Why are wizards always getting nerfed?

[Ridley's Cohort]

Yeah, thanks... Unfortunately, you seem to have missed the point of my post, or at least forgot to compare this guy with a 12th level 2nd edition Dwarven fighter with 14+ Con and a ring of protection +2 who saves vs. spells on a 4+.

Strangely enough, the fighter in your example also has a Wisdom boosting item and Iron Will, while the wizard doesn't even have Spell Focus.

It proves my point about the worth of thse "wizards got nerfed" comparisons, though...

A fair point.

I built the fighter and wizard how I would play one. The feat choices indicate my own philosophy. I do not bother with Spell Focus. As a matter of fact, sometimes I stack my Will save defenses even deeper.

2e grunts were getting hit by Hold Person all the time. If you will recall, Hold Person in 1e/2e could target up to three people. My experience with 3e is that I get a lot fewer Hold Persons thrown at me.

 

[dcollins]

Wanna do a case study on how that 12th level fighter would have fared against a spell with a Will save then and now? Let's make him a Dwarven fighter with high Con, to make this as fair and unbiased as possible.

Ok. As I was doing previously, I'll use the standard NPCs from the DMG as a baseline for considerations. Likewise, I'll use a 3rd-level mental spell to compare to the vastly reduced fireball.
1st Ed.: Ftr 12 spell save on 10 and up.
3rd Ed.: Wiz DC 10+3+5=18, Ftr Will save +7, Ftr saves on 11 and up.
So within 1 point of each other, very little change.

However, if you look at the spells themselves (you don't specify which), then the effects have been radically nerfed. Typical examples:
Charm person (1st level) -- 1st Ed., duration 3 weeks or more; 3rd Ed., duration 12 hours.
Tasha's hideous laughter (2nd level) -- 1st Ed., special save penalty of -4 for sample Ftr, effects target for 4 rounds; 3rd Ed., no save penalty, duration only 1d3 rounds.
Hold person (3rd level) -- 1st Ed., duration 24 rounds; 3.5 Ed., 12 rounds and repeat the save every round.

And so on.

 

[reapersaurus]

hong - I love watching you work.

Majere - *highfive*

I see Cyraneth hasn't given up on proving to everyone how wrong his statement is.

Eh- I guess ya gotta have a hobby.

 

[Cyraneth]

(...) No, this thread is about one person carrying on that his toys have been taking away from him.

If you consider -playable- wizards to be my "toys", then yes, I feel like it's been taken away. There's no longer any reason to play a fireball-hurling warlock as you'll most likely only dish out 17 points of damage per round (nothing compared to a fighter's 4 attacks, greatsword, Strength bonuses, etc.), and being viewed as nothing more than "useful" by the rest of the party isn't really making any wizard memorable or awe-inspiring. A fighter able to deal 80 points of damage in a round (a fairly easy task), is all that's necessary for a party to win a fight. He might need a spell from the cleric or wizard to ease his task, but that doesn't really make them important. A fighter can be useful outside combat, just like a cleric, wizard, barbarian, or any other class can, so arguing that "fighter should be the ones doing all the fighting 'cause that's the only thing they're good at" is rather silly.

Well, there is also that apparently HUGE, HUGE benefit of no longer being dependent on a spellbook.

As I believe someone pointed out, Spell Mastery doesn't really make that a "HUGE, HUGE" difference.

Life's a bitch and then you die.

Wouldn't it be annoying if a barbarian's, fighter's, ranger's, and paladin's BAB only increased based on their Str or Dex, feats, and the bonus of a superior weapon, with no regular level-based increase? The save DC of a wizard's spells are like that. If they were granted a +20 bonus to save DC over 20 levels like fighter's are granted their BAB, I certainly wouldn't consider wizards powerless. They'd rather be very overpowered, but then again, aren't fighters?

Then play a cleric, and quit whinging like it's 1999.

I'm told to either play a cleric or a sorcerer instead, so why don't we just remove the wizard class entirely? It seems like that's people's opinion, anyway...

- Cyraneth

 

[Darklone]

Cyraneth, it's your opinion, not peoples opinion.

If you can't play a wizard, don't.

 

[Cyraneth]

Cyraneth, it's your opinion, not peoples opinion.

If you can't play a wizard, don't.

I never said I wanted to play a cleric or sorcerer instead, but you guys keep telling me it's the solution to this obvious problem. Is there any reason for keeping the wizard class then? Or the sorcerer for that matter? Other than their usefulness as transports and simple buffers. Yay!... It seems like you guys prefer fighters to be the heroes of your parties, just having one of the players tag along as a wizard for when the party need to teleport somewhere, needs a magic item crafted, or what not. Do you have anything against wizards being in the spotlight every now and then?

