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View Full Version : Random thought on "balancing" Wizards & Fighters...



Piedmon_Sama
2007-02-09, 03:24 PM
OK, this isn't something I'm actually going to use in a campaign, it was just a thought that occured to me in weight training today. Now, I've never had much to say on the whole "warriors v. casters" issue because I frankly never bothered to get too familiar with the spell lists (laugh now) in the PHB, much less the scads in various suppliments. The aspects of D&D I know fairly well are combat mechanics and feats, but I could barely list the Druid's class features let alone any class's spell list.

Then I chanced on the thread "Lady Despina's Virtue" on ENWorld's board, which is the retelling of a high-level campaign. I was honestly taken aback by the style of play. The characters threw around spells like they were popcorn, with wizards and druids practically running the show. I'd guess this would be my first real look at what "high level" D&D was like.

I don't think it made me an expert by any means, but I did get a few ideas from reading through descriptions of how high level wizarding encounters work. I may be wrong but it seems to me:


Enchantment Spells are pretty much fight-enders, especially in one-on-one combat.
"Ward" Spells like Stoneskin, Wall of Force and the like are vital for a caster to last longer than two rounds in a battle.
What really gives Wizards their edge are the spells not directly related to combat. I'm primarily talking about teleport (im in ur base killin ur doods) and Magical Mansion (neener-neener, I'm on base can't touch me, neener-neener!) Basically allows a Wizard to pick and choose his battles at will, which is a HUGE advantage right there.It may be that these are far from revalations to people who have played high level casters. =p

Here is my thought, though. Forgetting "CoDzilla" for a moment, wouldn't it pretty effectively bring Wizards down to par with their sword-swinging comrades if we just cut certain of these spells of their spell list? Basically throw out most of the enchantment school and place spells that aren't fight-enders under other schools. Also cut out the spells that let the Wizard pick and choose his battles--no Dimension Door, Teleport, Magic Mansion.

Of course, this basically leaves us with a Warmage. Which is the caster class I've endlessly heard is "underpowered" and "useless." Could it be it's not so much weak as actually well-balanced against warriors?

The next thought this sprung was, "well and good if Wizards were limited to blasting, but then who would make the fighters their magic swords?" Which is true. Even with casters so reduced, the fighter would need magic equipment to stay competitive.

So as we modify the Wizard, maybe we could modify his little brother the Adept. Firstly, adepts could just as easily be the "Town Wizard" who has Craft Magic Arms & Armor et. all and uses them at your Fighter PC's disposal. This frees up the party wizard from having to blow XP for his comrades' sake and lets him keep his feats geared towards Quicken, Maximize etc. for more combat effectiveness.

Give the Adept those 'utilitarian' spells like teleport, sure, but then cut him off from all wards so he has almost no survivability in combat. Now, I think, we may have balance---there would effectively be "battle" Wizards who can buff, blast and take hits on the jaw, and "toolbox" wizards (adepts) who your PCs could hire to get teleported or if they need to make a planar crossing, but is almost defenseless in a straight fight.

Not really intending to ever follow through on the idea, but it was an interesting thought (presuming no one's had it before). Just curious and thought I'd ask the posters experienced with more "standard" and high-level play if this is feasable as an "equalizer."

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-09, 03:31 PM
Um... yes, if you take away all the wizard class's best spells, the class will be significantly weaker.

As the expression goes, "duh".

Piedmon_Sama
2007-02-09, 03:34 PM
Yeah, but giving (most of) those spells to Adepts while keeping the adepts from getting some basic self-protection spells keeps them in the game and available, see?

Telonius
2007-02-09, 03:35 PM
It's easier to give more stuff to somebody that only has a little, than to take stuff away from somebody that has too much. If you want to nerf wizards, people who have been playing them for awhile will feel like they're getting shafted. So, most of the class tinkering I've seen is beefing up other classes, rather than reducing casters' power. (With the exception of some people trying to limit the most egregious spells).

You're right, the non-damage-dealing spells can be what makes casters the most powerful. It's not just Teleport, either; and Teleport isn't among the worst. Grease, Fly, Forcecage, Blindness/Deafness, Contingency... these utility spells are what make arcane casters super-powerful (thus the "Batman" nickname for wizards).

Personally I think a mixture of cutting down the power of the absolute worst spells (the ones that even people who play wizards agree are unbalancing), and buffing up the combat abilities of the melee classes, offers the best chance of achieving better balance.

Lord Sidereal
2007-02-09, 03:47 PM
I know this has been said alot recently but:

There is no reason to balance the classes. They RARELY fight each other player vs player in a "real" game and each fulfils a party role. Lets face it, what use would a team of wizards be in a tiny, narrow room against something a) ferocious in melee and b) with SR that gave them, say, 50/50 chance of penetration? and at the same time, what good would the barbarain and fighter party be against a lich-priest that could fly?

