A Case For/Against Wizards

[pwykersotz]

Ever since I started reading these forums, a trend has made itself known to me. One that has confused me to no end. The idea that Wizards are extremely powerful and make most other classes pale in comparison.

I know Cleric and Druid are believed to be the same. Druid I can see. Animal Companion, the very nice power of Wildshape, and full spellcasting progression are all nice. Cleric is a bit in the same ballpark as Wizard for me, but I digress.

What's so great about Wizards?

It's true they can reshape the universe to their whim, but that's provided the universe doesn't get a Will Save.

Weakness 1: Preparing spells. A wizard is dead if caught with their pants down. I have never gamed with a wizard who could actually be useful in any kind of extended dungeon because they are either overspecialized to a specific cause or so spread thin on their spell preparation that they are near useless. At least a Sorcerer can try again if the enemy saves or if there's a nasty surprise in the stone wall that was just melded into, a Wizard gets to wait 8 hours.

Weakness 2: Saves. Especially at levels 1-10, but also heavily at 10-20, every creature I randomly pull from the Monster Manual (1, 2, 3, and 4) regularly save against a Wizard. I would say that if things go well for a Wizard, they waste half their spells against successful saves. I can't count the number of battles or scenarios my Wizard (or one of my friends) has been in that the Wizard was utterly useless due to saves alone. Not one spell was effective.

Weakness 3: Buffs. With everything I hear about Gish casters and the like, I was eager to see what could be done with this. But all in all, nothing that ordinary magic items can't already do. +4 to a stat for a while? Cool! Cast it on the Crusader and he gets a whole whopping 2 to his mod! For a little while! This is not the stuff of turning the tides of battles. Haste is great for giving that extra kick for a full round attack, but most combat with a party of 4 lasts only a few rounds. If there aren't tons of enemies to wade through, these buffs might get one or two uses per casting.

There are many more I have, but I think that suffices as an overview. Now that being said, I love Wizards. Their spells can do some cool things like Meld into Stone or Reverse Gravity. Not always handy, but sometimes they're a lifesaver. Much more versatility than Sorcerers too. If you know the whole challenge ahead of time and if you have time to prepare, yes, you can own a dungeon.

My case is simply that they are rather weak in combat and only useful outside of it if they have "happened" to prepare the right spell. Compared to Tome of Battle constantly refreshable maneuvers, or Sorcerer "retries", I'm not seeing the ultimate class here.

All that said, I'm rather confused still. What am I missing about Wizards?

[CycloneJoker]

Ever since I started reading these forums, a trend has made itself known to me. One that has confused me to no end. The idea that Wizards are extremely powerful and make most other classes pale in comparison.

I know Cleric and Druid are believed to be the same. Druid I can see. Animal Companion, the very nice power of Wildshape, and full spellcasting progression are all nice. Cleric is a bit in the same ballpark as Wizard for me, but I digress.

What's so great about Wizards?

It's true they can reshape the universe to their whim, but that's provided the universe doesn't get a Will Save.

Weakness 1: Preparing spells. A wizard is dead if caught with their pants down. I have never gamed with a wizard who could actually be useful in any kind of extended dungeon because they are either overspecialized to a specific cause or so spread thin on their spell preparation that they are near useless. At least a Sorcerer can try again if the enemy saves or if there's a nasty surprise in the stone wall that was just melded into, a Wizard gets to wait 8 hours.

Weakness 2: Saves. Especially at levels 1-10, but also heavily at 10-20, every creature I randomly pull from the Monster Manual (1, 2, 3, and 4) regularly save against a Wizard. I would say that if things go well for a Wizard, they waste half their spells against successful saves. I can't count the number of battles or scenarios my Wizard (or one of my friends) has been in that the Wizard was utterly useless due to saves alone. Not one spell was effective.

