Wizards in 4E have been 'neutered' argument...

[Nifft]

I'll have you know, my Wizard just impregnated a Marilith.

"A Staff as Long as a Man", -- N

 

[pawsplay]

Yep, and IME, few campaigns just used the elite array as-is. Most Wizards started with a 16+ - and higher if you go outside the PHB. Just looking at one common non-PHB book, Sun Elves from the 3e FR setting have INT bonuses and no EL. (Heck, if you're running FR, you might as well throw the utterly insane Spellcasting Prodigy feat in there, too.)

So we're looking at IME a minimum DC 25 against level 6 spells, and at least a 27 for level 8 spells. And probably a point or two higher. Like I said upthread, it's rock-paper-scissors; just pick the right defense against most creatures.

-O

At that level, a dragon is still going to make most of their saves. If you put four CR 12 dragons against four 16th level characters, you will get an "average" encounter. four CR 15 dragons will be a challenging encounter. An adult red dragon is CR 15. It has For +18, Ref +13, Will +17 and SR 21. Assuming they don't heroism on themselves or whatever, it can make DC 27 over half the time for Fort, about a fourth of the time for reflexes, and half the time for Will. A fourth of the time, any given spell will fail to beat their SR. If the four PCs open up with game-ending spells, generally two of them will be out of action after a round. At that point, the party can begin to explore what it's like grappling with a dragon or being breathed on.

That's pretty formidable... especially considering we haven't permitted the dragons to select feats or cast spells.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I believe if you look inside those modules, you'll usually find a line that says something to the effect of "Recommended for 6-8 characters levels X to Y" Particularly in 1e modules.

That's true, but it doesn't help you while you're shopping for adventures. I checked the one I referenced- it was in the "Notes to the DM" section of the module. FWIW, it was I4- which with I3 & I5 (the Deserts of Desolation series) were designed for 6-8 PCs.

I'll have to dig out my 3e DMG, but, I'm pretty sure the line is there somewhere that the assumption is 4 PC's, 1 fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue (or variations thereof).

For clarity, my source was the 3.5 MM and DMG.

Something I would point out here too. You're saying that you regularly had 6 encounters per day. The standard assumption is 4. That's not exactly breaking limits here.

That's a 50% increase in encounters. Going proportionately the opposite direction would mean 2 combats/day.

Whether that's actually a significant difference or not would require a statistical analysis that, frankly, probably will never be done.

However, my gut instinct tells me that while a 25% increase (here, +1 combat/day) might well be within foreseeable tolerances for the system, winning that additional combat (getting to 6/day) would be a severe stretch for most parties.

While it was not the norm for us to get to 6 combats/day, on those occasions when we got that far (or rarely, even further) between rests, we 1) usually won the encounter, and 2) rarely suffered any significant casualties*.

* Again, we had only 1 death in the entirety of RttToEE...several close calls, yes, but only 1 death. In that group, we haven't experienced more than 2 deaths in any of the last 3 campaigns, and like I said, its the same playstyle over and over.

 

[Obryn]

At that level, a dragon is still going to make most of their saves. If you put four CR 12 dragons against four 16th level characters, you will get an "average" encounter. four CR 15 dragons will be a challenging encounter. An adult red dragon is CR 15. It has For +18, Ref +13, Will +17 and SR 21. Assuming they don't heroism on themselves or whatever, it can make DC 27 over half the time for Fort, about a fourth of the time for reflexes, and half the time for Will. A fourth of the time, any given spell will fail to beat their SR. If the four PCs open up with game-ending spells, generally two of them will be out of action after a round. At that point, the party can begin to explore what it's like grappling with a dragon or being breathed on.

That's pretty formidable... especially considering we haven't permitted the dragons to select feats or cast spells.

I think I'll let all the other posts speak to this and others with specific examples.

A high-level foe succeeding vs. a save-or-die/save-or-suck half the time is nevertheless a considerable upgrade from pre-3e.

-O

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I think I'll let all the other posts speak to this and others with specific examples.

A high-level foe succeeding vs. a save-or-die/save-or-suck half the time is nevertheless a considerable upgrade from pre-3e.

-O

Its also one of the most powerful things you can do with your turn, which also wasn't really the case pre-3e.

