Wizards, need your input.

[Tony Vargas]

Working with the DM to allow an attribute swap CHA for WIS on the orb powers, since both represent aspects of the characters will, I just don't play shy little book worm wizards. Hopefully people understand why that is important to me.

I understand the RP rationale, and there's no reason you shouldn't stick to your prefered stats. But, the game-balance rationale of requiring two /different/ stats to benefit from the save penalty of both the Orb of Imposition /and/ the Spell Focus feat is also pretty solid. Stacking save penalties is a biggie - between the two, you could virtually cancel out a solo's +5, for instance, which could easily change a tough encounter to a cake walk.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It seems to me that the at-will cantrips will provide a lot of fun and magical opportunities in the non-combat parts of adventures. I'm looking forward to trying that out.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sure, he had 4hp and now they have 15+,

18+, the whimpiest possible, 8 CON 4e Wiz has 18hps - most have over 20.

but the monsters always hit like 12-20 hp now.

They really don't, mosters hit about 50-50, +6 being a typical monster attack, with PC defenses generally being 16 and up. Moster damage is actually way down from 3e, 1st level monsters generallly dish in the single-digits, and crits just max it out, not mulitply it. Brutes do a bit more, but hit less often.

The at-will spells are too weak to really do much

Remember, they add your caster stat to damage. They're on par with everyone else's at wills, damage-wise, and, in do cool things in addition - persistent damage, pushing, slowing.

and with 50-50 saves, area spells suck.

Saves only aply to spells with ongoing effects. There are more than a few of them on the Wiz list - it's a controller thang - but saves are rolled on the end of the victims turn, while affects are aplied at the begining, so you always get a minimum one round of effect. The Orb implement and Spell Focus feat both reduce saves, and very little adds to saves (Solos and Elites get a bonus, that's about it on the monster end of things).

Sure, you can reduce the enemies saving throw, but now you have to invest points into wisdom.

Further boosting your own WILL, making some of your spells do more damage, and qualifying for Expanded Spellbook.

It would have been nice if some of the weaker 1st-level at-will spells leveled up.

I thought that virtually all at-will powers advanced at Epic levels? Gone are the days of level multiplying spell effects, though. You get to add your stat & implement enhancement bonuses to damage, instead, and get bigger and badder encounters and dailies as you level.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I actually played one this weekend through the beginning of H1, It is a servicable class, and I like the at will and encounter aspects. That said i am a heavy Role player, and I miss certain spells and HATE that WOTC is telling me where to put my attributes while spanking me when i deviate from a pre prescribed build.

It seems to me that Wizards designed swiss army knife characters out of the game, and set things up so that the classes are going to be very good at what they are built for. They seem to have looked at a class, thought out a general aim, and then allowed for two probable build types per class. The power selection is generally tailored to suit those builds.

The upshot is that if you happen to like a particular build, your character will be very good at what he is meant to do. The downside is that deviating much from either of the expected builds will cause some problems, at least at the lower levels. A Dwarven Warlord I tried out suffered due to having no charisma bonus, which in turn meant some powers which I may have chosen did not appeal as much.

I do not see it as being a massive problem as your character goes up in level. Being marginally sub-optimal in some ways due to a few odd power choices happened in every edition. And I would rather have a game that can handle a power gamer than one that would be destroyed by a power gamer.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[cdrcjsn]

I actually played one this weekend through the beginning of H1, It is a servicable class, and I like the at will and encounter aspects. That said i am a heavy Role player, and I miss certain spells and HATE that WOTC is telling me where to put my attributes while spanking me when i deviate from a pre prescribed build.

You now have spell thematics for free with all your spells! (under Flavor Text, pg 54).

Here's a sample character I made for a session. During one fight she had a cup of tea floating by her side the entire encounter (the party was interrupted during lunch).

Whereas the other wizard in the party was relying on the basic descriptions of the spells, being able to customize them to my character really helped her stand out. Magic Butterflies!

As for ability scores...other than requiring Int, you are not penalized if you put the rest of your stat buy in any stat. You can go with Str if you want to. Just because you won't be able to use certain feats or strategies doesn't mean you're gimped.

 

[Mistwell]

Ok so everyone in my group is building up characters and while someone was once excited about being a Wizard, once he got the books and saw fireball, fly and levitate invisibilty and a host of other spells, he felt they were too heavily nerfed to play.

