why are wizards so weak?

[Lonely Tylenol]

Heh, I didn't think that would come up so fast.
Better to give attck roll spells a +1/2 caster level bonus to hit then have wizards be so good at overall combat. Again, imo.

(And yes, I think 1/2 BAB is fairly solid combat capability)

Well, versus touch AC it is, anyway.

 

[demonpunk]

wizard

So I guess it is Evokers that are disproportionally weak?

Ha! Never heard that one before.

I think that, as stated before, its the way you play a wizard that makes them powerful or not. I think the PHB could have done more to explain how to play a wizard. A few points:

1) Older edition wizards had much higher XP required to level up than most classes. With 3E the classes are more balanced, so the wizard seems less god-powerful. Its still the only class that can wipe out an entire town guard at 5th level (with one well placed fireball).

2) In general, wizard direct damage spells do more damage than a fighter can do in one round, and hit more effectively (again, 1st level the exception).

3) Wizards play very differently than most classes. A fighter can attack with his sword every round and hit fairly often. He can take out smaller opponents one at a time or wittle down a bigger opponent. A wizard gets only a few spells per day, but has a chance of taking out many small opponents or one big one with only one spell. Often, the wizard is better at buffing his allies or gettin the party past tricky non-combat encounters. The fighter is easy to pick up and play--attack the bad guy every round. The wizard takes much more planning to play well, and this can be frustrating.

4) Wands. Scrolls. Any wizard above 1st level should have some magic item spells to burn. 50 fireballs in a stick is nasty.

My players mostly go for the warrior types, but the next campaign we're starting will be mostly spellcasters, so it should be a fun change of pace.

 

[Zweihänder]

Utility Spells can turn the other player characters into "Swedish Murder Machines" in their own right.

I like the cut of your jib!

 

[WizarDru]

Hmmm...so it seems that the wizard is good for battlefield control, buffing friends, debuffing enemies, etc., but lousy for direct damage.

So I guess it is Evokers that are disproportionally weak?

Weak, how? Weak as in they don't deal huge heaping damage in one fell swoop or repeatedly? Perhaps. A fireball or lightning bolt, for example, is better for damaging multiple enemies than a single death-blow. Spells like Horrid Wilting or Disintegrate, however, are just the ticket for pain-deailng. More importantly, a prepared wizard can bypass many tough defenses. Someone above characterized the magic missle as useless, and I can't figure out why. In our Barakus game, I saved the party from a potential TPK when we came across a ghost: only the power of magic missle stopped it. It never rolls a '1', it can hit incorporeal beings and it scales for the early levels. How about Scorching Ray? Ice Storm? Cone of Cold? A wizard has, at his fingertips, the ability to lay the hurt on creatures that sometimes can't be hurt any other way.

Not to mention the power of metamagic. With the mad bonus feats of a wizard, you can lay down some serious smack. Use Scribe Scroll to increase your daily capacity. Take spell focus and spell penetration to make your spells more difficult to deal with. How about a maximized empowered disintegrate? How about a sonically-substituted maximized empowered fireball? And so on, and so forth. Never mind that almost all these spells can be delivered at the safety of a long distance, something the melee character can't enjoy. No, evokers are right where they need to be. No, they're not outdamaging specialized fighters...nor should they. They excel at dealing damage in a variety of ways in situations where the melee characters can't. Which is part of being a team.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Someone above characterized the magic missle as useless, and I can't figure out why.

That was me, I think.

I meant that Magic Missile was largely useless at 1st level. When you've only got 1-2 1st level slots for the day, taking a sure-fire 1d4+1 damage isn't all that hot. If you're fighting incorporeal creatures and the like at 1st level, well, not having Magic Missile is low on the totem pole of your problems.

True Strike will give you a guaranteed 1d8 with your crossbow, which has a higher average damage than a single MM.

But at 1st level, a wizard shouldn't be trying to deal damage. He should be taking advantage of spells like Sleep and Grease which can disrupt multiple enemies ... and leave the damage to the barbarian's 2d6+4. At 3rd level, when magic missile gets better and you've got a slot or two to spend, THEN it's a wonderful spell.

