playing a optimized paranoid wizard vs earn a academic minor

[With a box]

Playing a wizard the way GitP says wizards should be played requires the equivalent time and effort investment of a university minor.
is this sentence true? I don't know how hard to earn a minor. but I don't think it's easier then playing a optimized wizard..
and it's cheating that they can become Almighty God with as little study as a minor....:smallannoyed:

[YossarianLives]

If you want to spend days and years placing hundreds of contingencies on yourself, then yes... Your party will mostly likely have left you behind while your still casting spells.

However it doesn't take hundreds of protective spells and your own demi-plane to become a god-wizard.

[ryu]

If you just want to wizard competently you should be able to pick up the basics in a week tops if you just read the simple guides.

Planning to the degree that we show can happen around here though? That's either going to take a various devious mind or some serious paranoia training.

[Doctor Awkward]

Reading up on guides created by someone else, and sitting around theorycrafting a wizard build on a message board is one thing.

Getting a wizard to accomplish what you want to accomplish during actual gameplay is something else entirely, and requires just as much practical experience as studying.

that's what the joke is referring to.

[Story]

Depends on how long the campaign goes on, I guess. I haven't seen any that lasted 4 years (I kind of have bad luck with D&D groups).

[dextercorvia]

I think it is fairly accurate. I build reasonably optimized casters, and I'm always appalled at the glaring weaknesses I leave open because either:

a) I'm not willing or able to use more cheese

b) I don't have the RW time to book dive to make it more effective, and when I do, see a)

[GilesTheCleric]

Well, you can calculate it. At my uni, my major required 310 units (equal to 103 credits that most unis use), and I think my minor was 55 units (18 credits). If you use the general assumption that each credit requires that you spend 3 hours of study per week (this is why my uni used units -- a 9 unit/3 credit class means you spend 9 hours of combined in- and out-of-class time per week on it, no extra maths necessary), then that's 55 hours of work each week for one semester in order to become minor-level proficient in playing a wizard.

To see how reasonable this is, just look at how much time you spend both playing the game and preparing. For example, I play a four-six hour game once a week, and spend roughly two-three hours each week outside the game on the character. I also spend 10-40 hours creating the 20-level build. So that's 6-9 hours per week, plus about a week of prep before playing. At that rate, it should take me three years (six semesters) to become proficient.

Once again comparing that to an example, in a two-year campaign I played a cleric from 1-17. I did already know about clerics prior to the campaign, but for that game I built differently to how I usually do. At the end of two years, I felt fairly proficient with that unique style of cleric, though I do still come across things that could have improved my play and build. So given my anecdotal experience, that offhand joke seems like a reasonable estimate.

Perhaps other folks could contribute some examples/averages as well? If we get 30 or more examples, then we can make a better judgement.

[EugeneVoid]

Exfighter, dawg

[MyrPsychologist]

I am fairly certain that I spent more time in college planning and thinking and researching how to be an effective tier 1 caster than actually studying for the classes in my minor. Not that I was even a terrible student, It just didn't require as much focus and there is so much difficult to find and compile information about playing a tier 1 caster effectively. So I was not only focusing on the game as it was progressing but I was trying to comb through all of the other material for useful information, feats, spells, etc.

[ryu]

I am fairly certain that I spent more time in college planning and thinking and researching how to be an effective tier 1 caster than actually studying for the classes in my minor. Not that I was even a terrible student, It just didn't require as much focus and there is so much difficult to find and compile information about playing a tier 1 caster effectively. So I was not only focusing on the game as it was progressing but I was trying to comb through all of the other material for useful information, feats, spells, etc.

And, this, ladies and gents is the difference between studying to earn a grade for a class and studying to reach a goal. In this case that goal was to earn a grade for a different type of class but still my point stands.

[GilesTheCleric]

And, this, ladies and gents is the difference between studying to earn a grade for a class and studying to reach a goal. In this case that goal was to earn a grade for a different type of class but still my point stands.

Depending on the class, it might be either information-oriented or skill-oriented. Some courses are about the learning of established facts, and others are about research and new creations. An abnormal psych course likely has a textbook with all of the necessary info already compiled, and the goal of the course is to memorize it and be able to apply it. An essay writing class is instead teaching a skill, which requires practice and research into the topics you've chosen to write about. Dnd is a skill, but does benefit from memorization.

