing up a rope. Guess we have to hope nothing bad happens while the Fighter is carrying them, since the Wizard likely dumped STR, and probably doesn’t have a nonmagical container to haul them along in anyway.
And, if they don’t know where you went, building up defences for a future raid is the far more likely tactic.
Random encounters "stumbling" over resting parties? Yeah, because the fact that we rested in this secret chamber that hasn't been opened in a hundred years doesn't apparently matter. The random encounters just "find" us anyway.
Again, depends strongly on where someone chooses to rest. There’s not always a convenient secret chamber, and you just might need to get past more than one encounter to open it. Are you REALLY going to open the secret door right now? You’re down some spells from beating the inhabitants of the lair before you found it. Less an issue for a group that’s not operating on the basis that one encounter means “time for bed”.
Of course this presumes a level of organization in the dungeon that is very, very specific to a particular adventure. I mean, in a larger dungeon complex, you should have multiple different factions - why is it automatically assumed that we are here, and not some raiding party from the neighbours? Oh, yeah, because it's more "believable".
Again, very scenario-specific. But if there are routine concerns about raiding parties from the neighbours, I’d also expect more guards, better prepared defences, and much greater likelihood of wandering encounters as the residents likely have patrols in case of such raids. There may, of course, be signs that these weren’t the neighbours (if the neighbours are ogres, and many of our dead are burned, with scorch marks on the walls, it seems unlikely it was the neighbours). Again, scenario-specific.
I would much, much rather solve issues BEFORE they became issues in the game, rather than try to massage the game to punish players.
Logical restrictions in, and reactions to, the existence of spells is part of the overall backdrop that impacts whether these issues really exist.
This whole topic reminds me of some of the routes we took to get to full caster problems. Everybody wants benefits without limitations. Game designers respond to the unfun complaints and remove limitations, leading to problems, sometimes in the problem is mechanical, sometimes it cracks immersion. A better route is to think about the choices and the trade off they necessarily include, make the wisest choice you can make, and then live with it or change your choice (and then accept that choice's limitations).
It’s interesting that we discuss all the changes that boost casters. Maybe we’ve all forgotten that, in 1e, most spells had no caps. Magic Missile added one missile per two levels, so a 19
th level wizard fired off 10 of them. Fireballs and Lightning Bolts just kept adding d6’s, so now we’re at 19d6. Then along came 2e, and said 1
st level spells cap out at 5d4 +5, and 3
rd level spells at 10d6, etc. Suddenly, those damaging wizard spells weren’t so effective.
Sleep affected 2-8 1 HD creatures, and they got no save. Now it affects 4 HD (1 less than the average of 2 – 8) and they get a Will save to avoid the effects entirely. Seems like that spell didn’t get better as editions moved forward either.
The tradeoff? You’re getting more spells to cast, so don’t expect them to be easy encounter-enders any more. Of course, the impact has been “blasting is not optimal, so use debuffs, buffs, battlefield control and/or save or lose spells”.
I am going to disagree with the entire idea that having access to a big variety of spells is the issue. If you only get two spells every level then any others come from other sources like scrolls then that takes time, gold and a spellcraft check to add them to your spellbook. And I have played enough wizards to know that even with a maxed out spellcraft you can fail the roll and can't add that spell until you level and put another rank on spellcraft. Plus you need to keep track on if you have the room in your spellbook.
The cost (including spellbook cost and encumbrance) are a definite factor, at least in my experience. Do I need 30 L1 spells when I can carry, at most, 4 + bonus spells (3 at 30 INT – seems pretty high to me) +1 (specialization)? Having some utility spells for high levels (when my L1 spells aren’t effective offense or defense), sure. A spell for every occasion? Not so much.
I disagree that Spellcraft is hugely limiting, but if one does not allow Take 10 on spellcraft to learn spells, there may be a delay (plus, doesn’t that destroy the scroll anyway?).
Clerics/Druids? I find many of their spells are situational. Probably the most versatile Cleric I’ve run had Fire and War domains, and Domain Spontaneity for each. He could memorize situational spells like Remove Curse or Lesser Restoration knowing they could be traded out for a curative spell, or at least one decent offensive spell, as the need arose, but could also be available if their limited utility situation arose.
The argument that there is a spell for everything is just plain nonsense in my book of course there is a magical fix for most things the reason they are in the game is to help parties that are lacking that skill. Take knock the spell that is usually used as an example. I in 30 years of playing have never once ever seen this spell abused in a way to stomp all over the rogue. The only time I have seen it used by mages is when the party does not have a rogue to open locks. A wizard who memorizes this spell gives up other better useful spells so why bother when you have a rogue who can pick locks all day long until the cow comes home.
