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

[TwoSix]

double post

 

[TwoSix]

The biggest problem with Tier 1 spellcasters is that they're fun.

What are the big knocks on Tier 1? They require way too much bookkeeping and are much too powerful, right? And it's a shock that for a large segment of the D&D-playing population, spending hours digging through books to gain awesome power is the equivalent to mainlining heroin? We're nerds. Of course we're loath to give that up.

I mean, I much prefer 4e. I get bored spending more than 5 minutes on strategy when I'm playing. I love narrating my character. I love how fluid 4e combat is, and how you can just fudge rituals to create whatever effect you want.

But when I do play 3e/PF, give me a caster. Because once you've built them, those are the classes that let you just act.

The problem with the spellcasters is that the other classes, and most of the monsters, can't keep up with you. Which is a huge problem as a DM, but man, is it exhilarating when you're playing that character.

 

[Alzrius]

This thread is awesome for its clear-sighted acknowledgment of the problems with full-progression spellcasters (and suggested fixes). To these problems I'll add (though these aren't the biggest problems, they are still problems):

The inflation to ability scores. Now, this is an issue for all classes (as it's a microcosm of the overall power-creep across editions), but it was particularly notable for its inflation of spellcasters' power. The greater cohesion with ability scores meant that not only did higher ability scores get you bonus spells per level, it also made your spells more likely to affect creatures (due to the introduction of DCs which could be bumped). Far worse, though, was how this softened the limitation of requiring a "prime requisite" of a certain amount to cast spells of a given level.

While previous editions had ability score requirements to cast spells of a given level, these limits were much more severe due to how difficult it was to boost ability scores after character generation. You didn't get +1 ability points to an attribute of your choice every fourth level - which meant that if you didn't have a spectacular prime requisite in a given caster level, you'd never be casting the higher-level spells.

What made this worse were the changes to multiclassing. Whereas before, dual-classing and multiclassing were divorced from concepts of your character's total level, the introduction of multiclassing as additive progression along a single, total chart of 20 levels (with a unified, progressive XP table) meant that multiclassing for spellcasters nerfed them badly - this encouraged the development of single-classed, tricked-out uber-casters. Being a human wizard 10/fighter 10 with an Intelligence of 16 was a viable choice back in 1st or 2nd Edition, which saw that as only a 10th-level character - in 3.X on, it was poor character-design that effectively crippled your (now considered 20th-level) character.

 

[Elf Witch]

That said, there is some truth in its conclusions - and in particular, those spellcasters are indeed more powerful than other characters, especially when supplements are used.



It's not just scrolls. Primary spellcasters have pretty much exactly the wrong number of spells per day - too few at the lowest levels and too many at the highest. Plus, by crafting scrolls (or that wand of cure light wounds) they can effectively bypass the Vancian casting that is the primary balancing factor of the classes.

Additional problems:

- Non-casters gain power at a little more than a linear rate. Casters gain power on three different axes - they get more spells per day, they get access to higher-level spells, and all their existing spells become more powerful as well.

- Non-casters are more gear-dependent than Casters... and yet it is Casters who actually have the ability to craft the items that they need. (That said, the treasure tables favour "items for non-casters" in found treasure.)

- The range of supplemental material has heavily favoured Casters. Improved options for Non-casters have been much thinner on the ground, and have frequently taken the form of replacements for older Non-caster options.



There's a lot of truth in this. A great many of the abuses come about because the spells aren't applied exactly as written. I became quite sensitive to this because I was "fortunate" enough to have one player who would always be quick to tell me all the good stuff his spells could do, and yet would somehow always 'forget' all the limitations and side-effects. Plus, he was prone to all manner of "logical" extrapolations of spell effects, neglecting to consider that the reason it's magic is that it's not logical.

Studiously applying all of those restrictions and not allowing extrapolations that aren't written in the spell descriptions goes a long way towards fixing the problem.

The other thing that heavily favours Casters is the fifteen minute work day - if the Casters can safely nova and then rest, they'll obviously outshine the Non-casters. However, if the other members of the group (including, but not limited to, the DM) refuse to humour this approach then the Casters are forced to shepherd their resources better.

