Wizards Shouldn't Get Spells Automatically, A Modest Proposal

[am181d]

If I had the option, I think I'd choose to take invisibility, fly, teleport and the like over a magic missile that deals more damage.

I don't want them removed from the game, but I really hate Improved Invisibility and Flight used in combat. Particularly together. I have never read a fantasy story where the wizard turned invisible, floated in the sky, and dropped fireballs on the troll. I'm OK with At Will spell magic blasts, but THIS has always struck me as too fakey-gamey.

 

[Gorgoroth]

it's

easy to balance Invisibility, do it like Pathfinder did, make it 1 round or even 10 per level, rather than 24 hours like it was originally in AD&D. THAT was OP.

Improved Invis I never used it, because my DM made higher level spells insanely expensive. The only way I could get the spells I wanted, as an evoker in a hostile-to-magic realm (especially evocation magic), was the automatic 1 new spell per spell level. The rest of the cool utility ones I had a real hard time getting. THAT was fun...but having my entire class focus, evocation spells, to the DM, that would have taken it from "hard", to utter nonsense BS. fighters and paladins never needed to research new ways to fight, or roll a % die to see if they could swing a new sword they found. Their stuff just "works". I like hunting spells down...but not my class focus ones from my main school.

Automatic spells are one way to guarantee, regardless of DM fiat, that you can progress in your chosen school regardless of availability of magic. It was few and far between that we fought enemy spellcasters who had spellbooks I could copy from.

 

[dmccoy1693]

As was pointed out elsewhere, I'm not saying wizard shouldn't, get automatic spells every level. I'm saying it should not be assumed wizards should get an increase in spell LEVEL at every level. This means you can choose to skip a level of spellcasting to improve your existing spellcasting ability. Increased DC's, increased damage, increased area of effect,, additional targets, these should all be options instead of new spellcasting levels.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I see this as a flavor versus rules argument. No, really I do.
The idea that a wizard just gets a spell is ludicrous in my vision of how magic works in a game world.... but that's my vision.

I have a buddy that feels that auto spells equals experience and "off camera" study during the level gain.

Either is certainly workable, neither is perfect, and like most attempts at a Vancian structure, it never will be, but that is part of the charm of D&D. As I've gotten older and more or less wiser (or at least just less worrisome over certain things) I realize that I don't love D&D despite it's warts, I love it BECAUSE of it's warts.

Wizards should not wear armor and should be walking targets until 5th or 6th level, then they should start to out class the characters around them. The trick is, they have to stay alive in order to get there, and frankly, it shouldn't be that easy. When a kobold armed with a stick or a rock is a serious threat to a low level wizard, then all is right with the world.

Likewise a fighter should be cock of the walk until about 5th level, then he should be a meat shield. The cleric should be a mobile defensive healing machine and a thief (rogue) should be quick, stealthy and level faster than anyone else (because otherwise they get left at the gate very quickly).

Is it perfect, no, but it's what I want from D&D, if I want balance I'll play GURPS...and I don't play GURPS.