What would you say is the biggest problem with Wizards, Clerics, Druids, and other "Tier 1" Spellcasters?

[MarkB]

Given that the DM's job description is to hose all the PCs all the time, this doesn't seem like such a fargone conclusion.

I must have missed that one. Was it in the DMG2?

 

[Manbearcat]

@JamesonCourage On the whole, I agree. But my agreement is due to the lack of brevity and the ridiculous number of caveats and my internal thought process/clarifiers embedded in my prose (I think I learned it from Nichomachean Ethics - and there is probably not a more obnoxious piece of reading material than that...its also a product of people parsing essays, briefs and posts for the .0000001 % of it that may have some incoherency, contorting that to their ends and only engaging with that.)

On that particular post though? Not so much. Parsing that post is pretty straight forward and its not particularly long. Further, the party was complaining about the usage of "50 cent words". I couldn't really find much in there to complain about there and on that particular issue, I don't typically agree. Unbelievably obscure words? Perhaps if the usage is not justified and could be more easily conveyed with a phrase. But if you have to exchange one word (with a lot of explanatory power) for a sentence or more, then I disagree as I'd rather burden the text with a moderately difficult word and expect the reader to step it up (and just use their deductive reasoning and context to decipher the word if unwilling to look it up) rather than overburden the text with yet another sentence or two! (as I've always had trouble reaching the ceiling of word count rather than the floor!)

See all of those embedded clarifiers!!!! That is what I mean! What a mess I would flag with a superscripted number or sign (and do sometimes) and then explain by way of note at the bottom of the post but I think that might be even more obnoxious.

 

[N'raac]

So, the best version of balance you can come up with is to lock the spellcasters in a cave without any access to a community larger than a hamlet so they don't find a 3rd level caster in their class? Even a thorp has a high enough gp threshold to support first level scrolls.

That conceit has other implications. It suggests that first level spellcasters are pretty common. Common enough that there are enough wizards in every thorpe to have access to every first level spell. And that there are enough other casters that there must be some who have the Scribe Scroll feat (which I don't see many divine casters invest in).

It speaks to magic being very common. That leads to the reasonable (IMO) conclusion that defenses and tactics against magic are also pretty common and well-known. But when we suggest opponents might suspect use of a Rope Trick, for example, and have a plan for addressing same, that's just contrived - why would they ever have considered that possibility?

Spellcraft is a DC 20+ spell level to understand the writing. At 9th/10th level, that's a 25 for a 5th level spell. An 18 INT wizard who puts max spellcraft ranks while leveling has +17 so they can take 10 and make it automatically but that wasn't the case until 8th level. And this is assuming the character started with a 16 INT, added both of his ability gains to INT (or 17 AND 1), and maxed out his spellcraft. I would try to say that not all of these things are givens, but who am I kidding, all of your wizards look the same.

I think 20 + level is decipher without Read Magic. Learn the spell is 15+level. Spellcraft is a necessity for a wizard, to my mind. Assuming INT 14 (+2), 4 ranks at L1 are adequate to Take 10 and learn a 1st level spell. 1 rank every other level keeps place with rising spell levels. I'd have to say the "take 10 to learn" assumption is a reasonable one.

But the ability to have a horde of spells in a bunch of heavy spellbooks is not, in itself, unbalanced in my experience.

For the record, a level 1 scroll costs 25 GP. Is 25 GP less than 15,000 GP? Yes. So under the Rules as Written, level 1 scrolls should always be available. A level 5 scroll costs 1125 GP.

Gosh, there sure must be a lot of spellcasters making these scrolls for them to be so commonplace in the shops, mustn't there? Logically, that means magic isn't that big a mystery, and strategies for dealing with its existence should logically have developed. But we don't want to think about that - it would mean that it's reasonable for the DM to run the opposition as having some idea of how to deal with spellcasters.[/QUOTE]

If the fighter sells that +1 sword, he makes a loss of 1150GP. He only gets to sell it at half price. For the amount that fighter lost on his sword, the wizard can have burnt through 46 first level scrolls. This is why the "consumables cost money" argument is ridiculous.

WHY is the fighter selling his +1 sword to buy a +2 sword? Pay the enchanter to enhance the enchantment rather than getting a brand new sword. One of the primary reasons we are being told inability to buy custom items hurts non-casters more than casters because the warriors will be focused on very specific weapons. Why get another Masterwork Trident, then find a buyer for the +1 Trident, when you can have the enchantment on the first one augmented instead?

btw-sorry; lost the quote source. Hence generic quote.

For the record even with your house rules, at each level it's one offensive spell, one defensive, one utility, and one other. And I can leave half my spell slots open in the morning until I know what I'm going to be doing.

Sure. That means you don't have those spells available until you spend 15 minutes (more for more than 25% of your spell load) to prepare. I don't think you always have 15 minutes to prepare in safety.

Offence if I'm soloing is pretty much pure conjuration after first level. L1: Grease, Colour Spray or Sleep (not prepared because it's absolutely useless by this level - probably colour spray as enchantment's normally the second dump school) L2: Glitterdust (or possibly Web). L3: Stinking Cloud. L4: Black tentacles.