That’s my experience. At lower levels, we may have to memorize Knock tomorrow because the rogue has been unable to get through that one lock. At higher levels, it might actually be carried, but if the rogue can open the door, why use it now? There may be more locked doors. Do you want to spend 1,500 gold on a Knock wand every few levels because the opposition keeps locking doors, chests, etc.? The Rogue is a free wand of Knock. But we have the option – so no one absolutely has to play a Rogue, and could play a Rogue that selects other skills instead of Open Locks.
Then there is the argument that fighters just point pointy things at people and mages move mountains. Boo Hoo sorry but magic is supposed to be special and powerful and moving mountains seems rather epic level and epic level fighters can mow down most armies. If players want to move mountains then don't play a fighter. A fighter's job is to protect the squishy team members and go toe to toe with big bad ugly things. If you think fighters are unfun to play then make them fun give them more things to do but stop blaming the wizards and magic on that.
If the Fighter is so useless, why is it so often his primary role to defend the Wizard? The first 3
rd Ed fighter I ran had two main purposes in life – destroy anyone who gets CLOSE to the sorcerer (that was a party mainline – anyone threatening the Sorcerer is target #1 – drop everything else); set the Rogue up to flank. Who cares if I do any damage? Mobility + Spring Attack + 1 attack at -5 to trigger Combat Expertise so I can get behind the Big Bad and the Rogue can Sneak Attack is a WAY better use of my round than a full attack action. And next round, I can Full Attack with +2 to hit.
It makes sense to me that certain companions would not be allowed in cities at least without precautions because people would be afraid of them also whose to say that all animal companions would want to be in certain environments.
Sure. Similarly, most civilized areas probably don’t like people wandering around armed to the teeth, or people just casting spells out in the street.
Basically, I take the view that there will always be cases where the PCs might not have a suitable resource available to save a fellow PC... and that's okay. But if there are any cases where they might not have a suitable resource, I don't see it as unreasonable to require them to have a spell slot available to power a slot.
I don’t see this as an essential change. In most cases, I don’t see scrolls used to replace offensive power, but to transfer spells and/or have a specific ability on hand when needed. Such as a recent L2 situation where we had to spend some cash on scrolls of Magic Weapon as we were expecting incorporeal opposition.
Incidentally, one thing I considered was allowing any caster to burn a spell slot to power any scroll of the same level - thus allowing even the party Wizard to cast that scroll of cure light wounds in extremis. But, of course, only to cast it - they wouldn't get to add the spell to their "known" list!
So remove a restriction on spells the Wizard can cast, rather than adding restrictions? Can the Cleric carry scrolls of Magic Missile “just in case”? Can they use wands in the same manner?
I don't disagree with your logic here, but it's not the standard assumption in the DMG, which spells out that even in a smallish settlement it should be possible to find multiple instances of most low-level scrolls.
Commoditization of magic. The availability of scrolls suggests a universality to the use of magic, which bolsters my belief many enemies would be well aware of spells such as Rope Trick.
Of course, this also means it’s not that tough for the warriors to get enchanted weapons and armor, rather than having to rely on whatever they find.
The problem is that too often the Wizard gets to move his mountains and then, when the fight against the "big bad ugly things" comes up (to give the Fighters their chance to shine), the Wizard pulls out some save-or-suck spell and renders that challenge meaningless as well.
In practice, I haven’t found any character’s abilities meaningless. The Sorcerer being able to Slow opponents was never viewed by our group as rendering the rest of the team meaningless. It was viewed as reducing the capabilities of a group of four-armed gorillas to the point the warriors weren’t chopped to hamburger before they could take down the opposition. If one gets close to the Sorcerer, break off and defend him – what’s one attack of opportunity compared to the extra 4 attacks per round they’ll all get without that Slow?
But then, our group has always seemed to focus on making the team more powerful as a whole. That means looking for synergies, not trying to determine who “really” won the battle. The Sorcerer and the Cleric alone would be chopped meat. So would the Fighter and the Rogue. Together, we came out OK.
Mind you, our group doesn’t push for maximum optimization either. Having every Fighter work exactly the same, or every wizard have the same spell selection, etc. is, to me, the ultimate in unfun. Variety is the spice. Different groups find different synergies.
