Spell selection for a mid/high level Wizard

[Foivos]

So wizards get a set number of spells because of level (2/lvl+1+Int I think), but are considered game breaking because they can get all the spells.
I think without the ability to get additional spells wizards are not as much better than the sorcerer as people make them to be.

How one acquires "all the spells" is something I never understood. This is because you have to specifically find the spells somewhere, and I assume other wizards wouldn't just let you copy their spells. You could maybe buy scrolls of every spell you wanted to know but that would get expensive rather quickly.

So my question is, if one were to make a wizard of say, level 16, how many spells would you allow in his spellbook, and what kind of penalty does each additional spell incur?

[ATalsen]

So my question is, if one were to make a wizard of say, level 16, how many spells would you allow in his spellbook, and what kind of penalty does each additional spell incur?

I believe (from seeing similar threads) that most people here would say that you can buy as many spells as you want to, using the wealth that the DM provides you as a 16th level character. The penalty is, naturally, not having that wealth to buy other things with, such as beneficial magic items.

My own campaigns do not restrict which spells the PCs can have – if they want one they can buy the scroll and transcribe it during down time (which occurs after every game session). Whether a DM restricts what spells the PC can learn is really up to that DM and the campaign they want to run; for example if a DM wants to hand out special spells as rewards, they need to restrict access to those spells in order to make them special.



I agree with your idea that Wizards do not appear to be more powerful than Sorcerers in my experience. In games I run and play in, there is no ability for a Wizard player to get foreknowledge of events to come, so they can’t optimize their spell selection for the session they are playing in; they have to go with more generally-useful spells, or hope the situation for their more specific spells happens to come up.

Similarly, though wizards can leave slots 'open', I rarely see time when they can then make use of the benefits of those slots by filling them later with more optimized spells. Either there is no time for study, or Combat A doesn't tell them anything useful about Combat B in the module.

[AvatarVecna]

A Sorcerer 20 knows 9 cantrips and 34 spells of various levels; a Wizard 20 (with just the spells from class levels) knows all Wizard cantrips and knows 41+Int mod spells of various levels. Right out of the gate, a Wizard has more spell versatility than a Sorcerer, and a Wizard's class features allow him to add even more spells to his spellbook with ease. Now, that being said, the Sorcerer has some definite advantages: they get more spell slots, and they're a spontaneous caster, while the latter causes some issues with metamagic, spontaneous casting is quite advantageous. So why do people think the Wizard is better? Partially because of the ridiculous versatility available; as previously mentioned, Wizards have more spells in their spellbook than a Sorcerer knows, and they can get even more...but the higher level the wizard is, the more likely that he's going to not just have more spells known than the sorcerer, but a lot more; there's thousands of wizard spells, and the piles of money an adventurer makes allows the wizard to access a much more significant portion of them. But so what? They get less spell slots, and they have to be prepared. But that's another thing: the ease in which the character's focus can change.

A sorcerer with a particular general theme (such as enchantment or evocation) will dominate particular encounters; the enchanter will literally dominate in a social setting, while the evoker will wreck havoc against hordes of lower-level opponents. However, in a similar manner, there's times when their theme will be incapable of solving the problem before them: the enchanter won't be very useful against undead, and the evoker will be much less effective in combat against foes too stealthy to be targeted, or higher level enemies who can save against his effects with ease. That's what's both good and bad about the sorcerer: whatever spells you choose, you have them consistently, and you will consistently rock and suck against the same kinds of encounters. A wizard, meanwhile, has much more versatility, but has to pick the right spells for the job...and that means that, as long as the wizard is using his divination spells to properly prepare, he's not going to be caught off-guard by an unexpected threat, and will always have the tool he needs for the job. It's certainly possible to catch the wizard off-guard, especially if they're being stupid about preparation, but when a Wizard has time to prepare and the knowledge of what to prepare for (both of which are easy to get at higher levels), they will always happen to have the spells they need, they will always be (temporarily) the specialist who specializes in solving this particular problem. Facing hordes of undead? Let's leave Dominate Person in the closet, and instead bring out Fireball, Undeath to Death, Chain Lightning, and other blasting spells. Need to enter a location completely undetected without being disturbed by the army of guards and labyrinth worth of traps? Greater Invisibility, Silence, Scrying, and Teleport have you covered. Need to influence the king and his court, but worried they might resist long enough for the guards to capture you? Use an Invisible "Mind Fog", Chain that "Charm Person", and the king's court is now bending to your will and desire, and in under 10 seconds of casting.

