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

[Nifft]

I've always had PCs carry around multiple weapons, even back in the days of 1e. Different tools for different applications. If I wasn't carrying around something sharp, something blunt, and something ranged, I wasn't well-equipped.

Yep. The "challenge" of "HA HA HA CLAY GOLEM" was hardly created by 3e.

"And an 11 ft. pole", -- N

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I hardly know what to say. No wall of force?

One didn't seem useful in this adventure. The wizard in question normally prepares one...despite the fact that I don't like it as a spell. It has come in handy more than once.

Maybe I'm missing something, but why didn't the party just run straight through?

They were faster than us, they could use life sense to track us, the darkness made it difficult to move quickly since the path was not in a straight line and we had to avoid running quickly to avoid running into the bushes. They were not limited by any of that, given their life sense, flying, and incorporealness. Running wouldn't have worked. Plus, it was a Living Greyhawk adventure. If you don't fight the encounter, you don't get the XP for it. If we weren't going to get the XP for it, we might as well have not played.

I would hope the DM wouldn't say something like that, because it contradicts the rules. You can't move before and after an attack (unless you have spring Attack) and by definition the attack occured or you wouldn't have used your readied action. It is no different than making an AoO or using a counterspell. Would the DM say your counterspell is ineffective because the spell "hasn't happened yet?"

Let's just say that we all agreed that although the exact text of the rules said you could ready a move or a wall of force to block someone's attack we pretty much all agreed that it was likely a bug in the rules and not intended due to the fact that a wall spell or a ready to move suddenly became a MUCH better option than most other options in the game. There are a number of spells that add something to people's AC for one round that become kind of useless if you can throw a wall in the way of someone's attacks AS they are attacking. Which seems counter to the balance the game creates. We all agreed to use the letter AND the intention behind the rules.

Plus, one of our DMs(since we played mostly Living Greyhawk and had 10 or so DMs) said "If you want to accept that readying to move is a valid method of avoiding attacks, that's fine. But the enemies will know that. This means that all melee characters will never hit with a single attack...ever. And as much fun as an entire encounter being: You attack, he moves out of the way is, let's just agree not to do that. Ever. Either that or I'm surrounding you with level 1 warriors who aren't worth XP who will get in your way all the while readying to get out of the way of your attacks while the high level archers kill you."

At party level +3, yes, it's going to be a hard fight, but I don't think you've made your case that the cleric saved you. With another wizard in the party instead of a a cleric, maybe you would have had some more magic missiles and a wall of force... if you ready a wall of force, you can use it to block just about any attack, from dragon breath to a spectre's touch. Maybe if there were another barbarian in the party, he might have had a ghost touch weapon as a backup.

See above for "using Wall of Force to block attacks". In our game, it was a spell that you could put across a room to prevent the Wizard in the back from affecting the combat or to put across a door to prevent the enemies from running away. And when I say "In our game", I mean, I never say someone in Living Greyhawk do that ever. Even when I played with high level Wizards at GenCon, as well as other conventions all over the world. In fact, the idea that it could be used to block attacks as a side effect of the above rules loophole didn't occur to be until you said it in your post. Even if it was allowed, it would require a new Wall of Force during each round of the combat as they simply would stay in the ground, pop out of the ground on the other side of the wall and attack. Then spring attack back in again.

Magic items were also in short supply in Living Greyhawk. The idea that someone had an "extra" magic item to use is...kind of laughable. My level 15 Cleric who was just about retired had a +2 Falchion as his primary weapon. His backup was a non-magical Adamantine Heavy Mace. He didn't own a ranged weapon. This didn't much matter because he had ranged spells and the ability to cast Greater Magic Weapon. But if I ever got enough money to afford a +1 Ghost Touch weapon...I would spend it on something else. Ghost Touch was of so limited utility that it wasn't worth spending money on it when you could have spent it on a better Ring of Protection or as a payment towards a better Wisdom enhancing item.

Magic Missiles help, I admit. But having enough of them to deal with a Dread Wraith is unlikely. Too many hitpoints to go through. Either way, the Wizard would be down to nothing BUT Magic Missiles in no time. That's the problem with losing a spell for every negative level you get. And these were intelligent undead. I would drain him dry in 2 rounds, assuming 3 of the 4 Spectres hit each attack.