Weakness 3: Buffs. With everything I hear about Gish casters and the like, I was eager to see what could be done with this. But all in all, nothing that ordinary magic items can't already do. +4 to a stat for a while? Cool! Cast it on the Crusader and he gets a whole whopping 2 to his mod! For a little while! This is not the stuff of turning the tides of battles. Haste is great for giving that extra kick for a full round attack, but most combat with a party of 4 lasts only a few rounds. If there aren't tons of enemies to wade through, these buffs might get one or two uses per casting.

There are many more I have, but I think that suffices as an overview. Now that being said, I love Wizards. Their spells can do some cool things like Meld into Stone or Reverse Gravity. Not always handy, but sometimes they're a lifesaver. Much more versatility than Sorcerers too. If you know the whole challenge ahead of time and if you have time to prepare, yes, you can own a dungeon.

My case is simply that they are rather weak in combat and only useful outside of it if they have "happened" to prepare the right spell. Compared to Tome of Battle constantly refreshable maneuvers, or Sorcerer "retries", I'm not seeing the ultimate class here.

All that said, I'm rather confused still. What am I missing about Wizards?

Well, they can learn ANY spell, so they are really only second to S2P Erudite, and Contact plane, or other divination shenanigans means prep means nothing. As do saves, since you have the right spells, so you'll never need to make one, or you could be buffed enough for a save. Also, I have a high enough stat/spell level/metamagic shenanigans/other shenanigans to ignore saves, as well as debuffs and no saves/save for halfs. In other words, a wizard is:
~anything you can do, I can do better,
I can do anything better than you~

[Waker]

In a normal game, wizards are tremendously handy but not broken. Many times the reasoning for the broken tier 1 aspect is due to insanely paranoid character playing, where every day is spent Contacting Other Plane for asking 400 questions, adding contingencies for two dozen different scenarios and using spells that have no real reason being cast by the Wizard (like Sanctified magic from BoED).

[Kyuu Himura]

Many times the reasoning for the broken tier 1 aspect is due to insanely paranoid character playing, where every day is spent Contacting Other Plane for asking 400 questions, adding contingencies for two dozen different scenarios and using spells that have no real reason being cast by the Wizard (like Sanctified magic from BoED).

The fact that they can do this means they are broken, sure, not every wizard player can do this, not everyone should, but the case exists.

Then you have things likeplanar raveling to the elemental plane of earth to get diamonds. Or turning cows into salt, then selling the salt so you could break the wealth by level.

And then there is the thing about binding efreets for infinite wishes.

And then there is Shape changing into a Sodar for a free wish. Every round.

And then there is replacing the warriors with summons...

And then there is replacing the stealthy guys with invisibility, find traps and knock (and blasty spells, but meh)

And then there is binding a freaking Pit Fiend so you don't actually have to do a damn thing at all...

Point is, the wizard spell list is so big and they get so many spells per level per day, that they can actually prepare spells that don't offer a save and still turn off an enemy, such as, say, forcecage.

So yeah, most not-Schroedinger wizards cannot have The right spell for the job, but they will always have at the very least one spell that handles this situation in a way that it makes it non-threatening

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Weakness 1: Wizards are caught with their pants down less often than Sorcerers are exactly because they get to prepare different spells in each slot. With Focused Specialist, they prepare almost as many delicious spell slots as sorcerers (with a special advantage at odd levels, obviously), so they can cover for many more situations than the sorcerer can. The DM can always throw some out-of-the-box or (usually) fiat problems that the wizard can't solve, but the point is that it's more difficult to confound the wizard, especially in the long term, when he can simply prepare a new list. Yes, you can whittle down his spell slots, but it's more likely that your fighter is going to run out of HP first.

