Why are wizards always getting nerfed?

[Majere]

"Do you have anything against wizards being in the spotlight every now and then?"

Yes I do
And I would refuse to play with you as well.
I have never sat down and thought "Tonight I want everyone to tell me how great I am", and I have never sat down with anyone who did. I play for fun, with my friends, I dont have to be the hero, or the center of attention.
Ive had games where one spell changed the game, or where I beat everything to a pulp. There were other games I had the right idea, or solved the puzzle. I did do it to get one over my friends, I did it to help the party survive and succeed, because I dont enjoy dieing, or seeing my friend characters die.

If you play for the spot light, you play for all the wrong reasons and I advise you stop roleplaying and go back to your PC/Games console where you can be the hero to your hearts content.
Hero isnt about your class, even the worst character in the world can formulate the plan which saves the party.

As an aside out mages has saved pwipes and countless characters with well time spells, or a craft grease to disarm the BBEG. Mages can be heros, just not all the tie, and that is how it should be

 

[Cyraneth]

You're beginning to lose me with your irrationality here, Cyr.

Well, I've given up on explaining the point to you, but if others are interested in discussing this obvious problem, I'd love to see how the discussion evolves. Wizards only memorizing maze, Otto's irresistible dance, forcecage, power words, and magic missile all the time just to have spells that will actually work will surely become monotonous very quickly, but if that's the way D&D's evolving, I guess I'll just have to tag along.

- Cyraneth

 

[Cyraneth]

"Do you have anything against wizards being in the spotlight every now and then?"

Yes I do
And I would refuse to play with you as well.
I have never sat down and thought "Tonight I want everyone to tell me how great I am", and I have never sat down with anyone who did. I play for fun, with my friends, I dont have to be the hero, or the center of attention.
Ive had games where one spell changed the game, or where I beat everything to a pulp. There were other games I had the right idea, or solved the puzzle. I did do it to get one over my friends, I did it to help the party survive and succeed, because I dont enjoy dieing, or seeing my friend characters die.

If you play for the spot light, you play for all the wrong reasons and I advise you stop roleplaying and go back to your PC/Games console where you can be the hero to your hearts content.
Hero isnt about your class, even the worst character in the world can formulate the plan which saves the party.

As an aside out mages has saved pwipes and countless characters with well time spells, or a craft grease to disarm the BBEG. Mages can be heros, just not all the tie, and that is how it should be

I didn't exactly mean "the spotlight" like that... If it's only the fighters doing everything, 'cause you know your fireball won't do much of a difference (you'll get to that point when you've played a wizard in a party with an overpowered human barbarian and an equally overpowered dwarven cleric/fighter, but then realized that your fireballs did exactly as much of a difference in a regular party), the fighters -are- in the spotlight, whether they want to or not. But that is constantly. That gives you the sense of the game being one of those boring hack'n'slashes... Might be the reason I fear wizards are getting nerfed too. Fighters getting too dominant in combat (or otherwise) would simply degenerate the game to a hack'n'slash fest. *sigh*

- Cyraneth

 

[Cyraneth]

AoE spells like fireball are both a blessing and a curse. As an upside they can hit multiple targets. As a downside said targets can include allies too, which limits their use..

And now that big bad creatures (ogres, dragons, size Large demons and devils, etc.) take up quite a lot of space, hitting multiple targets is even less likely than before.

- Cyraneth

 

[gfunk]

Wizards only memorizing maze, Otto's irresistible dance, forcecage, power words, and magic missile all the time just to have spells that will actually work will surely become monotonous very quickly

Hmmmm . . . I suppose it could become monotonous. Assuming of course you don't consider it monotonous when the Fighter swings his sword every single combat.

 

[Cyraneth]

Hmmmm . . . I suppose it could become monotonous. Assuming of course you don't consider it monotonous when the Fighter swings his sword every single combat.

Well, he does just swing the sword every combat, doesn't he? Doesn't take much tactical or strategic knowledge, but gets the job done. And that is monotonous. Another reason I'm not fond of fighters, but then again, they can attempt to trip, sunder, grapple, bull rush, etc. But why should they? Just smash the the bad guy, take his loot, pick up the wasted wizard, and walk home. Terribly simple, isn't it?

- Cyraneth

 

[Scion]

Lots of things have been hashed over in this thread, although it seems like people are getting a bit under one anothers skin

//House rules, sorry:

In my campaign I have changed a few things as I have seen the same problem that I think cyraneth is trying to say.

Firstly, I have gotten rid of all save or dies, and a few spells that come close.

Secondly, charm type spells are cast on yourself and give you bonuses to various skills and charisma. (saves on a lot of headaches)

Thirdly, wizards and sorcerers have been given double the spells per day they would get otherwise, but they are only allowed to cast up to half of their alloted spells per day as combat/attacking spells. Effectively to give them a lot of utility castings, and a decent amount of combat spells, but not an overpowering amount of either.

Really, when you only have 2 spells to cast of your top level, and 3 of the next while needing to cast 1 of these 5 to even have a chance of even making a contribution to whatever is being done (combat, out of combat)

This has not been overbalancing, in fact I think it actually puts these arcane casters closer in general usefulness as other classes.

(of course I also give everyone 2 skill points to use in any knowledge/proffesion/craft skills per level to the benefit of their character which helps out the fighters incredibly)

//end house rules

As far as it goes there are powerful wizard builds and incredibly weak ones. Generally I'd rather play an interesting character than the overpowered one, but why should anyone be punished into uselessnes while just trying to be a useful and fun character?

 

[DMScott]

Um... Dude, Cyraneth's the one talking about Fireballs doing 17 damage. I'm the guy being sarcastic. Try looking at my other posts.

Sorry about that, I was using the generic "reader out there" you, didn't mean to attribute that behaviour to, well, you in particular.

 

[reapersaurus]

Cyraneth, meet Grishnak: http://enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=62975

 

[hong]

With 2+ Clerics in the group they were _severely_ overpowered in 3.0. The 3.5 changes have alleviated this. However I went and gave them limited spell lists & spontaneous casting anyway, and now I'm a happy DM bunny.

I replaced the cleric with a tweaked OA shaman in my game. It only gets d6 HD and a good Will save, but also an expanded skill list, 4 skill points/level and a bunch of bonus feats. It's basically less purely focused on buttkicking and more flexible out of combat.

At first I was worried that I'd gone too far and they'd be overshadowed by the fighters, but the player seems to be having little difficulty kicking tail if the need arises. Although it helps that I also powered up the cure spells and gave plentiful access to wands of CLW.