Utility: L1: Silent Image (going to fill up a lot of L1 slots). L2: Invisibility. L3: Fly. L4: Scrying. L5: Teleport.

Defence: L1: Mage Armour. L2: Alter Self. L3: Dispel Magic. L4: Polymorph

Other: L1: Alarm. L2: Knock. (Stiff competition here). L3: Slow (Allowing Web rather than Glitterdust at L2). L4: Solid Fog. L5: Prying Eyes.

It's not a perfect selection (and is silent image heavy at L1). Also not a selection to match the tier 1 casters you haven't bothered to nerf. If we're on any sort of realistic option I'm a specialist conjurer for an extra spell per level.

I'm unclear of that reference. That would be an extra slot to prepare/cast per level. It means 1 of your 2 spells per level must be conjuration. Do your selections for each level meet the minimum 50% conjuration requirement? In fairness, you should also have more L1 spells since Wizards start with 3 + INT bonus, not a flat 2. Magic Missile seems like a shoe-in, replacing Sleep when the latter becomes less than useful.

Scry (the Princess should voluntarily fail her save anyway, and you can Message with any luck) and Prying Eyes. Turn invisible once you've found her, and fly. Knock your way through any locked doors and distract guards with Ghost Sound and Silent Image (or just take them out). Touch her. Teleport the pair of you back to your sanctum.

Given wizard spells are ubiquitous, and Knock renders locks irrelevant, it seems likely Knock precautions would be taken. Like lots of locks (to run the spells out), bells on the doors (so opening them sounds an alarm), the other poster's suggestion of guards on the doors, etc.

Invisible is not Inaudible, and one offensive action ends it. Plus, each Knock is one less Invisibility. Assuming illusions, especially minor ones, will always work seems optimistic. Taking out the guards likely means casting offensive spells - so bye bye Invisibility.

Let's work with the last as the other have baggage which is unrelated to the discussion. For a wizard (whose career is predicated upon ingenuity, reason, guile and technical study) to have carved out a lengthy existence (by level 10) as an "adventurer who inhabits an environment that aggressively wants them dead" and to have somehow lived out those long, dangerous years circumventing the process of natural selection erstwhile willfully attempting to not adapt (eg have willfully bad/indifferent risk assessment and accompanying indifferent/bad/suicidal adaptive strategies) strikes me as a bit difficult to grasp. "Foolish, irrational, impetuous, cognitively deficient" strikes me as the outlier amongst the wizardly types. A D&D character is not Indiana Jones. Indy is protected by plot immunity, not plot armor (HPs). His bad decisions are exclusively the purview of the author leveraging 1 and 2 above...and having absolute authority over the outcomes.

Why do these wizards engage in such risky activities as adventuring, then? Why don't they Scribe those Scrolls that are universally available in every thorpe in the kingdom? That seems a much safer career choice - and based on how high those scroll levels get in the smallest of settlements, it must be pretty easy to gain levels with such a career choice.

And if the characters in fiction are poor models for RPG characters, what kind of characters, adventures and experiences are we looking for from our RPG experience? I thought PC's were supposed to be heroes in the mold of fantasy fiction, cienma, etc.

 

[Manbearcat]

Why do these wizards engage in such risky activities as adventuring, then? Why don't they Scribe those Scrolls that are universally available in every thorpe in the kingdom? That seems a much safer career choice - and based on how high those scroll levels get in the smallest of settlements, it must be pretty easy to gain levels with such a career choice.

And if the characters in fiction are poor models for RPG characters, what kind of characters, adventures and experiences are we looking for from our RPG experience? I thought PC's were supposed to be heroes in the mold of fantasy fiction, cienma, etc.

Risk assessment. Not absolute risk aversion. The two are not the same.

Its already been formally established that Wizard as PC has chosen a career/life path that puts him directly in the crosshairs of a habitat that is actively and aggressively attempting to extinguish his life; and he must strategically adapt to make sure that doesn't happen (as all organisms fundamentally do). Within that context, he must assess risk and all of the inevitable uncertainty that comes with being a human...except in this particular case he can short-circuit much of that uncertainty due to his nigh-omniscience (thank you powerful divinations and reconnaissance tools)...and then strategically determine the best course to achieve his sought end (which isn't averting 100 % risk if he is indeed a PC).

 

[Obryn]

Given that the DM's job description is to hose all the PCs all the time, this doesn't seem like such a fargone conclusion.

I'd hope it's to run a mutually entertaining and challenging game, but then again, I also don't set out to bring my players to heel by railroading them into the murder of innocents.

-O

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'd hope it's to run a mutually entertaining and challenging game, but then again, I also don't set out to bring my players to heel by railroading them into the murder of innocents.

Where did that come from?

 

[Neonchameleon]

That conceit has other implications. It suggests that first level spellcasters are pretty common. Common enough that there are enough wizards in every thorpe to have access to every first level spell. And that there are enough other casters that there must be some who have the Scribe Scroll feat (which I don't see many divine casters invest in).

Why wouldn't divine casters invest in Scribe Scroll? If you aren't going adventuring it is the single most useful feat a first level caster can have. I mean what are you going to get? Toughness? Weapon Focus?

