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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Sweet, now I have your attention.

    I've found a lot of people always talk about how casters are overpowered when compared to the other classes in D&D. I also think that full casters are the most powerful classes in the game.

    However, I've found that while in theory a wizard/sorcerer/cleric/druid/uberwarmachineofdeath can be built to handle any circumstances that arise, in practice, it never seems to work out this way. In practice, the casters usually provide powerful support to the party and are incredibly helpful, but don't end up overshadowing the melee classes. Even monks turn out to make meaningful contributions to combat, though in general fighters do it better.

    I've only ever played in one campaign where a caster overshadowed everyone else, and that wasn't even because of his build. It was because he was the one who got a powerful artifact the GM put in the game that only one person could use at a time, that basically gave the wielder unlimited magic, but the magic could misfire if the wielder failed a spellcraft check.

    With that one exception in mind, I've never seen the casters overshadow the physical combatants. Now, I certainly see the theory behind casters dominating the game, and a properly optimized caster likely would dominate in this fashion... it just never happens because the players can't actually account for every eventuality. Sometimes they memorize/learn the wrong spells, or forget to pick up a particular wand or pack of scrolls, or any number of things.

    I think part of this comes from having so much to manage when playing casters. As a wizard or sorcerer, you have to choose your spells known carefully, as a wizard, cleric, or druid you have to choose which spells to memorize carefully, and so on. With a rogue or barbarian, the book basically says here are your class features, pick some feats and have fun. A fighter seems to be a bit of an in-between case, as they get a ton of feats and as such have a lot of customization, but even a cookie cutter fighter build will be effective, if not optimized.

    It seems that having more to manage is what generally keeps casters in line, and while security by obscurity isn't the best design, it has seemed to work in practice in any of the D&D games I've played.

    So what have your actual gameplay experiences with casters been? I don't care about RAW or theory in this case, I'm looking for how things have turned out when you played the game. Has your experience been like mine, where casters are powerful but not overshadowing, or have you actually played in a game in which a caster overshadowed everyone simply through his or her build?
    Last edited by Eclipse; 2008-12-16 at 02:27 PM.

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    Kobold

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by Eclipse View Post
    I think part of this comes from having so much to manage when playing casters. As a wizard or sorcerer, you have to choose your spells known carefully, as a wizard, cleric, or druid you have to choose which spells to memorize carefully, and so on.
    I've seen this affect prepared casters more so than spontaneous ones. Even though I think wizards are more powerful than sorcerers, I play my sorcerers more effectively because I haven't spent hours agonizing on my list for the current situation.

    In most games, the simpler classes do the dirty work and the casters save the day on a grander scale. I rarely see the theoretically optimal casters outshine other classes at their own jobs. I'm not sure if that's just how we play or if our casters just suck.
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  3. - Top - End - #3
    Colossus in the Playground
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Didn't we have this thread like...few months back? Anyways, first 3.5 game I ever played, once we were past level 10, our entire Fighter-body (we had 3 dedicated frontliners in Fighter, Fighter, Barbarian) was mostly unnecessary as casters threw Destruction here, Hold Monster there and so on, dealing with any targets that could pose a head, while they had maybe 10% of the party wealth.

    Sure, the imbalances don't usually make the game unplayable unless opponents are optimized too, but it's hard to challenge the casters while not being overpowering to the non-casters. Also, one principal factor in the problem is that casters plain have more options - you can do more with casters which helps not getting bored when playing 1-20; standard melee combatants can be interesting for few sessions, but session 25 with you once again going to hit the bad guy gets a tad repetitive. Casters have something like 100 pages from the PHB for their options while melee combatants have...2? And even most of those are trash.

    So yea, I feel the problem isn't as much in the casters (when not breaking the game) as in the core non-casters. Just horrible, horrible class design overall.
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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    You're overstating the case you're arguing against - that is, strawmanning.

    A caster doesn't need to be more powerful than an infinite amount of enemies/characters, or even just more powerful than the entire rest of the party. (Although they certianly can be.) They're overpowered because they're more powerful than any single other character.

    Personally, I've found that whenever one of my players plays a druid (his favorite class), he eclipses the entire rest of the party, and definitely eclipses any single other PC. This has been true since the very first D&D 3.0 campaign we ever played, which started right after 3rd edition came out. He doesn't even try very hard - he just takes Natural Spell, a bear for an animal companion, and uses his spells intelligently.