Weakness 2: This is why area of effect Save-or-X spells and no-save spells are preferred over single target Save-or-X. The former is much more likely to succeed against at least one foe, and the latter doesn't require a save at all. It's also important for a well-played wizard to target the right save. You don't cast Finger of Death on the Giant Blob of Hit Dice and Melee Attacks. You don't cast Dominate Person on the enemy druid. You cast Glitterdust on the orcs, Glass Strike (or Disintegrate if you want core) on the lich, and Web on the full plate clerics. Of course, there's a separate argument that the probability of the DM's creatures beating a saving throw is upwardly biased because the DM wants the fight to be more 'interesting,' but that's a DM problem, not a wizard problem.

Weakness 3: It is well known that wizards are better debuffers and battlefield controllers than they are buffers, in general. That said, Haste is almost always going to be a useful spell, and its value increases the more full attackers there are in your party. It is a fine spell to default to when (1) your other spells won't work as well for some reason or (2) you don't want to use higher level spells this combat. This argument generally applies to other wizard buffs, but don't focus on stuff like Bull's Strength. Remember, the wizard should be judged by what he's likely to take, not the weaker spells on his list. Also, you should look at War Weaver and Incantatrix. Both of those classes can make wizard buffing quite ridiculous.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Weakness 1: Don't cast a spell every single round until the end of combat, only cast enough to disable/debuff most/all of the opponents and let the damage dealers in your party clean up. Often this only takes 1-2 spells per fight, so you're not going to run out all the time. Don't try to use spells to deal damage, other classes can deal damage for free so that should be their job. Your job as a wizard is to cast spells that disable or debuff the opponents so they cannot effectively fight back, something the damage dealers in your party typically aren't even capable of. When played right you shouldn't run out of spells except on a very drawn-out crawl, and even then you've got Rope Trick.

Weakness 2: Only Dragons and Outsiders have all good saves. It's not difficult to write down every creature type, what its weak saves are, and what knowledge check is used to identify that type of creature. Put at least one rank in every knowledge skill that identifies a type of monster, it doesn't take any action to roll a reactive check to identify a creature as soon as you see it, and at that point you should get a good idea of what its weak saves are. Spells like Grease, Web, Bands of Steel, Solid Fog, and Freezing Fog don't even matter what their save is, you cast it on them and they're screwed. Try to split up the opponents so your damage dealers can focus on a few at a time, take a few out of the fight for a few rounds with a web or a wall spell. Every round an opponent spends trying to get free and get back into the fight is a round they didn't spend hurting your party. A single standard action from you can make half a dozen opponents waste half a dozen rounds each, efficiency like that is what makes spells powerful.

Weakness 3: A Gish has personal-range spells like Shield, Wraithstrike, Bladeweave, and (Greater) Mirror Image, along with attack-related spells and feats like Arcane Strike and Whirling Blade, which combined with Quicken, Extend, and Persistent Spell will make him a much more dangerous combatant than any dedicated melee who doesn't have spells. For party-buffing, you've conveniently left out the workhorse: Polymorph. A Wizard 7 can Polymorph himself into an Annis Hag and be a stronger combatant than the party Fighter. He can Polymorph his party members into Cave Trolls, Behirs, and War Trolls, and suddenly they're more dangerous than the monsters they're fighting. Enlarge Person on a frontliner with clever positioning can grant dozens of extra attacks over its duration via AoOs. Haste doesn't just grant extra attacks, it makes everyone move 30 ft. faster per move, which can lead to significant tactical advantages like getting the barbarian into melee range of the enemy archers.

Knowing how to use the tools you have is the most important part of playing a powerful character, it doesn't just happen as soon as you pick that class. If you don't know how to play a powerful character, if you've never seen one played, then you probably won't realize just how well it works when done right.

[AslanCross]

I don't think Wizards are automatically broken (never seen that kind of cheese in my games), but with proper spell selection they can get pretty nasty starting from Level 11 onwards.

Weakness 1: Preparing spells.

There are certain ways to circumvent this, the simplest being Rope Trick.