[MyrPsychologist]

Depending on the class, it might be either information-oriented or skill-oriented. Some courses are about the learning of established facts, and others are about research and new creations. An abnormal psych course likely has a textbook with all of the necessary info already compiled, and the goal of the course is to memorize it and be able to apply it. An essay writing class is instead teaching a skill, which requires practice and research into the topics you've chosen to write about. Dnd is a skill, but does benefit from memorization.

My minor was Sociology. So definitely not the practice and skill route. And I even focused heavily on statistical analysis + mod/sim so a bunch of my work was done for me.

[GilesTheCleric]

My minor was Sociology. So definitely not the practice and skill route. And I even focused heavily on statistical analysis + mod/sim so a bunch of my work was done for me.

Well, but how does your experience with your minor compare to learning dnd via handbooks? If you only spend the number of class hours (perhaps 3 classes a week, one hour each?) and didn't have any homework, then would that reasonably compare to how long you spend with a handbook making a build from a new dnd class? Ryu mentioned that very early on in the thread, but I don't think anyone commented on it too heavily.

[MyrPsychologist]

Well, but how does your experience with your minor compare to learning dnd via handbooks? If you only spend the number of class hours (perhaps 3 classes a week, one hour each?) and didn't have any homework, then would that reasonably compare to how long you spend with a handbook making a build from a new dnd class? Ryu mentioned that very early on in the thread, but I don't think anyone commented on it too heavily.

Little homework and pretty simple classes. It was more difficult researching obscure books for dnd than actually writing a paper.

[Rebel7284]

I think it greatly depends on both the type of game and the type of minor.

The couple of courses I took to get a multimedia minor were probably an equivalent amount of work as learning the very basics of gishing during the same time period.

However, building the paranoid level 20 wizard is WAY more work.

[Bad Wolf]

That's why Druids are awesome. Clerics and Wizards spend eight years carefully planning out their rise to power with a Treasury's worth of magic items and half a dozen obscure spell and feats. Druids take Natural Spell and then rip your face off as a spellcasting bear with another bear, while summoning more bears.

[Story]

The desire to scour obscure splatbooks is if anything worse for Druids since they can prepare any spell on a daily basis AND they also want interesting monsters to turn into. Plus all the wildshaping means a lot of extra work researching and preparing stat blocks (admittedly Polymorph Wizards have the same problem).

[ryu]

That's why Druids are awesome. Clerics and Wizards spend eight years carefully planning out their rise to power with a Treasury's worth of magic items and half a dozen obscure spell and feats. Druids take Natural Spell and then rip your face off as a spellcasting bear with another bear, while summoning more bears.

Like I said earlier the road to competent with any tier 1 is hilariously easy if you're willing to read the guides to grasp the basics.

The road to paranoid? Significantly harder. For example how long do you think it took me to come up with working defensive uses of mindrape into my contingency web in combination with vecna blooded to make sure it was basically physically impossible for anyone, including my own IC character, to obtain a full list of the plans and contingencies I could deploy at any moment? Why not even my character? Because he can't be trusted not to somehow leak the info and is thus a security risk.

[Crake]

Hehe *looks at sig* hehe

I can personally agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment of the quote, as I'm fairly certain I spend about a 2:1 ratio of dnd to study during my time at university during my major, and even then there's still plenty of room for improvement. I'd like to think I'm capable of making and playing a fairly high op wizard, but I can't say for sure, because I've never been able to play in a reasonably high level game with a competent DM

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

That's why Druids are awesome. Clerics and Wizards spend eight years carefully planning out their rise to power with a Treasury's worth of magic items and half a dozen obscure spell and feats. Druids take Natural Spell and then rip your face off as a spellcasting bear with another bear, while summoning more bears.There's always more to learn. I rarely play Druids when I do get the chance for a 3.5 game, so I only learned about stuff like Aberration Wildshape/Enhance Wildshape a year ago.

[Hiro Quester]

I have played a bard/SC and a Druid lately.

Book diving to find the best spells to learn/prepare, researching the best creatures for polymorph, Shapechange, Wildshape or summons, can sure take a lot of time, if you want to get good at it.

Good guidebooks can drastically simplify some of the work, though. At least in D&D you can get such help, and even consult them during the exams if need be. (I have many notes and such from guides saved to consult between rounds; e.g. when my bard/SC learned Shapechange).

[atemu1234]

I've found reading guides to take less time altogether than figuring out how on my own.

[Azoth]

I have to agree. Before I hit the forums a few years back, I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I had all the tricks worked out and had every answer. Then on my first day on the forum someone linked Team Solar and I wept. I felt just like I did once I entered college and realized the amount of knowledge I had amounted to exactly ****.