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-09, 03:49 PM
Die: there is a reason. They both fight enemies (including, I'll note, NPC enemies)--and as a result, both should be able to contribute appropriately. High-level wizards make fighters irrelevant; wizards or not, Fighters pretty much can't contribute much if anything to high level combat.

Piedmon_Sama
2007-02-09, 03:53 PM
I know this has been said alot recently but:

There is no reason to balance the classes. They RARELY fight each other player vs player in a "real" game and each fulfils a party role. Lets face it, what use would a team of wizards be in a tiny, narrow room against something a) ferocious in melee and b) with SR that gave them, say, 50/50 chance of penetration? and at the same time, what good would the barbarain and fighter party be against a lich-priest that could fly?


Not the point of the thread. There's many others out there (on page 1) even, to talk about whether the classes SHOULD be rebalanced. As the OP, I'll ask you not to take it here thanks.

Arceliar
2007-02-09, 03:56 PM
Yeah..being able to choose your fights so well does cause quite a few problems.

If you allow ranged weapons (which normally don't threaten an area) to make AoO against spells being cast, and slightly up the DC of concentration checks to cast defensively (ie: add twice the spell level instead of the spell's level to the DC) then it helps quite a bit. Any fighter with quickdraw stands a semi-decent chance at stopping a wizard from casting said spells. And most enemies worth their salt bother to have SOME form of ranged attack.

As I see it, the spells mentioned aren't the problem, just the fact that the wizard can cast them almost instantaneously under any situation--really just upping the casting time to a full round for some things might do the trick. Should a wiz be able to Dimension Door out of a cave before the roof falls in? yes. Should he be able to do the same thing standing 10 ft away from a fighter who's 5 levels higher than he is? Maybe, but not without at least SOME sort of fair dice roll.

Yakk
2007-02-09, 04:13 PM
Wizards by high level break the game. It doesn't even take effort to do it.

Wizards, by medium levels, are capable of nullifying multiple equal-CR creatures with a single spell.

Bringing every class up to "break the game" levels of power is a bad idea.

...

So the problem is wizards win the game too fast. What if we just slowed wizards down?

First, wizard damage spells are not considered overpowered.

Second, wizard save-or-suck spells are considered rather powerful.

Third, wizard and cleric buffs get out of hand.

Forth, metamagic rods break the game.

...

1> Boost the casting time for a L X spell to at least (X+1)/2 (rounded up) full rounds.
L 1 spells: 1 full round
L 2 and 3 spells: 2 full rounds
L 4 and 5 spells: 3 full rounds
L 6 and 7 spells: 4 full rounds
L 8 and 9 spells: 5 full rounds

2> Increase DD spell damage to compensate.
L 1 spells: no change.
L 2 and 3 spells: 1dX + Y -> 1dX + X/2 + Y*2
L 4 and 5 spells: 1dX + Y -> 1dX + X + Y*3
L 6 and 7 spells: 1dX + Y -> 2dX + X + Y*4
L 8 and 9 spells: 1dX + Y -> 2dX + 3X/2 + Y*5

So a L 10 wizard casting fireball does 10d6+30 damage, but it takes 2 full rounds to cast the spell.

A L 20 wizard casting Meteor Swarm takes 5 full rounds to cast the spell, but it does 4 spheres at 12d6+54 damage each.

3> Weaken some of the travel/transport spells.

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-09, 04:15 PM
That's a terrible solution. Weakening the spells is much better than not weakening the spells but either making them almost impossible to use without disruption or requiring the player to sit there doing nothing for five rounds to use them.

Dan_Hemmens
2007-02-09, 04:20 PM
Casters will never be balanced against non-casters as long as they're operating off different resource types.

It's completely impossible to make "I can do huge impressive things a limited number of times per day" balanced against "I can to small unimpressive things an unlimited number of times per day."

Rama_Lei
2007-02-09, 04:26 PM
That's a terrible solution. Weakening the spells is much better than not weakening the spells but either making them almost impossible to use without disruption or requiring the player to sit there doing nothing for five rounds to use them.
Well for simple spells, such as Scorching Ray, Orb of Acid, Prestidigitation, a quick action is fine. But the wizard can teleport anywhere within a 100 miles as a standard action. Force the wizard to take a risk, and allow the fighter to shine.

Tormsskull
2007-02-09, 04:29 PM
That's a terrible solution. Weakening the spells is much better than not weakening the spells but either making them almost impossible to use without disruption or requiring the player to sit there doing nothing for five rounds to use them.

