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

[billd91]

There are tons of problems with tier 1 caster (many of them outlined here). However, one of the main problems with tier 1 casters versus martial melee characters is the Action Economy framework of the 3.x/PF system. The action economy of casting a spell is bound up in standard actions. Spellcasters' payload scales along the paradigm of the standard action as they level up. However, this is not the way for martial melee (ranged manyshot excluded) characters. Their payload is bound up in the full attack action and therefore scales with usage of that action economy framework. As such, forgoing a full attack in order to leverage a move action and a standard action becomes more and more punitive as the game progresses; punitive to the point that anything other than standing in front of an enemy and rock-em sock-em full attack routine is costing you and your group in the action economy game versus your enemies. In a game as swingy as mid to high level D&D, that is a very, very bad idea. Further, the same goes for monsters with multi-attack routines that rely on full attack actions; the main reason why high level enemies have to be casters because kiting/shutting down melee enemies is a joke...and the reason why dragons go from being dragons to...well sorcerers.

Why they went this route, I don't know. Standardizing the action economy in 3.x/PF would address a few (not remotely all) of the problems between casters and melee characters (however, it would also help casters in the summon game and when they want to turn into fighters themselves...). Further, it would create more dynamically mobile combat, more room for tactical depth, and less action economy relevant trap feats like spring attack. At the end of our 3.x days, I had brutally house-ruled the system (including removing full attack actions and standardizing the action economy) such that it actually looked like...well, 4e.

I don't think it's particularly mysterious why they went this route. It's historical. In 1e and 2e, PCs who weren't in melee contact with their opponents had to close first, and if they had to do so, they were allowed a melee attack. In 1e, within melee contact is within 1" of scale (10' indoors, 30' outdoors). In 2e, the rule for movement and melee says characters can move half their full round movement rate and get a melee attack. In neither case does it state that the PCs can get their full melee attack rate or melee attack routine. It's just a melee attack. 2e's rule translates quite well into the move action/standard action formulation for 3e.

The big question is why did spellcasters, who used to be unable to move or gain their Dex bonus in a round when they are casting, suddenly get to take a move action along with most of their spells? That's the real change. My guess is it was the unfun complaint. So they removed those two drawbacks. Then they included a Concentration check when hit so the spell loss isn't automatic. And then magic item creation. And then most differing spell casting times and their effect on initiative. And so on. Very few of those changes, taken in isolation, would undermine game balance (with the possible exception of magic item creation and some really cocked up prices). Taken all together, you've got a different animal for any player willing to exploit it.

For what it's worth, standardizing the action economy is a frequent remedy - but most often directed toward dropping the spellcaster back into a slower and more vulnerable mode. And I think from a simulative perspective, that works pretty well.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't think it's particularly mysterious why they went this route. It's historical. In 1e and 2e, PCs who weren't in melee contact with their opponents had to close first, and if they had to do so, they were allowed a melee attack. In 1e, within melee contact is within 1" of scale (10' indoors, 30' outdoors). In 2e, the rule for movement and melee says characters can move half their full round movement rate and get a melee attack. In neither case does it state that the PCs can get their full melee attack rate or melee attack routine. It's just a melee attack. 2e's rule translates quite well into the move action/standard action formulation for 3e.

That's fair and more than likely correct. When I would reverse engineer the design framework in my mind, I've always looked at 3.x through the prism of the numerous changes rather than what it shared with AD&D. So I suspect the "why" is likely as you surmise. If true though, as delricho above upthread, it doesn't say much for the rigour of the playtesting and the designing if just from a thought experiment perspective.

For what its worth, normalizing the action economy helped us on both sides as it had the least moving parts (and thus 2nd order interactions) and it made both melee PCs more effective/functional and melee monsters/NPC more threatening and relevant at higher levels.