    Similarly, the blaster sorcerer in our dungeon-crawl campaign was the only member of the party who could hold a candle to the party druid and his bear in combat, managing to single-handedly end encounters almost as often.

    My players don't tend to play casters, other than the druid player, so the issue doesn't come up that much - none of them really have the patience for picking spells to memorize. Lucky me.

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Actual gameplay experience ... Radiant Servant of Pelor should not come within 500 yards of an undead-heavy campaign. Even a normal Cleric would have been powerful, but when we ran Shackled City some of the encounters were just embarrassing (i.e. singlehandedly killing 90% of a room full of lower-lieutenant-level bad guys, obliterating a vampire that was basically taking a bath in negative energy, etc).

    EDIT: Oh, and as a little bonus: We'd just gotten Book of Exalted Deeds, and I'd decided to test out a Vow of Poverty Monk... Never felt so ineffective in any D&D campaign before or since. The two things he was good at doing were diving into disgusting substances to extricate the Rogue, and disarming people then running away with the weapon. (Which actually did come in handy against the BBEG, but still!)
    Last edited by Telonius; 2008-12-16 at 02:58 PM.

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by Eclipse View Post
    I think part of this comes from having so much to manage when playing casters. As a wizard or sorcerer, you have to choose your spells known carefully, as a wizard, cleric, or druid you have to choose which spells to memorize carefully, and so on. With a rogue or barbarian, the book basically says here are your class features, pick some feats and have fun. A fighter seems to be a bit of an in-between case, as they get a ton of feats and as such have a lot of customization, but even a cookie cutter fighter build will be effective, if not optimized.

    It seems that having more to manage is what generally keeps casters in line, and while security by obscurity isn't the best design, it has seemed to work in practice in any of the D&D games I've played.
    Have to agree with this.

    Playing a Vancian caster to full potential is just so much work. I've done it a couple of times, and each time I end up with a character sheet that's about six A4 pages long . . . single-spaced. Most people either don't have that kind of spare time, or simply can't be bothered. (I tend to avoid prepared casters these days just because I don't want to have do all the paperwork anymore.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Eclipse View Post
    So what have your actual gameplay experiences with casters been? I don't care about RAW or theory in this case, I'm looking for how things have turned out when you played the game. Has your experience been like mine, where casters are powerful but not overshadowing, or have you actually played in a game in which a caster overshadowed everyone simply through his or her build?
    I find it depends hugely on level. Here's a formula I've come up with in the past (and which I've found pretty accurate, over and over again):

    • Levels 1-4: Fighters dominate over casters.
    • Levels 5-10: Fighters and casters are roughly balanced.
    • Levels 11-14: Casters dominate over fighters.
    • Levels 15-20: Casters dominate over everything.
    • Level 21+: Divide by Cucumber Error. Please reinstall universe and reboot.

    You get exceptions, of course: I've seen effective 2nd-level wizards, and I've seen high-level melee builds that pull their weight, too. But that's the tendency.

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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I once played an Aquamancer who completely kicked butt. 2E.

    I researched spells, I acquired stuff from the Wizard Spell Compendium (like an encyclopedia of all the magic-user spells in the game from all official sources), I made magic items.

    I was set up by level 18 so I couldn't be killed by HP damage. I had miniature ward daggers strapped to a friendship bracelet on my ankle that each prevented a common spell from taking effect on me or my personal equipment (including AMF, Dispel Magic, Mord's Disjunction, Limited Wish, Wish, the reversed form of the Lifeproof spell I used to escape HP damage, and many others). Each one had a very reasonable sticker price but I made them all.

    I had a pair of Spell Holding rings. One held a powered-up single-target version of Haste and the other held some other crazy thing. When I threw shuriken it was 15 per round. Each one held a Charge spell for 36 electric damage, save half, and the base damage of the shuriken was something like d4+10 each because of various long-duration buffs and that they were made of some funky metal.

    I had an army of simulacra copies of all the bosses we fought. It was like the Boss Fight Greatest Hits except I had dozens of each (about half effective level for each one, though it hardly mattered at that point).

