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Wizard limitations in 3e? Read first post before answering please.
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<blockquote data-quote="lolstrider7" data-source="post: 5900724" data-attributes="member: 6693655"><p>I am very familiar with and use these rules. </p><p></p><p>As Ashtagon pointed out, these rules are trivial past 3rd level. However, he didn't emphasize quite how trivial they are. </p><p></p><p>First, the gold costs:</p><p>1) I will not discuss the many, many, many ways that wizards have to generate cash outside of encounters. How very Ciceronian of me. </p><p>2) Boccob's Blessed Book negates the cost for scribing the scroll into your book, and basically eliminates the page requirement too (also overlooked often). This is first reasonably affordable at 8th level by WBL. </p><p>3) The cost for copying a spell is if you purchase it from another character- and it is listed as "usually." Charm Person and Dominate Person exist for a reason <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />. Alternatively, just steal the another Wizard's spellbook and start decrypting. Or just prepare from his spellbook.</p><p>4) Finally, Wizards don't even require that many spells to make the gold requirement that useful. Honestly they can get what they need with their free spells per level... everything else is just gravy. Get the staple spells- Contingency, Polymorph, Planar Binding, Wish, Disintegrate, Major Creation, Fabricate, Some BFC's, Some SoD's, maybe a direct damage spell or two. That will make you far and above more competent than any non-Cleric, non-Druid, non-Artificer party member. And that's just Core material. </p><p></p><p>Second, the spellcraft check:</p><p>This check is completely trivial... any Wizard who can't make a level-appropriate Spellcraft with a decent success rate is not competent. With 4 ranks and 18 INT at level 1, you have a +8 right off the top... That's a 60% success rate on the highest level spell you could cast with no optimization or investment whatsoever. For example, at level 2 (when you can feasibly afford to start purchasing spells or scrolls), your spellcraft check should be at a minimum of +13 (5 ranks, +2 synergy from Knowledge (arcana), +4 from INT, +2 masterwork tool). That's a 90% success rate with very little investment and optimization. At level 3 and above, you should have a 100% success rate without an issue, whether through spells that enhance skill checks, INT, or Spellcraft checks. Hell, a wand of Guidance of the Avatar is 4,500 gp and makes any Wizard with an INT of 16 or higher with a single rank in Spellcraft auto-pass the check to scribe a spell into his spellbook. </p><p></p><p>Also, as for the proposed "limitations":</p><p>These are laughable at best, for several reasons. I shall address each "limitation" individually:</p><p>1) Reduce Spell Slots: First, a Wizard typically needs 1-2 spells/encounter to be effective, so you're not limiting a wizard's effectiveness in combat at all by reducing spell slots. Second, outside of core, this is no issue at all... as you can just use any number of tricks to either generate spell slots or redistribute them. If anyone is curious... I could list them but that would take up another thread entirely. In core, a Wizard Shapechanges into a Solar and gains Cleric casting. Solved. </p><p>2) No Player Created Magic Items: First, if anyone thinks that Scrolls are a key to break the game for non-Artificers, he/she is sorely misguided- scribing scrolls is a gimmick at best. Second, by not allowing players to create magic items, you are eliminating many other classes' effectiveness. An Artificer is now hamstrung (and still better than most other classes given access to any single wand). Monks, Fighters, and Rogues become even more crippled (no custom UMD-boosting items for spell usage), and reducing their effective WBL by 1/2. If nothing else, this "limitation" is strictly a Druid buff (they have limited use for items anyway). Like Druids need it. </p><p>3) Remove Unlimited Spell Access and Learning: First, if anyone thinks that wizards have access to infinite spells, then he/she doesn't understand the rules governing wizard spells. Spells take up pages in spellbooks and do, in fact, take time and money to procure, even with the methods I outlined above. By doing removing this feature, then there's no reason to play a Wizard over a Sorcerer, except for metamagic. </p><p>4) Class Stealing Spells: It's really laughable the OP mentions Invisibility and Knock and not... say... Polymorph or Summon Monster. Wizards will jump through hoops to cast these spells, and it's probably better to just ban the entire polymorph line than to attempt any sort of cost fix though.</p><p>5) Make Combat Casting difficult: I can't even remember the last time I've seen a competently-played wizard even hit while casting a spell. But then again, most of those wizards believe it's better to not get hit than to improve Concentration. </p><p></p><p>TL;DR</p><p>The listed rules and limitations in the PHB are mostly trivial past level 3, and completely trivial past level 8. In other words, it's something to be mindful of, but does nothing whatsoever to curb the power of wizards. </p><p>It's not wizards specifically that are OP in D&D... it's magic in general.