 

[MoonSong]

- Nerf and hard code spells.
- Remove problem child spells or put them into a Ritual paradigm so that the scope of the game doesn't become bound up into "How can we circumvent this encounter, adventure, plot arc with a spell"...and then the DM has to respond in kind with contrived, adversarial nonsense and the rock/paper/scissors game feeds back on itself ad infinitum.
- Less spells.
- Nerf companions and summons.
- Nerf spell DC scaling.
- Standardize the Action Economy such that melee characters' and monsters' payload isn't bound up in a full attack routine (thus rendering tactical mobility null) but scales with Standard Actions just like tier 1 casters.
- Better, richer, more thematically and tactically deep options for martial archetypes.

That fixes most of the problems with the tier 1 spellcasters and brings the martial melee characters (and high level melee monsters) more in-line.

The problem is, using those axes to nerf high tier casters, end up hurting lower tier ones. I mean would you really deny a sorcerer who wishes to specialize on picking locks the ability to do so with a spell? Take away a ranger's companion or a paladin's mount or reduce them to fluff/a trap choice? Limit specialzed classes such the humble healer to have less chances to do the only thing they are good for? or make it so the only thing theya re supossed to be good for is nothing but a useless effort and a waste of time?

 

[Elf Witch]

Well, I did mention the tasty hobbits and gnomes rather than humans. Mmm, bite size! Still, I think the real issue is something else:

I think [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point is that exactly the same reasoning should explain the bear companion's willingness to stick and keep its head underwater.

[_quote] It is not the same at all as I said people train bears without magic. The keep the bears well fed when there is an attack you will usually find extenuating circumstances like the bear was sick or something or someone was stressing it out. The white tiger that attacked Roy had been distracted by a woman who had a elaborate hair do and reached out her arm to pet the tiger. Roy stepped in front of the tiger fell and the tiger grabbed him by the neck. Most think that since he did not grab and shake he was not trying to kill Roy. They think that the tiger who had been with him since a cub was trying to drag him away to safety like a mother with a cub.

Since bears do swim and will dive then as I said earlier I would allow the druid to spend some time training the bear to stay under water it would not be that hard to do. But again there is a difference between diving for food and spending and extended amount of time under water and even fighting under water.

As a DM I don't want to stop my players from having fun but that does not mean that you can't give them challenges. Because of the size of most animal companions there may be places they can't go simply because they don't fit or they lack the physical ability to over come obstacles a horse cannot climb up the side of a mountain. So it might make better sense to leave it until you come back. They are not familiars who if something happens to them is going to effect the druid/ranger in any way other then a role playing way if something happens to them. [_/quote]

Is the Heal skill not an adequate fallback?

Also, what about the case where the party don't have an appropriate scroll available?

(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.)

(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!)


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.


I decided to risk it.



Fair enough. What about the Cleric and the Druid?



Funnily enough, in my current campaign the Rogue has a magic item infused with the knock spell which he uses to bypass his own skills. And very useful it was too, when I recently put in a riddle-locked door and forgot to put in a solution to the riddle. (Oops! Not my best moment.)



Actually, there's a much better solution to the "locked door and no Rogue" problem - for every door in the place include at least one key!

As for the wider issue with knock, generally speaking I agree. However, as has frequently been said, just because you can house rule an issue away doesn't mean it isn't bad design. Or, in this case, just because table convention can remove an issue doesn't mean it isn't bad design.


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.




I don't really want to weigh in on the "bears underwater" argument, but I do agree with the above. Provided it's done occasionally this is fine. What isn't fine is where the DM is constantly looking for ways to negate the abilities of the PCs (or, even worse, one PC in particular).

[_quote]Heal is only good for stabilizing not for getting a PC up and being able to function. If they don't have a scroll or potion then they are out of luck. But I would hate to say oh you have a scroll of heal sorry can't use it or you have exactly the scroll you need to move on sorry can't use it. I would much rather see limits like you can only cast x amount of scrolls a day than tie it to spell slots.

I think one of the biggest mistake is the way the game assumes that every village of a certain size has X amount if items. This should be left up to the DM depending on how high a magic level game he wants to run. There should be guidelines as examples to help DMs but it should be clear that these are guidelines. I rarely allow magic items to be found any place other than larger cities that have magic schools or guilds.

