Wizards: Squishy or All Powerful?

[MarkB]

I'm in the both camp. Mages are definitely "All-powerfully Squishy"...or "Squishily all-powerful", whichever you prefer.

Of course, the "all powerful" doesn't kick in until you reach a certain level (which takes a lonnnnng time to get to, traditionally)...so it's really more of "Hoping-for-Powerful-some-day Squishy", a "Just-you-wait-til-I'm-X-level" kind of Squishy.

FEAR THE MYSTIC MIGHT OF MY SQUISHY!

Which...personally...I love and think is great and think is all of the "class balancing" you need.

--SD

I'm not really sure that it can be called a balance.

Conventional D&D wizards have always had the twin problems of being defensively squishy, and being offensively astonishingly powerful and versatile, and the conventional wisdom is to say that those two factors balance each other out.

But I tend to think that, in practice, what you have is two entirely different and separate unbalancing factors which, in many or even most circumstances, operate independently of each other to create distinct sets of difficulties. I'd estimate that the percentage of situations in which the wizard's defensive vulnerability acts as a direct counterbalance to his offensive awesomeness is actually very small.

So what you actually have is not a character whose advantages and disadvantages counterbalance each other and bring it into perfect balance, but one whose advantages and disadvantages constantly threaten to tip it one way or the other, so that it is almost never in balance.

 

[Ourph]

A quick read through the d20 SRD will prove that the idea of a "squishy" Wizard goes away after about 5th level. There are so many options for defense, escape, avoidance and hiding behind proxy combatants that any Wizard character who actually gets hit (and therefore has to worry about low HPs and poor saves) just isn't doing that great a job playing his character.

 

[Mort]

A quick read through the d20 SRD will prove that the idea of a "squishy" Wizard goes away after about 5th level. There are so many options for defense, escape, avoidance and hiding behind proxy combatants that any Wizard character who actually gets hit (and therefore has to worry about low HPs and poor saves) just isn't doing that great a job playing his character.

And that's SRD only. Throw in the Spell Compendium (most "official" published spells to that point) and the concept of the squishy wizard past 5th level is almost laughable; that's not even looking at 3rd party stuff.

 

[Stoat]

So give me details. A 5th Level Wizard with an 18 Intelligence can cast:

4 0 level spells
4 1st level spells
3 2nd levels spells, and
2 1st levels spells

What spells does he use to avoid being squished?

 

[Diamond Cross]

So give me details. A 5th Level Wizard with an 18 Intelligence can cast:

4 0 level spells
4 1st level spells
3 2nd levels spells, and
2 1st levels spells

What spells does he use to avoid being squished?

Shouldn't that be 2 3rd level spells?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

So give me details. A 5th Level Wizard with an 18 Intelligence can cast:

4 0 level spells
4 1st level spells
3 2nd levels spells, and
2 1st levels spells

What spells does he use to avoid being squished?

5th-level is a bit early for an invincible mage, but I'd go for Mirror Image for 5 rounds of powerful protection that takes only one standard action to cast -- you don't need a buffing suite. It's great but not broken. It's great because it bypasses your opponent's higher attack rolls and even deals with targeted spells, unless they have specific senses and magic. It's balanced because an opponent can keep making attacks or slinging spells until they tag a hit.

It's not great against enemy wizards though, since if they hit you with Lightning Bolt they don't need to target you.

At 7th-level (or, more likely, 8th) you get Greater Invisibility or Polymorph Self. Now you've gone from powerful to broken.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

So give me details. A 5th Level Wizard with an 18 Intelligence can cast:

4 0 level spells
4 1st level spells
3 2nd levels spells, and
2 1st levels spells

What spells does he use to avoid being squished?

One of your 2nd-level spells is Invisibility.

At the level you are playing at, it will guarantee your personal survival (note: most wizards die because they don't pragmatically abandon the party!*) against just about anything you're expected to encounter.

* This is part of the "Don't be a jerk" rule. It's a corollary to the "You seem a trustworthy fellow!" exception.

EDIT:

And I agree with Psi that 5th-level is a little early for the "completely invulnerable Wizard" to show up, but he is poking around at this point.

At higher levels, and with pragmatically abandoning the rest of the party in full play, the ability to just escape to fight another day increases exponentially: improved invisibility, dimension doors, teleports, ethereal travel, etc.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, if we want to equate escape or not being targeted to power, then the rogue who hides in a corner is ultra powerful as see invisibility does not help at all.

 

[Mort]

So give me details. A 5th Level Wizard with an 18 Intelligence can cast:

4 0 level spells
4 1st level spells
3 2nd levels spells, and
2 1st levels spells

What spells does he use to avoid being squished?

Gah - had a big post eaten by the browser (now in the ether )

But the gist of it:

As stated 5th level is a bit early for the truly egregious stuff but as for non-squishy - it's there.

1st thing get several scrolls and/or 1 wand (doable but expensive at 5th level)

of say:

false life: 1d10+5 HP for 5 hours! that's an average of 10 HP extra for a long period of time. Or in context you go from wizard squishy to rogue squishy with 1 spell.

mirror image: 1d4+1 images - if you are hit decent chance the image gets popped instead (average 3 images is a lot of survivability)

expeditious retreat - +30 feet to movement, quite a lot at low level.

of course invisibility - great at low level as not that many monsters can see past it.

Blink - a biggie 50% miss chance and 1/2 damage from area affects.

But that's just scratching the surface -

summon monster: 1 big or several small means opponents need to get through them to get to you.

Fog cloud - control of the battlefield even at lower levels

grease - very versatile - heck even help someone escape a grapple.

Slow - a biggie - multiple targets less actions - gets better as levels go higher (not just scales, but gets better because it denies actions!).

As for limited spells - you don't need all of the above at once maybe just 1 or 2.

And the big thing: scrolls are cheap and get cheaper (relatively) as you level wands are also not bad. This was the big change in 3e/3.5e as these items were not so easily available in prior edditions. Want to limit versatility - start here!

 

[Dannager]

Wizards who tend to die also have a tendency to memorize "fun" spells like Fireball. Classic mistake. Bad for the monsters, but worse for the wizard.