(Unfortunately, this makes using published adventures much harder, because these usually assume optimised play, which in turn means using the 15mAD.)

--

Ultimately, if I were inclined to 'fix' 3e, I would do so by:

- merge all the Non-caster classes into one (turning Rage, Sneak Attack, and even the monk's Unarmed Combat into feat/power chains).

- Add more higher-level feats, so that Non-casters get vastly powerful abilities at higher levels. (The effect of these two is to make Non-casters both more flexible and also to boost the one bit of their progression that is above-linear in nature.)

- Remove all level-dependent variables from spells. That is, a fireball does 5d6 damage, regardless of the level of the Wizard. These can still be boosted with metamagic, but only with metamagic. (This eliminates one of the three axes by which a Caster gains power with level, reducing them from a cubic to a quadratic progression - the same as Non-casters.)

- Give the Casters more spells at lower level, and far fewer spells at high level.

- Change scrolls and wands so that instead of giving the Caster a "free cast" of the spell, they instead allow him to spontaneously cast the appropriate spell by sacrificing another of the same level.

- Re-write item crafting so that it actually has the mathematical rigour that it currently pretends to have. Also, open item crafting up so that any character can potentially craft items.

- Go through the spells and magic items with a fine tooth comb. Most of them are now (probably) fine, but I would feel the need to check.

[_quote] I agree with most of this. Though I see some issues with certain spells take magic missile would you start t at first level with only one missile or with three? What about some of the other rays spells? I like the idea of fireball or lighting bolt spells like that damage staying static . But I think certain spells that have rays or blots should go up. Otherwise they will either be to powerful for lower levels or totally useless at higher levels.

I am not sure I like the idea of having to trade out a spell for the use of a scroll. There have been far to many times that having a scroll helped save the day when the cleric or wizard were out of spells. I think it would be better to make scrolls cost a lot more and make them rarer. [_/quote]

Isn't that just the most popular way to play a PC?

[_quote] Not really in most of the games I have played in even in the evil campaign we were not screwing each other over or stealing from each other. [_/quote]



Obviously, this isn't really a balance issue, and is something that can only really be fully resolved by the group at the table. That said, I do wonder if the class couldn't be improved by a name change to "Scoundrel", and by playing up the Han Solo aspects of the character over the "amoral thief" aspects? (Of course, more than a decade after the books were published is a bit later to make the change, but still... )

[_quote] Rouge, scoundrel , thief I don't see much difference though I prefer rogue over thief. Playing up the Han Solo aspect would be an improvement or an option. I have noticed that younger players don't tend to play them as amoral thieves as often as older players who started back with 1 and 2 edition. Back then a lot of this behavior was considered the way to play a thief.

When I say steal from the party I should clarify it they don't steal things that belong to party members they pocket things a head of time that technically have not been claimed by anyone yet. They also like to practice stealing when in a town picket pocketing here shoplifting there and the problem comes in if they get caught. Then the rest of the party has to make a decision on what to do. Part or me can understand it why they do this if they have built a thief character they need to be allowed to play a thief character. [_/quote]

1: Reinstitute the Soft-Cap levels as in AD&D; in AD&D the game changed at level 10 or so and the fighter was given an entire army as a class feature. You weren't playing the same game at all at that point - instead of adventurers you were playing politics. (E6 works even better here as the wizard's been buffed).

2: Return to old treasure distribution - scrolls and wands are rare and hard to make, magic swords plentiful.

3: Return to old resting rules or possibly put a variant of them in. The dungeon is far too dangerous to rest in (a wandering monster roll every 10 minutes for an 8 hour rest?), and the wilderness is much more dangerous than the dungeon. Which means the correct place to rest is only at a base camp. Your spells therefore don't last an adventuring day, they last an adventure. (I'd hard code this that a wizard needs to spend a day in a fully stocked lab or library, a cleric needs to spend a whole day in a temple, and a druid in a grove - does the same job as the wandering monster table).

4: Restrict spells known. The wizard does not automatically know two spells per level of the player's choice, and the cleric and druid do not get all magic from all sources. Once more returning things to the way they were done before 3.X.

5: Bring back the drawbacks. Polymorph has a system shock check to avoid death. Fly ends abruptly. Teleport can get you killed. The powerful spells had drawbacks because they were big guns you only use with your back to the wall.