</p><p></p><p>Edit:</p><p>I don't agree with the quadratic wizard problem</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="lolstrider7, post: 5900724, member: 6693655"] I am very familiar with and use these rules. As Ashtagon pointed out, these rules are trivial past 3rd level. However, he didn't emphasize quite how trivial they are. First, the gold costs: 1) I will not discuss the many, many, many ways that wizards have to generate cash outside of encounters. How very Ciceronian of me. 2) Boccob's Blessed Book negates the cost for scribing the scroll into your book, and basically eliminates the page requirement too (also overlooked often). This is first reasonably affordable at 8th level by WBL. 3) The cost for copying a spell is if you purchase it from another character- and it is listed as "usually." Charm Person and Dominate Person exist for a reason ;). Alternatively, just steal the another Wizard's spellbook and start decrypting. Or just prepare from his spellbook. 4) Finally, Wizards don't even require that many spells to make the gold requirement that useful. Honestly they can get what they need with their free spells per level... everything else is just gravy. Get the staple spells- Contingency, Polymorph, Planar Binding, Wish, Disintegrate, Major Creation, Fabricate, Some BFC's, Some SoD's, maybe a direct damage spell or two. That will make you far and above more competent than any non-Cleric, non-Druid, non-Artificer party member. And that's just Core material. Second, the spellcraft check: This check is completely trivial... any Wizard who can't make a level-appropriate Spellcraft with a decent success rate is not competent. With 4 ranks and 18 INT at level 1, you have a +8 right off the top... That's a 60% success rate on the highest level spell you could cast with no optimization or investment whatsoever. For example, at level 2 (when you can feasibly afford to start purchasing spells or scrolls), your spellcraft check should be at a minimum of +13 (5 ranks, +2 synergy from Knowledge (arcana), +4 from INT, +2 masterwork tool). That's a 90% success rate with very little investment and optimization. At level 3 and above, you should have a 100% success rate without an issue, whether through spells that enhance skill checks, INT, or Spellcraft checks. Hell, a wand of Guidance of the Avatar is 4,500 gp and makes any Wizard with an INT of 16 or higher with a single rank in Spellcraft auto-pass the check to scribe a spell into his spellbook. Also, as for the proposed "limitations": These are laughable at best, for several reasons. I shall address each "limitation" individually: 1) Reduce Spell Slots: First, a Wizard typically needs 1-2 spells/encounter to be effective, so you're not limiting a wizard's effectiveness in combat at all by reducing spell slots. Second, outside of core, this is no issue at all... as you can just use any number of tricks to either generate spell slots or redistribute them. If anyone is curious... I could list them but that would take up another thread entirely. In core, a Wizard Shapechanges into a Solar and gains Cleric casting. Solved. 2) No Player Created Magic Items: First, if anyone thinks that Scrolls are a key to break the game for non-Artificers, he/she is sorely misguided- scribing scrolls is a gimmick at best. Second, by not allowing players to create magic items, you are eliminating many other classes' effectiveness. An Artificer is now hamstrung (and still better than most other classes given access to any single wand). Monks, Fighters, and Rogues become even more crippled (no custom UMD-boosting items for spell usage), and reducing their effective WBL by 1/2. If nothing else, this "limitation" is strictly a Druid buff (they have limited use for items anyway). Like Druids need it. 3) Remove Unlimited Spell Access and Learning: First, if anyone thinks that wizards have access to infinite spells, then he/she doesn't understand the rules governing wizard spells. Spells take up pages in spellbooks and do, in fact, take time and money to procure, even with the methods I outlined above. By doing removing this feature, then there's no reason to play a Wizard over a Sorcerer, except for metamagic. 4) Class Stealing Spells: It's really laughable the OP mentions Invisibility and Knock and not... say... Polymorph or Summon Monster. Wizards will jump through hoops to cast these spells, and it's probably better to just ban the entire polymorph line than to attempt any sort of cost fix though. 5) Make Combat Casting difficult: I can't even remember the last time I've seen a competently-played wizard even hit while casting a spell. But then again, most of those wizards believe it's better to not get hit than to improve Concentration. TL;DR The listed rules and limitations in the PHB are mostly trivial past level 3, and completely trivial past level 8. In other words, it's something to be mindful of, but does nothing whatsoever to curb the power of wizards. It's not wizards specifically that are OP in D&D... it's magic in general. Edit: I don't agree with the quadratic wizard problem [/QUOTE]
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