--fje

 

[LostSoul]

I'm playing my first Wizard character now, and it's killer. He seems able to handle any type of encounter, be they melee-smashers, casters, or sneaks; and get the hell out of dodge if things go pear-shaped.

And I've never cast Fireball.

edit: And the non-combat spells make the character effective all the time, not just on the battlefield or in the dark alleys.

 

[ForceUser]

2) In general, wizard direct damage spells do more damage than a fighter can do in one round, and hit more effectively (again, 1st level the exception).

Sort of. A fighter can do more damage to an individual or an adjacent group of foes than a wizard can, thanks to feats such as Weapon Specialization, Power Attack, and Great Cleave, but a wizard tends to hit more targets in a single attack, thus doing more aggregate damage (less damage per target, more damage overall). Unless, of course, the wizard is throwing around empowered or maxmized damage spells. He won't have too many of those, though, while a fighter can happily carve people up all day long.

4) Wands. Scrolls. Any wizard above 1st level should have some magic item spells to burn. 50 fireballs in a stick is nasty.

Ab-so-freaking-lutely. It never fails to amaze me when someone says that sorcerers outnuke wizards. Sure, in spells per day. But any wizard worth his salt is going to pick up at least one item creation feat, and you can't go wrong with Craft Wand. A wand of fireballs is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Sure, the DC is low, and the damage is only 5d6 or so, but when a wizard's done controlling the battlefield (his primary occupation) and has nothing else to do, he might as well lay down a few freebie fireballs to soften things up. I can't stress this enough.

 

[frankthedm]

evocation is weak because HP are higher than previous editions and the Splat books are giving conjuration energy Touch attack spells without SR.

Saves almost always go up faster than touch AC. In fact, most tougher foes have less touch ac than thier schlubs, servants and mooks. Most evokes give saves and SR. Scorching Ray, the best lowish level single target damage no save evoke is of the most commonly resisted energy.

This coupled with too many 1 critter BBEGs results in direct hampering of direct damage effects.

 

[Plane Sailing]

My theory is that, with the change to 3E, monsters and PC's got more hit points, but wizards' spells did not do more damage to catch up.

Most (not all) respondents haven't really taken this point into account, but for better or worse it has led to a huge depowering of wizards vis a vis their original role.

In OD&D I don't think wizard fireballs were capped, and they were doing 1d6 per level which was pretty much equivalent to peoples HD (at least until the Greyhawk supplement. Diaglo could provide more details).

From there on through 1e a wizards 10d6 fireball was still a significant threat to nearly any of the MM creatures (which were doing quite well to have 8d8 hp). Fighters by this time were typically doing, what, 1d8+8 damage a round or so?

I can't speak to 2e, never played it.

But in 3e the wizard is still doing 10d6 damage while the MM creatures hp are all buffed up to a huge level by their Con bonuses. Interestingly fighters can now normally inflict more damage on a single target in a full round attack than a wizard can (a complete turn around from the early days).

The merits of this relative weakening of the wizards offensive capacity can be debated (as it is above, very interestingly), but the fact that wizards offensive power has been pegged at best while hp and damage causing capacity in melee has skyrocketed is surely beyond debate.

Cheers

 

[CronoDekar]

The only thing I've done in 3.5 is increase the Wizards HD from d4 to d6. I just couldn't fathom why the Wizard should have so few hps, when creatures of the Fey type have at least a d6. It's seemed to make low level Wizards a bit better at surviving a single attack, and the potential for 2 more hps per level hasn't been terribly unbalancing.

I believe Monte Cook had an article on this when he was initially plugging Arcana Unearthed (which has d6 as the lowest HD). He said that while developing 3e they knew d4 was not enough HP, but it was mainly precident that got in the way of changing it. If they upped wizards to d6, then they'd have to up rogues to d8 (since they're supposed to have better HP), and then subsequently upped everyone else's HD.