 

[Votan]

At that level, a dragon is still going to make most of their saves. If you put four CR 12 dragons against four 16th level characters, you will get an "average" encounter. four CR 15 dragons will be a challenging encounter. An adult red dragon is CR 15. It has For +18, Ref +13, Will +17 and SR 21. Assuming they don't heroism on themselves or whatever, it can make DC 27 over half the time for Fort, about a fourth of the time for reflexes, and half the time for Will. A fourth of the time, any given spell will fail to beat their SR. If the four PCs open up with game-ending spells, generally two of them will be out of action after a round. At that point, the party can begin to explore what it's like grappling with a dragon or being breathed on.

That's pretty formidable... especially considering we haven't permitted the dragons to select feats or cast spells.

Dragons were picked to be tough for their CR in 3.5E and a CR+3 multi-opponent dragon encounter is about as nasty as it gets. A party in such a situation will lose members if they do not use every resource.

My only comment is who is doing the best in this scenario:

1) The Fighter trying to full attack with a bow?

Assume 27 Str, a strength +1 holy bow and an 18 dex with +5 arrows (possibly provided by the cleric using greater magic weapon). He does 1d8 + 5 (magic) + 8 (strength) +2d6 (holy) per arrow with attacks of +25/20/15/10 (hitting on a 4, a 9, a 14 and a 19). That';s 1.9 hits per round (assume 2 so we don't worry about crits) for about 50 points per round. He can drop a dragon in about 5 rounds (253 hit points, we'll round up).

If there are range increments invovled then this is not good and he'll be soaking 14d10 breath weapons while sniping.

2) The cleric firing off a destruction spell as a readied action as the dragons close (likely DC around 27) with a 95% chance to hit AC 8, a 75% chance to beat SR (assuming no magic item or feat that helps) and a 40% chance to kill it outright. If it saves it averages 35 damage which isn't bad. That's hititng the tough save for a CR equivalent creature and is a reasonable spell for an 16th level cleric to have one or two copies of in core.

3) We'll skip the rogue -- this type of encounter does not play to his strengths (flanking under these conditions is brutal).

4) The wizard might have an ideal 8th level spell: maze looks promising if the party is lucky.

Low level spells (that could be prepared) are also interesting: Resiliant sphere might actually take a dragon out until their allies are defeated. Even at DC 24 (for a lower level spell) it has a 75% chance to break SR and a 50% chance to take a dragon out of the fight for 160 rounds. It's close range but still better than what the fighter can do (range increment for a composite longbow is 110 feet), range for this spell is 65 feet.

Notice that this is a 4th level spell targeting a weak save (the classic wizard trick).

Hold Monster has a range of 260 feet, assume DC 25 so a 75% chance to break SR and a 35% chance to drop a dragon from a great height.

Now in core, with bonus feats, a wizard (having limited feat choices) is likely to have spell penetration. No wizard will have all of these spells prepared . . . but they are likely to have some of them (the low level save or suck that targets reflex is an especially common choice) and all of them are better actions than the fighter's attacks at stopping a dragon.

Or even compare to damage spells. Hit all 4 dragons with horrid wilting (requires them to be grouped). 1 will resist. 2 will save for 28 hp of damage. 1 will fail and take 56 hit points of damage. That's an 8th level spell gone -- whereas repulsion (save or suck) will keep half the dragons out of breth weapon range (a lower level spell with a much more effective outcome).

 

[Mournblade94]

So one of my best gaming buddies is a stubborn guy who I have been playing RPGs with for over two decades. I have a great time with him, and would feel like I was missing something if he wasn't involved in my gaming group.

He loves D&D, but is really skeptical about 4E, and says that his main sticking point (other than the fact that he feels it's too much like an MMORPG) is that Wizards and other spellcasters have been 'neutered' by the new system.

I'm just learning the 4E system, and have never seen a character over 3rd Level in play....How can I speak to this, and what arguments could I use to at least get him to give the system a look-see?

This is a common problem. My gaming group stopped gaming since last thanksgving because half of us could not abide 4e. We were a great group, played off of each other well, but I could not get my heart into running 4e because it did not give me the versatility I liked.

Out of our group of 5, one does not table top anymore, gave it up and sticks to MMO's, 2 play 4e with another group, and myslef and one other play short campaigns of alternity or 3rd edition, but nothing epic like I used to run.

So it is quite possible you won't play D&D together anymore, though there are other games. The 2 that broke off to play 4e still want me to Run M&M so we can still game but we will not play D&D ever again since they do not like 3rd edition and I do not like 4e. Maybe we'll be able to compromise with Dragon Age, who knows.

