Spore
2018-01-23, 07:28 AM
The only true stereotypical D&D class left to be played by me missing is the Wizard. I even had a sorcerer - if shortly and built more towards gish than anything. This thread will focus more on D&D but examples of my problem is found in other games too.
Magic users are very often particularly convoluted.
Take a standard wizard. They are supposed to be able to solve any problem thrown at them. No more, they should realistically warp any gaming world they are in around their incredible powers. And then there comes the big BUT (wearing probably a tiny butt because wizards are scrawny).
You need various casting times (up to 24 hours), ritual items (don't even START trying to negotiate with a demon without at least a token of interest), material components (want to cast scrying without a mirror or water surface? too bad) and arcane foci (you lost your staff, pathfinder wizard? Well, roll or fail). You need to learn the spell from somewhere else or research the spells on your own with downtime rules (taking you a TAD out of the adventuring).
There is a reason the average wizard throws a lightning bolt or fireball against any problem. If it doesn't vanish he starts to plan. But why? Why bog down magic for wizards especially? Clerics and druids seem to get all spells on their list. A spell is in a book that got released during your campaign? Nice, you got these spells too, since your DM approved content of that particular book. The wizard needs to pick up a scroll of these spells. If there is not Adventurer Mart (TM) then too bad. Sorcerers can often go without material components, but it cramps my style incredibly having to handle bat guano for a simple fireball even if it has not rules implication short of a semi-magical bag of random items.
The stereotypical wizard seeks power or does his magical researches because of curiosity. The state of ultimate power described in optimization forum threads mostly describes the result but not the actual process of gaining power. Most of these things is RPing your character and managing your downtime. The cleric has to pray, the druid usually meditates but that is it. After prepping his spells for the day, the wizard has to hurry to buy ingredients, shop for scrolls, or hit the books to copy spells. There is rarely opportunity (or reason) to RP with the group at all. Time is so much better used researching a quintillion spells for every eventuality. Because that is what the wizard is. A swiss army knife with the right tool for the job. Only that it's tools are customizable and you start off with a cork screw and a knife and nothing else. It's like the D&D class version of a game with a terrible base game and a huge amount of DLCs. And no, the GOTY-version is never coming out.
Yes, a well played wizard is somewhat competent. But now we come to the real life effort put into this. I never played a wizard, like stated above. I however played an Pathfinder Alchemist, which is translated to our thread, a Wizard "Light". I put Cha 8 (with Tiefling penalty Cha 6) and purely focussed on the research side. And we had a library with any 1st or 2nd level arcane spell available otherwise the character would have suffered so much. In a greater scope everyone is reliant on DM fiat. But to be just able to play your class normally having to ask your DM for handouts is not right. Yes, wizards get free spells per level up (I think 3.0 didn't do that, and certainly AD&D did not) but many arcane spells are so narrow in scope that this simply is not enough. I won't start on sorcerers because they suffer too. Only each edition plays with them differently, and some give them tools to deal with everyday combat situations. A wizard however is ultimatively always reduced to their spells. Yes, 5e and their powerful at will cantrips to mend that situation somewhat. But the base premise is still there. Shell out money or never learn any arcane spell short of leveling up, ever.
What do you think? Is the Wizard's spell grind acceptable from a design perspective? Is forcing them to shell out money for spells on par with equipping the fighter with armor and (a) weapon(s)?
Magic users are very often particularly convoluted.
Take a standard wizard. They are supposed to be able to solve any problem thrown at them. No more, they should realistically warp any gaming world they are in around their incredible powers. And then there comes the big BUT (wearing probably a tiny butt because wizards are scrawny).
You need various casting times (up to 24 hours), ritual items (don't even START trying to negotiate with a demon without at least a token of interest), material components (want to cast scrying without a mirror or water surface? too bad) and arcane foci (you lost your staff, pathfinder wizard? Well, roll or fail). You need to learn the spell from somewhere else or research the spells on your own with downtime rules (taking you a TAD out of the adventuring).
There is a reason the average wizard throws a lightning bolt or fireball against any problem. If it doesn't vanish he starts to plan. But why? Why bog down magic for wizards especially? Clerics and druids seem to get all spells on their list. A spell is in a book that got released during your campaign? Nice, you got these spells too, since your DM approved content of that particular book. The wizard needs to pick up a scroll of these spells. If there is not Adventurer Mart (TM) then too bad. Sorcerers can often go without material components, but it cramps my style incredibly having to handle bat guano for a simple fireball even if it has not rules implication short of a semi-magical bag of random items.
The stereotypical wizard seeks power or does his magical researches because of curiosity. The state of ultimate power described in optimization forum threads mostly describes the result but not the actual process of gaining power. Most of these things is RPing your character and managing your downtime. The cleric has to pray, the druid usually meditates but that is it. After prepping his spells for the day, the wizard has to hurry to buy ingredients, shop for scrolls, or hit the books to copy spells. There is rarely opportunity (or reason) to RP with the group at all. Time is so much better used researching a quintillion spells for every eventuality. Because that is what the wizard is. A swiss army knife with the right tool for the job. Only that it's tools are customizable and you start off with a cork screw and a knife and nothing else. It's like the D&D class version of a game with a terrible base game and a huge amount of DLCs. And no, the GOTY-version is never coming out.
Yes, a well played wizard is somewhat competent. But now we come to the real life effort put into this. I never played a wizard, like stated above. I however played an Pathfinder Alchemist, which is translated to our thread, a Wizard "Light". I put Cha 8 (with Tiefling penalty Cha 6) and purely focussed on the research side. And we had a library with any 1st or 2nd level arcane spell available otherwise the character would have suffered so much. In a greater scope everyone is reliant on DM fiat. But to be just able to play your class normally having to ask your DM for handouts is not right. Yes, wizards get free spells per level up (I think 3.0 didn't do that, and certainly AD&D did not) but many arcane spells are so narrow in scope that this simply is not enough. I won't start on sorcerers because they suffer too. Only each edition plays with them differently, and some give them tools to deal with everyday combat situations. A wizard however is ultimatively always reduced to their spells. Yes, 5e and their powerful at will cantrips to mend that situation somewhat. But the base premise is still there. Shell out money or never learn any arcane spell short of leveling up, ever.
What do you think? Is the Wizard's spell grind acceptable from a design perspective? Is forcing them to shell out money for spells on par with equipping the fighter with armor and (a) weapon(s)?