As for the ease of the encounter. Our party was extremely optimized. We were used to blowing through EL=APL+3 encounters on a regular basis. It was only the APL+4 encounters that even phased us. But EL is a really, really poor estimate of difficulty, so that doesn't say anything. One APL+1 encounter could be anywhere from impossible to extremely easy depending on the party makeup, the spells prepared, and the magic items they had. Which is kind of the point of this discussion.

I have rarely seen a cleric take a special role against undead in my games, except for the occasional death ward. Empowered magic missile is a popular spell.

Well, against most undead...no, I'm no more effective than anyone else in the party when I was playing my Cleric. I was poor at turning. But against incorporeal undead there were only 3 real ways to get past the miss chance: force spells, Ghost Touch weapons, and Healing spells. A well placed Heal spell on a Dread Wraith spelled its death. Too bad I never got one off during this encounter due to the tendency for the Dread Wraths to attack from 2 squares away.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Or a second barbarian, actually.

Trust me, I would have loved to have one. Sometimes I wished our entire party was Barbarians with one Wizard and one Cleric. Unfortunately, I only had one Death Ward. I believe my instructions to everyone else were "Nice knowing you".

I don't want to second guess the party, but it sounds like everyone could have contributed a bit more, and you would hope someone would. "I am the rogue, I do not deal with undead," is in my mind equivalent to, "I am delusional as to the nature of D&D." If I play a barbarian who basically does melee and nothing else, I ought to at least have a few backup weapons to help me deal with the unexpected. If you're a 12th level character and you're not ready to deal with medusa archers, vampire monks, dragons, spectres, and orc barbarians, you're just not ready.

In this particular battle everyone tried their best. Most people missed. That's just the way it goes. We didn't even have a Rogue in this battle, everyone who played one got frustrated and created new characters a while back.

Besides, we WERE ready for all of those things. Send the Barbarian after them and keep him up with healing and buff spells. You'd be surprised how few things are resistant to that strategy. He'd Power Attack and kill them in a round or two. A couple of times before they even got an attack in. Like that Dragon we once fought that the Hasted, Greater Magic Weaponed, Heroes Feasted, Raging, Power Attacking Barbarian did over 200 damage to in a single round.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I've always had PCs carry around multiple weapons, even back in the days of 1e. Different tools for different applications. If I wasn't carrying around something sharp, something blunt, and something ranged, I wasn't well-equipped.

I think we just have to agree to disagree about what we find fun in the details of gaming. I like tactics that make a difference, not preparation trumping everything else.

Also... keeping around the best weapon I've found, plus the best thing with Ghost Touch, plus the best thing with a different damage type (ignoring the fact that many "slashing" weapons were just as often "bludgeoning" weapons when used for real), plus the gods only know what else....

That's how I had to optimize my tank in WoW. And it's not fun. I need a max survivability weapon and a max threat weapon. And I have 4 pairs of pants, max Effective Health, max avoidance, max Block value for certain fights and high threat, and a dps set for farming or when I overgear so much that even the block pants are no good. Ick. And that leaves aside that I was a paladin and also needed healing pants. No wonder I actually became a happier person when I stopped raiding.

I play games, video or PnP, to be a hero. Cinematic action and intermittent badassery preferred. Micromanaging inventory.... to be avoided at all costs. If I want to micromanage inventory.... well that's one of the prereqs to keeping the lab running remotely smoothly at work. I get enough of whatever that gives people (migraines, IME) IRL.

 

[pawsplay]

Or maybe, just maybe, there's a point where the D&Disms start to get in the way of fun for a lot of people rather than improving the fun.

For example, you are espousing golf bag syndrome here. When was that EVER fun?

I don't know, whipping out the cold iron morningstar and the oil of magic weapon is always good for a laugh when you run into a lich. Obviously, it is both unfun and impractical for every character to cover every situation, but I really question what a 12th level character is thinking who doesn't have good options for undead, or a melee character who doesn't have an alternate weapon of a different damage type, typically a cold iron morningstar (which costs, incidentally, 16 gp). Even if you are a power attacking barbarbian who doesn't care a bit about DR because of sheer damage, you ought to at least have a backup weapon in case the first one is disarmed, sundered, or disintegrated.

So I'm espousing that, yeah, the guy with the magic greatsword should also carry a masterwork cold iron morningstar, oils of magic weapon and bless weapon, a sling, and a composite longbow. Call that whatever you want.

 

[MrGrenadine]

It doesn't remove it so much as make it useless.