It is not necessarily stubborness though. When my friends went for stints playing Blood Bowl I sat out. I just did not want to invest time in games I tried and did not like.

I don't know if 4e has changed with the PHB2 run as I have not looked at it. MY friends tell me it has, but it will still be to far from the D&D I am used to.

 

[Mournblade94]

The next effect is that it is pretty easy to feel useless when you are the one playing the Fighter and to have your fun ruined because of the "anything you can do, I can do better" effect of the Wizard.

From the DM side, it's also difficult to plan adventures around that kind of power. Unless you absolutely don't care where your adventures head, you're always playing a balancing act of "carefully lead the PCs where you want them to go without letting them realize you are leading them." That is easily destroyed when the PCs have hundreds of abilities at their disposal that you might not even expect. I've seen a game destroyed and a DM get really annoyed simply by a well prepared 2e spellcaster.

After playing D&D for over 25 years with hundreds of people I have yet to meet anyone that felt they were not having fun because they were "only" a fighter.

If a DM has proper system mastery, the well prepared caster is never a problem.

 

[Hussar]

That's true, but it doesn't help you while you're shopping for adventures. I checked the one I referenced- it was in the "Notes to the DM" section of the module. FWIW, it was I4- which with I3 & I5 (the Deserts of Desolation series) were designed for 6-8 PCs.

Heh. The fine print gets ya every time.

For clarity, my source was the 3.5 MM and DMG.

In all honestly, I checked and I think you are totally right. I'm not sure where I got the idea that the party was balanced that way. Probably one of those things you read on forums and just assume is truth. Learn something new every day.

That's a 50% increase in encounters. Going proportionately the opposite direction would mean 2 combats/day.

Whether that's actually a significant difference or not would require a statistical analysis that, frankly, probably will never be done.

However, my gut instinct tells me that while a 25% increase (here, +1 combat/day) might well be within foreseeable tolerances for the system, winning that additional combat (getting to 6/day) would be a severe stretch for most parties.

While it was not the norm for us to get to 6 combats/day, on those occasions when we got that far (or rarely, even further) between rests, we 1) usually won the encounter, and 2) rarely suffered any significant casualties*.

* Again, we had only 1 death in the entirety of RttToEE...several close calls, yes, but only 1 death. In that group, we haven't experienced more than 2 deaths in any of the last 3 campaigns, and like I said, its the same playstyle over and over.

What would you attribute your lack of PC death to? I'm totally not trying to be snarky here. When I ran the World's Largest Dungeon (which is pretty similar to RttToEE) I was whacking a PC about every 3 sessions. I had one player, by the end of 80 sessions of the campaign, on his SIXTH PC.

How did you manage it? Could it have been the DM? Did your DM roll in the open (I know that increased my lethality considerably)?

 

[Harlekin]

You may have a non-standard play experience

In the group that went through RttToEE? 1 DM, 7 regular players. There were 2 guys who joined briefly, but only for a few sessions.

Almost no NPCs were included in the party- 1 ally (for 3 combats), mp hirelings, no mounts, no companions, and my PC lost his familiar in the 2nd session. The single-classed Wizard didn't have a familiar, nor did the Rog/Sorc. There were 2 draft horses that were frequent rally points (a la Richard the Sorcerer's battlecry here).

The party was 1 Wizard, 1 Diviner/Ftr/Rgr/Spellsword, 1 Ftr/Clc, 1 Rog/Sorc, 1 Monk, 1 Fighter, 1 Brb/Drd. We finished at level 11. No PC had more than 4 divine casting levels. The Rogue had only 1 or 2 Sorc levels. He was also the single PC who died, but was brought back by an NPC.

Seven players is an APL of ~+2. Did you DM double the number of monsters in each encounter to make up for your large party size?

I think I figured out why your play experience is so different from that of some other players: It seems, most of your fights had a low EL for your APL/party size. In other words, you were making things challenging by having many encounters in a day, rather than doing a few encounters that have an EL of party level +3 or more (after adjusting for party size).

While I think that your way of playing is the most fun way to play 3.5 (as long as you keep munchkins under control), this is not how most adventures were designed (Paizo is the worst culprit here). In the typical Paizo adventure, meaningful fights are EL=APL+3 and up. And IME, the PCs have a high chance of TPKing in these fights unless every character goes "all in".