    I even had a bangle with multiple little metal rings hanging on it that were enchanted simply to turn bright green if they were magical. Each one carried this spell that would counter a Dispel Magic by doing horrible things to the caster. When someone cast Dispel, my DM ruled, they could target an area, a creature, or an item. If the area were targeted, only area spells could be removed. If the creature, all its personal effects but not worn item effects could be removed. If a single item, that item and its effects could be deactivated for a time. So nobody ever targeted an item because they wanted to take down my buffs. When my bangle got short on green rings I cast the Anti-Dispel spell on them again.

    ---

    In one campaign I was playing a Psionicist (2E). It was called the Greed Campaign, we were each members of different noble houses that were global powers behind the scenes. The goal was to enrich our own houses. None of our characters knew each other or knew the others were in a noble house.

    One house rule was that we didn't ever "cap out" for XP, so if you accumulated enough XP to gain one or two or three levels before you got a chance to train that was okay. Otherwise it would stop at just shy of gaining two levels at once, and you'd be "working for free". Well that rule was out on this campaign.

    Another house rule was that you would get 1 XP per GP you donated to your noble house. If you donated a magic item, you gained 1 XP per GP value of the magc item.

    I don't know why, but my DM decided that this one dragon's cave had a door leading to it, just bolted to the mountainside. I used Identify and Legend Lore from spell storing ioun stones (they were already cast, and I'm using an item, so no CON hit from ID and I don't have to put the item on). Well turns out this door is actually a Door of Holding and it holds the entire dragon's cave. So it can move in a hurry I guess.

    Well I keep this to myself. We go inside, and as usual get overpowered and leave before grabbing the MacGuffin. The party camps in a Rope Trick. I sneak away and use the command word I discovered with Legend Lore and Identify to grab the door off the mountain. I teleport home with said door and ... give it to them.

    I figured out based on internal volume and the cheapest extradimensional space item out there, extrapolating a value for the door. Then the DM had to total up everything that was in the cave (including the MacGuffin artifact). I should have ascended to level 2,400 Psionicist or so (from 15th) but the DM said that was crazy and I offered to take just 1/12th the amount. So now I was level 215th.

    Oh man. I had every useful Devotion and Science out of the Psi Handbook, and piled on enough extra success roll points by taking the powers again that I almost never failed on them. And such a high level breaks all the level-dependent things in the game.

    For example, I bought a Horn of Baubles. It's like a Horn of Bubbles, except it spews out a pile of junk jewelry and toys and stuff. But the amount was based on your level. It was supposed to be a funky item with no good use.

    At my level it could clog a 30' wide by 30' tall hallway in one blow. I used it to smother unsuccessful pickpockets and purchase small things from merchants.

    "Here, this scroll tube costs 3 GP? Would you trade 26,000 cubic feet of junk for it?"

    His eyes narrow. Then I blow the horn and he screams and cartwheels backward as the useless toys and jetsam billows out in great clouds of multicolored fury.

    One time the party was fighting this hydra thing with multiple holes to fight out from without exposing its body. The holes were int he ground. I just blew the horn and dropped a 60' across blob of junk down one hole. The creature didn't have room to move around in there and eventually we worked our way around and killed its helpless butt with fire.

    EDIT:

    Anyway, my point is in my experience, people underestimate the value of 1rd/lv duration spells because once you're level 10 that's the whole fight. But people also underestimate what you can get away with using long-duration or permanent spells.
    Last edited by Tacoma; 2008-12-16 at 03:11 PM.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I agree that it doesn't take much work to outshine melee as a caster.

    Tsotha-lanti mentions not even trying as a druid, and I agree - my current druid doesn't even have an animal companion OR wildshape (took the hunter variant, ditched AC), has gimped spellcasting (only 2 non-PHB spells per level), and I suspect is still well ahead of the rest of the party in power. And we're not even into the levels at which he really gets good.

    When the situation favours the prepared caster's spell selection, he'll mop everything up. So make sure that you prepare spells to handle what your party can't handle (or to simplify your party's job) and you're golden.

    Nobody seems to care if the druid is having a huge effect on the combat, as long as their PCs are dealing damage and dropping badguys. Nobody minds the power imbalance as long as it is making the game more fun for them.

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I see all these threads on how over powered casters compared to non-casters. This makes me wonder if any one out there has ever played in a group starting at level 1 with all casters in the group? Is it even possible?