Weakness 2: Saves. Especially at levels 1-10, but also heavily at 10-20, every creature I randomly pull from the Monster Manual (1, 2, 3, and 4) regularly save against a Wizard. I would say that if things go well for a Wizard, they waste half their spells against successful saves. I can't count the number of battles or scenarios my Wizard (or one of my friends) has been in that the Wizard was utterly useless due to saves alone. Not one spell was effective.

There are a whole bunch of spells that don't require saves. Solid Fog, Black Tentacles, the Orb spells, Shivering Touch, which no longer exists in my games, among others.

Weakness 3: Buffs. With everything I hear about Gish casters and the like, I was eager to see what could be done with this. But all in all, nothing that ordinary magic items can't already do. +4 to a stat for a while? Cool! Cast it on the Crusader and he gets a whole whopping 2 to his mod! For a little while! This is not the stuff of turning the tides of battles. Haste is great for giving that extra kick for a full round attack, but most combat with a party of 4 lasts only a few rounds. If there aren't tons of enemies to wade through, these buffs might get one or two uses per casting.

This I'll grant you. However, Haste's primary draw is its boost to movement speed, and that one casting at the start of the battle will matter. But buffs like Stoneskin, Fly, Mass Fly, and Wind Wall are fairly low-level spells that can completely shut down encounters. Then there's the Polymorph spells.

[Cerlis]

The fact that they can do this means they are broken, sure, not every wizard player can do this, not everyone should, but the case exists.

Then you have things likeplanar raveling to the elemental plane of earth to get diamonds. Or turning cows into salt, then selling the salt so you could break the wealth by level.

And then there is the thing about binding efreets for infinite wishes.

And then there is Shape changing into a Sodar for a free wish. Every round.

And then there is replacing the warriors with summons...

And then there is replacing the stealthy guys with invisibility, find traps and knock (and blasty spells, but meh)

And then there is binding a freaking Pit Fiend so you don't actually have to do a damn thing at all...

Point is, the wizard spell list is so big and they get so many spells per level per day, that they can actually prepare spells that don't offer a save and still turn off an enemy, such as, say, forcecage.

So yeah, most not-Schroedinger wizards cannot have The right spell for the job, but they will always have at the very least one spell that handles this situation in a way that it makes it non-threatening

So basically they are powerful cus some munchkins like to break the game with loopholes? what about someone who plays a skilled wizard who isnt a pri- er....munchkin.

ANd they get 4 spells per level. And half of those are wasted on stuff like Summon horse or melf's acid arrow.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

So basically they are powerful cus some munchkins like to break the game with loopholes? what about someone who plays a skilled wizard who isnt a pri- er....munchkin.

They dominate, but do not break.

ANd they get 4 spells per level.

4 spells per spell level, for free, as a baseline. There are numerous ways to increase your free spells, including (but not limited to) collegiate wizard, elven generalist, domain wizard, Master Specialist, and Mage of the Arcane Order. And there are also ways to decrease the time and cost of adding other spells, such as Geometer or the ever-popular Blessed Book. Spells known isn't going to be a problem unless the DM works to make it a problem.

And half of those are wasted on stuff like Summon horse or melf's acid arrow.

This is just plain wrong. That's like saying the Fighter wastes half of his feats on Skill Focus: Speak Language.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

So basically they are powerful cus some munchkins like to break the game with loopholes? what about someone who plays a skilled wizard who isnt a pri- er....munchkin.

ANd they get 4 spells per level. And half of those are wasted on stuff like Summon horse or melf's acid arrow.

Breaking the game implies infinite loops and the like. Wizards are just strong, not ZOMG drown-heals.

[Gorgondantess]

ANd they get 4 spells per level. And half of those are wasted on stuff like Summon horse or melf's acid arrow.

PPPFFFAHHHHAHAHAhahahahh... HAhahah... heheh... heh...
Melf's acid arrow. You're killing me. Real wizards prepare alter self, web and invisibility in their 2nd level spell slots.
Also, real wizards are focused specialist transmuters or conjurers. That's 6 baseline spells per day, and that's not even counting bonus from intelligence (which is at least 1 more, bare minimum). And then pearls of powers are cool, too, especially when you keep one seven for your highest level spell slot and use it on alacritous cogitation.