It speaks to magic being very common. That leads to the reasonable (IMO) conclusion that defenses and tactics against magic are also pretty common and well-known. But when we suggest opponents might suspect use of a Rope Trick, for example, and have a plan for addressing same, that's just contrived - why would they ever have considered that possibility?

Take your strawman away please. I'm not one of these "Rope tricks shouldn't be followed" people. 8 hours of rest in a dungeon assuming someone has a clue where you are should be suicidal.

WHY is the fighter selling his +1 sword to buy a +2 sword? Pay the enchanter to enhance the enchantment rather than getting a brand new sword. One of the primary reasons we are being told inability to buy custom items hurts non-casters more than casters because the warriors will be focused on very specific weapons. Why get another Masterwork Trident, then find a buyer for the +1 Trident, when you can have the enchantment on the first one augmented instead?

Ah, you're going for the Single Upgraded Weapon approach. In which case treasure is all generic and all goes into a communal pot. At this point the question becomes "Is it better for the party to support the wizard and cleric's casting with 6000 GP worth of consumables, or to give the fighter +1 to hit and damage?" I'll go with the scrolls.

I'm unclear of that reference. That would be an extra slot to prepare/cast per level. It means 1 of your 2 spells per level must be conjuration. Do your selections for each level meet the minimum 50% conjuration requirement?

No. It's 7 or 8 out of the 20. Which is why I didn't. Conjuration's a damn good school, but not quite that good to specialise in unless you can get a few more spells which, under any normal game of 3.X that goes anywhere near the DMG advice you can.

Given wizard spells are ubiquitous, and Knock renders locks irrelevant, it seems likely Knock precautions would be taken. Like lots of locks (to run the spells out), bells on the doors (so opening them sounds an alarm), the other poster's suggestion of guards on the doors, etc.

Lots of locks is just obnoxious for the user. It's like these stupid password rules that end up with the password written down on a post it note beside the computer. Of course if some bright spark were to invent the "Triple lock" - three locks opened with a single turn of the key (thus requiring two castings of Knock) I wouldn't see this as remotely a bad thing. Of course the fact that as far as I am aware no 3.X supplement did this ever indicates things about the vision of the designers.

Invisible is not Inaudible, and one offensive action ends it. Plus, each Knock is one less Invisibility. Assuming illusions, especially minor ones, will always work seems optimistic. Taking out the guards likely means casting offensive spells - so bye bye Invisibility.

Alternatively taking out the guards is done with Ghost Sound and Silent Image. Or using Fly to get past them. If they won't leave their post for distractions, and there's a decent setup, the rogue's absolutely stuffed (other than by bluffing).

Why do these wizards engage in such risky activities as adventuring, then?

Most don't. I see no way this is out of line with a standard 3.X world. It's simply that the ones that don't adventure gain levels very slowly.

Why don't they Scribe those Scrolls that are universally available in every thorpe in the kingdom? That seems a much safer career choice - and based on how high those scroll levels get in the smallest of settlements, it must be pretty easy to gain levels with such a career choice.

It's not easy to gain levels with such a career choice. It's simply that non-adventuring wizards often die in their beds of old age. If we say it takes a human wizard who doesn't adventure five years to gain a level (and an elf much longer) we still don't have a problem.

And if the characters in fiction are poor models for RPG characters, what kind of characters, adventures and experiences are we looking for from our RPG experience? I thought PC's were supposed to be heroes in the mold of fantasy fiction, cienma, etc.

I don't think they are - I think that's B.T.'s claim. I think that one of the reasons 4e is far and away the best version of D&D is because it's the one that does match fictional characters pretty well.

 

[billd91]

So you are annoyed with Paizo? After all, they made HUGE changes in the balance between fighters and casters.

Are you annoyed with EVERY SINGLE EDITION AUTHOR who has seen this issue, starting with EGG himself, and tried to fix it?

It's not like we're making this problem up in a vaccuum. This has been addressed by EVERY SINGLE EDITION since OD&D.

And in none of those cases, has the group addressing the issues you indicate projected the attitude that those of us running the game happily have incompetent players, run deficient games, or otherwise made such dicks of themselves.

 

[Obryn]

Where did that come from?

His cloudkill example. Not directed at you.

-O

 

[Neonchameleon]

Given that the DM's job description is to hose all the PCs all the time, this doesn't seem like such a fargone conclusion.

This is complete nonsense. Challenging the PCs is not at all the same as hosing them.

Where did that come from?

Cloudkill above. Also textbook "I will make the Paladin Fall" play.

And in none of those cases, has the group addressing the issues you indicate projected the attitude that those of us running the game happily have incompetent players, run deficient games, or otherwise made such dicks of themselves.

Complete . See the objections to powergaming on this very thread. The meme that "Powergamers are bad roleplayers" is a straight out ad hominem attack on people actually trying to understand the system - and it's nothing but pure dickery and projection about motivations. Although it was White Wolf rather than TSR or WotC that defended their incompetent game design by addressing people who understood it and used it as Rollplayers not Roleplayers.