"I can hide really well. I'm a sneaky rogue. My concept is I sneak through the darkness unseen and unheard and stab people when they can't see me for lots of damage. My special ability is that I'm way more stealthy than a normal person."

vs

"I can turn invisible and be completely silent with no chance of being seen or heard at all. So I'm better at steath than you are. Here, I'll cast a spell to make us ALL invisible so we don't have to wait out here for you to sneak ahead. Also, I do as much damage as you do when I'm completely visible."

AND

"My character is one of the best climbers in the world. I am known for the fact that I once scaled the largest mountain in the world with my bare hands. People use my name as a blessing when climbing."

VS

"I can fly. Who needs to climb? Here, I'll carry you just in case you might fall."

This is just silly. Of *course* you can think of ways that a wizard spell could reproduce a skill that another character has. We all could. But your carefully crafted examples that prove your own point in no way represent my own experience, and do not in any way prove that there is a problem with 3e wizards.

In your examples, the wizard trumps the rogue's ability to sneak, what? Once a day? As opposed to the rogue being able to do the same thing at will, including in the middle of a battle? Being able to turn the whole party invisible is a cool tactic for some situations, but it is hardly superior to a rogue being able to slip into the shadows and reemerge at an enemy's flank to bring the hurt.

As for flying, this is so completely situational as to be pointless. Being able to do something once or twice a day is no match for being able to do something at will, without equipment, without having rested for eight hours, or having the time to read it off a scroll, or whatever.

Yes, people can game the system to make uber wizards. But that doesn't mean there's a problem with the system.

 

[LostSoul]

As for flying, this is so completely situational as to be pointless. Being able to do something once or twice a day is no match for being able to do something at will, without equipment, without having rested for eight hours, or having the time to read it off a scroll, or whatever.

Unless you're 9th level and can do it all day. (Or is it 7th? I don't recall casting the long-term flight before 9th; maybe I didn't have enough slots.)

I used to cast Invisibility on the Rogue because she was much better Invisible than I was. I had enough defenses up that I didn't need to worry about it.

 

[nightwyrm]

Being able to do something once or twice a day is no match for being able to do something at will, without equipment, without having rested for eight hours, or having the time to read it off a scroll, or whatever.

I dispute this. Often in D&D, being able to come up with a one time excellent solution to a problem is better than having an at-will mediocre solution to the same problem. When was the last time your party had to sneak for the entire day? More likely, you'd only have to sneak past a checkpoint or a few guards.

Adventures are rarely designed to throw the same problem again and again at the party. That would be boring. Not to mention that what would happen is that the only character in the party specialized to solve that problem would be the only one capable of solving said problem. To use my sneaking example, if you require a party to sneak around all day, only the rogue would be doing anything. Instead, a variety of problems are designed and each is encountered no more than once or twice.

 

[pawsplay]

In actuality, invisibility benefits the Rogue more than it does any other character. It grants sneak attack damage, and the rogue will be almost impossible to detect by hearing. Greater invisibility is even better; unlimited full attack sneak attacks! So far from making the rogue irrelevant, invisibility spells can put the rogue in the spotlight. Meanwhile, invisibility spells can allow party members to tag along at a distance, letting the rogue take point and allowing the rogue to make use of their scouting skills without the rest of the party blowing the whole thing.

Does anyone want to claim that a wizard is a better choice for trying to bypass a feeblemind trap than a rogue?

 

[Hussar]

I hardly know what to say. No wall of force?

I think this quote nails it right on the head. If a choice is obviously superior to all other choices, that's bad design in a nutshell. The fact that you would be shocked that someone wouldn't prep this spell speaks volumes towards the brokenness of the spell, not the creativity of the player.

In actuality, invisibility benefits the Rogue more than it does any other character. It grants sneak attack damage, and the rogue will be almost impossible to detect by hearing. Greater invisibility is even better; unlimited full attack sneak attacks! So far from making the rogue irrelevant, invisibility spells can put the rogue in the spotlight. Meanwhile, invisibility spells can allow party members to tag along at a distance, letting the rogue take point and allowing the rogue to make use of their scouting skills without the rest of the party blowing the whole thing.

Does anyone want to claim that a wizard is a better choice for trying to bypass a feeblemind trap than a rogue?

Yup, 100% can the wizard bypass that trap better than a rogue. 1st level Summon Monster spell. Done. Never mind unseen servant or even Mage Hand.

Are you seriously going to try to say that a wizard can't out rogue the rogue?

A single 1st level spell - unseen servant - can bypass pretty much every trap out there simply by triggering it at range. Combined with a wand of knock and what do I need a rogue for anyway?