6: Make the best way to take the bad guys out to be to go through their hit points - not to nerf them inito insensibility then have the fighter take out the effective punchbag. The way it was - my suggestion is that everyone gets a bonus to all three saves equal to their hit dice (making affecting a high level target almost impossible - again a reversion).

Do all this and wizards, clerics and druids will still be among the most powerful characters in the game.

[_quote] Some of these I agree with but some I don't. For example making a mage have to go to base camp or back to their library makes running certain style adventures impossible. We have spent weeks in a dungeon or out on the road traveling. Your way makes the mage not only weak but takes all the fun out of play. You could end up having the mage doing nothing but firing crossbolts for several sessions.

I don't think it is over powered to allow wizards to learn two spells every time they level get rid of the bonus spells and control how many spells they can cast a day is a better control. There is nothing wrong with a wizard eventually knowing a lot of spells as log as they are limited on how many they can cast in a day.

I do agree that druids and clerics should not know every spell that always seemed broken to me they should have to pick what they know along the lines of a sorcerer. [_/quote]

Or just run a game that enforces limits. Maybe you don't have unlimited time to accomplish your goals - after a day or two, the bad guys will accomplish a goal and move on. Perhaps someone has **gasp** broken the Stasis Spell that keeps everyone and everything in the dungeon frozen in time until the PC's open a door or otherwise enter their immediate area, so they prepare and reinforce after a first strike takes out their advance guard.

[_quote] Until I came on EnWorld I had never heard of the 15 minute adventure day. We never played that way our DMs would not let us to do this very easily if we tried we would find the adventure just got harder. There wer eplenty of times we continued on with the mage characters out of spells. Back in AD&D if you only adventured when the wizard had spells you would ever get anything done in the early levels when they had only one or two spells. [_/quote]


That's a player problem, IMO. The stereotypical rogue in the source material doesn't screw over his friends or teammates. "I'm just role playing my character" is often best addressed by "Why did you design a character who is a jerk?" or "And I'm just role playing MY character's reactions to your character's actions". Remove the PC halo and ask why the other adventurers would put up with this jerk? There are gradations between "open lethal violence" and "he's a trusted member of the team". For example "we put it to a vote, and Tony the Thief is no longer welcome with the group." He can either leave, or keep up as best he can with no assistance from the rest of the party (how long will he last with no healing, buffing, melee assistance, etc.)? Maybe your NEXT character will be more of a team player.

Most of the time the PCs have no clue that the rogue is pocketing extra loot. The players may know and the DM knows but to bring in that information and act on it is metagaming and something very frowned on at the tables I game at. And there is a big difference between being a ream player and being a Borg. If the rogue needs to steal X amount to stay in good standing with the local thieves guild how is that different than the cleric of a good god doing what his church commands both can drag the rest of the party into something they may have not wanted to be dragged into.

Like I said earlier a lot of this is holdover from AD&D which encouraged thieves to steal and since most of the people I play with having been playing since back then it is hard to get them to change how they have always played a rogue. Luckily it is not a popular class with our group not by itself usually a rogue is combined with a fighter type to make an effective scout or dungeoneer.

 

[Alzrius]

I have never really found a druid's companion that big of an issue they should not just attack because the druid is in combat the druid should have to either command them to which requires rolling a handle animal or the animal should feel threatened. Also I have seen DMs let druid companions get away with things like flanking these are animals not familiars and they should again have to be commanded to do it again another handle animal roll and some training when not in combat.

"A druid or ranger can handle her animal companion as a free action or push* it as a move action."

"For instance, to command a trained attack dog to attack a foe requires a DC 10 Handle Animal check. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action."

Thus, even a 1st level druid with even a 15 Wis (+2), 4 ranks Handle Animal (+4) only needs a 4 or better to command an animal companion to attack, and can do it as a free action. A "better build" druid could reduce the number needed even quicker. It's very easy to have a first level druid that can't fail the check, and by 4th level (6th level when the animal is wounded), the need for a check goes away completely without even trying hard.

I will say, I have only had one druid player (out of 3) who did abusive things with his druid (spells and wildshape into an air elemental) - and even then it was not with animal companion. But the potential for abuse is there.