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by Taim View Post
    I see all these threads on how over powered casters compared to non-casters. This makes me wonder if any one out there has ever played in a group starting at level 1 with all casters in the group? Is it even possible?
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Really? I love playing a batman style wizard. It really isn't too much work, and I tend to use a lot of the same or similar spells. Lots of castings of Benign Transposition to move my melee friends into full attack range, or pull them out of full attack range if needed. Lots of Ray of Enfeeblement and Ray of Exhaustion to shut down big hitters. Lots of Nerve Skitter so my team goes first (chain it!). Lots of Fogs, Freezing or Solid, to divide and conquer the 2-3 big guy encounters, and knock the occasional dragon out of the sky so my party can melee it. Lots of Haste, at mid levels, because the only thing my melee friends love to do more than hit stuff is hit it again. Some disables like Glitterdust, because giving all your friends 50% miss chance is fun. You get the picture.

    I don't use the really brokens stuff, like Polymorph, Celerity, Shivering Touch, or Ray of Stupidlybroken. But I do select solid spells, and honestly, its not that hard once you've broken down what the more solid spells are in any given situation. Its like playing chess. Initially, its kind of hard to figure out which pieces move which ways (chargers like room to run, melee like to full attack, archers like medium distances, no one likes to be surrounded, etc) but once you figure that out, its all about tactical and strategic application of the best piece at the best time. Everyone else has fun because I make their job easier.

    Trick to playing a wizard better, is make a sheet of your most commonly used spells. You'll find that there are about 3-4 each level. Write those one one sheet, put it in a plastic protector and write on it with wet erase markers. Put Xs next to each to designate how many of each you memorize, and erase the Xs as you cast. Keep a 2nd sheet with all of the other spells you know, that are circumstantial or you learned for crafting or trade bait or whatever. If you need one, write it near the other spells of the appropriate level, erase it when you cast it. Also, your typical daily buffs, once you get to a certain level, you can pretty much just mark off the spell slot and keep it up all day. Things like Mage Armor or Greater Magic Weapon (for your fighters), no point in always keeping track of em, just mark em off and be done with it.

    Same with clerics and druids...while you CAN make a sheet with every spell from every book ever printed on it, you KNOW what spells are most commonly useful, that you cast every day or every combat. So, keep those ones near and dear, and the rest go on the "hmmmm, I might need this some day" list.
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I have seen first hand, a wizard that overshadows all. One campaign i was involved with, i took my favourate well-rounded barbarian build. We play for quite some time (having started at lvl1 we had reached lvl 13) then all of a sudden, i may as well have not bothered turning up! I was technically the only tank in the group, but we did have a monk who'd worked on his Dex to the point he could get an AC of 37 and therefore not get hit (my barbarian was the only thing the monk had encountered that didn't need a natural 20!) and combine this with the bonus speed the monk gets and he was pretty much always the first one to the melee.

    Anyway, we were doing a dungeon slog, and it went as follows:

    1)We detect monsters up ahead
    2)Monk runs in and holds them up
    3)My barbarin runs to his aid since he isn't as good at causing damage as avoiding damage
    4)The sorceror casts spells
    5)The monsters die
    6)The cleric heals my barbarian of any damage caused by magical backlash from our own sorceror
    7)Repeat steps1-7

    I can tell you as a player who'd spent many hours on my appithiny toilet working out the best composition of skill point deployment, feat choices, ect. in order to make a versitile and always useful member of the party to be at the front line and still taking a back seat, it was really annoying!
    Quote Originally Posted by mikeejimbo View Post
    Either way, I prefer characters who tend to stick to the tried and true methods, including alignments. This, however, implies a lawful alignment. So is it actually lawful to play a chaotic character from a usually chaotic race? It's like, a paradox.

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I think overpowered classes are almost always the fault of the gm. There are many ways to design an adventure and when for axample the arcane spellcaster always shines, it's because the adventure is made for arcane spellcasters to shine.

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    yeah, i don't think it helped that he had taken ranks in Dragon disciple. and that he'd got a cloak of the archmagi and a +something vorpal short sword either, it meant if we got attacked in the rear he could usually kill them in combat unassisted as well.
    Quote Originally Posted by mikeejimbo View Post
    Either way, I prefer characters who tend to stick to the tried and true methods, including alignments. This, however, implies a lawful alignment. So is it actually lawful to play a chaotic character from a usually chaotic race? It's like, a paradox.

