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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lonely Tylenol" data-source="post: 4141656" data-attributes="member: 18549">Yeah, I had a huge post that dealt with all this, but my new Microsoft webcam froze my system (yay Microsoft!) and I lost it.  So here's the short version:1. Step outside the cone to cast your dispel.  Rocket science!2. Parties carry light sources.  Sunrods illuminate to 60 feet, 120 feet if you're an elf.  Even past that, your penalties to Spot are fairly minor.3. The amount of effort required to set up an elaborate falling rock trap on the hopes that a wizard will end his movement directly under it is completely out of proportion to the expected rewards.4. Due to the mass of stone as compared to an equivalent volume of meat, any Medium petrified character is too heavy to lob with Telekinesis.  I did the math.  A halfling, sure.  But then, if you don't have a halfling?  Rogues are notoriously difficult to hit with touch attacks anyway, halfling rogues additionally so.5. Charm Person and Charm Monster aren't going to turn the party members on each other.  They make the target "friendly" toward the beholder, an effect that is completely negated by the first-level spell Protection from Evil.6. Improved Precise Shot doesn't work against Mirror Image or Greater Invisibility, both of which are likely effects for a 13th level wizard to have.7. When you're flying next to a beholder and he turns his antimagic cone on you, you fall until you leave the cone, and then start flying again.  He can't follow you down with it, because of the way movement works in 3E.  If you're close enough to the ground that you hit it anyway, it won't hurt much.8. A party with any brains whatsoever will make sure that they gird up their weak points before they fight a beholder.  This means saving throw buffs and the afore-mentioned Protection From Evil.9. All this effort spent disabling the wizard just makes it easier for the flying, hasted, buffed meat shields to fly up and butcher the beholder.  They only have 93 HP, and 26 AC.This last point is pretty much the important one.  Beholders are designed to show up, mess up the party, and go down.  They're glass cannons by design, which is one of the things that was discussed by the developers (Mearls, in particular) as a rationale for their redesign.  That design is no good.  But that's the intent behind the wizard's design as well.  No armour, poor saves vs. damaging effects, and low hit points are supposed to balance the wizard's capacity for arcane doom.  But it didn't work out that way because the wizard can improve his defences so profoundly using spells without seriously reducing his offencive abilities, especially once you clear the lower levels.The 4E redesign of the wizard is quite a bit like the redesign of the beholder.  They both have their powers nerfed, in exchange for more HP and better innate defenses.  The beholder, being a solo monster, also gets extra actions.</blockquote>

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