Sure, the wizard can't do all of those things on the same day unless that's basically all they do that day...but if they know they need to do those three things today, they can prepare for it. And if something comes up that they weren't expecting to need to solve, Plane Shift/Teleport somewhere safe and spend a few hours rest, then prepare new spells for the new threat.

[Troacctid]

In my campaign worlds, you can usually find any spell from the Player's Handbook or Spell Compendium if you spend some time looking for them in a large enough city. Most wizards charge for the privilege of copying from their spellbooks, as per the standard rules, but arcanists' guilds and allied NPC organizations often allow their members to copy spells at cost.


I believe (from seeing similar threads) that most people here would say that you can buy as many spells as you want to, using the wealth that the DM provides you as a 16th level character. The penalty is, naturally, not having that wealth to buy other things with, such as beneficial magic items.
Yep, that's the gold standard.

[ATalsen]

A Sorcerer 20 knows 9 cantrips and 34 spells of various levels; a Wizard 20 (with just the spells from class levels) knows all Wizard cantrips and knows 41+Int mod spells of various levels. Right out of the gate, a Wizard has more spell versatility than a Sorcerer, and a Wizard's class features allow him to add even more spells to his spellbook with ease.

However, while a Sorcerer has all 34 spells at their fingertips, the Wizard has to pick which of their 41+ spells they will have each day. The Wizard has more *potential* versatility, I think everyone agrees with that, but in actual play I think that versatility is rated higher than it’s value really pans out to be.

I think you are right about some things, but that those things aren’t quite the subject here. I think you are right that a Wizard can switch out focuses, and that they can memorize a wider array of spells than the Sorcerer has known slots.


A sorcerer with a particular general theme (such as enchantment or evocation) will dominate particular encounters;
Its certainly true that a Sorcerer can choose to focus/theme/specialize, but it’s equally true that a Sorcerer can select their spells for diversity and to ensure that they are always relevant. So instead of encounters they absolutely dominate, and encounters they cannot be effective in, they have reasonable effectively across all encounters.


There are 2 areas where I think a Wizard does shine over sorcerers in games I’ve played:
1) Item Crafting
2) Revising ineffective Strategies

Item Crafting is pretty self evident – a Wizard can grab a spell they will never intend to cast outside crafting and it doesn’t really impact their game play, plus it allow them to craft a useful item.

Revising Strategies is what I’d call it when a player realizes their spell mix doesn’t cut the mustard, and they need to trade out. This could be because of a thematic shift in campaign, or simply due to leveling up where the encounter types are different because you are playing on a different playing field. Sorcerers have limited ability to trade out, but Wizard is undisputed king. Again, I'm not talking about foreknowledge of the specific events to come with this one, I'm talking about finding out the strategy that served well for the last 5 levels is no longer serving, and needs a complete overhaul to work at your new level.



A wizard, meanwhile, has much more versatility, but has to pick the right spells for the job...and that means that, as long as the wizard is using his divination spells to properly prepare, he's not going to be caught off-guard by an unexpected threat, and will always have the tool he needs for the job.

This is what I’d consider the crux of the issue: people assume that the Wizard will have some sort of foreknowledge with which to pick their spells optimally.

So what about the game where you do NOT get such foreknowledge?

Games where the DM is horrible about giving hints as to what is to come, or provides too cryptic divination answers, or who thinks they are giving good hints as to what spells to select, but which are in fact bad hints (I cannot give useful spell hints for the life of me, without just telling the PCs what they are to face!). Or simply games where the PCs are too low level to even have relevant divination spells.

The games I’ve played in where the wizard can use foreknowledge of events to come have been very few, and the games where they cannot have been many.


And if something comes up that they weren't expecting to need to solve, Plane Shift/Teleport somewhere safe and spend a few hours rest, then prepare new spells for the new threat.
You know I was going to say that you need to be high level for Plane Shift/Teleport, but frankly most of the time in the games I’ve been in, the PCs can just walk back out the front door... but doing so means they lose the objective that they were adventuring to achieve.

So what do you do in those games? Do you tell people NOT to play a wizard because not having foreknowledge is a deal-breaker for the class, or do you acknowledge that they CAN be played but they won’t be Tier 1’s when they do?