Everyone (my players) else tends to say the same thing, that the wizard is not near what the other classes are and a few area effect minion splats does not make up for its lack of survivability as compared to say an infernal or fey warlock.

So my question goes out to people who have DMed for or actively played a wizard beyond the DDxp and game day experiences. Is this feeling of my players correct, or are wizards cooler than they first appear?

Thanks,
Ken

Right now, Wizard is my favorite class. But that might be because that's the only class I've actually played.

I found, at least at first level, that they are quite powerful. At least as powerful as every other class in our party.

It just takes some getting used to. You have to toss out your prior knowledge of the class from older editions, and take it in with a blank slate. Many powers that seem weak on first read are actually quite powerful when you play them out.

Like, for example, the Cloud of Daggers at-will ability (which I think most people dismiss initially). In play, when combined with the powers of other characters (to mark opponents, toss opponents prone, push opponents around, etc.) and your own other powers, it can be the most damage-dealing at-will power. But you won't know that until you actually play (or read the core books a lot, and have a good sense of the big picture for things).

 

[Ulthwithian]

I'll note that my resident Warlock-player in 3.X moved to Wizard in 4E. She's still getting into the swing of things, but there's nothing in actual write-up of the spells that makes them worse, per se, than others.

It does seem that the Arcane power source 'shades' everything into a more Controller aspect of play. (Cf. Warlock, especially Fey) Divine seems the same with Leader. (LoH much?)

 

[Mistwell]

To be honest, What I miss isn´t the damage, it´s those wierd spells that you just kind of wanted to have. You know, clean, things like that. I even miss eagles splendor and charm person.

I understand. I think the intent is to move many of those things into rituals. Right now, there are not that many rituals, but I think expansions will add back in most of the things you are looking for.

 

[Sanzuo]

Screw it, I've decided on the first character I wanna play.

I want to be a wizard with multi-class feats into fighter. I'll try to play him as much like a fighter as possible including buying armor and weapon feats. But when the situation gets dire he opens up with his spells to his unsuspecting foes!

Inefficient? Definitely.

Fluff-wise it sounds awesome to me. I don't know why.

 

[Mistwell]

Sure, he had 4hp and now they have 15+, but the monsters always hit like 12-20 hp now. The at-will spells are too weak to really do much

I strongly disagree.

First, a lot of monsters have 1 hit point (minions), and it's the Wizards job to hit them because other classes can usually only target one target.

Second, your powers do a lot more damage than you think, once you get the synergies going. You're not a striker, but you do plenty of damage as a Wizard if you want to.

and with 50-50 saves, area spells suck.

They really don't. You're going to have to read more, or get into a game, before you see that happen. But I think most people who have "test-driven" the Wizards come away thinking that spells like Sleep (which is a popular area spell) are some of the most powerful powers in the game.

For example, lets say you are a human wizard (not uncommon) who took action surge as a feat (not uncommon), put his 18 in Int (not uncommon) and 16 in wisdom (not uncommon for the new wizard). You use an action point to cast sleep on a group (d20 + Int + 3 from action surge, or d20 + 7 to hit, or more with other things added in). You are very likely to hit. The targets make a save to resist going unconscious, and you use your Orb to give them a -3 on the save. By paragon levels your wisdom will be higher, and you will have spell focus, so the save will be -6 (again, not including other things you can add in). So the odds are quite good you will knock out most or all of the targets in the range of the sleep spell, and they will probably stay down long enough to be killed.

Sure, you can reduce the enemies saving throw, but now you have to invest points into wisdom.

Yes, if you want to be an orb caster you will have a higher wisdom. It's your second most important stat. Pretty much all the classes have a secondary stat, and it should come as no surprise that this one does as well. It's not hard to have a 16 in your secondary stat, and you raise two stats simultaneously when you get stat increases by level, so I don't see why this is a big deal.

It would have been nice if some of the weaker 1st-level at-will spells leveled up. So, for example, Magic Missile would have more than 1 missile.

This comes with other feats and powers and magic items. It might not be there yet (I have not read that far or played a high level character) but that is what I am told by folks in the know.

Like Wizards in all editions of the game, it takes some time to fully grok how they work.