Wizards - Too Powerful?

[Veril]

Hello wizard, meet Monk.
SR=level+10 (at 13th). Great saves to everything. Improved Evasion. Great movement. Stunning Fist. Imagine an Antimagic Shell on a monk via some mechanism....

The way to deal with wizards are manyfold.

Design situations where the wizard must expend resources to deal with them thus reducing the number of spells he has. Give them a hint that they should be leaving some spell slots uncommitted at the start of a day because some things require certain spells. I.e. a discontinous dungeons that needs 2 passwalls to get through, prismatic wall - needs 7 spells to bypass. Wards that can only be bypassed by an appropriate type of creature, so polymorphs have to be used etc.

Use the very many anti-magical abilities that monsters have.
Spell Resistance is the bane of wizards - it forces them to use certain spells to bypass it. Cleric Spells : 4th level spell immunity, 5th level spell resistance 8th level cloak of Chaos/Shield of law/etc.

Hello Wizard, here's my Cadre of Spellcasters, they all cast targeted greater dispell on you. A wizard without magic is low AC and low HP. They use spellcraft to see what defenses you put up when you spell cast and next round, they cast another bunch of spells at you, empowered magic missile perhaps, or their spectral hands run over and vampiric touch you....

Gaze attacks...You cannot target a creature or place if you cannot see it. Wizards averting their eyes don't see all that much.

Small tunnels, 5' wide, with lots of turns, ever 20'. No AoE's down.

Enforce the rules about spell components and costs (gp/xp).
Make sure the wizard's hands are holding the right numbers of things, if he's switching between spellcasting, wands and scrolls it's an action to sheath the last 1, and what about his staff, which one did he drop on the ground so he had a free hand to cast with?

Limited Wish has a fairly strict write up. It clearly deliniates the power level you can get out of it. A limited wish costs 300XP every time you cast it for whatever purpose, and the maximum power you can get out of it is a 6th level spell effect (arcane) or 5th level (priest) - make the player show you a spell effect that is something similarish what he wants.

 

[NimrodvanHall]

The wizard is a versitile class, and if prepaired can win just about any encounter with "just" the PHB spells. adapt your spell list to the encounten and win. run out of spells or get jumped on with the wrong spells, and you will have to hide behind the tanks


mages (sorc and wiz) can be game breaking, due to four spells: Greater invisibility, Fly, teleport and see invisibility. Teleport defeats travel providing instant translocation, to, from or past combat. Greater invis and fly keep you out of harms bay in combat, yust remember to stay out of 120 feet of any combatants, since true seeing has only that limited range. Why is see invisibility in this list? because mages have access to it and other classes dont... due to its range of line of sight, it means that mages can hunt each other. The mage who won the trick canceling contest , can than wipe out the rest of the competition, in utter safety, with magic missiles if needed.

Without these spells the druid and the Cleric would be vastely superior to the mage, due to better HP, saves, AC and damage.

note: in our campeigns PC wizards tend to die only to other mages, Npc mages tend to wreak havoc till glitterdusted. the big damage comes from overbuffed tanks (not necisairy spell casters)

 

[Markn]

Well... even if you limit the wizards later spells. Metamagic feats will ensure that the fireball etc. is still able to deal 150 Damage, with ease, at higher levels.

A fighter just need a freedom of movement/Fly item, thought energy resistance would be good too. A fighter with god movement will surely be able to catch any foe, and deal lots of damage.

A full round action by a level a level 20 fighter can easily deal 150 damage, while paladins can do a bit more (Smite Evil) or on level 21 (greater smiting)
And they can do it EVERY round, the wizard noly got power to cast those oversizes fireballs or imbalancing spells 7 or 8 times in total (8th and 9th level spells with bonus)

In terms of sheer damage, the fighter over the day should be able to deal more damage. My concern is that there are so many ways to take a fighter out of combat (even temporarily) such as natural obstacles in terrain, reverse gravity, etc, etc. The wizard/sorceror is much more difficult to do this to. Any wizard worth his salt prepares for these difficulties. They may be limited but unless an adventure, particularly store bought adventures, take into account the need for the same obstacles to be overcome several times, a dm is forced to alter the module fairly extensively to get around the wizard (or some of the other classes). With the fighter this is usually never the case.