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by Eclipse View Post
    So what have your actual gameplay experiences with casters been?
    My RL experience is similiar to yours. However, I feel this is due to a few factors:

    1. My group roleplays, and we are kind of strict about it.
    2. We tend to play in low-magic campaigns where throwing magic about will get you in trouble.
    3. There are not nearly as many magic items as WBL would suggest, and there are absolutely no Magi-Marts.
    4. We play core only.
    5. There is always someone or something out there that is more powerful than the PCs. Yes, even then.

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I don't know what I'm more tired of- people who write long-winded rants about how casters rule supreme and you shouldn't even bother playing a non-caster or those who claim that all balance problems can be handwaved away by GM.
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    So far I have found Psions to be the rather nasty due to their decent amount of utility and the ability to nova things rather easily.

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by M0rt View Post
    I don't know what I'm more tired of- people who write long-winded rants about how casters rule supreme and you shouldn't even bother playing a non-caster or those who claim that all balance problems can be handwaved away by GM.
    But, the OP wanted us to rant! I like ranting!
    Quote Originally Posted by mikeejimbo View Post
    Either way, I prefer characters who tend to stick to the tried and true methods, including alignments. This, however, implies a lawful alignment. So is it actually lawful to play a chaotic character from a usually chaotic race? It's like, a paradox.

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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by M0rt View Post
    I don't know what I'm more tired of- people who write long-winded rants about how casters rule supreme and you shouldn't even bother playing a non-caster or those who claim that all balance problems can be handwaved away by GM.
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by M0rt View Post
    I don't know what I'm more tired of- people who write long-winded rants about how casters rule supreme and you shouldn't even bother playing a non-caster or those who claim that all balance problems can be handwaved away by GM.
    I don't mind either of those too much, but the people who respond to a post titled "Help me pick feat for my rogue," and politely tell the OP to play a wizard instead drive me crazy.

    That and people who insist on role-playing makeup. It's ROGUE, not ROUGE!

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by Epinephrine View Post
    That and people who insist on role-playing makeup. It's ROGUE, not ROUGE!
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I haven't ever seen a caster outshine my gaming groups. In one campaign, we have a Cleric... who's geared for healbot. I'm playing a Focused Conjurer 3/Master Specialist 3. She's a powerful creature, her most favorite spell combination (Swift) Fly + Baleful Transposition.

    Both her and the Cleric are overpowered by the Duskblade and the Half-Dragon (going down the racial levels).

    In another campaign, we had a Warlock overpower everyone (though the DM did give us a Broom of Flying..., even without that, 3d6 damage on touch attacks was a bit too much. Now he's playing a Dragon Shaman, which is a powerful buff, but when he works, we all do our jobs better. We also have a Psion, and he's sickenly overpowered.

    There are ways of controlling a Wizard: Limiting what spells they get every level, controlling scroll treasures and looted spell books, as well as providing them with interesting challenges to focus on. Of course it takes DM fiat to make it possible, or that a player runs his Wizard like his Wizard, not a powergamer.
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by Epinephrine View Post
    That and people who insist on role-playing makeup. It's ROGUE, not ROUGE!
    Actually, the deity misspelled as diety irks me more!

  24. - Top - End - #24
    Orc in the Playground
     
    DwarfFighterGuy

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Yeah, but it's just the familiar and the ability to specialise that makes them overpowered. Without them, you need full BAB, monk saves, Perfect TWF and d20 HD to balance them. Oh, and the ability to cast in heavy armour.

    On a more serious note, surely the DM has to decide what is balanced. You'd be hard pressed to find a DM that would allow the Tippyverse.
    Last edited by Greg; 2008-12-16 at 06:06 PM.
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  25. - Top - End - #25
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    HalfOrcPirate

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    Nov 2008

    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I'll pile onto the story pile my experience:

    I was playing a druid. He was like a whatever character, the campaign started as a single session and it took off. He ended up at level 12, with an AC of 46, 8 attacks (though I only ever used 5) each dealing about 2d6 + 7, and great fort and will saves. He used only one feat and one spell ever ever. Bite of the X and Natural Spell. He had 2 magic items. I did not try at all to optimize this character, but I nearly tore the campaign to its foundations because nothing could hit me ever. Hell, my touch AC was even 16, and I was a shambling mound most of the time! Oh by the way I was 2 levels below everyone most of the time, and my greatest victories include destroying 2 characters 2 levels higher than me in 2 rounds of actual hitting things, as well as killing 4 level 10 characters with little more help than a fireball that did about 20 damage to one of them.