[Runestar]

Here's an example of what a god wizard did in a game. Basically, they shine as battlefield controllers who disable the foes, leaving them vulnerable to your fighters.

1st Encounter: 6 Fire Mephits and 2 Flying Hell Hounds

In this battle, I didn't really contribute much directly, but I was able
to do what you stated.. and that's make sure everyone -else- did!

First off, I cast Fly on our heavy hitting Swashbuckler and she tore apart the
mephits and hounds. One of the mephits was trying to escape to get
reinforcements and I used my Orb of Fire to daze it and thus, keep it
from escaping.

2nd Encounter: 4 Rasts

These things were actually a pain in the butt. We had some bad rolls and
the DM was able to make three out of the four Will saves on my Slow
spell. One was upon me and tore my Mirror Images apart.

My Glitterdust
was again saved against but I was able to use Benign Transposition and
switched places with one of our other Swashbucklers who proceeded to
tear the Rast a new one.

3rd Encounter: 4 Noble Salamanders and 4 Grounded Hell Hounds

Now THIS one promised to be difficult but here is where I entirely
shined! You'd be proud!

First, while our warrior-monk was battling one
of the salamanders, I trapped one of them and three of the Hell Hounds in
a Freezing Fog. Of the remaining three Salamanders, one came for me and
our Captain (the heavy hitting Swashbuckler), one came for our scout,
and the other came for our First Mate (the Abjurant Champion
Swashbuckler).

I was able to use my Sculpted Evard's Tentacles to place
four ten foot cubes of tentacles under each of them. While the others
wailed on the remaining critters outside, I turned around and used a
Spiritwall to enclose the Freezing Fog!

Finding that the duration of the spells were both 12 minutes and the stuff outside was dead, the DM
basically ruled that the three inside would eventually die to my wicked
combo! Hehe!

[dextercorvia]

Pearls of Power can only be used to recall a speel that was prepared then cast.

[Tael]

The only thing I can conclude is that you've never played with a really good wizard. After all, all of your evidence is anecdotal. Let me provide some counter anecdotal evidence:

Breakdown of what I did during yesterday's session:

• First, Teleport to the ruins of former BBEG's empire to get quest item.
• Use Prying Eyes + various movement and Invisibility spells to completely circumvent all fights in the city surrounding the palace.
• Use Arcane Eye to get a jump on guards inside the palace compound, letting me summon 2 monsters and buff before the fight, as well as open with a well placed Confusion, hitting 3/4 possible Erinyes (only have a 20% chance of passing the save, which is about average if you are smart in targeting saves)
• After the alarm is raised during the fight, placed a Wall of Stone at the entrance to let us get inside the inner sanctum without being overrun by demonic orcs.
• Once we get inside the Sanctum, re-seal the entrance seamlessly with Stone Shape.
• Used Contact Other Plane to help solve a puzzle.
• After 1 fight with undead mooks in which I just buff a bit, spend 15 minutes to prepare Halt Undead.
• Halt 3/5 of the Undead King's guards, greatly reducing enemies faced at one time, and summoning an angel which not only is a capable combatant, but also provides a passive Magic Circle Against Evil. Then finishing the fight on 3rd turn with a Quickened (rod) Empowered Scorching Ray, and an Empowered Maximised (rod) Scorching Ray.
• Finally identified all the loot and hid the party in a rope trick while we slept for the night.

And all of this was done in one day as a level 10 core wizard. No broken crap, I could have been using ridiculous things like Planar Binding and Magic Jar. No, this was just 1 wizard being played intelligently. And I still had quite a few spells left.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I find it fitting that your wizard is literally summoning angels. I don't suppose any members of your party were good with a BMX?