[AvatarVecna]

Its certainly true that a Sorcerer can choose to focus/theme/specialize, but it’s equally true that a Sorcerer can select their spells for diversity and to ensure that they are always relevant. So instead of encounters they absolutely dominate, and encounters they cannot be effective in, they have reasonable effectively across all encounters.

And this is certainly an option. However, unless your Sorcerer's build is particularly optimized, building your Sorcerer as a generalist mage will result in them always being good, and never being bad...but never being great either. They won't really dominate encounters as much as if they specialized, but at the same time they have to acknowledge that specializing in one area cripples them in another...and as you mention, changing up your Sorcerer's spells known isn't easy. This doesn't even require the sorcerer to make terrible spells known choices: the fact of the matter is that Sorcerers can't access as many overall tricks as a Wizard; they may have more tricks available at a given time (since the wizard will only prepare so many spells), but the Wizard can swap those tricks out for other tricks with a few hours rest if he needs to. Similarly, if neither the Sorcerer nor the Wizard has the magic trick they need to solve a particular problem, the Sorcerer has to wait until they level up to change that, where the Wizard can wait to level up...or can throw money at the problem, an option Sorcerers don't have.


This is what I’d consider the crux of the issue: people assume that the Wizard will have some sort of foreknowledge with which to pick their spells optimally.

So what about the game where you do NOT get such foreknowledge?

Games where the DM is horrible about giving hints as to what is to come, or provides too cryptic divination answers, or who thinks they are giving good hints as to what spells to select, but which are in fact bad hints (I cannot give useful spell hints for the life of me, without just telling the PCs what they are to face!). Or simply games where the PCs are too low level to even have relevant divination spells.

The games I’ve played in where the wizard can use foreknowledge of events to come have been very few, and the games where they cannot have been many.

Foreknowledge isn't just about "seeing the future" type divinations. I mentioned Scrying for a reason: Scrying, Arcane Eye, and similar long-distance scouting spells are the kind of foreknowledge that's most dependable. Yeah, things that "see the future" are helpful, but being able to scout out the dungeon from the safety of your heavily-warded tower is arguably more helpful...and unlike "see the future" stuff, isn't really ruined by DMs that are "horrible about giving hints". Of course, even in those cases, it's not the fault of the Wizard that the DM sucks at giving hints; if your car is capable of going from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds, but you never get to do that because there's too much traffic on the highway, you don't blame the car, you blame the traffic.

Of course, you bring up another excellent point: what about games where those kinds of divinations aren't available yet? We call those "low-level games", and they tend to be the level range in which all classes are still on a fairly even power level; it gets more unbalanced towards the higher end of low-level with things like Polymorph and Evard's Black Tentacles allowing you to dominate combat, but the game balance only really shifts dramatically once Scry and Die tactics become an available option...and that's ignoring that this thread is about mid/high level Wizards, which is most of what I'm discussing.

"But can't Sorcerers scry-and-die as well?" Of course they can, if they took those as their spells known. But ultimately, SaD for them is "okay, I found the enemy, let's teleport to them and use my magic tricks"; for a Wizard, SaD is "okay, I found out what my enemy is, now I can prepare spells to fight that specific enemy before I teleport to them". Now, doing this for every enemy in the dungeon (scrying them, resting to re-prepare, and teleporting) could take quite some time, but it would ensure things went off without a hitch (this has issues in time-sensitive adventures, but I rarely see those myself, so I'm unsure of how common they are in general). That said, you usually don't have to scry out every enemy, because there's usually a theme: the tomb is overrun by necromancers who are animating everything, or there's a demon cult performing rituals, or there's a red dragon holed up in a volcano with fire elementals everywhere, or something like that. Preparing spells that effective against that kind of enemy is less effective, but it's more efficient both with time and spell slots. Ultimately, you'll usually end up a day behind another adventuring group, but it allows you to go solo, meaning that you'll end up making that day up later on from the overall efficiency.


You know I was going to say that you need to be high level for Plane Shift/Teleport, but frankly most of the time in the games I’ve been in, the PCs can just walk back out the front door... but doing so means they lose the objective that they were adventuring to achieve.

So what do you do in those games? Do you tell people NOT to play a wizard because not having foreknowledge is a deal-breaker for the class, or do you acknowledge that they CAN be played but they won’t be Tier 1’s when they do?