Yes keys work and so do other things I just like having the option of having a knock spell for somethings. What if they can't find a key or the the other ways are to noisy. Having a scroll of knock can come in handy and if you want to make it hard to use make it take longer to work.

I have to be honest here in 30 years of play I have never played in a game where the mage who has used their powerful spells before hand out shine the fighters on a regular basis. I have yet to see it happening that often in a game where a DM has designed encounters that require the entire party to be able to contribute to succeed. You got a mage that likes to use save or die spells then let him but hold back some of the NPCs make him use them up on the first few waves then send in some more.

I agree that a DM should not be looking for ways to negate abilities all the time. But there is nothing wrong with taking players out of their comfort zones either now and again. I played in a campaign where there were these traveling mage storms that made magic act wonky. We got hit with one just as a kraken attacked the ship we were on. We found that our magic would work but we were taking blow back damage from the spell basically we took half the damage we dealt. We had a choice take damage or attack using mundane methods. The wizard after taking the damage started firing crossbolts at the thing. In the end it was the fighter, paladin and the monk who did most of the damage with the paladin in a last ditch desperate attempt threw his most powerful spell prepared to die if necessary to save the ship. Not one of us felt that DM had screwed us over we loved the encounter because it was challenging and even the player who was willing to sacrifice his PC loved it. It was an epic battle that was talked about for months.

A good DM knows when and how often to throw these kind of encounters at a party. A good DM knows when to nerf the magic users and let the mundanes shine brightly and vice versa it is a matter of planning and knowing what your players want out of the game. [_/quote]

The number of 19th level MUs in play in AD&D games back in the day? Approximately zero. So those 19d6 fireballs generally didn't come into play.

(There may have been more than a negligible number used by GMs as NPC antagonists, but that raises issues of encounter design, not class balance.)

Really absolutely zero I guess then my 21 level wizard back in 2E didn't exist and was a figment of my imagination. [_/quote]

I have a question I'd like to put the posters here.

I've notice that the fact divine spell casters have access to the entire spell list is one of the chief complaints.

I was wondering, if the cleric/druid/whomever asked for a certain spell, have you ever had the deity step in and say "I can grant you that but I want X in return".

I've seen it done where it lead to some awesome role-playing and I've seen it result in a half hour bicker-fest between the player and gm.

I'm just curious if anyone else has had experience with that.

[_quote] I have seen it done now and then. The example that comes to mind was a cleric who wanted to speak with the dead his god ST Cuthbert told him he could not give him that power because the spirit was in the hands of another god and the cleric would have to petition that god directly. The cleric did and had to bargain doing something for the god in exchange for the spell. [_/quote]

Which in 3.5 means that you have to be about second level - and not count cantrips.


]I don't think I could better underline one of the core problems of the wizard. "A wizard who memorizes this spell gives up other better useful spells". But the rogue, naturally, can't do any of the better useful things a wizard can so he pitches in by picking locks and allowing the wizard fun toys. 4e Knock wins here - it takes a minute to cast when the rogue can have the lock open in seconds.


The point is the rogue should be better at picking locks than the wizard. That you have to impose metagame limits on very basic roleplaying just points to a problem with the system. { [_quote]



No rogue in the party has never stopped me either. If necessary the PCs can use a crow bar or even a battering ram. Picking locks merely allows stealth and speed. An unpickable lock can still be forced. So the entire argument vanishes in a puff of smoke..




If you don't want to be special and powerful don't play a fighter." Right.

As for "An epic level fighter can mow down most armies", Giant in the Playground had a series of duels. Level 13 wizard vs Level 20 fighter. The wizard was seriously nerfed - no teleporting away, no prebuffing, no scrying. And the fighter did win one - but that had nothing to do with being a fighter rather than being a glorified commoner with three quarters of a million GP worth of equipment. The level 20 fighter wasn't a match for the level 13 wizard, despite the wealth.