Perhaps, but I think the chance to disrupt them should be a lot higher than it currently is. The whole 'take a 5 ft. step back, cast a spell' way of avoiding AoOs really should not exist. In addition, the concentration checks should be higher, and spells should be able to backfire if they get messed with.

In addition, any spell that gives a huge advantage should have a costly material component attached to it.

Truwar
2007-02-09, 04:33 PM
Die: there is a reason. They both fight enemies (including, I'll note, NPC enemies)--and as a result, both should be able to contribute appropriately. High-level wizards make fighters irrelevant; wizards or not, Fighters pretty much can't contribute much if anything to high level combat.

I would take that a step further. When it comes to killing, NOBODY should outclass the fighter. That is all he has got. The wizard (and every other class) has a fair amount (or a great amount, depending on the class) of things they can do that contribute to the party outside of combat. A fighter is pretty much just a killing machine, when there is no killing to do all a fighter has is intimidate (which is pretty much just a threat to start killing again).

One quick and easy way to bring wizards back down to earth (along with all of the other save or lose casters) is to require a touch attack for all save or lose spells. This is a simple to implement mechanic that gives the targets of such spell a significantly better chance of not being effected by them. This makes direct damage a bit more appealing, it still leaves the fighter in the dust however.

They have begun to address the dearth of higher level feats for fighters but they still have a long way to go, in my opinion. The feats a fighter has access to should make him an absolute terror in combat, one that puts wizards to shame because that is all a fighter has.

Malek
2007-02-09, 04:42 PM
Actually one thing I've been thinking about was putting back the 2ed rule where memorizing a spell took 10 minutes per spell level. This might not seem like an nerf, but the higher level the wizard, the longer it would take for him to replenish spells if he spends them all - and consequently this would cut "throwing spells like popcorn" in a fluffy maner. (Of course this would require putting some "restrains" on other casters as well - I thought about "fatigue spellcasting" system for sorcerors but don't have an idea what could be used for divine casters)

Yakk
2007-02-09, 11:50 PM
That's a terrible solution. Weakening the spells is much better than not weakening the spells but either making them almost impossible to use without disruption or requiring the player to sit there doing nothing for five rounds to use them.

Good point.

Change it to:
You can start casting up to 2 spells per round.
You can finish casting exactly one spell per round.
You can abort any spell you are currently casting without losing the spell/day.
Remove the damage boost I described.
Spells take a minimium of (level+1)/2 rounds to cast.

Round 1: Start Grease and Solid Fog. Grease goes off.
Round 2: Start Obscuring Mist, Dominate Person. Obscuring Mist goes off.
Round 3: Start Enervation, Hold Person (mass). Solid Fog goes off.
Round 4: Start 2 spells, Dominate Person goes off.
Round 5: Start 2 spells, Enervation goes off.
Round 6: Start 2 spells, Hold Person (mass) goes off.

Etc. I'll admit that one might want to rework the concentration rules a tad. But this would both make high level "I win the game" spells less dominating, and give casters more things to do on a turn than they did before.

Plus, instead of casting spells instantly, a wizard would be constantly weaving more and more spell effects, building a cascade of deadly magic that is ready to overwealm.

If two spells go off on a round, the caster picks one to go off and the other is queued up for the next round. This allows a caster to build options as the combat continues, as more and more of their spells are ready to go off on any one round.

Quietus
2007-02-09, 11:54 PM
I do like the idea behind that, I think it's a bit confusing to start working in though. I personally would understand, but I tend to pick up on concepts quickly. Some people might not get it.

Jack Mann
2007-02-10, 12:40 AM
Let's not make the magic system more complicated. More accounting is a bad thing. We don't want wizards taking up even more time in battles.

The best solution I've seen is the Arcana Evolved system. The spells are similar to the PHB ones, but they tend to be somewhat less powerful. They're still quite useful, and there's a great deal of utility, but generally at a slightly higher level than a wizard would get access to them, and at a weaker effect.

Leush
2007-02-10, 06:06 AM
Talking about magic system variants that make a lot more balance, I'd like to say that the Seed based casting system is very nice.

Yakk
2007-02-10, 09:49 AM
I do like the idea behind that, I think it's a bit confusing to start working in though. I personally would understand, but I tend to pick up on concepts quickly. Some people might not get it.

True. But it is so wonderfully complicated. :)

You can simplify it by having a sheet of paper, and writing down each spell you are casting.

Benieth it, you write the casting time (or use a die). You can add up to 2 spells per round.

At the end of the turn, decrease all of the casting counters by one, to a minimium of zero. Pick any one spell at zero, and have it go off.

It does strictly weaken casters.

One would have to redo the concentration/disruption system and determine what the "quicken spell" feat does.