* Note: “Push” an Animal: To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing. This category also covers making an animal perform a forced march (PHB, p74)

This is true, and is a valid answer to Elf Witch's point, but there's a broader section regarding animal companions (albeit outside of combat) that was in the 3.0 SRD and the 3.5 DMG (though oddly enough, not the 3.5 SRD), though I don't have the page number handy:

The lists of possible animal companions assume that the character spends most of her time in the animals’ home territory and treats it well. If she spends most of her time at sea, in cities, or otherwise in places that her companion doesn’t like, her companion will soon desert. Remember, animal companions are loyal friends but not pets or servants. They won’t remain loyal if being the character’s friend becomes too onerous.

The animal is still an animal. It’s not a magical beast, as a familiar or a paladin’s mount is. While it may have learned some tricks, it’s still no more intelligent than any other animal of its kind, and it retains all its bestial instincts. Unlike intelligent followers or cohorts, animals can’t follow complex instructions, such as “Attack the gnoll with the wand.” A character can give a simple verbal command, such as “Attack” or “Come,” as a free action, provided such a command is among the tricks the animal has learned. A more complex instruction, such as telling an animal to attack and pointing out a specific target, is a standard action. Animals are ill-equipped to handle unusual situations, such as combats with invisible opponents, and they typically hesitate to attack weird and unnatural creatures, such as beholders and oozes.

Left to its own judgment, an animal follows a character and attacks creatures that attack her (or that attack the animal itself). To do more than that, it needs to learn tricks. An animal with an Intelligence of two can learn six tricks.

This speaks to a broader point that animal companions are often treated similar to familiars or hirelings - that they essentially have no free will or self-interests of their own, and are quite willing to not only blindly follow orders (albeit with the necessary, easy checks) but simply know what the PCs want, and act only according to that. If role-played as listed above, an animal companion is not nearly so easy to take along on many adventures.

 

[Uzzy]

Some of these I agree with but some I don't. For example making a mage have to go to base camp or back to their library makes running certain style adventures impossible. We have spent weeks in a dungeon or out on the road traveling. Your way makes the mage not only weak but takes all the fun out of play. You could end up having the mage doing nothing but firing crossbolts for several sessions.

Fair point. So what you do is let the mage recover some spells while resting in the wilderness, like blasting spells that do damage to one target. So magic missile would be easily recovered, while fireball would require a trip back to civilisation and looking up the books to recover, for example.

 

[Elf Witch]

Fair point. So what you do is let the mage recover some spells while resting in the wilderness, like blasting spells that do damage to one target. So magic missile would be easily recovered, while fireball would require a trip back to civilisation and looking up the books to recover, for example.

That would be one fix and would not handicap the mage as badly as the other fix. Though it is I something I would never consider using because IMO you are basically tying the wizard's hands to make them weaker so that non magical characters get to shine. I think one of the biggest mistakes is to nerf a class so badly to make another class look better. How about improving the other classes.

There are several solutions that I would prefer to see, one limit how many spells a wizard can cast in a day without eight hours rest. Another big issue is how easy and cheaply it is to get items that give the wizards more spells rein that in and you bring the wizard back down in power. Make it harder for a wizard to retain a spell if they are hit in combat while casting. One of the things I have been toying with is the idea that if a wizard takes damage they roll to see if they can retain the spell but they can't cast it until next round making concentration a full round action the same with combat casting.

Now there are certain spells that I would not mind seeing a wizard have hard time getting back make them take longer than 24 hours. Say you can only teleport twice a week or other day.

One reason for really disliking the whole has to go back to a certain place what about games where there are no permanent places for the wizard to go back too? I played in a game where we were on the road for almost the entire game because our homeland had been destroyed and we were refugees trying to survive in a world gone to hell. There was no stopping to scribe scrolls, make magic items, or even alchemy items. In a campaign like that a wizard unlike a sorcerer is totally screwed over after they have used up their spells and even if they get certain one target spells they are no use to the party who may need them to be able to have area spells.

I can see house rules for this if you run a campaign allowing the wizard a very good chance of going home often enough. I would never play a wizard in a game like this and I think it would become a very unpopular class to play.