And for an army? 1 arrow in 20 from the commoners is going to hit. Doing about d8 damage. 400 archers with light crossbows? That level 20 fighter is going down like Jacques Cousteau.

The squishiest team member can protect himself. A high level wizard is a hell of a lot harder to kill than a high level fighter (who just gets punked by something against his will save). The fighter's schtick is waving a pointy bit of metal around. This can be fun. A big part of the wizard's schtick is making pointy bits of metal irrelevant. This too can be fun. Unfortunately, put the two together and there are problems.

To put things another way, in the 1970s Pong looked like a fun computer game. As computer games go, a high level fighter is still playing pong - the wizard, meanwhile, is carrying a smartphone loaded with games. Including pong (Tenser's Transformation) if the wizard can be bothered.

[_quote] Okay say your second level character has six spells. At least one of those is going to be some mind of protection spell that leaves five others. Now since mage armor got nerfed you want to hold a spell back for another encounter so that gives your four so you can chose to use two in two encounters are blow all of them and if you have encounters later in the say use mundane ways that you are not as effective with to find a way to contribute to the party that is hardly over powered.

The rogue gets to not only pick locks but also disable traps something the knock spells does not do and he can do on door after door until the cows come home. And he can still use all his combat abilities in combat because they have nothing to do with his pick lock ability. A wizard main ability is casting spells that have to balance casting utility spells with combat spells balance it wrong then they are not as effective as they could or should be. It takes two spells from two different casters to accomplish what a rogue can do and his is not a limited resource.

So your party routinely carries crowbars and battering rams? There are times neither will work because you need to break in without a lot of noise or attention breaking into the mayor house with a battering ram is going to draw attention a crowbar makes noise and neither works on a magical lock. There are just times that having the ability to cast knock makes the game less frustrating for the players.

That is just so much BS I have played plenty of fighter types and I always felt powerful and special. Yes you are right I could not reorder time and do powerful magical things. But I could swing my weapon with great efficiency mowing down my enemies and I could do this all day without worrying that I had to conserve my resources. I also had the ability to go toe to toe with a powerful bad guy and live because of my sheer amount of hit points. There are times I want to play a physical character a warrior like Xena I don't want to be magical. Other times I do want the power of of a magic. I know players who prefer playing melee types over mages. They don't worry that the mage may be more flashy and more powerful where magic is concerned they enjoy the power that comes with being good at using a weapon. And good DMs build encounters where everyone gets their chance in the spotlight.

I remember that and my thought was so what all they proved was that a wizard in a duel who is prepared for that duel is more likely to win against a higher level fighter. But it does not represent what happens in combat I have seen far to many wizards die at the hands of fighters to ever think that a fighter does not have a chance to take down a wizard. Duels are nothing like combat in the game where you have a team working together. I had a wizard taken down by a fighter and rogue who flanked me and I could not get away because I had used up most of my spells already on earlier encounters. I had a couple of scrolls that would have helped but I could not get to them without getting a AOO from both of them. I surrendered and they knocked me out.

My experience tells me that as a wizard I need fighter types that I cannot do it alone and I need them to help keep those fighters with their multi attacks and their D8 weapons away from my me and my more limited amount of hit points.

So you are claiming that in over 30 years of play we were not having fun and the players who still play 3.5 by the thousands are just to dumb to realize that you can't mix mundane fighters and wizards in the same game and expect their players to have an equally good time. I know to many player who would disagree that they fill that playing a fighter is like playing pong. If you don't like how wizards and fighters work in 3.5 then house rule them or play 4E which sounds closer to how you want to play. Just realize that your experiences and opinions are not universal just like I realize that mine are not universal. [_/quote]

Bravo. The wizard has better, more important things to do than open locks. What does the rogue have that's more important? Or is this a case of leaving less important tasks to the lesser members of the party while the wizard handles the important things?