[Tael]

I find it fitting that your wizard is literally summoning angels. I don't suppose any members of your party were good with a BMX?

The rogue was pretty useless. I think he had some points in Ride (BMX)...
It was only Summon Monster V, so the Paladin was outclassing it in melee (PF paladins are actually pretty good), but the main thing was that I only spent 1 turn to have it act for 3 turns, and get a free 3rd level spell of as well.

[umbrapolaris]

this forum and some others are mostly populated by optimizers and metagamers, so the wizard are seems broken. in most of games, people just choose the fluffy spells without even realize the true potential of others.

and i always repeat, Wizard are not broken or overpowerful, just some spells.

in d&d, spellcasters are "living" magic items, other classes can use magic items or scrolls to be versatile as a wizard.

[Curious]

I wouldn't say that every person on these boards is an optimizer, it's just that the easy game-breakers the wizard throws around are so easy to spot and publicize that everyone knows about it. And really, the fact that most people don't optimize doesn't make the wizard unbroken; as long as they can continue to shatter game balance at will, they are still broken.

[MeeposFire]

So basically they are powerful cus some munchkins like to break the game with loopholes? what about someone who plays a skilled wizard who isnt a pri- er....munchkin.

ANd they get 4 spells per level. And half of those are wasted on stuff like Summon horse or melf's acid arrow.

Munchkin normally implies that they are breaking the rules and while this happens a lot with wizards due to a lot of factors the stuff people are listing so far are legit and by the rules. The wizard is the ultimate thinking man's class since it can destroy encounters by changing reality unlike most other classes.

I know many people who can play a wizard and be virtually untouchable after hitting mid levels and are not being munchkins.

And good wizards never waste spells on summon horse (phantom steed maybe).

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

So, wizards aren't broken... their class features are. And only "metagamers" (failed pejorative) and "optimizers" (same) can make a wizard overpowered. Right...

And as far as the last part, show me a magic item that can give you as many spells as a wizard. Show me any level where WBL can replicate a wizard.

[MeeposFire]

So, wizards aren't broken... their class features are. And only "metagamers" (failed pejorative) and "optimizers" (same) can make a wizard overpowered. Right...

And as far as the last part, show me a magic item that can give you as many spells as a wizard. Show me any level where WBL can replicate a wizard.

No their class features are fine (if too small). It is the power of individual spells themselves. If spells did not do what they do wizards would not be broken. Warmages are not broken despite having 9th level spells and more class features.

[Curious]

The sad part is, you can't really change the wizard without making the class into something that is so far removed from 3.5 that it becomes unrecognizable. As long as the wizard is capable of bending reality over his knee he will always be capable of doing everything the other classes can, unless you go the route that 4e took. I've actually been thinking of making wizards in my games 'cast from hitpoints', but I'm not sure that would be fair to the people currently in my game, who don't really optimize. . . Well, at all.

[umbrapolaris]

No their class features are fine (if too small). It is the power of individual spells themselves. If spells did not do what they do wizards would not be broken. Warmages are not broken despite having 9th level spells and more class features.

+1, the class itself is very weak, all his low even the number of feats. but MAGIC is powerful. i am a skinny guy with a gun , your are a martial artist , i one shot you coz i have technology.

a 20th fighter, at that stage he is normally a king with leadership and co, he should have a wizard companion of same level, crafting all the scrolls , rings or stuff needed for adventuring. so he is versatile, but less than the wizard.

[MeeposFire]

Limit wizards and other casters to 5th or 6th level spells and they do not dominate and you give all their other higher level slots as general slots to fill as needed. Would not please most wizard players though as we hate being limited.

[Runestar]

this forum and some others are mostly populated by optimizers and metagamers, so the wizard are seems broken. in most of games, people just choose the fluffy spells without even realize the true potential of others.

That's like saying a class isn't overpowered because some people play it as a mere fraction of its true power. Shouldn't we be looking at what it can do, at its peak potential?