- Cyraneth

 

[Cyraneth]

hong - I love watching you work.

Majere - *highfive*

I see Cyraneth hasn't given up on proving to everyone how wrong his statement is.

Eh- I guess ya gotta have a hobby.

I'm just tired of seeing wizards get reduced in power constantly. Why is it only BAB and saves increase over the levels? 'Cause fighter-types benefit from those. Why don't AC and save DCs increase over levels? 'Cause wizard-types would benefit from that. I know there are items that increase all these... except for save DCs. You can get items that increase both Dex and AC, items that increase both Str and attack, and items that increase Dex, Con, Wis, and saves, but save DCs are only modified by their casting stat. Looking at the basics, a fighter has a +31 bonus at level 20 (+20 BAB, +5 enhancement, +6 Str) while a wizard has only a +15 bonus (+6 Int, +9 spell level). A fighter can keep on slicing even the rare times he fails to connect, while a wizard will have to expend one of his four 9th-level spell slots. How can that possibly be fair? And mind that I'm only looking at the rates of success here. Effects (high damage, death, entanglement, etc.) won't mean a thing if they never succeed.

- Cyraneth

 

[Deset Gled]

Wouldn't it be annoying if a barbarian's, fighter's, ranger's, and paladin's BAB only increased based on their Str or Dex, feats, and the bonus of a superior weapon, with no regular level-based increase? The save DC of a wizard's spells are like that.

A brief comparison:

Save DC of a wizard spell is:
10 + spell level + stat modifier

Save for a defending player is:
Roll (average 10.5) + base save bonus + stat modifier

It's also worth noting that the max spell level is 9, while the highest save bonus of a single class is 9. From my point of view, this equal and linear growth is quite well balanced. The variations that come up to this (feats, items, etc) are completely based on factors that are not "regular, level-based increases".

 

[Cyraneth]

A brief comparison:

Save DC of a wizard spell is:
10 + spell level + stat modifier

Save for a defending player is:
Roll (average 10.5) + base save bonus + stat modifier

It's also worth noting that the max spell level is 9, while the highest save bonus of a single class is 9. From my point of view, this equal and linear growth is quite well balanced. The variations that come up to this (feats, items, etc) are completely based on factors that are not "regular, level-based increases".

Don't monks have +12 on all saves at level 20? Plus their cloaks of resistance, Wisdom, Dexterity, and Constitution modifiers, of course...

- Cyraneth

 

[gfunk]

If you consider -playable- wizards to be my "toys", then yes, I feel like it's been taken away. There's no longer any reason to play a fireball-hurling warlock as you'll most likely only dish out 17 points of damage per round (nothing compared to a fighter's 4 attacks, greatsword, Strength bonuses, etc.), and being viewed as nothing more than "useful" by the rest of the party isn't really making any wizard memorable or awe-inspiring. A fighter able to deal 80 points of damage in a round (a fairly easy task), is all that's necessary for a party to win a fight. He might need a spell from the cleric or wizard to ease his task, but that doesn't really make them important.

I believe that you are simply taking the best case scenario for a fighter and comparing it to the worst case scenario for the Wizard.

For example, in your example you claim that a fighter gets 4 attacks which is achievable only by 16th level for a BAB of +16/+11/+6/+1.

Let's compare this to a reasonable Wizard build shall we?

Wizard (Specialty: Enchantment; Barred: Necromancy, Divination)
Level 16
Int 16 (base) + 3 (4 levels) + 6 (enhancement) = 25 (+7)
Relevant Feats: Spell Focus (Enchantment), Greater Spell Focus (Enchantment), Heighten Spell
Relevant DC: Enchantment (DC 19 + spell level)

Spells per day: 4/6/6/6/5/5/4/4/2 (plus an additional bonus spell of Enchantment each level)

Let's see what our Wizard can do with your hypothetical fighter, shall we?

1. Heightened Dominate Person (DC: 27) -- Hey Fighter, you're my bitch now!
2. Maze (no Save) -- Hey Fighter, why don't you chill out in this maze while I buff up
3. Insanity (DC: 26) -- Hey Fighter, I hope you have a cleric with Heal b/c you are screwed otherwise
4. Contigency (on Wizard) -- If someone tries to swing a melee weapon at me, then Dimension Door me 15 feet backwards.
5. Forcecage (no Save) -- [use Barred version] Hey Fighter, you can sit there for 32 h while I pelt you with evocation spells at my leisure.

I think it is quite clear that, AT THE VERY LEAST, the Wizard and Fighter are balanced. Sure Wizards have been reduced in power with the advent of 3.5, but this was not necessarily a bad thing.