[_quote] Just read what I said above about rogues and all the other things they get to do and it is not about things being more or less important. A rogue who uses his ability to pick locks will still be able to effectively do his job in combat which is to flank and sneak attack. A wizard on the other hand who uses up all their spells on knock then cannot do their job in combat so basically they will having to do what the melee character do which is hit things with a weapon or fire crossbolts and they do this far less effectively than the fighter, cleric, rogue, monk, druid. The rogue will also still be available to use his skill at scouting, picking more locks disabling traps to get to the loot. While the wizard who has blown all their spells on knock can stand their picking their nose and scratching their butt. [_/quote]

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't think it's particularly mysterious why they went this route. It's historical. In 1e and 2e, PCs who weren't in melee contact with their opponents had to close first, and if they had to do so, they were allowed a melee attack. In 1e, within melee contact is within 1" of scale (10' indoors, 30' outdoors). In 2e, the rule for movement and melee says characters can move half their full round movement rate and get a melee attack. In neither case does it state that the PCs can get their full melee attack rate or melee attack routine. It's just a melee attack. 2e's rule translates quite well into the move action/standard action formulation for 3e.

The big question is why did spellcasters, who used to be unable to move or gain their Dex bonus in a round when they are casting, suddenly get to take a move action along with most of their spells? That's the real change. My guess is it was the unfun complaint. So they removed those two drawbacks. Then they included a Concentration check when hit so the spell loss isn't automatic. And then magic item creation. And then most differing spell casting times and their effect on initiative. And so on. Very few of those changes, taken in isolation, would undermine game balance (with the possible exception of magic item creation and some really cocked up prices). Taken all together, you've got a different animal for any player willing to exploit it.

For what it's worth, standardizing the action economy is a frequent remedy - but most often directed toward dropping the spellcaster back into a slower and more vulnerable mode. And I think from a simulative perspective, that works pretty well.

The version I heard was that there were two catastrophic mistakes in playtesting. The first was that 3.0 was playtested as if it was 2e. And if you play 3e as if it was 2e (with things such as wizards reaching for the direct damage spells when they want to be effective rather than ignoring them in favour of the conjuration school) it works. It just breaks when you play 3e as its own game. The second is they only playtested up to level 6 or so. They couldn't really go much further, and there's a reason e6 is popular.
[MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION], you've seriously mangled your UBB coding to the point I can barely make out what you are trying to say.

 

[billd91]

Elf Witch, you're getting a lot of underscores at the beginning of your tags. Get rid of those and much of your multiquote should be OK.

 

[Ravellion]

If I may ask, are there any other notable fixes Trailblazer made to spellcasting?

I've also heard of a Magic Point thing that all classes get that aids with spellcasting if a spellcaster were to multiclass. Care to give me the skinny of that too?

Sorry, but I am genuinely curious. I don't need exact numbers, just a concept will do.

The "Magic Point thing" is the Base Magic Bonus. Every class has one. You check your BMB total with the spells per day table (which is universal for all classes), unless you have no spellcasting classes. Stuff like extra spells per day (sorcerer) or domain spells prepared (cleric) are then handed out at appropiate levels as class features, but you can gain a lot of the class' spellcasting by multiclassing. You know all spells that are on all of your classes' lists. There are some further balancing features to make sure this does not get all broken.

In trailblazer, access to spells is easy and cheap. Balance is skewed somewhat to martial classes by many different other methods. Summon Monster spells only ever summon a single monster. Martial classes do more damage. There are no extra ways to increase DCs, but saves are easily boosted by action points. Spells are hard to recover, but hit points recover easily. Still, the spells are pretty much the same (only five spells or so are altered). I really can't list them all here.

Admittedly, I hardly play beyond level 10-12. So maybe it all breaks down later on anyway.

 

[Elf Witch]

The version I heard was that there were two catastrophic mistakes in playtesting. The first was that 3.0 was playtested as if it was 2e. And if you play 3e as if it was 2e (with things such as wizards reaching for the direct damage spells when they want to be effective rather than ignoring them in favour of the conjuration school) it works. It just breaks when you play 3e as its own game. The second is they only playtested up to level 6 or so. They couldn't really go much further, and there's a reason e6 is popular.
[MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION], you've seriously mangled your UBB coding to the point I can barely make out what you are trying to say.

