The problem with WuJen

[Skjaldbakka]

What is it?

In the interest of not de-railing the thread in which Wu-Jen was disparraged, I made a new thread. Why is Wu-Jen not included with the other full casters as the grown-up table?

[Zincorium]

Not entirely sure, but I've got a few theories.

1. Set spell list. With some good stuff, including classics like time stop, but it doesn't expand to the degree a wizard's does...

2. And speaking of wizards, it's an intelligence-based caster with a spellbook. Unless you have a campaign based on chinese, korean, etc. mythology, the wu jen is quite simply redundant. It's not different enough to be included.

3. Non core. And while that personally doesn't count for diddly squat, for some people splatbooks are either 'teh eval' or simply not available.


Essentially, the wu-jen is a wizard with a reflavoring to fit 'oriental' campaigns, so there's not much point discussing it unless you're playing in kara-tur and you want to be batman.

[Skyserpent]

It's flavoring, while "interesting" it really doesn't offer much difference when actually played aside from a few fancy needle based spells that Wizards don't get. Honestly, though, I think Wu-Jen are far more playable by virtue of them being just a bit more balanced than Wizards for obvious reasons. Then again, this is the guy who likes Shugenjas...

[Skjaldbakka]

Wait. . . shugenjas suck too?

[Innis Cabal]

lets not forget their decapitating sash here people.

[Temp]

The problem is the Wu Jen and the Shugenja have nothing distinguishing them from the Wizard or Cleric/Druid. They're the same classes with the power kicked down a few notches.

...They still are full spellcasters so they don't "suck" in most games, but there's really no reason to use them when you can portray an identical character more easily and more potently with the core classes.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

The one saving grace the do have is that if you want to specialize in a certain spell, Spell Secrets give you that option. For instance a Wu Jen makes a better entry to Master of the Unseen Hand than Wizard.

You can ignore those two sentences if you're using Arcane Thesis, by the way.

[Skjaldbakka]

Can you not take that feat as a Wu-Jen?

[Armads]

It doesn't help the wu-jen as much as it helps the wizard, because the wizard doesn't get the metamagics for free normally (and the wu-jen does).

[CthulhuM]

Shugenjas are actually decent (well, about as good as favored souls, at least) - they get access to a bunch of the better offensive sorcerer/wizard spells, as well as the usual cleric standbys for healing and such.

Wu Jen, on the other hand, are terrible (well, as far as full casters go, anyway). Not only does their spell list not expand with every splatbook like any of the primary casting classes, but they're even missing a number of the better spells from core - for the love of god, they don't even get mage armor. The Wu Jen-only spells are all pretty weak, and the spell secrets just aren't enough of a bonus to make up for all the spell list's failings.

[Innis Cabal]

wu-jen magic isnt as powerful but is far and above cooler then 90% of the non evil wizard spells.

[Saph]

Not entirely sure, but I've got a few theories.

1. Set spell list. With some good stuff, including classics like time stop, but it doesn't expand to the degree a wizard's does...

2. And speaking of wizards, it's an intelligence-based caster with a spellbook. Unless you have a campaign based on chinese, korean, etc. mythology, the wu jen is quite simply redundant. It's not different enough to be included.

3. Non core. And while that personally doesn't count for diddly squat, for some people splatbooks are either 'teh eval' or simply not available.

Essentially, the wu-jen is a wizard with a reflavoring to fit 'oriental' campaigns, so there's not much point discussing it unless you're playing in kara-tur and you want to be batman.

There's also the aspect that it's pretty difficult to figure where the 'oriental' flavour is actually coming from. Presumably it's supposed to be Chinese, but even players who know quite a bit about China usually haven't got a clue what a Wu Jen is supposed to be. Even the name is weird.

It just seems to be a class that's different for the sake of being different. It doesn't distinguish itself enough either with its flavour or with its mechanics.

- Saph

[Tengu]

From what I know, Wu Jen is basically Wizard from the AD&D free spinoff game, Dragonfist, which was set in a medieval China-style world and supposed to emulate the feel of wuxia movies. If you're not familiar with it, no loss for you - it was even more awful than ordinary DND.

[Starbuck_II]

Wu Jen do get Snake Darts:
4th level spell that auto hits 2 "darts":
You can attack same target or 2 different ones (divide it up).

Deals 3d6 damage which is decent because each has a Fort save or Con damage as if poison (1 minute later they Fort save again).

I've killed Fire Giants and Hydras before with it. They failed save against it (which was luck).

But I wish Wu Jen could get actual support instead of instructions what spell ideas to add in spell Compendruim.