    Then I switched over to a different character and made the group promise to not let me play casters again.

    I switched because I wanted to make a character that would play the same game as the rest of the party, rather than playing rocket tag off in a corner with myself. My DM actually suggested if I wanted to do this that I not Min/Max my character so much, but I don't remember much after that because I passed out from shock and had to be hospitalized.

    Point is that I like optimizing, and that casters are overpowered, and when you combine these two things you get bad bad bad results.

  26. - Top - End - #26
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I'd never noticed this trend really until the first time I played a blaster myself a few years back. I wasn't even optimized, and around level nine the party's policy suddenly became to dive behind the scenery whenever I started gesturing.

    And that was accidental. A mere sorcerer with a bunch of poorly chosen evocations. Now that I know what a conjurer or transmutation wizard can get away with, I don't doubt for a second that casters are overpowered.
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  27. - Top - End - #27
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Back in 1E/2E, your save started out really poor but it got better as you raised in level, and magic items helped it. But short of a few examples there wasn't a way for the caster to reduce your save.

    The problems with Forcecage and other no-save spells still existed. They were mitigated by the incredible costs of the spell components but it seems like we assume Wizards don't worry about that kind of thing.

    It's kind of like how Fireball has been d6 since OD&D but back then Fighters got d6 for HP and a CON modifier of +1 was highly unusual. Blasters were far more powerful. Over the years we've seen power creep in every other sector (including Cleric healing) but not in Wizard blasting.

    Anyway, it was entirely possible for a Magic-User back in 2E to reliably end the fight with Sleep or Color Spray up until about level 3. Then Web and Stinking Cloud were fight-enders, but after that most people pretty much stuck with blasting with direct damage spells. At least in my group. And at level 1 a Charm Person had a 16 in 20 chance of working against the level 1 fighter ...
    Last edited by Tacoma; 2008-12-16 at 06:49 PM.

  28. - Top - End - #28
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Gorbash's Avatar

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    I'm playing a Batman Wizard in Shackled City now (lvl 10), but not stupidly broken with tons of metamagic and while I do overshadow the fighters usually, some problems I encountered so far:

    I rarely get to use large area spells. Seriously, I can't really remember when was the last time I cast Solid Fog. Somehow, I'm always in the middle of initiative order (Yes, I have Nerveskitter), or we're ambushed, and even if I do get to play first and have the room to cast one of the big ones, it turns out that I can get them all in the area and thus make the whole party obsolete once I start the chain reaction by using solid fog, tentacles, stinking cloud, cloudkill etc. I've yet to see an encounter where I can tactically split the enemy troops with a well placed area spell.

    It's tough to determine creature's weak saves and sometimes when I cast save-or-x, it basically becomes a wasted action, since I have no idea which save I should target. Sure, it's easy enough to say target casters with fort saves, fighters with reflex, rogues with will, but what if it's a... Bebilith? Or any other creature type which I'm (and my character) is unfamiliar with.
    Common sense is not so common.

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    You make sense in an annoying way.

  29. - Top - End - #29
    Orc in the Playground
     
    HalflingRangerGuy

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    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Quote Originally Posted by Gorbash View Post
    It's tough to determine creature's weak saves and sometimes when I cast save-or-x, it basically becomes a wasted action, since I have no idea which save I should target. Sure, it's easy enough to say target casters with fort saves, fighters with reflex, rogues with will, but what if it's a... Bebilith? Or any other creature type which I'm (and my character) is unfamiliar with.
    Well, in those situations you say that you have to go to the bathroom. Then you secretly check your specially reprinted pocket version of monster manual (be sure to get the name of the monster first). When you return you just say "Ahem, now what did you say, monster was some kind of huge blue spider?"
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  30. - Top - End - #30
    Barbarian in the Playground
    Join Date
    Nov 2008

    Default Re: Wizards Are So Overpowered!

    Also, if the huge blue spider is casting spells, use Fort saves.

    If the blue spider is using Whirlwind Attack, use Reflex saves.

    If you don't see the blue spider, use Will saves on where the bodies are dropping.

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