Are you kidding? A Wizard without foreknowledge is still a generalist with a number of game-breaking tricks and combos; ultimately, the two classes will be about even in a game with no foreknowledge, with the Wizard essentially being a Sorcerer with less at-the-moment versatility, but more long-term versatility (and most of their extra versatility will be in non-combat utility spells). Ultimately, no caster is going to suck unless you specifically build it to suck; the fact that you're taking away the thing that allows this particular caster to solo the game doesn't change that they're still a full caster with one of the best lists in the game. Will they be Tier 1 without divination-assist? Not having divinations still means that they have Time Stop, Wish, Gate, Shapechange, and Dominate Monster, and more spells of ridiculous power and versatility, each of which is a game-breaker in their own way right out of the gate (some more than others, naturally). Sorcerers have these too (although usually less of them in total), and are also game-breaking at high level. The Wizard is more game-breaking by virtue of having more game-breaking spells available, but breaking the game is like breaking anything else: whether you're breaking it a little or a lot, you're still breaking it.

The same goes for druid, and Cleric, and Beguiler, and most every other full caster in the game. Prepared casters are generally more game-breaking because the game gives them access to a wider variety of tricks, which at the highest levels are basically all game-breakers...but in a standard game, most any full caster will do more or less just as well as any other, barring bad builds.

[sleepyphoenixx]

How one acquires "all the spells" is something I never understood. This is because you have to specifically find the spells somewhere, and I assume other wizards wouldn't just let you copy their spells. You could maybe buy scrolls of every spell you wanted to know but that would get expensive rather quickly.

So my question is, if one were to make a wizard of say, level 16, how many spells would you allow in his spellbook, and what kind of penalty does each additional spell incur?

The general rule is that wizarrds DO let other wizards copy their spells - either in trade for that wizards spells or for cash (so they can pay other wizards to copy their spells).
So if you start a wizard at higher levels you can use part of your WBL to buy spells, at "copy from another wizard" costs, which is listed as 50gp x spell level (and of course the cost of adding a spell to your book, 100gp/spell level for normal books).
That's the basic assumption in the rulebooks.
The DM can of course restrict what spells are available, like rare spells or personal spells (Animate Dread Warrior, for example, is only available to Szass Tam and his apprentices, by the fluff).

As for the rest, sorcerers suffer mostly from getting access to a new spell level a level later than wizards, and then knowing only one spell of it. There's not much versatility there in actual play.
Also a Focused Specialist wizard has as many spells per day as a sorcerer, so that argument really doesn't hold water. Their main benefit is access to sorc-only spells like Wings of Cover and Arcane Fusion.

[Troacctid]

A wizard with no access to spells beyond her two per level would probably still be better than a sorcerer, thanks to better spell progression, bonus feats, and better skills. That's where the real advantage is. (Psions, for the record, are also easily better than sorcerers, despite superficially having a similar number of spells known.)

[Zanos]

The answer to the question "Is a class worse if the DM prevents them from using their class features?" is generally "Yes."

There are ways around a DM preventing you from learning spells from other wizards spellbooks or scrolls. There are ways of increasing your free spells per level on a wizard. IIRC, 8/level was attainable with certain builds. Still, if a DM was going to block me from doing the primary thing that wizards do, expanding their knowledge of the arcane, I would probably play something else. A sorcerer or psion, maybe. Clerics, hilariously, know their entire lists automatically.

There is a reason that wizards guilds/colleges are a very common fixture in most 3.5 settings.


So what do you do in those games? Do you tell people NOT to play a wizard because not having foreknowledge is a deal-breaker for the class, or do you acknowledge that they CAN be played but they won’t be Tier 1’s when they do?
Most of your post I find unusual. Typically combats in a day should be centered around a theme, and even without divination spells the party usually has some idea of what's going on. In the sandbox Faerun game I'm in now, I typically prepare a very generic selection of spells(haste, slow, dispel magic, solid fog, ray of enfeeblement, fireball, etc.), but when our current opponent is the thieves guild in the city and we're planning on breaking it up, my spell selection is different. When we attract the attention of an evil cult that idolizes martial strength, my selection is different than that. I find it extremely odd that there are never situations where the party has some idea what they're going to be fighting. In my experience, it's the norm rather than a corner case. Of course I usually don't know what the random encounters that the DM rolls for will be when we're travelling, but generic spells can usually handle those okay. If you're dungeon delving in a tomb filled with undead, and the wizard prepares some anti-undead spells in his open slots after the first encounter(only takes 15 minutes), and the next encounter is all celestials, I would kind of assume that the DM was trolling me.

