Wizards spell selection

[Dimwhit]

First, I was going to post this even before I saw the topic about Sorcerers knowing more spells. And this may have been debated before, but...

I'm hoping someone can convince me why I'm wrong about this, but is it me, or do Wizards get the shaft with number of spells in their spellbooks? The way I figure it, by the time a Wizard hits 18th level, he has 4 spells per spell level in his book (besides the extra 1st level spells he gets when he starts), assuming he always chooses spells of the highest available level. This is without scribing spells, of course. 4 per spell level! Sorcerers almost have that many.

I'm wondering how that's balanced, given that Clerics and Druids have access to EVERY spell per level each morning. There's the arguement that Wizards can scribe spells into their spellbooks, but I have two issues with that. 1. Even with 3.5 rules, it still costs a decent amount of money and requires breaks in the adventuring to do any decent amount and 2. Why should Wizards have to go through all the time and expense with other spellcasting classes essentially get every spell automatically?

So what's the logic? The only think I can think of is that Wizards can specialize. Woopee. That doesn't help them learn any more spells. It only let's them cast an extra spell per spell level. What do they get the others don't? Scribe Scroll feat for free (and scribing scrolls is so ridiculously expensive and time consuming it's not worth it) and a whopping d4 hit dice (compared to the d8 for divine casters).

Now I love my Wizards, so I'm not capping on the class, but can someone give me the logic for hamstrining the Wizards on their spell selection so much?

 

[MarauderX]

Well, I agree the wizards still get the shaft, and for more than this reason alone.

I think the logic behind it is that wizards can learn a spell from anywhere, such as scrolls, but they can also research to get a new spell too. I don't have my books here, and I don't think it explicitly says so in them, but I think wizards can spend time and money researching new spells for themselves if they want to. Granted it takes them time and money, but it can dramatically increase the versitility of a wizard vs a sorcerer, which I think is the point. If you want a character that's only going to adventure every day of his career I think you may want to have a sorcerer. Whereas if you want to have a PC that takes breaks to research new things for the party's benefit as well as his own, and has the ability to learn all of a level of spells when they are available to him.

Not only that, but even in 'low magic' campaigns scrolls seem to pop up rather regularly, often of higher level than the PC can cast. After all, the wizard still has to choose which ones to memorize each day and can choose a disproportionate amount of damage spells when stealth and buff spells would be a much better choice; then he can spend the time to learn the appropriate spells for the occasion. A sorcerer has to pick way in advance what he might be using for the next adventures depending a lot on the party's personality as an adventuring group.

For making a higher level NPC wizard I usually choose twice the number of spells available to them. If I were to start out with a PC wizard I would expect the same instead of just the minimum.

As a DM I still think the wizard got the wrong end of the staff for 3.0, let alone 3.5, and will house rule both the wizard and sorcerer to be better matched to party members of equal level.

I hope that rambling makes some sense as to why the spell choices are limited.

 

[Dimwhit]

That all makes sense, but I'm more looking at how Wizards compare to the divine spellcasters in terms of versatility. They just don't match up. I believe that anyone, even Druids and Clerics, can research new spells, though I could be wrong. And just as many divine scrolls are found as arcane, so that's not much of an advantage. Granted, the Wizard can scribe spells into the spellbook, but Druids and Clerics don't need to bother. They already have all of them!

Comparing a Wizard to a Sorcerer is a totally different animal, of course.

 

[Emerald]

My DM had a custom feat (I think he found it in the Netbook of Feats) called Arcane Understanding that allowed my wizard to get my INT bonus worth of new spells each level instead of just 2. So I go 4 in the beginning (INT 18 [+4]) and after 8th level 5 per level (+1INT at 4th, +1INT at 8th = INT 20 [+5]).

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

One thing you might be overlooking is that Wizards do not necessarily have to add spells to their spellbook to learn new ones. If they find another spellcaster's spellbook, they can learn spells from that spellbook also. Granted, it requires spellcraft checks, but the average wizard (maxed spellcraft, int bonus of +3 or +4) will be able to pull it off by taking 10 (i'm assuming 10 can be taken in such an occasion).

I'm trying to find it in the SRD, but IIRC, there is a way that you can make a spellbook you find your own.

Maitre D

 

[sithramir]

versatility

Yes divine casters can cast any of the spells from their list but I believe the idea behind that versus wizards is that wizards have a lot of spells to do things that clerics can't. Clerics have healing and wizards don't but a wizard can do pretty much any other spell a cleric can plus a lot more. Their spells are much more powerful damage wise per level and they can pull out more protections against weapons/spells than a typical cleric. IE stoneskin (assuming cleric doesn't have the one domain with it in it) or minor globe/globe of invulnerability, etc. Clerics without a few of the critical spells that a wizard can have can get creamed. Hence why they have a bit more hps and why wizards have fewer I figure.

I think clerics are a bit weak when I make say a 5th level and look at my spell choices. Mostly healing/restoration/poison/stat buffers. Not bad spells but nothing compared to fly at 3rd level or teleporting at (4th (dim door) and 5th) etc. I think thats why they are as they are.