I know I am not sure what I did wrong. I have tried to fix it three times and the last time it kept timing out.

 

[Elf Witch]

Elf Witch, you're getting a lot of underscores at the beginning of your tags. Get rid of those and much of your multiquote should be OK.

I am not sure what you mean or how to do that. I suck at computers.

 

[Manbearcat]

The problem is, using those axes to nerf high tier casters, end up hurting lower tier ones. I mean would you really deny a sorcerer who wishes to specialize on picking locks the ability to do so with a spell? Take away a ranger's companion or a paladin's mount or reduce them to fluff/a trap choice? Limit specialzed classes such the humble healer to have less chances to do the only thing they are good for? or make it so the only thing theya re supossed to be good for is nothing but a useless effort and a waste of time?

I'm trying to recall my giant World and Peace of houserules to make the game wieldy for us. I ran my group through not one but two, yes two, 3.x games through high level (3.0 level 1 - 16 and 3.x level 3 - 22). I didn't touch the Rangers pet because it already scaled at 1/2 the druid and wasn't a problem at all. That class was fine. Same for Paladin mount. I did something, I cannot recall what, to incentivize healing priests (I'm pretty sure I did something with swift actions to allow them minor healing spells; that made the humble healer quite fun and effective with more things to do than just heal or not heal. Basically like Healing Word in 4e.). However, at the end, the group consisted of a Generalist Wizard (Yikes), a Druid (Yikes), a Fighter/Mage/Bladesinger (good deal), a Duelist/Rogue/Warlock/Shadow Caster (good deal).

From memory, these are some things that I did to make the game work until I waved the white flag and we played several Indie games until 4e came about.

1) Normalized Action Economy. No more Full Round Actions. Melee Full Attack with Standard Actions.
2) Revised, improved several feats and created others to improve total combat mobility for everyone. Did something to scale 5 ft steps with attacks and created more feats for martial immediate actions.
3) All weak saves (for everything) improved by + 1 at levels 7/13/19.
4) Everyone gets + 1 to all saves at level 11.
6) Made standing up from prone not provoke AoO.
7) Standardized all summoned creatures to specific metrics per level. Summon spells cost you HPs.
8) Druid animal companion scaling moved down two tiers with (level 12-14 benefits at max)
9) Druid wildshaping hard-coded to specific metrics per level attained rather than going through the book and picking stuff. Just reskin it as needed.
10) Removed tons or outright changed the functionality of problem children spells from all spell lists (Divine Power, most conjurations, teleports, divinations including the mundane detect lines which were probably the worst - most constant - offenders of all).
11) Removed rolling for HPs and upped all d4 HP classes to d6 and d6 to d8. d6 = 4 HP/level. d8 = 5 HP/level. d10 = 6 HP/level. 12 = 7 HP/level.
12) Completely altered scroll and wand functionality; they didn't store spells...they gave some other bonuses like in 4e.
13) Normalized tons of status effects.
14) Normalized tons of buffs so they just gave a flat bonus. Also removed several stacking issues.
15) Sneak Attack and Crits on everything (Did something with caster level checks for crits too...can't recall.)

There were tons and tons more but that is just off the top of my head. We all universally agreed on this, Druid and Wizard player as well. All told, regardless of those changes, the Druid and Wizard still were easily the most powerful characters and affected play (and my mental health) the most. Melee monsters and dragons (without being sorcerers) were interesting, viable threats with these changes. The Rogue and F/M were much more mobile and combat was much more mobile and dynamic in general (including more immediate actions). It went faster as well (but was still excruciatingly slow at high level). I remember buff calibration and recalibration (post Dispel) was probably a 20 minute pause in play effort beforehand (these are scientists, accountants and mathematicians we're talking about). That was reduced by the buff overhaul but still way too much overhead. We held it together for as long as we could until we burned out in Spring 2007 and stuck to our Indie games and one-offs until 4e came out.