But to answer your question, yes, a wizard without divination spells is still Tier 1. Many of their tricks can break all but the most specific encounters.

[Eldariel]

A couple of things have been touched on but warrant emphasis:

A Wizard can pick Collegiate Wizard [CArc] in a settings where other Wizards are scarcely around and getting new spells is hard. They can also use i.a. Scrying, Teleport, Locate Object & Planar Bindings to find scrolls or access creatures that know certain spells. In short, there exist means to get more.

A Wizard gets new spell levels a level earlier. It shouldn't need to be said, how huge it is to have e.g. Glitterdust, Polymorph or Planar Binding first. Wizards even end up with more spells per day on these levels.

A Wizard has access to a certain number of ways to get preparation versatility. In Core they can leave slots open for 15min prep to fill it with whatever is needed. Further, Pearls of Power can restore any cast spell of a level, essentially doubling your copies of all spells on each level. Other items and feats help too.

A Wizard can access spontaneity. Spontaneous Divination from ECL5 onwards allows having all your Divination Spells at your fingertips, allowing end-of-day novas with Scry, Contact Other Plane and company. There is also Uncanny Forethought [Exemplars of Evil], which flatout gives you Int-modifier of spontaneous slots each day (and minor Spell Mastery benefits).


That's basic options. There's always high op too, but everyone in that world has infinite spells per day and full list versatility starting from level ~9 so the differences are rather irrelevant.

[ATalsen]

Most of your post I find unusual.

Fair enough; in explanation I have played many RPGA sessions and even my current 'campaign' is a round robin game where we play a different module each session with no real connection between them.

So in some cases, yes, a wizard can trade out spells once they figure out the module’s theme, without resorting to the need for divisions, and in other cases the combats happen one after another with no time in between, so even if the theme is clear there's no time to revise/memorize etc. Given this the caster has to decide – before they know what the session will hold – whether they leave slots open and hope they get a chance to fill them, and what kind of generic spell list they will bring initially.

And there’s also the high probability that I have not played with players who are dedicated to High-Op Wizards, so they just don’t do the preparation, even in cases when its available.

I guess I’m saying that *for whatever reason* the preparation of situation-optimized spells are just not happening in my previous gaming experiences.



A Wizard without foreknowledge is still a generalist with a number of game-breaking tricks and combos; ultimately, the two classes will be about even in a game with no foreknowledge, with the Wizard essentially being a Sorcerer with less at-the-moment versatility, but more long-term versatility (and most of their extra versatility will be in non-combat utility spells).

This is what I’m seeing – Wizards are fun and powerful, but I have not seen them as being significantly more powerful than Sorcerers.


To tie things back into the original post, I think that Wizards are designed to benefit from having the flexibility of a large number of known spells, but it’s the ability to (or inability to) capitalize on that flexibility that really determines the Wizard’s power level, rather than just the sheer number of available spells.

I think that people assume Wizards have the ability to capitalize on the flexibility more often than I have personally experienced being the case in games that I have played in.

[sleepyphoenixx]

This is what I’m seeing – Wizards are fun and powerful, but I have not seen them as being significantly more powerful than Sorcerers.

To tie things back into the original post, I think that Wizards are designed to benefit from having the flexibility of a large number of known spells, but it’s the ability to (or inability to) capitalize on that flexibility that really determines the Wizard’s power level, rather than just the sheer number of available spells.

I think that people assume Wizards have the ability to capitalize on the flexibility more often than I have personally experienced being the case in games that I have played in.

I think that's mostly a problem with your players then, not the wizard class.
Even without any fancy tricks a wizard can leave spell slots open to prepare any spell he knows at need in 15 minutes. That's a feature that's often severely under-utilized in my experience.
A wizard doesn't need to prepare a generalist loadout in all his slots when he doesn't know what the day will need. Unless there's a significant time crunch he can just prepare a small selection of general combat spells to get him through a fight and then prepare the rest when he has a better idea what the day holds or when the need for a specific spell comes up, and copying spells is cheap enough to carry even situational spells.

A sorcerer on the other hand is always stuck with the same general loadout, even if he knows what's coming.
And their spells known are so limited that you really have to pare it down to essentials and rely on items for anything beyond that.