 

[Hussar]

This speaks to a broader point that animal companions are often treated similar to familiars or hirelings - that they essentially have no free will or self-interests of their own, and are quite willing to not only blindly follow orders (albeit with the necessary, easy checks) but simply know what the PCs want, and act only according to that. If role-played as listed above, an animal companion is not nearly so easy to take along on many adventures.

Yeah, but then that runs into another problem - DM's c-blocking the druid simply because he can. 3e doesn't really like it when DM's start shafting players like that. "Oh, you're animal companion can't come on THIS adventure because of blah blah blah." Stripping away class features like that is a quick way to have very ticked off players.

You are completely right in what you say. But, in application, it can be a potential source of some pretty serious friction between the player and the DM. After all, my animal companion is a pretty major class feature. If it's going to be a serious PITA every time I turn around, I'll simply start gaming the system - take animal companions that will travel just about anywhere, for example. After all, a bear can go pretty much anywhere you want it to, particularly when I can directly speak to it.

 

[N'raac]

Most of the time the PCs have no clue that the rogue is pocketing extra loot. The players may know and the DM knows but to bring in that information and act on it is metagaming and something very frowned on at the tables I game at. And there is a big difference between being a ream player and being a Borg. If the rogue needs to steal X amount to stay in good standing with the local thieves guild how is that different than the cleric of a good god doing what his church commands both can drag the rest of the party into something they may have not wanted to be dragged into.

Sleight of hand is opposed by Spot. Sooner or later, someone should notive that rogue skimming off the top. Of course, if the rogue is only doing so when unobserved, he hardly needs sleight of hand to do so. The Fighter could do the same thing.

The party makes the choice - regarding cleric or rogue - of whether the benefits he brings to the team are worth the drawbacks. If the rogue has been played as a jerk, the rest of the party may well think "good riddance". Same for the cleric. If they bring value to the group, helping them out becomes a lot more likely.

Like I said earlier a lot of this is holdover from AD&D which encouraged thieves to steal and since most of the people I play with having been playing since back then it is hard to get them to change how they have always played a rogue. Luckily it is not a popular class with our group not by itself usually a rogue is combined with a fighter type to make an effective scout or dungeoneer.

From 1e/basic, I never had too many issues of "thieves stealing from the party". Nor did I see Wizards charm the fighter into giving up their loot, or fighters beating up the clerics and taking their cash. They generally worked as a team. That's also player dynamics, of course - PVP games are out there too, but that wasn't the point of the game to me, or most of the people I gamed with.

 

[pemerton]

Or just run a game that enforces limits. Maybe you don't have unlimited time to accomplish your goals - after a day or two, the bad guys will accomplish a goal and move on. Perhaps someone has **gasp** broken the Stasis Spell that keeps everyone and everything in the dungeon frozen in time until the PC's open a door or otherwise enter their immediate area, so they prepare and reinforce after a first strike takes out their advance guard.

There are limits to what can be done using these sorts of techniques.

First, the amount of time required to craft items is measured in days, not years. The PCs having no days off ever is as unverisimilitudinous as the world never moving on.

Second, most D&D campaigns are set up so that the players can take their PCs on adventures. So if the GM shuts down one set of adventures due to the passage of ingame time (the bad guys move on, the dungeon reinforces itself to become impenetrable), how is the campaign going to progress? The GM will have to prepare another set of adventures, in which the players of the casters then get the benefit of their prepration.

Maybe the prevalence of hiding in extradimensional spaces has led to tactics against that. We track them to the point their footprints just disappear. There's a bunch of footprints circling this one little area. Maybe a Dispel Magic in the air above that point will yield some results? Maybe we should just dig a pit, or build a bonfire, under that point? Maybe we should just disperse back into the woods 50 to 100 feet back, surrounding that area, get some nice cover and concealment, and wait for the rope to fall out, at which time we can start taking pot shots at the fellows climbing down the rope.

But if the fellows climbing down the rope have had their 8 hours of rest, then they'll be coming down under cover of Protection from Normal Missiles, Mage Armour, Stoneskin etc. And as per my previous paragraph, this won't be a disadvantage for the players - they get to play out an encounter which their PCs probably win! Which is, for many, a big part of the point of playing the game.