Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="jsaving" data-source="post: 5921725" data-attributes="member: 16726">If you count the number of at-wills available to the wizard, then yes, he looks very strong.&nbsp; However, the right way to look at class balance is not &quot;how many&quot; options a character has but how much any particular option changes his DPS per round.&nbsp; If you were given a ray at-will for every damage type in the game (fire ray, ice ray, etc), for example, you might &quot;look&quot; very strong because you'd have so many different entries on your character sheet.&nbsp; But if upon closer inspection none of those rays could inflict as much damage as options already available to you, such as firing a crossbow or throwing a dagger, then having all those at-wills wouldn't affect game balance much because they wouldn't be worth using very often.&nbsp; And when they *are* used, it will mainly be in low-stress situations where you're mopping up trash and don't need to put out much damage.One strong at-will ability is far more destructive to game balance than 10 or even 100 cantrips.&nbsp; But the cantrips do help give classes a &quot;sense&quot; that there's something magical going on here, which seems like a good thing to foster in a game like D&amp;D.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jsaving, post: 5921725, member: 16726"] If you count the number of at-wills available to the wizard, then yes, he looks very strong. However, the right way to look at class balance is not "how many" options a character has but how much any particular option changes his DPS per round. If you were given a ray at-will for every damage type in the game (fire ray, ice ray, etc), for example, you might "look" very strong because you'd have so many different entries on your character sheet. But if upon closer inspection none of those rays could inflict as much damage as options already available to you, such as firing a crossbow or throwing a dagger, then having all those at-wills wouldn't affect game balance much because they wouldn't be worth using very often. And when they *are* used, it will mainly be in low-stress situations where you're mopping up trash and don't need to put out much damage. One strong at-will ability is far more destructive to game balance than 10 or even 100 cantrips. But the cantrips do help give classes a "sense" that there's something magical going on here, which seems like a good thing to foster in a game like D&D. [/QUOTE]

Verification