I mean, at what...7th lv, I was already locking down the entire battlefield with a single casting of evard's tentacles and stinking cloud, leaving all the foes nauseated and/or grappled. I have not jumped through loops, used any questionable rules interpretations or utilised some weird combo spanning 10+ splatbooks. Just 2 core only spells, as they are written.

a 20th fighter, at that stage he is normally a king with leadership and co, he should have a wizard companion of same level, crafting all the scrolls , rings or stuff needed for adventuring. so he is versatile, but less than the wizard.

By that logic, my lv20 wiz could also have a lv17 wiz cohort via leadership, and enjoy all the benefits as your 20th lv fighter.

The end result is still the same; lv20 wiz + lv17 wiz > lv20 fighter + lv17 wiz.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

My point was that spellcasting is the wizard's main class feature, so if the spells are broken, the wizard's main class feature is broken. If the wizard's main class feature is broken, the wizard is broken.

[umbrapolaris]

That's like saying a class isn't overpowered because some people play it as a mere fraction of its true power. Shouldn't we be looking at what it can do, at its peak potential?

I mean, at what...7th lv, I was already locking down the entire battlefield with a single casting of evard's tentacles and stinking cloud, leaving all the foes nauseated and/or grappled. I have not jumped through loops, used any questionable rules interpretations or utilised some weird combo spanning 10+ splatbooks. Just 2 core only spells, as they are written.

magic is overpowered in ad&d, ad&d 2e, and d&d 3.x. not the class itself. we knew that since the beginning. if i didnt like that , i will play cthulu or another low magic game. i dont say that you should change into another game, just remove all the spells that you consider broken or overpoweful; and dont forget that if you can cast a uber spell, the mobs can do it too.

The end result is still the same; lv20 wiz + lv17 wiz > lv20 fighter + lv17 wiz.

it is true, but it is not what i want to say, give versatile magic to any character it will become verstaile like a wizard (surely at a lesser level).

IMO, d&d is not a pvp game , where you compare the different classes between each other for balance.

in all edition of d&d, the casters are always the most important part of the group, via magic they can do what the other can't. that is why the spell section occupy 1/3 of the player handbook.

initially d&d is a game centered upon magic. after you are free to houserule it at your convenience.

[DeltaEmil]

D&D 1st to 3rd edition was a pvp-game for sure, because most worthwile enemies were also using class levels. In 3rd edition, this degenerated to the point that the more dangerous beings amongst the true chromatic dragons like the blue and the red ones were nothing more but sorcerer/clerics with lots of hit points and already shapechanged into dragon form, and the simplest way to make something more dangerous was to give them class levels (preferably in a spellcasting class).

And that's why the game breaks down, when the gm is forced to play an NPC wizard against a PC wizard, and the non-spellcasting player characters were sitting down and watching stuff blow up.

[umbrapolaris]

D&D 1st to 3rd edition was a pvp-game for sure, because most worthwile enemies were also using class levels. In 3rd edition, this degenerated to the point that the more dangerous beings amongst the true chromatic dragons like the blue and the red ones were nothing more but sorcerer/clerics with lots of hit points and already shapechanged into dragon form, and the simplest way to make something more dangerous was to give them class levels (preferably in a spellcasting class).

And that's why the game breaks down, when the gm is forced to play an NPC wizard against a PC wizard, and the non-spellcasting player characters were sitting down and watching stuff blow up.

i meant a fighter vs a caster, etc...

as u said generally in d&d , casters focus casters, rogues focus weakened enemies, fighter focus the big guy, etc...

[mostlyharmful]

So, wizards aren't broken... their class features are. And only "metagamers" (failed pejorative) and "optimizers" (same) can make a wizard overpowered. Right...

And as far as the last part, show me a magic item that can give you as many spells as a wizard. Show me any level where WBL can replicate a wizard.

very easy to do...