If wizards got all spells from the cleric list...

[Yora]

and there wouldn't be any divine spellcasting classes available, would the class become stronger, or maybe actually weaker?

Yes, the wizard gains more spells and therefore more versatility, but it would also fall to him to patch up the wounded, poisoned, and energy drained members of the party. Ignoring cure light wound wand abuse for now, it would eat up spell slots otherwise used for other offensive and utility spells.

As a balancing measure it's probably nonsensical, but for lots of settings it makes quite a lot of sense to have priests work more like wizards or sorcerers and not the warpriests of the cleric class. I'm wondering what actual mechanical impact that would have.

[eggynack]

Stronger, definitely. Your argument assumes some comparison between a party of wizard, cleric, X, Y and some second party of crazy cleric wizard, X, Y. It can't really work like that. Instead, you'd get crazy cleric wizard, crazy cleric wizard, X, Y, and it would be pretty much a strictly superior option compared to the wizard+cleric party.

[Big Fau]

The Cleric spell list has a huge array of buffs, and it's trivial to get magic items to patch up the party (especially since the spell trigger ones would be on the Wizard's list, meaning no UMD needed).

CoDzilla is a thing because of those buff spells, and coupling those with all of the Arcane buffs you'd ever want makes the Wizard into a demigod of buffing.

[StreamOfTheSky]

and there wouldn't be any divine spellcasting classes available, would the class become stronger, or maybe actually weaker?

If I step on the accelerator pedal, does my car go faster? Or slower? I just...I can't tell.


Yes, the wizard gains more spells and therefore more versatility, but it would also fall to him to patch up the wounded, poisoned, and energy drained members of the party. ...it would eat up spell slots otherwise used for other offensive and utility spells.

Except now instead of a wizard and a cleric, the party has 2 wizards who can split that duty up.


Ignoring cure light wound wand abuse for now

It's not abuse, and it's cute you think you can just "ignore" the "possibility" that characters may at some point be able to *gasp* purchase 750 gp items.


I'm wondering what actual mechanical impact that would have.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l-AvDt8HoLQ/UoqeabnsCTI/AAAAAAAAEmU/Bj20JGUI_OA/s1600/s_n14_00530011.gif

[Qwertystop]

There really isn't any way for it to make them worse - nothing stops them from just using the same Wizard-tricks as before and, you know, not being a healbot. If they decided to take all the ceric's healing duties, on the other hand...

Well, they wouldn't have the spontaneous-cure bit, so they'd have to prepare all the healing spells they expect to need, unlike a cleric. On the other hand, they have a lot more options for what to fill the rest of their slots with. Whether that comes out as better or worse than a Cleric depends mostly on how good they are at predicting their healing needs, and how much healing is needed. It doesn't compare as well to a Wizard because it does a different job.

[hymer]

You could probably come up with specific cases where this could become a liability. If there's very little gold to go around, and the wizard needs to cover a range of spells like healing/restoration/counterdebuff that he didn't usually, and the cleric player jumps at the chance to finally play a barbarian... Well, then the wizard would have fewer spells to play around with.
But in general( as in 'nearly all the time') it would make the wizard more versatile.

@ the sarcastic one: Do note the ':smallwink:' in the thread title. Even if it wasn't there, the condescension really isn't necessarry.

[Doxkid]

While difficult, it is technically possible to describe what the wizard has gained in terms of what it has lost; this quality exists for all things and mostly depends on how creative you are.

But...if you REALLY want to know whether or not the wizard have really gained anything you are probably playing games that are 1-3 on the power scale, with 1 being games with only a single spellcaster (and that spellcaster only has first level spells) and 8 being Tippyverse. Stuff above that is not relevant at the moment.

You might not realize it, but there are hundreds of pages of unique builds devoted simply to expanding a caster's spell list. Just making cleric spells a possibility for wizards to learn has enough topics and posts and ideas to fill your favorite book.

---

What's really strange about your question is that...well...this already happened. An Archivist, a class in Heroes of Horror, is a wizard that casts divine spells. And they can learn any divine spell. Ranger, Cleric, Paladin, Druid, etc.

Because of the all the spell lists have (and a few cheesy things) they basically learn ANY spell of ANY type. That's a matter for another thread though.

If you want to see how Wizards learning any spell would work out just look at Archivists; Google threads involving them and mess around with building one yourself.

[Chronos]

Even with an actual cleric, you're still best off not preparing all of those fix-em-up spells. Hit point damage is best addressed via wands of either Cure Light Wounds or Lesser Vigor, and everything else is best addressed via scrolls of Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Break Enchantment, etc. Give all those spells to the wizard, and all that changes is who's using the scrolls. Oh, yeah, and since you get Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat, you can also make them more cheaply.

[Captnq]

:smalleek:

So, if I give my wizard a greater spell selection, but take away CLW wands, will he be stronger or weaker?

I will buy a wand of lesser vigor instead. Much superior to the CLW wand.

[The Grue]

Ignoring cure light wound wand abuse for now

Notwithstanding that Lesser Vigor is indisputably the better choice for patching up HP, please explain how purchasing a wand of a 1st level spell qualifies as abuse.

[Uncle Pine]

Is a Wizard 10/Rainbow Servant 10 (aka "a wizard with all the spells from the cleric list") better than a Wizard 20? Yeah, definitely better. A ton better, to be frank. :smallamused:

[Mithril Leaf]

It's super easy to never have to cast a healing spell while being the party healer by getting a small amount of UMD and spending a small amount of WBL.
It even has a handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1520).