Strange Experience with a 'Balanced' Wizard

[roguemetal]

It started out when I proposed to a DM friend who is normally inaccessible that I would be able to join his game for a day, and offered to play an NPC or otherwise DM maintained role to fit into an otherwise balanced party. So I take the role of the two-levels higher wizard that is escorting them on their next mission. Obviously I knew the party was to take spotlight, and there were certain leads and hints I was expected to hide from players. Consequentially, when asked why the wizard only cast one spell, and had only two more maintained since they met him a long time ago even as time was of the essence, I replied in character, "I can only cast five spells a day." Of course it was a lie in character, and the party was fool enough to fall for it, but since then the restrictions on the character had to be maintained. And, as a matter of fact, seemed to balance the screen time with the other players. In any case I ended up available to come to all his subsequent game sessions, so he decided to not alert the party just yet to his secret NPC and just continue with it. Now the wizard has access to 8th level spells, has continued doing no more than 5 spells a day, and is still doing exactly what's required of him and balances relatively well with the party.

One fairly optimized wizard of two levels higher and only 5 spells = far-from optomized bard, crusader, beguiler, factotum? :smallconfused:

Really the whole thing was like a change of flavor for wizards as I played it out. It reminded me of a wizard from any fantasy setting in books which are usually way more powerful than the party, but they take actions, what, every three chapters while the party protects them? It's strange, but somehow feels more right than most sessions I've had with high power wizards in the past.

[urandom]

I guess the main question is whether you have interesting, meaningful decisions to make and problems to solve. If your spells are so powerful that they almost guarantee success when you use them, but you can't use them often, then your only real decision seems to be should I cast this now or wait to see if the other characters can handle it and save it for later.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Since most of the high-op wizards are supposed to be able to effectively end an encounter in a single spell, and there are supposed to be about 4-5 encounters per day, I don't understand why this feels all that different.

Perhaps it has to do with the encounters being geared toward a lower level of op, while you're accustomed to high-op enemies built to challenge a party in which a high-op wizard would be closer to the mean power level for the group?

[roguemetal]

Perhaps it has to do with the encounters being geared toward a lower level of op, while you're accustomed to high-op enemies built to challenge a party in which a high-op wizard would be closer to the mean power level for the group?
Essentially yes, usually a few spells are needed just to reduce save DCs, remove their prepared counterspells, prepare for the opponents actions, or something similar.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Essentially yes, usually a few spells are needed just to reduce save DCs, remove their prepared counterspells, prepare for the opponents actions, or something similar.

That's it then. The experience in the OP is a result of playing a wizard in a high-fantasy setting. The experience you're used to is playing one god amongst many in a battle for the right to govern reality.

In other words, the op is what you expect from the genre, given its roots (LotR primarily, though there are many more that are similar) and a completely different animal from what the game has become since the principle of optimizing for efficiency was applied.