 

[beaver1024]

You should try banning wizards/sorcs from your campaign if you feel they're too powerful. It is mostly likely that your party will do just as well without them.

 

[werk]

I'm not sure I've heard fighters being too powerful. I hear complaints they are at the bottom of the scale.

I think what it comes down to is that fighters, no matter what, fight. They can only really fight. That's it. Now, when you look at a powerful caster like wiz/sor/clr/drd they can twist reality and make it dance the hustle.

It all depends on the class' focus. A class is going to get really good at whatever their focus is, but some classes have really limited focus, to say the least.

 

[Nail]

I've found d20 wizards to be campaign killers. A well prepared, mid to high level wizard is IMO, the most powerful PC available to play.

Wow.

I'm shocked.

IME, wizards are some of the least powerful PCs in play. That's right: least. Bards beat them for the title of "weakest" of course.

 

[Nail]

....finally made it thru- read the entire thread.

I think much of the perception that Wizards Are Powerful comes from ignoring a part of the rules.

Do you allow them to find, set aside time/funds, and scribe any spell they wish? Are their spellbooks effectively infinite?

If so....well, there's yer problem, bub.

 

[Markn]

....finally made it thru- read the entire thread.

I think much of the perception that Wizards Are Powerful comes from ignoring a part of the rules.

Do you allow them to find, set aside time/funds, and scribe any spell they wish? Are their spellbooks effectively infinite?

If so....well, there's yer problem, bub.

Excluding scrolls, wizards are pretty potent. But that is a valid point. Allowing them to scribe scrolls at their leisure is a recipe for disaster. But on the other hand, 3.5 rules are open ended in that regard. Not every campaign you run can put a limit on time or resources. Once again, my point that you specifically have to alter the campaign to limit the class bears out. You just simply don't have to do this for fighter type classes.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Well if you follow the wealth guidelines, there's a limiting factor there. Not a whole lot of a limiting factor, to be sure, but its there. That's an interesting thought, though. In a game where the DM is more open with spell aquisition they are far more powerful than a game where the DM is stingy with spells. Personally, I'm open to a point, but sometimes certain spells are hard to come across for wizards while others just keep showing up.

 

[Markn]

Well if you follow the wealth guidelines, there's a limiting factor there. Not a whole lot of a limiting factor, to be sure, but its there. That's an interesting thought, though. In a game where the DM is more open with spell aquisition they are far more powerful than a game where the DM is stingy with spells. Personally, I'm open to a point, but sometimes certain spells are hard to come across for wizards while others just keep showing up.

IMC, I limit the acquisition of most spells to treasure find only. However, I can't always do anything about the available time to make scrolls. Personally, if there is one thing that irks me about 3/3.5 its the ability to make/buy/build whatever you want. I constantly have to battle some of the players in my group about not having the time, the location to do it, or to just keep a power balance in the party. It's always been my belief that getting the uber items (or any items for that matter) is why you are an adventurer. If you strike it rich and can make the stuff why adventure? Some of the players I have gamed with have the same philosophies but the newer players are like, I take the feat, I spend the money, I spend the measly amount of XP I need to and I have whatever I want regarding that item creation feat. Sure I can limit materials but a player of that mentality will always think that way - and IMO its the new players that play that way.

Interestingly enough, I learned the other day that alter self (or maybe change self, can't remember which) allows you to get the AC bonus of any humanoid (if your humanoid) that you can change into. Now if you look in the monster manual a troglodyte is a humanoid and thus a 1st level caster can have +6 to AC, then add on shield and mage armor. Now I'm not saying its broken and I know there is a time limit but a +6 to AC for a 1st level spell is pretty buff!