Since then, I have spent a seemingly incalculable amount of time book diving, PDF reading, handbook devouring. I could probably write a thesis paper on D&D at this point, and while I can build a TO level tier 1 caster, if I were to try and run it at optimum efficiency...does the phrase "Analysis Paralysis" mean anything to you?

Hell, my attempts at pushing things to their limits barely warrant a glance from this forum's big chiefs. Though I am still proud of my pure Hexblade build that can throw around over -30 to Attack/Saves/AC 5/day.

[Yogibear41]

Hell, my attempts at pushing things to their limits barely warrant a glance from this forum's big chiefs. Though I am still proud of my pure Hexblade build that can throw around over -30 to Attack/Saves/AC 5/day.

Should add in Extra Curse from Dragon Magazine so you can do it more than 5 times per day :smallsmile:


As far as time investment to play a wizard, on the few occasions I have played a full caster, I generally have to prepare very little compared to a melee character. Generally because when playing a caster everything you do is so powerful it is hard to screw it up. (granted I have seen its screwed up pretty badly) Where if you want to play a melee character it takes more planning to not be useless, and then sometimes you are anyway. I would say I could spend a significantly less amount of time preparing and still create a character that is 80 - 90% as effective, but sometimes to squeeze a little bit of extra power out I spend an un-proportional amount of time to get it. Granted the game I play in is far from optimized or min maxed to any degree, but I like it that way.

As far as Academic Minors are concerned, I would say it is HIGHLY major specific. I am less than a week from a masters degree(fingers crossed that nothing goes horribly wrong) and to be honest in my albeit brief years of graduate study 90% of the work is crammed into 10% of the semester. The potential for high amounts of free time exists throughout the semester, but the last 2 weeks have been a living hell.

[eggynack]

That's why Druids are awesome. Clerics and Wizards spend eight years carefully planning out their rise to power with a Treasury's worth of magic items and half a dozen obscure spell and feats. Druids take Natural Spell and then rip your face off as a spellcasting bear with another bear, while summoning more bears.
You can basically do that as a wizard or cleric too, if you just want to be effective on a normal level. For true and in-depth understanding, however, well, my in-progress handbook on the topic is currently running 517 pages and counting, with present research being on the basis of old timey dragon magazine issues. If anything, being paranoid as a druid is significantly more difficult than being paranoid as a wizard.

Paranoia comes naturally to wizards, with natively available divinations and defenses of every type imaginable. Your default mode being bear attacks doesn't mean that you just lack an advantage from paranoia. It just means that it comes harder to you, because you're more likely to need to cobble together the defenses you can't get natively from other sources, and unlike a fighter, which can also occasionally struggle with paranoia, you actually have the resources to pull that stuff together if you know what you're doing. It's not like you suddenly stop gaining an advantage from casting divinations just because you can be a bear.

[Telonius]

is this sentence true? I don't know how hard to earn a minor. but I don't think it's easier then playing a optimized wizard..
and it's cheating that they can become Almighty God with as little study as a minor....:smallannoyed:

Why not do both? Find a university that offers game design as a minor, and write your thesis on it. :smallbiggrin:

[Bad Wolf]

Why not do both? Find a university that offers game design as a minor, and write your thesis on it. :smallbiggrin:

What if Harvard nerfs casters?

[Telonius]

What if Harvard nerfs casters?

Then you get to spend five pages expounding on the Oberoni fallacy.

[Dimcair]

I am fairly certain that I spent more time in college planning and thinking and researching how to be an effective tier 1 caster than actually studying for the classes in my minor. Not that I was even a terrible student, It just didn't require as much focus and there is so much difficult to find and compile information about playing a tier 1 caster effectively. So I was not only focusing on the game as it was progressing but I was trying to comb through all of the other material for useful information, feats, spells, etc.

+1 to that, and I hate that dnd 5 took major parts away from me in comparison to 3.x editions sniff. Too little content yet and concentration rules/spell slots screwed with our action economy a bit.

[Azoth]

Should add in Extra Curse from Dragon Magazine so you can do it more than 5 times per day

Actually, the limit is on my Turn Undead pool and Bardic music uses. If you don't dip, and do it straight Hexblade you run out of feats so you get hosed a bit.

The build combos Death Devotion, Doomspeak, Greater Hexblade curse, Shadow Companion, +5 Vexing weapon, and some other stuff. It also drops 60k on Belts of Battle to get the actions needed to do it.